WEBVTT - 10. “It can never be a long time ago.” 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:04.080 This recording is being made in Laura Ingalls Wilder Library 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.040 of Mansfield, Missouri, the home of Missus Wilder. 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:11.680 In nineteen fifty three, nineteen years after the first Little 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:15.640 House book was released, librarians in California sent Laura Ingalls 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:19.280 Wilder a present for her eighty sixth birthday, and especially 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:22.640 they were homemade dolls of every member of the Ingles family. 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:28.000 To thank the librarians, Laura recorded a response in the Mansfield, 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:28.880 Missouri Library. 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.840 I certainly do appreciate the gift of these clanked little 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:38.640 figures that seemed to have walked out of my memory Chauvelona. 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:42.159 Though this is the only known recording of Laura's voice, 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:43.199 but more. 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.879 Than all, I value the understanding and love for me 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.080 and my family that prompted the gift. 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:54.680 Little House in the Big Woods, the first book in 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:58.040 the Little House on the Prairie series, was published ninety 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:01.320 years ago this year. As we talked about in our 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.120 very first episode, the last line of Big Woods reads. 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.319 Now is now it can never be a long time ago. 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:13.000 That line might be the most accurate description there is 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:16.400 of the Little House series. The books still saw millions 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:20.200 of copies, the television show still airs around the world. 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:23.520 Little House on the Prairie might be about another time, 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:27.800 but Laura's stories are very much alive in our time. 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:30.280 We can't seem to let her go. 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:32.839 Why is Laura still around? 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:38.120 She's just really honestly going to sound like a ridiculous answer, 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:40.920 but like why is a cup of tea still around? 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:42.399 It's she's so cozy. 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:46.840 A century and a half after a girl was born 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:49.600 in a little log cabin in the big Woods of Wisconsin, 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:53.160 her stories continue to hold some timeless truths. 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:56.120 There's a rich family in town at the store who 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:58.720 give them a hard time, and there's always a crop 0:01:58.760 --> 0:01:59.600 failure or blizzard. 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.200 Her loco and they cling together and make it through. 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.440 I think it's that these are the problems that people 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:07.440 really deal with. 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:11.920 Laura is still relevant, although often in ways that can 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:13.080 be painful to consider. 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.040 Many of the issues that Wilder raises in the Little 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:20.120 House Books are issues that are still with us today, 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:26.280 and in that sense, her work is more relevant than ever. 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.360 We started this podcast in order to have an honest 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.200 look at the woman behind the books, and what we 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.239 discovered is that there is a lot more behind Laura 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:39.120 than the simple, heartwarming tale of a sixty five year 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.240 old farm wife deciding to sit down and write about 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:48.080 her life. There is mind blowing poverty, relentless hardship, a 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:53.480 father who made a lot of questionable decisions, an extremely complicated, 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:59.440 some might say, backstabbing daughter, an authorship conspiracy that won't 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:04.160 quite die, a Hollywood star with shiny hair, a perfect 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:06.280 jawline and glistening abs. 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.440 A lot of violent racism, and. 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:15.680 The funding of some extreme political figures, and an army 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.800 of fans that has fueled an entire international tourism industry. 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.600 But where does that leave us? And where does that 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:29.280 leave me? A person who has loved Laura so deeply 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.440 for so long. I went into this project not knowing 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.080 where our investigation would take us, and not knowing how 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:40.440 I would feel on the other side. And now we're here, 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.360 and what I feel is complicated, And I'm also shocked 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:47.480 at the things that ended up upsetting me the most 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:48.600 while making this show. 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:53.400 What if doing this episode makes me never read Little 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:53.960 House again? 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.240 What I do know is I don't love Laura Ingalls 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:02.240 wild or aney less, but I think about her and 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:06.800 myself very differently than I did a year ago. You 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:11.280 know what they say about truly loving something, sometimes you 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:16.480 have to let it go. I'm Glennis McNichol, and this 0:04:17.040 --> 0:05:03.600 is the final episode of Wilder. We're going to start 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:06.520 by going right back to where this entire project began. 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.360 On the road. Oh that's you can see the beginning 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:12.400 of the bad Lands right over there. 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:13.240 Wow. 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.440 Last summer, when we were driving around the Midwest visiting 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:21.159 the lower Ingles houses, we didn't end our trip at 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:25.440 de smet South Dakota. Unlike the Ingles family, Emily and 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:29.039 I kept moving west. There are two sides to the 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:33.039 state of South Dakota. The eastern side, where the Ingles lived, 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:37.200 is largely farmland, but once you cross the Missouri River, 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:41.240 things open up. You pass through a number of Native 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:45.080 American reservations, including the Pine Ridge Reservation. 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:48.240 One of the largest in the United States, and Buffalo 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:49.600 Gap National Grassland. 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.880 A little further is the Badlands National Park, and beyond 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:56.480 that the Black Hills. 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.960 So that seems like the start of the real Western 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:03.760 landscape I've been imagining. 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:09.880 The idea of the American West is at the heart 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:14.000 of the idea of America, and despite never moving beyond 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:16.840 the actual Midwest, Little House is. 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:20.200 Very much a part of that narrative. Part of the 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:20.760 reason we. 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.320 Came out on the road was to try and walk 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.440 in Laura's shoes and see at least some of what 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:27.080 she saw. 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:29.599 But we also came out. 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:31.479 Here to get a better sense of the role Laura 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:35.400 plays in our understanding of this history. As we drove 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.679 further west, it became more apparent to us how Laura 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.520 is connected to American myth making and the sometimes violent 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:44.640 prioritizing of the white experience. 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:50.240 Well, I see it. 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:53.320 If you drive into the heart of the Black Hills 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.920 and follow the many, many signs pointing the way, you 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.880 will eventually come upon Mount Rushmore's just hollen than I. 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:04.919 That was entirely my first response to I thought, it 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:05.719 looks little to me. 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:09.040 I expected to be blown away. 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:13.760 By Mount Rushmore is an iconic American image carved into granite. 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.480 It's shorthand for the permanence of the American idea of democracy, 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.480 a tribute to its own greatness, a mascot for America, 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:25.360 if you will. It's also carved into an extremely sacred 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.520 place for Native Americans. And while we all know what 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:31.800 Mount Rushmore looks like, to encounter it in the midst 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.240 of the lush landscape of the Black Hills underscores both 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:39.640 its absurdity and the violation of Native American land by 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:40.560 the US government. 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.960 There's no reason for that to be there. 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:49.840 Other than, Hey, we're here now, so fuck you to 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:51.000 everyone who was here before. 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:57.520 In eighteen sixty eight, with the signing of the Fort 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.760 Laramie Treaty, the US government agreed that the Black Hills 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:05.280 would remain exclusively Native land, but once gold was found 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.960 in the Hills a few years later, the US broke 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:12.560 the treaty and white settlers flooded the area. By the 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.480 nineteen twenties, the Black Hills was a tourist destination for many. 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.800 To further capitalize on this, the faces of four American 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.840 presidents were carved in the face of a granite formation 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:29.200 known to the Lakota people as six Grandfather's Mountain. When 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:33.160 the monument was finished, this cliff was renamed Mount Rushmore. 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.560 In nineteen eighty, the US Supreme Court ruled that the 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.240 US had unlawfully taken control of the Black Hills and 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.240 offered more than one hundred million dollars to the Sioux Nation, 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.280 but the Sioux refused the money. To this day, they 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:53.079 reject it and insist they want their land back. 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:57.120 A little bit more. 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:01.960 I mean, look at this side without the presidents, Like, 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.240 look at George Washington's profile up there. 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:05.079 It's just here. 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:07.400 You up, get out, George. 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:11.800 It's so it's so sterile. 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.760 Also because you cut through and it's white compared to 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:22.319 the red and everything. You could just tell, Wow, it's 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.440 kind of like a permanent billboard for America. It's like 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.840 you carved a billboard for America into the Hills. 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:32.640 The Ingles family have a direct connection to the fate 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.480 of the Black Hills. Mount Rushmore was completed in nineteen 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:41.120 forty one. By this point, Laura's younger sister, Carrie was 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.040 married to a man named David N. Swansea, who was 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:47.520 known as the person who named Mount Rushmore, and Carrie's 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:52.719 step son Harold, helped carve it. But Laura's connections to 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:56.360 the Black Hills goes back even further than that, to 0:09:56.480 --> 0:10:02.719 something called the Gordon Stockade. Yes, that's a stockade, right though, 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:05.600 Oh oh my god, your destination is all the right. 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.800 The Gordon Party was a private expedition that illegally ventured 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:16.520 into the Black Hills in eighteen seventy four, looking for gold. 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.520 The reason they did so is because a few months earlier, 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:23.520 Lieutenant Colonel George Custer had been sent there to scout 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.200 a good spot for a military post and reported back 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.679 that there was lots of gold. The Gordon Party set 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.200 out shortly thereafter, and once they reached their destination in 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:38.600 October eighteen seventy four, built a stockade and settled in. 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:39.040 For the winter. 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.560 Hardcore Little House fans will recognize the Gordon stockade from 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.839 the book These Happy Golden Years. When Laura's uncle Tom 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:51.200 visits the Ingles family and desmet in the chapter titled Springtime, 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.320 Laura comes home and finds a vaguely familiar man at 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.959 the table. That man is Tom Kuiner, Ma's youngest brother, 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.839 who Laura hasn't seen since she was a child. Uncle 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.360 Tom tells the family of his experience as a member 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:06.640 of the Gordon Party, when he was one of the 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.000 quote first white men that ever laid eyes on the 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:15.000 Black Hills. After surviving the winter, the Gordon Party was 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.800 forcefully removed by the US cavalry for illegally settling on 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.760 Native land, and when Uncle Tom gets to this part 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:24.720 of the story, it gets a big reaction out of 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.800 paw Paw was walking back and forth across the room. 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.119 I'll be darned if I could have taken it, he exclaimed, 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.880 Not without some kind of scrap. We couldn't fight the 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:39.440 whole United States Army, Uncle Tom said sensibly. But I 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:41.920 did hate to see that stockade go up and smoke, 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.480 I know, Ma said, to this day, I think of 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.720 the house we had to leave in Indian Territory, just 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:51.920 when Charles got glass windows into it. 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:55.319 As a kid. 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.120 PA's anger in this scene is the only thing that 0:11:58.200 --> 0:11:59.880 stood out to me in a chapter that I was 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:04.880 otherwise bored by. But as Ma points out, pause anger 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.640 mirrors the outrage the Ingles felt at being removed from 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:12.040 Indian Territory. The lesson in both these instances seems to 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.640 be that white people have a right to land simply 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:19.240 because they want it, and in the Black Hills, the 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:23.319 history of this prioritization of white men and the decimation 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.880 of Native people's land was impossible to miss. 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:28.559 One west. 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:33.320 Three miles after leaving the Black Hills, Emily and I 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.880 continued on three hundred miles northwest to a spot that 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:40.040 represents one of the most extreme versions of this erasure, 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:45.400 The Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument in southeastern Montana. 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:54.640 Little Bighorn Battlefield three miles. 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:56.679 In June eighteen seventy six, the Seventh Cavalry, led by 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:01.560 Custer was famously defeated by the Cheyenne, Lakota, and Arapahoe 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.880 tribes led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. There are 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:08.440 a lot of complicated reasons that led to the Battle 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:11.800 of the Little Big Horn, including numerous treaties the government 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.280 made about control of the Black Hills that were not honored, 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.360 and we've included resources in the show notes for further 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:21.640 reading on this. Even though the Lakota, and Cheyenne and 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:25.080 arapa Hoe triumphed over Custer in the Battle of Greasy Grass, 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:29.040 as it is known in Native American culture, it was 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.520 in many ways the last stand of Native American independence 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:33.120 in the West. 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:35.240 In the aftermath of. 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.520 The battle, most of the remaining Native American tribes were 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:40.599 violently pushed onto reservations. 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:43.640 Today, it's widely. 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:46.679 Recognized that Custer's decision to ignore orders and go into 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:52.400 battle was foolish and unnecessary. And yet, despite this failure, 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:56.320 which resulted in the decimation of the Seventh Cavalry, for 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.599 many decades Custer was still centered as the hero in 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:04.200 this story. Until nineteen ninety one, the location of the 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:07.720 battle was known as Custer Battlefield National Monument. 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:14.160 It is wild, the Iron, Lost Cup, the pool, and 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:17.479 yet this is still named Custer does It's still glorified. 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:20.080 There's no way to spin this. 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:21.680 Like. 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.240 It takes some amazing myth making to make this seem 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.880 heroic in anyway, Not even Rose Wilderland. 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.000 I mean, this is like Rose level. 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:35.920 Of yeah, rewriting history, the gas lighted Yeah. 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.400 The Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument is located on 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:43.240 the Crow Reservation. Every hour at the visitor center, one 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:46.320 of the park rangers gives a talk. There is also 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.080 a bus tour of the site run by the Crow Agency. 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:52.920 My name Story Chevis, you guys tour guide today. 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:55.080 The bus tour takes you right out into the fields 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:57.800 where the battle took place and looking out over all 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:00.960 the waving open grassland. It's not that hard to imagine 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:02.800 yourself back in eighteen seventy six. 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:05.840 After the right, we're passing the Little Big Porn River. 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:08.160 This is the only place in the whole world you'll 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.920 get to see a reenactment on the actual battle site. 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.640 They have that every year on the anniversary you just 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:18.200 basicedify Foople weekends. We'll also have seven Pobury reenactors who 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:20.920 will spend about two weeks, you know, living exactly the 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:22.120 way that those soldiers will have. 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:24.360 Pretty interesting. 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.720 Afterward, Emily and I stopped at the visitors center hoping 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:32.240 to catch one of the park rangers talks. Since we'd arrived, 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.960 we'd only encountered older, white male rangers, But when we 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.880 got to the talk, we met Ranger Tanya Gardner, who 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:43.240 was not what we were expecting in more ways than one. 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:44.640 The battles the Little. 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:46.520 Big Horn, Why did this battle take place? 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:49.960 What events set up to this battle? 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:52.920 Or I'd like to begin where I'd love to begin 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.640 this in fourteen ninety two Colma South, the Ocean Blue 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:01.160 here what this is up until eighteen sis. 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.200 It was immediately clear that Ranger Tanya wasn't just going 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:07.960 to tell us about this battle. She was going to 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.560 tell us how this battle was just one episode in 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:14.239 the century's long resistance of Native Americans against colonization. 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:17.440 It's the nineteen hundreds. 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.480 There are legal documents being signed out here land deals 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:24.960 in the form of what we're called treaties between the 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.920 people who are here, and the United States government. 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.320 When we got back to New York, we couldn't stop 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:35.400 thinking about Ranger Tanya's talk, so we called her. 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.200 I'm Tanya. My maiden name is plain Feather, and I'm 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:41.880 my married name is Gardner, and I'm married. 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:42.400 To a Cheyenne. 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.080 I'm I'm from Lodgegras, Montana. 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.520 Are you the only park ranger who is local or 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:49.560 who is Native American? 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:50.440 There? 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.440 There's a few that work there, but not like the 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:57.480 seasonal rangers there. I'm the only one, and there's been 0:16:57.520 --> 0:16:59.840 like I don't know how many countless seasons where I've 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:00.880 been only female. 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:03.680 It had felt to both Emily and I when we 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:06.720 were at the site that Tanya was shouldering the enormous 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.560 responsibility of giving context to an event that had been 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:16.120 simplified to almost cartoonish proportions in American history, a history that, 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:20.000 like pause outrage over being removed from quote Indian territory, 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.479 centered the white experience as the only one of value. 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:27.320 What had struck us most strongly about Tanya was that 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:30.399 she'd immediately gone to the origins of the myth making 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.159 behind both Custer and America. 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:36.639 The event that led up to this battle I always 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:40.639 start with, didn't start in eighteen seventy six. We're going 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.760 to go all the way back to fourteen ninety two 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:49.880 Columbus South the Ocean blue, and he discovers America and 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:52.960 all the misconceptions that we have there with just that 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:58.600 statement and not knowing and not having that right information 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.800 in our history books. Where the way that they hold 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.919 him up to this high you know, he did all 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.040 these great things and he really didn't. That's where the 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:09.160 seed of that stuff. 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:12.520 I was curious whether Tanya received any sort of pushback 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.600 when she did her talks. She told us the response 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.240 very much shifts depending on the age of the visitors, 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:21.199 and that younger age groups that have had access to 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.760 more diverse cultural narratives have a much different take. 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:28.920 It goes with different age groups, and I think that 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:33.040 people that are my age, they come up and they're like, oh, this, yes, 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:36.200 this was crap. You know this, I can't believe. You 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:38.600 can't really tell you know what you really want to tell. 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.399 Older generations, on the other hand, feel a much closer 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:43.320 connection to Custer. 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.360 You have a lot of baby boomers, and they're kind 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:49.760 of like the last kind of old school I would 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.640 call them that there's still in love with Custer. There's 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:54.879 a tremendous amount of people out there that are custom Bucks. 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.320 They think he was right and he was honorable. But 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.280 we have to think back to that time when they 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:05.719 didn't have all these different types of heroes, so you know, 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:08.040 they looked to the types of things like. 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:08.639 A war hero. 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:13.960 This idea of needing a hero is where Custer overlapped 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:17.879 directly with Laura. For me, Tanya's observations reminded me of 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:20.960 something doctor w Reese had said when we talked to her. 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.679 Part of what I was realizing when I left our 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.600 reservation and went to graduate school was how ignorant people 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.040 are about who Native people are. 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:35.880 Doctor de Wie Reese is a scholar and educator who 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:39.560 runs a website called American Indians in Children's Literature. 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.760 And that became very clear at the University of Illinois 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.240 because it had a mascot that was quote unquote an Indian. 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.560 And when I got to Illinois and there was this mascot, 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:53.640 and people would invite me to come to their civic 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:58.639 organization or whatever it was, and they wanted me to dance, 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:00.720 and they wanted me to story and I said, well, 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:04.520 I'm not a dancer. I don't dance that way. We 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.199 dance in a spiritual way at a certain time of 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:08.840 the year in a certain place, and so no, I 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.320 won't dance. And they said, well can you? Can you 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:13.680 tell stories? And I said no, I'm not a storyteller either. 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:16.080 I am a professor. I want to be a professor. 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:22.000 Nobody wanted that. They wanted someone to perform Indians for them, 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.840 and I thought, what is going on? These are in theory, 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:27.639 very very smart people in this area. 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:28.560 But it was. 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:35.960 It was so it spoke to the power of the mascot. 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.600 A mascot and how do we wield mascots? 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:40.760 Anyone who's been to a sports game knows is with 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:46.600 bluntness and little space for anyone else. The Dictionary definition 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:50.080 of a mascot is quote a person, animal, or object 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.000 that is believed to bring good luck, or one that 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:57.439 represents an organization. A mascot is an image we rally 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.960 behind that represents a way of being and one that 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:01.960 gives us identity. 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:04.920 This idea of mascots was very. 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:06.600 Much on our mind when Emily and I went to 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:09.919 the Laura Ingalls House in Mansfield, Missouri, last September to 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:14.200 attend Wilder Days. We're much like the pageants people loved 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:15.320 dressing up as Laura. 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:20.320 Plenty of girls in prairie outfits, but there's a handful 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:24.800 of men, I would say, in. 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:28.440 Their fifties and sixties, wearing some guys wearing suspenders. 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:29.360 In Yah. 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.399 Of all the ways I'd considered Laura, it was only 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:37.080 after this conversation with Doctor Reese and our trips out 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:40.080 west and down South, but I began to think of 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:45.320 her as a mascot for many things, as a representative 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.960 of some sort of ideal. A girl with enormous agency, 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:53.880 frontier woman who lived with and against nature, a woman 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:57.480 who had it ventures and wrote them down. She was 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:00.800 an image I hoisted up as proof of identity, an 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:04.199 evidence of what was possible. I didn't put her on 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:07.200 a T shirt or a baseball cap, but I stabled 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:10.679 a whole lot of yarn braids to my hats. Laura 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:13.000 as the mascot for the team I wanted to be 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:17.800 on felt a lot closer to my own experience. But 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:20.399 to understand who I was willing to leave behind in 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:23.880 order to be a member of this team. What this 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:28.280 mascot of Laura's pioneer girlhood erased was something I had 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:29.240 to come to terms with. 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:46.959 I grew up completely obsessed with the Little House Books. 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.320 It all starts with Laura Ingalls right, my. 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:53.119 Little House Books for Christmas gifts, inscribed to me by 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:53.560 my mother. 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:56.240 I was six years old, and I loved those books. 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:57.280 I still do. 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:02.080 Considering Laura under the guys of a mascot felt like 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:06.080 the missing piece and the larger Little House puzzle. Mascots 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:09.879 are created by organizations. Many hands go into their making. 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:13.399 Part of the magic of the Little House Books, and 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:13.840 one of. 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:18.080 The reasons people including me, have such passionate feelings about 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:21.919 them is because they are so successful at creating intimacy. 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:26.920 We're not reading about Laura, We're living with Laura, and 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:29.359 yet we know this is not the case. 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:31.520 The Little House Books. 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:35.359 And their entire legacy were very carefully crafted by Laura, 0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:39.680 indefinitely by Rose, then to a lesser extent, by the 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:43.400 book publishing industry. Then they were crafted again by Hollywood. 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:46.920 Laura the writer may have just wanted to recounter life, 0:23:47.720 --> 0:23:52.320