Ella+Deloria

It was not until her posthumous novel Waterlily was published in 1988 that Ella C. Deloria became known for her literary ability in addition to her already-established reputation in the academic arena of linguistics and ethnology. During her lifetime, she was recognized for the linguistic ability and cultural sensitivity that went into the production of a collection of traditional short stories entitled Dakota Texts (1932). After her death, her versions of a number of longer traditional stories and the novel Waterlily were published; with the <range type="comment" id="565564111_9">publication </range id="565564111_9">of Waterlily came the <range type="comment" id="565564111_10">recognition </range id="565564111_10">of her true literary ability and the <range type="comment" id="565564111_11">awareness </range id="565564111_11">that it was the <range type="comment" id="565564111_12">strength </range id="565564111_12">of her literary ability, in addition to her linguistic <range type="comment" id="565564111_13">expertise </range id="565564111_13">and her deep cultural understanding, that had made her versions of traditional stories so <range type="comment" id="565564111_14">compelling</range id="565564111_14">. Ella Cara Deloria was born into a Nakota-speaking family in 1889; however, she grew up among the Lakota people in North Dakota, where her father was a leader in the Episcopal Church. Her father, the son of a traditional Nakota medicine man, <range type="comment" id="565564111_15">valued </range id="565564111_15">both the cultural traditions of his family and those of the country of his <range type="comment" id="565564111_16">citizenship</range id="565564111_16">. As a result, Deloria <range type="comment" id="565564111_17">primarily </range id="565564111_17">spoke Nakota at home and Lakota when she was out in the community, and she was well <range type="comment" id="565646491_1">versed </range id="565646491_1">there in the cultural traditions of her Sioux <range type="comment" id="565646491_2">ancestors </range id="565646491_2">(with a complex <range type="comment" id="565646491_3">kinship </range id="565646491_3">structure in which all of a child's father's brothers are also <range type="comment" id="565646491_4">considered </range id="565646491_4">fathers, all of a child's mother's sisters are also considered mothers, and all of the children of all these mothers and fathers are considered <range type="comment" id="565646491_5">siblings</range id="565646491_5">). Her education, however, was in English, at the Episcopalian Saint Eliabeth Mission School and the All <range type="comment" id="565646491_6">Saints </range id="565646491_6">School. After high school, she <range type="comment" id="565646491_7">attended </range id="565646491_7">Oberlin College in Ohio for one year, and then she <range type="comment" id="565646491_8">transferred </range id="565646491_8">to Columbia University to study linguistics under Franz Boas, the <range type="comment" id="565646491_9">founder </range id="565646491_9">of American Indian linguistics. After <range type="comment" id="565646491_10">graduating </range id="565646491_10">from Columbia, she was <range type="comment" id="565646491_11">encouraged</range id="565646491_11"> by Boas to <range type="comment" id="565646491_12">collect </range id="565646491_12">and <range type="comment" id="565646491_13">record </range id="565646491_13">traditional Lakota stories. She was in a <range type="comment" id="565646491_14">unique </range id="565646491_14">position to take on this <range type="comment" id="565646491_15">task </range id="565646491_15">because of her <range type="comment" id="565646491_16">fluency </range id="565646491_16">in the Lakota language as well as in English, her understanding from childhood of the <range type="comment" id="565646491_17">complexities </range id="565646491_17">and <range type="comment" id="565646491_18">subtleties </range id="565646491_18">of Lakota culture, and her linguistic <range type="comment" id="565646491_19">training </range id="565646491_19">from Columbia. The result of her <range type="comment" id="565646491_20">research </range id="565646491_20">was the Dakota Texts, a <range type="comment" id="565646491_21">bilingual </range id="565646491_21"><range type="comment" id="565646491_22">collection </range id="565646491_22">of sixty-four short stories. to create this <range type="comment" id="565646491_23">remarkable</range id="565646491_23"> work, Deloria was able to <range type="comment" id="565646491_24">elicit </range id="565646491_24">stories from <range type="comment" id="565646491_25">venerable </range id="565646491_25">Sioux <range type="comment" id="565646491_26">elders</range id="565646491_26">, <range type="comment" id="565646491_27">without </range id="565646491_27"><range type="comment" id="565646491_28">need </range id="565646491_28">for <range type="comment" id="565646491_29">translators </range id="565646491_29">and with an <range type="comment" id="565646491_30">awareness </range id="565646491_30">of <range type="comment" id="565646491_31">appropriately </range id="565646491_31">respectful <range type="comment" id="565646491_32">behavior</range id="565646491_32">. She listened to the stories as <range type="comment" id="565646491_33"><range type="comment" id="565646491_35">numerous</range id="565646491_33"> </range id="565646491_35">generations had before her, and then, <range type="comment" id="565646491_34"><range type="comment" id="565646491_36">unlike </range id="565646491_36"></range id="565646491_34"><range type="comment" id="565646491_37">previous </range id="565646491_37">generations, recorded them in writing - <range type="comment" id="565646491_38">initially</range id="565646491_38"> in Lakota and later in English. She transcribed them <range type="comment" id="565646491_39">essentially </range id="565646491_39">as they were told but with her own understanding of the <range type="comment" id="565646491_40">nuances </range id="565646491_40">of what was being told. <range type="comment" id="565646491_41">In addition to</range id="565646491_41"> the stories that were published in Dakota Texts, Deloria spent 1937 working on <range type="comment" id="565646491_42">transcribing </range id="565646491_42">a number of longer and more complicated texts, which were not published until after her death. "Iron Hawk: Oglala Culture Hero" (1993) <range type="comment" id="565646491_43">presents</range id="565646491_43"> the <range type="comment" id="565646491_44">diverse </range id="565646491_44">elements of the culture-hero genre; "The Buffalo People" (1994) focuses on the <range type="comment" id="565646491_45">importance </range id="565646491_45">of <range type="comment" id="565646491_46">tribal </range id="565646491_46"><range type="comment" id="565646491_47">education </range id="565646491_47">in building character; "A Sioux <range type="comment" id="565646491_48">Captive</range id="565646491_48">" (1994) tells the story of a Lakota woman who <range type="comment" id="565646491_49">rescued </range id="565646491_49">her husband from the <range type="comment" id="565646491_50">Crow</range id="565646491_50">; "The Prairie Dogs" (1994) describes the sense of hope offered by the Sioux <range type="comment" id="565646491_51">warrior-society </range id="565646491_51">ceremonies and dances. Her novel <range type="comment" id="565646491_53">Waterlily</range id="565646491_53">, which was first <range type="comment" id="565646491_54">published </range id="565646491_54">forty years after it was <range type="comment" id="565646491_52">completed</range id="565646491_52"> and seventeen years after her death, <range type="comment" id="565646491_55">reflects </range id="565646491_55">her true literary talent as well as her <range type="comment" id="565646491_56">accumulated </range id="565646491_56">understanding of traditional culture and <range type="comment" id="565646491_57">customs</range id="565646491_57">, The <range type="comment" id="565646491_58">novel </range id="565646491_58"><range type="comment" id="565646491_59">recounts </range id="565646491_59">the <range type="comment" id="565646491_60">fictional </range id="565646491_60">story of the difficult life of the <range type="comment" id="565646491_61">title </range id="565646491_61">character, with a <range type="comment" id="565646491_62">horrendous </range id="565646491_62">childhood experience<range type="comment" id="565646491_64"> as <range type="comment" id="565646491_63">witness </range id="565646491_63">to a deadly enemy raid </range id="565646491_64">and a first marriage <range type="comment" id="565646491_65">terminated </range id="565646491_65">by the <range type="comment" id="565646491_66">untimely </range id="565646491_66">death of her husband in a <range type="comment" id="565646491_67">smallpox </range id="565646491_67">epidemic, and<range type="comment" id="565646491_68"> comes to a close </range id="565646491_68">with the hopeful expectations of an <range type="comment" id="565646491_69">impending </range id="565646491_69">second marriage. At the same time, it presents a <range type="comment" id="565646491_71">masterful </range id="565646491_71"><range type="comment" id="565646491_70">account </range id="565646491_70">of life in a nineteenth-century Sioux <range type="comment" id="565646491_72">community </range id="565646491_72">with its detailed descriptions of <range type="comment" id="565649723_1">interpersonal relationships</range id="565649723_1"> and <range type="comment" id="565649723_2">attitudes</range id="565649723_2">, everyday <range type="comment" id="565649723_3">tasks </range id="565649723_3">and <range type="comment" id="565649723_4">routines</range id="565649723_4">, and special <range type="comment" id="565649723_5">ceremonies </range id="565649723_5">and <range type="comment" id="565649723_6">celebrations</range id="565649723_6">.

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