Native American women have made many contributions in the field of education. One of the earliest, Susette La Flesche Tibbles, was the first indigenous woman to travel and speak publicly. She founded a school, where her younger, famous sister, Susan La Flesche attended.[1] There are many indigenous women involved in education today. For the next few weeks we will focus on some of the earliest women who very courageously forged ahead to bring help and hope to others. Here are some of the fascinating women we will meet:
Ella Cara Deloria (1889-1971) Educator, Anthropologist
Doris Leader Charge (1930-2001) Language Instructor, Actor
Sharon Eagleman, Education research Analyst
Angel De Cora (1871-1919) Illustrator, Educator
Ella Cara DeLoria, Sioux (1889-1971) Educator, Anthropologist
Ella Cara Deloria was born on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota in 1889. Her Dakota name was Anpétu Wašté Win which means Beautiful Day Woman. Her parents were Mary Sully Bordeau-Deloria and Philip Deloria who was the first Sioux Indian to be ordained a deacon in the Reservation’s Episcopal Mission Church. Her parents were descended from Yankton Dakota (Sioux) and Euro-American ancestors. Her Sioux grandfather was a tribal leader. Ella’s other grandfather was a famous artist, Thomas Sully.
Her father, Philip Deloria converted to Christianity as a young man. He later became one of two Sioux to be ordained priests in the Episcopal Church. He oversaw St. Elizabeth’s Church and the boarding school at Wakpala on the Standing Rock Reservation.
Ella grew up on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation at Wakpala and attended the mission school. After graduation Ella won a scholarship to Oberlin College in Ohio where she started attending in 1910. Although she was a Christian, Ella wanted to maintain strong ties to her traditional heritage. She decided to become a teacher and attended Columbia Teachers College where she graduated with a Bachelor of Sciences in 1915. In her senior year she met Franz Boas, professor of anthropology, who would influence her studies. She began to study American Indian Languages and culture.
In 1941 Ella collaborated with Franz Boas in constructing a Dakota Grammar. It is still in use today. Franz died in 1942. Ella continued to collaborate with his assistant, Ruth Benedict. Ella and Ruth produced and published many previously unpublished manuscripts regarding the culture, language, and storytelling of the Dakota people. She soon became recognized as an expert in the field.
Ella had a dilemma. She was a Christian with a father and brother who were Christian missionaries. They were uneasy with promoting some of the tribal religious ways. The medicine men were not happy about sharing their sacred knowledge with a devout Christian either. So, Ella focused on the form of the tribal ways and did not emphasize the content. For example, she studied the Sun Dance as performed by all Sioux groups. She documented the various ways that each group practiced the Sun Dance.
Ella wrote both fiction and non-fiction. Her most famous fiction title is Waterlily. You can purchase it at just about any bookstore, walk-in or online. Here is a downloadable link to a copy you can read now:
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=unpresssamples
Waterlily is the story of Waterlily and her mother, grandmother, and the larger extended families in 19th century Teton Sioux territory. In her story Ella gives us glimpses of the important customs and rituals of the Tetons. One of Ella’s main emphases is the strong family ties of the groups.
In the atmosphere of that larger group, all adults were responsible for the safety and happiness of their collective children. The effect on the growing child was a feeling of security and self-assurance, and that was all to the good. Almost from the beginning everyone could declare, “I am not afraid; I have relatives.” To be cast out from one’s own relatives was literally to be lost. To return to them was to recover one’s rightful haven[2]
Waterlily was completed in 1947 but not published until 1988.
Ella’s non-fiction titles include:
The Sun Dance of the Oglala Sioux (1928); Speaking of Indians (1944, reprinted in 1998); and Dakota Texts and Dakota Grammar. You can find more information on the internet including YouTube videos of Native Americans doing the dances.
Ella became the principal of the St. Elizabeth School at Wakpala and served from 1955-1958. She served at the Sioux Indian Museum in Rapid City, South Dakota, and she was the assistant director of the W. H. Over Museum at the University of South Dakota. She also lectured, gave demonstrations of Native culture, taught dance and physical education at the YWCA and for the Camp Fire girls.
She received a National Science Foundation grant to work on a Lakota dictionary from 1963-1966. Unfortunately, there was not enough support to finally complete the dictionary in her lifetime. Sadly, her constant traveling resulted in the loss of many notes and manuscripts. But some of her materials that she produced with Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict and some of their personal papers were transferred from Columbia University to the Library of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. Her work is an important source for the Sioux culture and contains the fullest accounts in the native language. Much of this work is still unpublished.
After she retired, Ella lived in Vermillion, South Dakota. In the summer of 1970, she suffered a stroke. She died in Tripp, South Dakota on February 12, 1971, of a pulmonary embolus.
Ella found happiness and a way to serve Jesus and her people. Jesus died for the whole world. He asked His followers to love Him and love others. Ella was fluent in both Christian and Sioux culture. Ella loved studying and learning but she never ceased to love her Dakota people. She also loved Jesus and maintained her faith in Christianity. We can see from her writings how important family and community life was to her. It must have been hard for her as well as many Native Americans to try and live in two worlds. On the one hand there were relatives, friends and a connection to the tribal land. On the other hand were the opportunities offered off the reservation. Even today, this is a dilemma for many indigenous people. Truly Ella and her family exemplify the universality of the Gospel.
[1] See story, “Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte”, posted February 12, 2024. https://authormarywalker.com/dr-susan-la-flesche-picotte/
[2] Deloria, Ella Cara. Waterlily (University of Nebraska Press) p. 20
