Storytelling

Mary Louise Defender Wilson is primarily Dakotah Sioux and is a noted Native
American storyteller. Wilson received a 1999 National Endowment for the Arts
National Heritage Fellowship and currently teaches at Sitting Bull College
on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota.

Question:  Please describe some of the cultural attributes of the Dakotah
people.

Wilson: Well, the Dakotah people are one of four major groups of the Sioux
people. The way that I understand who we are from our oral traditions is
that [Dakotah people] were identified by the way they spoke. I come from the
ones who say that we are Wichiyena speakers.

Q: What are some challenges that you face in preserving Dakotah
storytelling?

Wilson: [Storytelling] is one of the areas [of Dakotah culture] that is
rather difficult to continue because the stories that ... I heard were told
in the Wichiyena dialect of the Dakotah people. And [when] one attempts to
tell these stories in English, which is what I would say a majority of our
people on the reservation where I live speak, it loses something ... so that
it makes [storytelling] difficult.

However, in my classes, I will say certain phrases or certain parts of
stories in [Wichiyena]. I always watch people's faces when I tell stories to
see am I getting across? Am I communicating? And it seems that even if they
don't know exactly what [I am] saying, that there is some communication that
exists and they might get the message of the story.

Q: What are some of the main themes of Dakotah storytelling?

Wilson: In our own teaching we say that we came through evolution. One of
the early, early evolved ones who was somewhat human [was] called Unktomi or
the Spiderman. Now, it is not the Spiderman one sees on TV today. But
Unktomi, the Spiderman, was primitive, but he tried to act civilized [but]
was quite not very apt at it. Our people have a belief that when we evolved
into human beings, there were certain parts of us that never change, which

--
Un abrazo.



Sergio Torres