Iyeska

This depiction of a tipi with a cross in the center
hangs above the front door of the PRRC

Iyeska.  Lakota word of the week.  Actually, iyeska is the Lakota word for the year.  This year.  My year here.

So...what does it mean, Mer???

Iyeska, pronounced "ee-yay-sh-kah" means "half-breed" or "mixed-blood."

Before I moved to Pine Ridge, I knew that blood quantum was a serious matter to discuss for the indigenous communities.  Blood quantum refers to the percentage of "Indian" that a person is, and what rights they have because of that amount.  In 1934, the U.S. Government established the Indian Reorganization Act, which established what financial benefits were available to Native Americans, using the blood quantum to determine who was enough of an Indian.  Not only is this hurtful to many Native Americans for being questioned on their heritage, but debating blood quantum is frustrating when lots American can trace their lineage to find that they are "1/16th" Indian.  A conversation must happen, therefore, to figure out what the significance of "blood" is to a culture of people.  To the best that I can find, using my brief Internet searching, it seems as if the Sioux require 1/4 blood quantum to be a member of the tribe.

Only 1/4 blood to be considered a member of the tribe?  I'm a 1/4 Irish; my great grandmother was named Honora O'Sharkey.  Since that's the largest quantity of blood in my body that I know about, often claim it as my heritage.  I wear a Claddagh ring every day that my mom bought me when my family went to Ireland a few years back.  Not only is it significant as a gift from my mom, but I feel a closer connection to my ancestors every day.  We picked out the ring in Westport, County Mayo, where my relatives are from.  But really, 1/4 Irish isn't the same as 100% Irish, nor is it the same as someone who is 1/4 Irish, but raised in Ireland.

What does it mean to be 1/4 Sioux, but raised outside of a Sioux community?  What does it mean to be 1/4 Sioux, raised inside a Sioux community?

As I am constantly reflecting on who I am and where I have come from, I sometimes exhaust myself in this exploration of self in regards to the community that I am.  And sometimes, this isn't just an internal thought, but it's a visible community event.

Stick with me.  I know that this is turning into a rambling post where I'm ping-ponging all over the place.

Last week, I attended a "give-away" with my supervisor and some of our friends in the community.  A give-away is just that.  This particular give-away was from a group in Michigan called the Gathering Thunder Foundation.  According to their website, their Mission Statement is this:

"Gathering Thunder Foundation is dedicated to the preservation of Native American culture, customs, spirituality and language.  In addition to this endeavor, we strive to help provide funds for food, propane, electricity, wood supplies, education, clothing and hope for our Native American brothers and sisters all across Turtle Island (North America), who are in need. "

A group from Gathering Thunder Foundation arrived on the Reservation with a large Budget rental truck full of furniture, food, pet food, clothing, bedding, etc, etc, etc.  They had alerted the community of Oglala that they would be coming to do the give-away, especially in response to the number of homes that were destroyed here due to severe windstorms this summer.  50 families, I believe, were displaced from the storms.  The give-away was for the entire community though.

I arrived with my white supervisor and one of our Indian friends, then sat at a table with five or six other Native friends.  When the volunteers from the Foundation started coming in, I immediately felt nauseous.  Here I was, the white girl, sitting at a table with my friends, who are Native, but watching white people come in to drop off a truck full of stuff for people to take.

My whiteness felt blinding.  Similar to being in one of those offices with the really harsh overhead lighting.

The woman that was sitting next to me asked if I could pick her out some things from the give-away pile, since she has Cerebral Palsy and uses crutches to walk.  I struggled and struggled, feeling more and more uncomfortable in my skin as the items were brought into the large gymnasium that we were sitting inside of.  I felt the anticipation of Black Friday shopping mixed with the instinctual need to grab the "stuff" that people needed most.  I felt it in the room and I wanted to run screaming from the building.  My friend asked me several times more if I would go and get stuff for her and I suggested that I walk with her, since I didn't want to fight people for the things.

I have never been Black Friday shopping and I will never, ever go.  I don't like the idea of the fight.  Don't get me wrong, I love a good hockey fight or even elbowing the crowds for a better spot at a concert, but something about shopping crowds makes me really uncomfortable.

My friend kept pushing me, telling me that she couldn't walk around the crowd, but that I needed to do it for her.  I kept trying the "walk with you" route, thinking that I was doing the nice ELCA Accompaniment Model, right?  I mean, if I walked with her, then I wouldn't be taking from someone else and I would be assisting her, while allowing her to direct what she wanted and needed.  Except that in my nice accompaniment answer, I was articulating to her what I was actually upset about.  After several more attempts, she finally said, "It's fine, Meredith.  You don't have to go in there.  I know you're not used to Rez life like this."  I think she was disappointed, but I think she also was serious in saying that it wasn't normal for me.  I explained to her, the best that I could, while holding back the tears that were close to the surface, that it wasn't about the crowd, or the stuff, or walking.  It was about the fact that I was white and my whiteness made me so much more like the people showing up to drop stuff off in a big truck, only to drive right back out of the Reservation in a few hours.  Now, to be fair, I've researched the Gathering Thunder Foundation and it seems that they're intentional with working with the communities and asking the communities what they need.

At the same time, I looked more like them and less like the people I was sitting with at the table, the people who have become my friends over the last two months.  The people who I am here to be with and to learn about.  The people who are the recipients of the give-away.

I processed this whole day with my Internship Committee the following day, since I was still struggling with what it all meant.  My entire committee is Native, minus one woman who is white and is a teacher in a local school.  After listening to me ramble on about whiteness and being an outsider and discomfort, she said to me, "Well, I think I'm probably the best one to respond, since I've been through what you're experiencing."  She went on to explain that she sees herself as a half-breed.  When she's in the Indian community, she's white.  When she's in the white community, she's Native.  She really is a half-breed by blood, since her mother was Indian, but she was raised in a non-Native community.  She told me that I will, by the end of the year, become a half-breed, or an iyeska.

I would guess that half-breed or iyeska has more of a negative connotation than a positive one, in the same way that blood quantum debates tend to be negative.  Over the past week, though, I've been ruminating on this idea of being an iyeska.  Perhaps it's because I want a better nickname than wasicu "wah-see-chu" meaning "white person" or specifically, "the one who takes all the meat."  I get tired of hearing wasicu, partly because I'm a vegetarian and I think it's silly that I'm the one who takes all the meat.  I also get tired of hearing it because it's a constant reminder that I am an outsider, and an outsider whose skin color represents over a hundred years of oppression, violence, rape and destruction.

Now, now, don't get all guilty about being white, Mer.  I'm not saying that I did these things, but my face, my arms, my legs and my hair, look a heck of a lot more like the people who have destroyed and who now continue to show up with a truck full of stuff.

I pray that in all of this, I can sift out my place in this community, recognizing that I am white.  I am an outsider.  I am a wasicu.  I do blend in more with the outsiders who come in to drop off a truck full of stuff.  I also pray that I can live more into my iyeska identity, praying that even as an outsider, I am trusted and become an insider.  I need to trust myself that there is a reason why I am sitting at the table, drinking coffee with my aunties and not unloading the truck.  I am becoming an iyeska, a half-breed, living half in the Indian world and half in the white, Euro-American world, where my 1/4 Irish means a Claddagh ring and a nice story, but that my identity is made up of all the pieces of my life that have shaped me into the person capable of sitting next to my aunties and grandmas.

My preaching professor would probably say that I "landed the plane" with that last paragraph and that I shouldn't take off again.  But here's my final thought...I swear!

As I've been contemplating this iyeska-ness, it was fun to actually be an iyeska last night.  We had a sending meal for the group that's been staying with us.  We've had a few folks from Wisconsin churches and a large group of third-year medical students from Sanford School of Medicine at the University of South Dakota.  All of the medical students were my age and I fit in really well with them as far as looks, personality and conversation topics.  Tresita and Asa came to cook us a meal of Indian tacos though and I was Tresita's line cook, preparing the trays for the frybread and helping get everything set up.  Then, when she got tired, she asked me to continue making the frybread.  There I stood over a vat of oil, flipping the pieces of frybread to serve my peers, but holding a sacred "middle" spot, where Tresita trusted me to do the frybread.  It's these moments of being an iyeska that I love.  I belong.  I belong to them.  I belong here.  I belong because I know Asa and Tresita and have taken the time to build a trusting relationship that goes beyond one afternoon of dropping off food and clothing.

And for this, I am forever thankful.