yeska Journal #190
Accepting and honoring our whole past
The true meaning of the word “intrepid”
By James Giago Davies
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Quebec City was founded in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain, and one of the first things Champlain did was address the problem of those pesky Dutch trading rivals to the south. Champlain sent young French voyageurs out among the surrounding tribes, hoping they could make a connection that would compel those tribes to trade with the French, not the Dutch.
He could not have imagined the impact these young men would have on the course of American history. The word intrepid is often used to describe these young men, and misused in my profession, as in “the intrepid reporter.” Misused because, the intrepidness required of these young men should have retired the intrepid trophy forever.
Let’s take one case, Étienne Brûlé. He was born in 1592, and would die in 1633. Much of what he experienced in those 41 years is lost to history, but were it known, would probably constitute the greatest story ever told about the settling of the North American wilderness.
Only a year after Champlain sent Brûlé into that wilderness, to live with the Huron people, Brûlé had fully ingratiated himself to the tribe, had immersed himself in their ways, learned their language, and established a trade relationship with Quebec. As a reward, Champlain sent him back out, this time for four years. How many times did he cheat death in those years? How many children did he father? The latter is probably many magnitudes greater than the former, but Brûlé managed to survive and thrive in situations where others would have died right at the outset.
Other young voyaguers, and the fur trapping coureurs des bois to come (starting in 1630), must have fathered a prodigious number of children in just about every tribe between Quebec and the Pacific Ocean. They are long forgotten, but their surnames live on, and we see them in Lakota country: Richards, Lebeaux, Shangreaux, Dubray, LeFrombois, Bissonette, Janis, Pourier, Cottier, etc. The most common Lakota surname is a French surname.
When the final history of our world is compiled, there will be a huge hole, right where we should be reading about who these men were, where they went, what they did, how they lived, how they died, and how millions of tribal members carry their blood deep in their veins, and never even acknowledge, let alone, honor, that heritage.
Had you told these men, that one day, their prized iyeska offspring, so valued by the tribe they retained their French surname identity, would have no love or respect for their French blood they would not have believed it.
My Wasicu ancestors were Welshman; Davies is a Welsh surname. I reasoned long ago that I could not internally dismiss, even hate the Wasicu part of me, without hating my whole self. Saying, in effect, to other Lakota, yes, I am almost as good as you, except for the part of me that isn’t Lakota.
You hang that yoke on generations of Lakota and it is a recipe for lost souls mired in an identity crisis.
Iyeska Journal exists to help the part of you that isn’t Lakota to be acknowledged, honored, and understood. Your Wasicu/Lakota heritage is not something you have to be ashamed of, or apologize for.
I am an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, but I not Lakota or Wasicu, I am Iyeska, I am my own justification, and so are you. Now, realistically, since I am brown, and have been treated as a Lakota all my life, that Lakota identity was chosen for me by most Wasicu and Lakota; I had no say in the matter. I will continue to fight for the Lakota part of my family, friends and community, and I probably won’t do much fighting for the Wasicu part, if only because Wasicu need no help in that department, they run the show around here.
I will continue to stand up for the Iyeska, in the face of Wasicu discrimination, but also in the face of Lakota discrimination, stand up to all of those who would dismiss us as less than them, because we have too much of the other inside us.
(James Giago Davies is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe. He can be reached at skindiesel@msn.com)
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ABOUT THE GUEST AUTHOR: James Giago Davies is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe. He just won best columnist award from the Native American Journalists Association and was selected as best general interest columnist and best sports columnist by the South Dakota Newspaper Association in 2015. Mr. Giago Davies is the managing editor of Native Sun News, a Lakota owned and operated newspaper from Rapid City, S.D.