Confessions of an Iyeska

By Viola Burnette

In this autobiography, Viola Burnette braids the history of the Lakota people with the story of her own life as an Iyeska, or mixed-race Indian. Bringing together her years growing up on a reservation, her work as a lawyer and legal advocate for Native peoples, and her woman’s perspective, she draws the reader into an intelligent and intimate conversation.
 
The Fort Laramie treaties of 1851 and 1868 changed everything for the Sioux. When Burnette was born on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in the late 1930s, her people were still striving to make sense of how to live under the impoverished conditions created by the imposed land restrictions. Like most Native children at that time, she was forced by federal law to attend boarding school and assimilate into white culture. Her story reveals the resulting internal conflict that she and her people faced in embracing their own identity in a world where those in authority taught that speaking Lakota and being Indian were wrong. After a difficult jump into adulthood, Burnette emerged from an abusive marriage and, while raising four children, enrolled in junior college in her thirties and law school in her forties. She went on to become an advocate for women subjected to domestic violence and the first attorney general for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe.
 
Borne out under the far-reaching effects of the government-enforced restructuring of her people, Burnette’s inspiring narrative of strength and determination makes clear the importance of understanding history from a Native standpoint.
 
“I am an Iyeska and I am assimilated, but on my own terms. I choose when, where, and how I use the knowledge and skills I have learned. As long as we continue to teach our children and grandchildren the language, values, and traditions of the Lakota people, we will survive.”—from the book
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Utah Press
• Release date: Dec 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781607816409

Book preview

8.

PROLOGUE

There was no moon and the night was very dark. Looking out the window through the bars of the metal crib, I could barely see the flicker of lamplight from the windows of our house and the other houses that lined the creek. I had cried all day. I was in the hospital and all alone.

I was three years old, scared and very lonely. My eyes were red and swollen from the hours of crying. In the aftermath, sobs regularly jerked my body. With every ounce of my being, I wished I were out of the hospital and home with Mom, Dad, and my brothers and sisters. In my imagination, I could see Mom getting ready for supper. I could almost hear the laughter of all the neighborhood kids in the last minutes of play before being called in for supper. I remembered the joy of playing hide-and-seek in the near dark. Hiding behind trees and bushes was more fun because it was harder to find everybody in the dark.

Sometimes, whoever was it would yell, olly olly oxen free, when they couldn’t find anybody and didn’t want to look any longer.

That meant everyone still in hiding could come out without being tagged. Now, I could only imagine the fun. I was really alone.

Earlier that day, I had been overjoyed when Mom came to visit. Seeing her come in the door, I jumped up and down in the crib until the nurse yelled at me to stop. My brother Gibby and I were together in the children’s ward, but I missed my mom. Disappointment set in when she said, I can’t stay very long. I have to get over to the store. I came to get Gibby.

I watched with tears in my eyes when the nurse brought Gibby’s clothes and helped him dress.

Momma, take me too, I cried.

I’m sorry, Momma said. You’re not well, yet. You’ll be coming home soon. Don’t cry.

I watched them walk out the door. Gibby turned, looked at me, looked at Momma with a question on his face, and then waved to me. I could feel the lump filling my throat and aching. It became unbearable and I threw myself face down on the bed, trying to muffle the sobs, and cried my heart out. I was alone! The fear and loneliness of being in the hospital overwhelmed me.

I was still crying intermittently when the nurse came and began to fuss with the wheels of my crib. I watched curiously, my tears suspended for a moment, as she did something to all four wheels. Suddenly, I was moving. She pushed me through the screen door of the children’s ward. Hey, it was fun! I didn’t know where I was going, but the ride was fun! She pushed my crib into a small room across the hall. There were two other cribs in the room, but they were empty. She locked the wheels of my crib and left.

I looked around the empty room and my heart sank. The only good thing was that if I stood up I could see over the sill of the only window in the room. I felt a thrill of happiness as I looked out the window. Far, far away, I thought I could see our little house! If I looked hard enough, would I be able to see Momma outside? Or maybe I’d see Gibby outside, playing with the neighbor kids. I strained my eyes, but I wasn’t sure which house was ours. I couldn’t stop searching with my eyes, and I stood at the window until I was too tired to stand.

Soon after, I realized that I had to use the bathroom. I looked around and there were no other doors in the room to indicate that there was a bathroom near. The legs of the crib were about three feet high and the sides of the iron-barred crib were formidable. It seemed impossible for me to climb out and hit the floor safely. Worst of all, I’d be in trouble! The nurse would yell, and she might even hit me!

I sat in my crib. Alone and miserable, my bladder began to ache. I watched the hallway, hoping for a nurse to pass by.

I heard rapid footsteps and cried out, Nurse!

But, it wasn’t audible. My fear kept my voice still. I waited longer, trying to gather my courage. I had to call the nurse or I’d be in bigger trouble when I wet my bed! I began to cry again and eventually I cried myself to sleep. Sometime in the night, I wakened to hear a nurse walking by and called to her without thinking. She took me across the hall to the bathroom in the children’s ward and then back to that little room.

The next morning, in the early hours, I was awakened by a nurse swabbing my left hip with something cold. Startled, I watched her pick up what appeared to be a huge syringe and stab me in the hip with it. Then, I was alone again. It happened so fast I didn’t have time to get scared.

I don’t remember why I was in the hospital. The memory of that shot still haunts me. The incident was burned into my child’s memory by the trauma of my mother and brother leaving me alone and by the added loneliness of that little room. Eventually, I developed a huge boil on my hip that had to be treated with ointments and bandages and it was very sore. I remained alone in that little room, isolated from the other kids in the children’s ward until my discharge. There has always been a question in my mind about why I was isolated and why I was given that shot. It may have been a smallpox vaccination. When I was older I asked Mom why I was given a shot in my hip and she didn’t know. She never asked.

Years later, I was at boarding school and had to have an operation. I was taken to the hospital, operated on, and returned to school, all without my parents ever knowing that anything had happened. It was as if they didn’t have a right to know. My parents never questioned the right of the doctors and nurses to do whatever they chose. It was assumed that they knew what was right for us and that they wouldn’t hurt us.

Although I was unaware of it, this small episode was a classic example of the influences that shaped the lives of Lakota people. My parents were part of the third generation of Lakota people who were forced out of the old way of life. T ípis gone along with the ability to provide for themselves, they had to depend on the government for their livelihood. Under such circumstances, it was inevitable that the government would use the power of deprivation to control and oppress the people. Food and housing were at a premium. Anyone who sought help in getting even the basics of life had to bow to the wishes of government officials. The US Army was in charge and they were typically authoritarian and cruel. It wasn’t uncommon for them to withhold rations to enforce an order or change an unwanted behavior. Along with withholding the necessities of life came the practice of belittling the people, calling them dirty, lazy, and other denigrating slurs designed to undermine their pride and self-reliance. The oppression has resulted in a population that is atypical in its reaction to authority.

By the time my mother took me to the hospital, wanting good care for me and my brother, she had been regulated and disciplined from birth. She had no choice and dared not question the caregivers.

One

LAKOTA BEGINNINGS

In order to understand the ups and downs of my life, you need to know a bit about history—American Indian history, which is somewhat different than what you may have learned in school. That history includes the lives of my parents and grandparents. By the time I was born, my tribe, the Brulé Sioux people, had barely begun the process of adjusting to living on the reservation. I was part of the third generation of Indians to do so. Our people had to go from living in freedom and independence to a life of restriction and reliance on other people. We are still adjusting.

All of my great-grandmothers were born sometime around 1850. During that time, the Brulé Sioux people were well settled into life in what became known as Dakota Territory. Their primary concern was survival. They took care of their families the natural way, hunting and gathering their food and fighting off the enemies who would endanger their lives.

In 1851, the first legal intrusion from the United States government occurred to interfere in their everyday lives. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 sought to reduce the land base the Lakota used for hunting and to impose territorial boundaries upon the tribes who lived and hunted in the area of the Oregon Trail and the prospective transcontinental railway.¹ The United States wanted peaceful tribes so their people could travel safely through Dakota Territory. They asked the Sioux to follow the boundaries set out in the treaty and to stop fighting the other tribes over hunting territory. For such peace, they said they were willing to pay to the Indians provisions, merchandise, animals, and so on.

What this meant to my great-great-grandparents was that they were told that they were no longer free to simply follow the buffalo or other game. The white man’s peace wasn’t always possible, especially as they began to rely on the provisions they were promised that were not forthcoming. Boundaries on paper meant nothing, and the tribes continued to live as they always had. White people, however, believed the treaty meant they could go wherever they wanted, and they began to appear in greater numbers.

In the 1860s, in response to the continuing strife between the tribes and the demands of white people for more land, the US government set about making treaties with the tribes—assuring them that they would be able to live unmolested on land of their own and that they would be provided with rations to make up for their inability to hunt as they always had.

The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie with the Sioux and the Agreement with the Sioux of 1867 changed the world of Sioux people.²,³ The treaty set out the boundaries of what would become known as the Great Sioux Reservation. The Lakota people were, once again, promised that the land set aside for them would be theirs alone, although specific sections of the reservation were set aside as smaller reservations for particular tribes. The land also included land set aside for hunting grounds and the Black Hills.

The He Sápa (Black Hills) are and always have been sacred ground to the Lakota people. It’s a place to go for contemplation and prayer. It was named the Black Hills because, from a distance, the stands of pine trees make the hills appear to be black.

There had been rumors of gold in the Black Hills for many years. In 1876, the US government sent surveyors, engineers, and other scientists to explore the Black Hills to determine whether or not the rumors were true. When it was discovered that gold truly existed in the Black Hills, a gold rush began.

In order to overcome the heated objections of the Sioux warriors and to protect all of the white settlers and gold seekers, Congress passed the Agreement with the Sioux of 1876 in which they rescinded the section of the Treaty of 1868 giving the Lakota absolute right to the Black Hills. They wanted to pay for the land with subsistence rations. The treaty required that, in order to change the land provisions, two-thirds of the Lakota men had to agree to sign. All but 10 percent refused and a war ensued. Congress still won. They passed the Indian Appropriations Act of 1876,⁴ which cut off all rations for the Sioux until they terminated hostilities and ceded the Black Hills to the United States. It was aptly named the sign or die amendment.

Gradually, the Sioux chiefs realized that their defeat was complete and in order to save their people they would have to succumb to the demands of the US government. Those demands resulted in each leader taking his people to live on the designated reservations. The Black Hills were lost but not forgotten.

It would take one hundred years and a lawsuit against the United States government for the Lakota people to find a small measure of justice. The United States Supreme Court found that the US government had taken the land in the Black Hills without compensating the Lakota people. They ordered that the government pay $106 million in compensation. It was not what they wanted. They wanted their land back. To this day when the people gather, you will hear the cry, the Black Hills are not for sale.

With the continuing influx of white settlers, gold seekers, and the overpowering army, Chief Spotted Tail and others were forced to sign the treaty to protect their families from annihilation. The treaty included an agreement that their land base would be further reduced. The terms of surrender were clear: give up your guns, become peaceable, and we will take care of you. They signed the treaty and gave up their land, their freedom, and their independence.

By the fall of 1868, the Brulé and Oglala Sioux had been moved to Whetstone Agency on the Missouri River and my great-grandmothers went with them.⁵ All four of my great-grandmothers grew up in the typical Lakota way of life, following the buffalo and learning to live in unity with their environment. By the time they were old enough to marry, there were increasing numbers of white men who wanted to be part of their world. White trappers and traders were looking for wives who could survive the hardships of prairie life. My great-grandmothers, Louisa, Emily, Wa pé (Leaf), and Comes-Out-In-The-Day, were perfect and the time was right. They were looking for security in a changing world as were the men they married.

My father’s father, John Burnette, was born somewhere around Fort Laramie, Wyoming, about the time the Treaty of 1868 was signed. John’s mother, Comes-Out-In-The-Day (later renamed Mary), was there with Chief Spotted Tail’s band and Chief Spotted Tail was there to sign the treaty. In my imagination, I picture Comes-Out-In-The-Day, perhaps sitting on the ground, taking part in the negotiations over the treaty. Maybe she didn’t get to share her opinion as the men of her band did, but I’m certain she voiced those opinions around her own campfire.

Born in Canada, Juel (or Jules) Burnette was a trapper for the American Fur Company. Mom’s story about them was that Jules needed a wife and asked around the camp for a good woman. Everyone spoke highly of Comes-Out-In-The-Day and he decided to marry her. She was a beautiful young woman, but she spoke no English when she met Jules Burnette.

In November 1867, Jules, along with several other men, signed a petition to Congress asking for land so they could support their Lakota families. The petition was never granted; sometime after John’s birth, Jules went into the Snowy Mountains in Wyoming to do some trapping and never came back.

By the winter of 1868, the people were showing the deprivation brought on by months of dependence on the US government. Their clothes were ragged and t ípi covers were falling apart.⁶ Worst of all, rations were either slow or absent. They couldn’t hunt, and it cost them