Ella Cara Deloria (1889-1971) was a linguist and ethnographer who became one of the foremost experts on Dakota and Lakota oral history.
Ella Cara Deloria (1889-1971) was a linguist and ethnographer who became one of the foremost experts on Dakota and Lakota oral history.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan. This is Womanica.
Today, we’re talking about a linguist and ethnographer who became one of the foremost experts on Dakota and Lakota oral history. She incorporated both her own experiences growing up in the Sioux Nation as well as scholarly studies she conducted with other community members. Today, her work is still considered an essential source on Sioux culture and Lakota language. Please welcome Ella Cara Deloria.
Ella was born on January 31, 1889, on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in what’s known as South Dakota. She was the first born child to her parents Reverend Philip Joseph Deloria and Mary Sully Deloria, though both had children from prior marriages. She was named Anpetu Washte-win, or Beautiful Day Woman, in honor of a raging blizzard on her birthday. Her parents were both descendants of Yankton Dakota and Euro-American families. Her father, the son of a Yankton Chief, had converted to Christianity as a young man and renounced his claim to chieftainship. He was an influential Episcopal Minister.
While Ella’s family was devoutly Christian, they also took part in traditional Dakota culture. She lived on the Standing Rock Reservation and grew up speaking both the Dakota and Lakota dialects of the Sioux language — Lakota with peers and community members at school, and Dakota with her father.
In 1910, Ella won a scholarship to Oberlin College. She then transferred to Columbia Teachers College and earned a Bachelor of Science in 1915. While at Columbia, Ella met Franz Boas, a well-known and respected anthropologist. They became fast partners, and Ella began translating Dakota Sioux texts for his studies. Through this partnership, Ella also came to know Ruth Benedict, Franz’s assistant and colleague. Ella and Ruth began a correspondence that lasted until Ruth’s death in 1948.
Throughout the next thirteen years, Ella remained highly involved at home-- she taught at All Saints, another boarding school, and supervised health education in Native schools for several years.
In 1928, she was called back to her work at Columbia with Franz. She studied the language and stories from Lakota and Dakota elders. Her research had three goals: to edit and translate texts written by Sioux people in various dialects; to record a detailed description of traditional Sioux social and religious life; and to compile her linguistic data into a comprehensive dictionary of the Lakota dialect of the Sioux language.
One of the first projects Ella took on was a translation of the Sun Dance, the most important traditional Lakota religious ceremony. A long, native language text of the ceremony already existed, but Ella wanted to translate it in its correct context. She read it out loud to an Oglala Lakota elder and rewrote it with his guidance. The finished text in English and Lakota was her first professional publication.
Ella continued her research, though some of Ruth’s requests put her in a difficult situation. Since she had been raised in a prominent Episcopal family, she was not super familiar with traditional Lakota religion. Ruth wanted her to ask traditional religious leaders about their visions, but Ella felt it was a step too far. She may have risked jeopardizing her family’s reputation, and many traditional religious leaders were uncomfortable sharing their knowledge with someone who came from a devout Christian background. As a result, Ella shifted her ultimate focus to the physical forms of ceremonies. Even so, in her day-to-day research she also recorded many sacred stories and even some of the conflicts between Christianity and traditional religion.
With Ruth’s advice, Ella focused her research more and more on kinship, tribal structure, and the role of women in Sioux cultures. This work culminated in a novel named “Waterlily” that covers three generations of women before the reservation period. Though it wasn’t published until after Ella’s death, it is lauded as a unique perspective-- and maybe the only written source that explores the religious life of Lakota women.
By the 1940s, Ella was recognized as the most prominent ethnographic authority on the Dakota and Lakota Sioux people. In the 60s, she worked at the University of South Dakota, where her legacy became the Ella C. Deloria project. It is an ongoing effort to preserve the culture of the Dakota people.
Ella died on February 12, 1971, in what’s known as Vermillion, South Dakota. When she died, she was the most prolific native scholar of the Lakotas. Many of her interviews were the last remaining accounts of cultural aspects she witnessed and are the fullest accounts in the Lakota dialect. Her work is also one of the most important sources for understanding Sioux culture from women’s perspectives.
All month, we’re honoring the legacy of Indigenous women.
Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator.
Talk to you tomorrow!