Interview · North Dakota · Oliver Gourd · NDNAEU 4
Themes: Language & revitalization, Kinship & family, Education & learning, Boarding schools & assimilation, Humor & play
Learn About questions
What is a boarding school?
Why were students not allowed to speak in their native languages?
Why was soap used as a punishment?
How was the soap made?
Why was it important for the students to learn English?
How does humor help a difficult situation?
Learn From questions
Have I ever been punished for something that wasn’t my fault? What did it feel like?
Have I ever had something about my family or myself that was misunderstood or even made fun of by others? What was the experience like?
Have I ever experienced physical punishment? What was the reason for it and how did I respond?
Have I ever been in a situation where I didn’t understand the language that was being spoken around me? What was it like?
What role does humor play in my life in relation to difficult times?
Transcripts
Oliver Gourd- Lye Soap, NDNAEU 4
Watch this interview on YouTubeI too with the school archer thompson and aloysius and martin blue shield and we had to use have an interpreter come in and teach us english maybe once a week if we get lucky and remember my first sentence i learned that english was see spot run that yeah is crazier than i talk a cop is spa down man what do you say he wants to know what’s that what spot means just that kindergarten teacher she’s coming to jump up and down i know what you mean right you should just do that to make her make her do that and go on the corner and classes over we laugh to be like he’d always do that to her she’d jump up and down mrs he’s but anyway that was uh they had a lot of humor in it and then we used to get punished when we uh talk our language we had a lot of chipboards going to school there and he was telling us sister he could speak in india they line us up jesus had they used to make their own soap a little square bottled squares rapid remember that they wrap it once over everything their hair vase your clothes they made it right there they had lye and straw and then so when they cut us talking dakota they break into four parts we each get a quarter we have to eat it we eat that soap and about 20 minutes later teasing that’s what he called around
Resource text
NDNAEU Alignment:
Affiliation sources
NDNAEU document credits: Oliver Gourd — Spirit Lake (Dakota).
Source materials
Supplied transcript documents. Text and transcription uncertainties are preserved as supplied.