Interview · South Dakota · Pearl Kennedy-Colombe · OSEU 5
Themes: Language & revitalization, Storytelling & oral tradition, Education & learning
New transcript-based questions created with AI assistance using Scott Simpson’s Learn About and Learn From guide.
Learn About questions
1. What restrictions on leaving and returning to the reservation does Pearl Kennedy-Colombe describe?
2. What questions does she raise about the role of a person employed to watch a gate?
3. Why does she compare public responses to Sandy Hook with responses to Wounded Knee?
Learn From questions
1. How would restrictions on movement affect my sense of freedom and belonging?
2. When might a person's job place them between competing responsibilities?
3. Whose losses receive my attention, and whose histories might I need to hear more fully?
Transcripts
The History of Guns - Pearl Kennedy-Colombe - OSEU #5
Watch this interview on YouTubeYears ago, this was like a prison. There was a fence, barbed wire fence, all the way around the reservation. There was a gate on that end, one on the north end, and one going toward Pierre. He was hired to watch one of them, whichever one. And when the Native Americans leave to go visit, they have to write a specific day that they are going to return, at what hour, they have to write that down. So he learned to read and write in Lakota and English. Didn't go to school.
And I always said, you have to be intelligent to pick up on the language and everything. So he went to school like he went to he had this job where he went every day, and I often wondered what he thought about the work that he did. Because was he helping the government, or was he helping the Indians, you know? Because they had to make sure they get back, otherwise they'd be considered a runaway and on the loose, and you know. In today's world, they have guns. Do you know, if you look back in history, what these guns were for?
With the pilgrims come over and all the immigrants. That gun was to fight the Indians, kill the Indians off. And you look at that story of Pocahontas, that guy, he's that, it shows that, you know, that these guns were to fight the Indians. We never had gun control before, before the... And there wasn't a way to, you can always duck out of an arrow, away from an arrow, you know. It kind of makes me laugh because when they talk about Sandy Hook, and the president was crying over Sandy Hook, why don't they cry over Wounded Knee?
We felt that pain first, where they killed everybody, and they weren't even fighting, you know. They don't think about things like that.
Source materials
Supplied transcript document. Text preserved as supplied; spellings and transcription uncertainties have not been corrected.
Additional source transcripts
The History of Guns
The History of Guns - Pearl Kennedy-Colombe -
OSEU #5
Years ago, this was like a prison. There was a fence, barbed wire fence, all the way
around the reservation. There was a gate on that end, one on the north end, and one
going toward Pierre. He was hired to watch one of them, whichever one. And when the
Native Americans leave to go visit, they have to write a specific day that they are going
to return, at what hour, they have to write that down. So he learned to read and write in
Lakota and English. Didn't go to school.
And I always said, you have to be intelligent to pick up on the language and everything.
So he went to school like he went to he had this job where he went every day, and I
often wondered what he thought about the work that he did. Because was he helping
the government, or was he helping the Indians, you know? Because they had to make
sure they get back, otherwise they'd be considered a runaway and on the loose, and
you know. In today's world, they have guns. Do you know, if you look back in history,
what these guns were for?
With the pilgrims come over and all the immigrants. That gun was to fight the Indians,
kill the Indians off. And you look at that story of Pocahontas, that guy, he's that, it shows
that, you know, that these guns were to fight the Indians. We never had gun control
before, before the... And there wasn't a way to, you can always duck out of an arrow,
away from an arrow, you know. It kind of makes me laugh because when they talk about
Sandy Hook, and the president was crying over Sandy Hook, why don't they cry over
Wounded Knee?
We felt that pain first, where they killed everybody, and they weren't even fighting, you
know. They don't think about things like that.