Grandma Cavender

My Dakota Sioux name is, Wacantkiya Win

My aunt married an American Air Force MP stationed at Bruningthorpe Airadrome, near where we lived. Uncle Lew was a Dakota Sioux Indian, and when the base closed, they went to Duluth, Minnesota, to live.

When I was eleven years old, I went to the US to visit them. I flew to America on my own. Sat up front with the pilot and flew the plane, as you do when you’re eleven. I had £300 stolen – a lot of money in 1961 – and helped the Air hostesses serve food and drink. I got lost in Detroit Airport and ripped off when I paid $10 for a hamburger.

     I lived for six weeks on the Upper Sioux Reservation. I had the most glorious time. Grandma and Grandpa Cavender threw a pow-wow for me, where I was adopted into the tribe. Everyone on the reservation was there. I went to my first barbecue, saw a skunk, and experienced my first sighting of a ghost. After that, I was scared to go to the toilet at night. The toilet was in the middle of a field. 

     That six weeks was such fun. The Native American Children taught me to swim. I almost drowned in the Yellow Medicine River, which was off the Minnesota River. I swapped my pretty dresses for bobby socks, peddle-pushers and T-shirts. And, much to my mother’s horror when she met me at the airport after my holiday, I had my long hair cut off. Mum almost had a fit when she saw me teeter down the steps of the plane in high heels, peddle-pushers and cropped hair.

     Thirty years later during an indoor family pow-wow, Grandma gave me my Dakota Sioux name, Wacantkiya Win.

*

Grandma Elsie Cavender (Winona) was the Chief Elder of the Upper Sioux Community – and a direct descendant of five Great Chiefs, including Chief Mazomani (Iron Walker) & Mazatanka (Chief Big Iron). 

     She was the great-great-granddaughter of Mahpiyawicasta (Chief Cloud Man).  Great-granddaughter of Inyangami (Chief Running Walker) who was married to Victoria, Towapaha-Tanka  (Woman who Wears Big Hat) the daughter of Chief Cloud Man.

     Grandma’s great-grandfather Mazomani (Chief Walking Iron) was the last Great Chief of the Sisseton Whappoton Tribe. Her grandfather and grandmother, who brought her up, were John and Isabel Roberts, Chief Inyagmani Hoksida (Running Walker Boy & and his wife Mazaokiye Win (Woman who talks to Iron)

Elsie Cavender fought for the rights of the Indian Community her entire life. Her determination got the Indian Community included in the Surplus Commodities Programme in the 1950s. She wrote and petitioned for fourteen years to get a monument erected to her late great-grandfather, Chief Mazomani (Walking Iron) who was shot by soldiers during the battle of Wood Lake as he carried the white flag of surrender up the hill.

     Grandma told me about the last Sioux Uprising in 1962. ‘The Crow tribe were dying of starvation. It was a bitterly cold winter, so four Crow braves took off to find the Indian Agent. They were starving and freezing when they came across a farm. The farmer’s wife was piling up eggs and bread for the market. They asked her if they could eat. She refused and screamed for her husband. Her husband shot and killed one of the braves, so the three remaining braves killed the farmer and his wife.

    ‘They walked on until they found the Indian Agent. They asked for the food belonging to the tribe to be delivered. The Agent, who had been selling their food to white settlers, told them to go and eat grass, so they hung him and stuffed every orifice with grass. They ate what they could, carried what they could, and then burned his warehouse down.’ 

   Chief Little Crow (who was married to four of Grandma’s Great Aunts) would not give the braves up to the authorities, so the army systematically hung four of Little Crow’s braves every day.

Grandma told me many stories. One heartbreaking story was about the trail of tears that her Grandmother was on as a child, which I must write. She also told me a story about an old Dakota woman. She said, ‘When I was a small child an old Dakota grandmother who lived in the Community told me, when I grow up and I want something done, keep working at it. Take the Little Mouse? If he wants food, he will gnaw and gnaw until he has it. Stick to your beliefs, and you will get results.’ 

    And that’s how Grandma got wells and drinking water supplied to the Community – it took nine years of writing letters, but her gnawing at the government eventually paid off. 

‘Guarding the Road. The Spirit in mid-winter.’