Fiber-filled diapers centuries ago? Lakota women ‘ahead of their time’
The wind rippled through the golden leaves of the Cottonwood trees, ruffling the water of the small buffalo wallow and slough, and dancing with the cattails in their fluffy coats. With the wind came the warm autumn smells that promised fires, feasts and fun as the people readied for winter. The bright blue sky was clear, and the rain that had fallen several days before seemed to have polished everything. Yet, the cattail fluff was now dry and ready for harvest. Only available once a year, the cattail fluff provided luxurious comfort for the babies and women, creating a disposable and absorbable layer for diapering babies and at times for women menstruating or recovering from childbirth. The fluff was laid out on a piece of buffalo hide and depending on the needs of the one wearing it was appropriately fashioned to stay in place. Even better was the down of the cottonwood trees in spring, again only available once a year, but in turn these plant relatives provided a means of sanitary care unheard of in the Western world until much later. The fluff was kept in large deerhide bags and though all such carrying cases would have an individual woman’s signature design on them, she would freely share with her relatives by making gifts to those who need them.
The concentration camp of Ft. Snelling where the Dakota were held, along with other camps to keep so-called halfbreeds from joining Red Cloud’s War by the Lakota, show that there was more than just the genocide of the buffalo that destroyed our lifeways. In burning our clothings and destroying the mobility of our people, indeed even until just a couple years ago in the 21st century the state of South Dakota had a statute that any group of three or more Indians seen together could be shot on sight. Unable to move freely or gather together without threat, no longer were we able to care for ourselves and our children. Grandmothers with the knowledge of the old ways became mysticized, as their stories and teachings spoke of realities that no longer looked like the reality of the life on reservations. While some still kept enough traditional ways and stories, others adapted, urging their daughters to learn the new ways of homekeeping, but little by little the erosion between daily life and the stories cleaved us, whatever family we were born to, into before and after, then and now, spirit and material. The Oceti Sakowin Oyate lived their spirituality and had never heard of an idea that one, to survive spiritually, could focus only on the spirit and the mind, while suffering in the physical by Empires intent on destruction.
Thankfully, the first survivors of the boarding schools would sort through these events and choose to write down their stories and the stories of others, even creating new stories that spoke of the realities of life before Americans overran the Northern Prairies. Waterlilly is once such new story by Ella C. Deloria, but just as useful, the work of Luther Standing Bear provides details of the domestic lives and materials his mother and his other female relatives of his childhood used to care for him particularly, but indeed, all of the children and each other. To be clear, this is not Golden Age thinking. Our very recent past is just that recent and very real, not mythical. Western Civilization lives on Golden Age thinking, so it’s no wonder that America continues to play Indians and indeed forces indigenous people to do so as well. So, how do we, as tribal members, reclaim relationships with our relatives like the cottonwood trees and cattails, relationships just as important as the ones we have with one another? And how do we do so in a way that doesn’t delegate those relatives to servitude, domesticating them in a way that strips them of their own sovereignty? Now, we live in a world of cottonwoods that have been bred to not have fluff. A world where even urban Indians have taken to buying sage from other Indians, because they can’t source it nearby and have no means of safe travel now to find any. Cattails very often are part of a state park or farmer’s back field, where rules of gathering can be confusing and maybe even dangerous. While our children and young women have always been stolen from us for profit, so also have our other relatives. Even the stars are no longer accessible as before with Star Link and other projects creating false constellations and space junk and light pollution separating us from our star relatives.
Will our lives then be reduced to finding small pieces of these relationships and over ritualizing and spiritualizing them, so that we only make use of these things in ceremony or brief times during the year? How do we resist in a real, matter of fact way that avoids Golden Age thinking, hyper-individualized expressions and ritualization? How do we honor the wisdom that was ahead of their time now in a world of plastics and polymers for our diapers? How do we do this when the information we have about these things, while written and probably still shared in some families, also isn’t always detailed enough to recreate in our own home lives? And maybe most of all, how do we avoid the settler-colonial insistence that we perform indigeneity, not actually live indigenously?
While none of us have all the answers, many of us have some answers, or maybe even better the right questions. Many of us are sharing now the information and experiences we have with one another. Our relatives are still speaking to us, sharing with us, teaching us. Together, we will move into the future already prepared by our ancestors.
Written Resources:
Waterlilly by Ella C. Deloria
Land of the Spotted Eagle by Luther Standing Bear
