“There Are No Two Sides to This Story”: An Interview with Elizabeth Cook- Lynn

On December 21, 2013, I sat down for an interview with Elizabeth Cook- Lynn at the Rapid City Public Library in Rapid City, South Dakota. Prior to this, she and I had hours- long conversations and plenty of e-mail exchanges about the role her work has played in the development of American Indians studies and the histories and politics of our nations. Our paths crossed years earlier when I was teaching summer school for a Native high school honors program at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology campus near downtown Rapid City. She had a book signing for the publication of New Indians, Old Wars at a local bookstore.¹ I missed the signing but picked up a copy during my lunch break. I stopped for coffee on my walk back to campus with book in tow. She happened to be sitting in the coffee shop with a friend. I introduced myself, and she graciously signed my book and offered a few words of encouragement to me to pursue my graduate studies in history at the University of South Dakota. It was a pleasant encounter with a writer I had admired from afar for her sharp intellect and biting pen.

Later, I cracked the book and read her scrawled inscription: “Pidamaye. Remember the stories. Always your relation.” It was a kind thank you and reminder of our common histories, despite decades of age difference. I was born and raised in the notorious border town, Chamberlain, South Dakota, twenty miles south from where she grew up in the village of Crow Creek. We both know the river, the Mni Sose, the Missouri River. We both know the story the river tells, when the Pick- Sloan dams flooded our nations, the Hunkpati Oyate, the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, and the Kul Wicasa Oyate, the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. Only a river and a dialect separate our nations. Hers Dakota. Mine Lakota. Nevertheless, we are relatives of the Oceti Sakowin, the Great Sioux Nation. We both write and speak from this perspective of place and history.

The following is an edited transcript of our December conversation. In many ways, our conversation was, and always is, a continuation of previous discussions, ranging from history and politics to the place we know as home, the Mni Sose. I have tried to keep intact styles and manners of speech, only editing redundancies and repetition for readability. I have also chosen to keep the Lakota and Dakota words spelled according to the ways in which I have come to know them. Our languages are oral, and that is how I came to Lakotiyapi. Although I am a lifelong learning Lakota- speaker who is not fluent, I have primarily come to the language through stories and songs. To my fault, hardly have I engaged in its writing and reading. Yet there exist promising and compelling studies on Indigenous oral histories and traditions as well as dictionaries and well- developed curricula, promoting the vitality of our languages and stories as living things.² However, in the spirit of the manner in which I was taught, I find it best to reflect the authentic voices of two relations— one gilded by the wisdom and authority of an elder scholar and grandmother of our Nation and the other an apprenticed learner. Our conversation was a sharing and imparting of wisdom, history, and stories from one generation to the next to keep the plot moving.

nick estes:

Why did you choose the life of a writer?

elizabeth cook-lynn:

Well that’s an interesting question. I didn’t choose the life of a writer. But I have always wanted to write. I grew up in a home where two languages were spoken all the time. I’m interested in language for that reason. Then I went off to boarding school where we learned the mass in Latin. I could see the connection between Latin and English, and I found it interesting. Nobody else did, but I did. And I knew it had nothing at all to do with Dakota...