What are Zitkala-Sa’s most famous quotes?
GROUNDBREAKING Indigenous author and activist Zitkala-Ša lived and worked in two different worlds.
The renowned suffragist and voting rights activist was born in Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, in 1876 - the year that the Sioux defeated Custer, she liked to remind people.
Who was Zitkala-Sa?
Zitkala-Ša grew up on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota.
Throughout her life she actively opposed the “Americanization” of Indigenous American culture.
She was raised by her mother and aunts after her father, a man of French descent, abandoned the family.
When she was eight years old, Quaker missionaries arrived, offering the reservation’s children a free education.
But there was a catch - the kids had to leave their parents behind and travel to Indiana, explains .
However, as she was curious about the world beyond the reservation, Zitkala-Ša begged her mother to let her go, and her mother, aware of the advantages that an education offered, reluctantly agreed.
After being separated from her family, she was forced to attend a white-run boarding school, where she suffered the trauma of government-mandated assimilation.
She later wrote of the terror experienced by Indigenous children removed from their families and sent to live among strangers at a time when the federal government set about eliminating Indigenous nations.
Zitkala-Ša became an accomplished author, musician, composer, and dedicated worker for the reform of United States Indian policies.
What age was Zitkala-Sa when she died?
Zitkala-Ša - also known as suffragist and voting rights activist Gertrude Simmons Bonnin - died in Virginia in 1938.
The in the US explains that she and her husband, Raymond Bonnin, both of the Yankton Sioux (or Dakota) Nation, chose Arlington National Cemetery as their final resting place.
She was eligible for burial there as a veteran's spouse due to Raymond's US Army service in the Great War, and he later joined her.
Her tombstone reads: "Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, 'Zitkala-Ša of the Sioux' 1876-1938" with a tepee carved on the back.
This message was one she had spent much of her life explaining to non-Native Americans: she could be both a citizen of the US and a citizen of the Yankton Sioux Nation - she did not have to choose.
What are Zitkala-Sa's most famous quotes?
In 1901 Zitkala-Sa's Old Indian Legends - passed down by oral storytellers of her Sioux tribe - was published.
American Indian Stories was published in 1921.
In the book the Sioux Indian and activist writes poignantly of her childhood summer days, when her mother built her fire in the "shadow of our wigwam", and she was entranced by the telling of legends, punctured by the "distant howling of a pack of wolves or the hooting of an owl".
The author is known for many beautiful and thought-provoking quotes including:
- "There is no great; there is no small; in the mind that causeth all."
- "Let us not look for good or justice: then we shall not be disappointed!"
- "A wee child toddling in a wonder world, I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan."
- “Few there are who have paused to question whether real life or long-lasting death lies beneath this semblance of civilization.”
- “I was not wholly conscious of myself, but was more keenly alive to the fire within. It was as if I were the activity, and my hands and feet were only experiments for my spirit to work upon."
Why is she being celebrated as today's Google Doodle?
On this day (February 22) in 1876, Zitkala-Ša (Lakota for “Red Bird”) - also known as Gertrude Simmons - was born on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
While attending the White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute, a missionary boarding school, her hair was cut against her will, and she was forbidden to speak her Lakota language.
The then eight-year-old was also forced to practice a religion she didn’t believe in.
She went on to attend graduate college, study and perform violin, teach, and write about the American Indian experience, including her autobiography, writes the .
Zitkala-Ša integrated her traditional heritage with modern ideas and was a vocal supporter of native rights and citizenship and women’s suffrage.
She was elected as one of the leaders of the Society of American Indians, a political advocacy group.
Zitkala-Ša supported American Indians’ dual citizenship in native tribes and the US, crisscrossing the country to urge white women, newly able to vote, to support Indian rights.
Thanks in part to Zitkala-Ša’s grassroots organizing, the Indian Citizenship Act was enacted in 1924.
She was "a woman who lived resiliently during a time when the Indigenous people of the US were not considered real people by the American government, let alone citizens", says .
Zitkala-Ša devoted her life to the protection and celebration of her Indigenous heritage through the arts and activism.
Her special was created by Chris Pappan, an American Indian guest artist of Osage, Kaw, Cheyenne River Sioux, and European heritage.
What is a Google Doodle?
In 1998, the search engine founders Larry and Sergey drew a stick figure behind the second 'o' of Google as a message to that they were out of office at the Burning Man festival and with that, Google Doodles were born.
The company decided that they should decorate the logo to mark cultural moments and it soon became clear that users really enjoyed the change to the Google homepage.
In that same year, a turkey was added to Thanksgiving and two pumpkins appeared as the 'o's for Halloween the following year.
Now, there is a full team of doodlers, illustrators, graphic designers, animators and classically trained artists who help create what you see on those days.
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Among the Doodles in 2021 is one celebrating the inventor of basketball.
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The animated Doodle - remembering - showed children shooting hoops.
Doodles celebrating the and have also featured.