Sioux City Journal

Monologue to tell tale of Standing Bear, tribes

By Travis Coleman, Journal staff writer | Posted: Monday, August 27, 2007

Four years ago, Christopher Cartmill was no more than a curious outsider interested in the tales of Nebraska's American Indian tribes. Now, he's being trusted with telling the story of its members and one of its most heralded chiefs.

That transformation is documented in "The Nebraska Dispatches," a monologue based on journal entries Cartmill wrote while researching a play he was set to write on Chief Standing Bear of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska.

Standing Bear successfully argued in U.S. District Court in Omaha that an American Indian is a "person" deserving of certain rights. The decision allowed the Poncas to return to their land in modern day Knox County, Neb., that had been previously taken from them by the federal government.

But before he could write that play, Cartmill said he needed to learn more about the area's tribes, which led him to Renee New Holy, an Omaha tribal member from Macy, Neb.

"I felt that it was vital," said Cartmill, a playwright originally from Lincoln, Neb.

But after first meeting on the Omaha Indian Reservation, New Holy questioned why Cartmill, a non-Indian, would be interested in the stories of Standing Bear and other tribal people.

"(I told him) to tell this story, you have to understand what we've been through as Native people," New Holy said. "I saw myself as a gatekeeper. If you make it past me, you may have a chance to do something pretty awesome."

Cartmill wanted to write about the "powerful" story of Standing Bear's desire to go home, Cartmill said. But "Dispatches" details the changes he and New Holy went through in the year they spent together, also featuring the "bad use of cowboy boots and a very small car," Cartmill said.

"I was pretty ill prepared for the journey," Cartmill said.

"The Nebraska Dispatches" can be seen for free at 4:30 p.m. today at Valentine Parker Jr. Center in Macy. Following the performance, New Holy is set to perform a poem on American Indian youth suicide.

"Dispatches" is the first of three plays, with the last two using actors to tell Standing Bear's story. Those performances are set to be performed in the Omaha and Ponca tribal languages, Cartmill said. Cartmill has performed "Dispatches" in Lincoln and shows are planed in New York City later this year.

While those plays are still in production, the lessons Cartmill learned on American Indian life over the past year continue.

"It will never be done now," Cartmill said. "It's too much a part of my life."

Story Comments

John wrote on May 6, 2008 8:56 PM:

" Note "Sleeping Bear Press" (Michigan) has many books on Indians and written by Non Natives. I think this is outragous......... Stand up and Boycott this companies and the authors that are non native writing about Indian legends. "

American Indian Artists Inc. (AMERINDA) wrote on Aug 28, 2007 4:53 PM:

" We as Native artists and people have got to support the development of a genre of Native Cinema and Native Theater. There will always be non-Native people developing works of art with Native themes and subjects. The reason their work is widely recognized is because there is not enough of our work out there to outshine them! We must transform our anger, resentment and frustration into positive creative energy and start writing, directing and producting. A work of art is not finished unless it has an audience so our communities must come out and support us too. If we do this then we can finally take our rightful place in contemporary American Arts. "

Tan Davis wrote on Aug 28, 2007 3:43 PM:

" As an American Indian...I find that it is important to have our stories told...but by our people...there are some things that NON-Indians will not understand about us and our stories..I can agree with nativesong NON indians just need to know what we want them to know....I don't see any indians trying to write a play about any european stories?..I also get tired of people who feel it is their destiny to have something done for the Indian...I personally would rather hear a orally told story by an Indian of any nation....I heard enough of the non indian stories ....dang why can't our people tell their own stories why do non-indians feel they have to be the ones to tell the stories of a people they have no idea about... "

cartmill wrote on Aug 28, 2007 8:02 AM:

" I am a non-Native. But I would not say I'm totally clueless. Clueless, yes, at times. Many times. But not totally. You see, I know it is just my opinion and I speak for no one but myself. But what is most important to me is to listen. That's what I've been trying to do in this work. Truly listen. There's been too little of that. What I know of history shows it. And that's how we will hear what they need to know. "

richard chilton wrote on Aug 28, 2007 12:22 AM:

" Helen Hornbeck Tanner, Historian Emeritus at the Newberry Library in Chicago - one of the great repositories of Indigenous documents in the world - has stated often her views that oral history is generally more accurate than written chronicles, because written history is only as good as those who compile and interpret it, while oral tradition is tempered by collective memory. If the telling of Indo-European/American history is so "accurate," why then, here, now, today, in the early years of the 21st Century, is it that "historical viewpoint" - nor none but a relative handful of Senior High School students anywhere in the United States - does not know and cannot cite the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision, JOHNSON V. McINTOSH. 8 Wheat. 543 (1823), declaring the extinguishment of Indian title through conquest: America's "War on Terror" against Aboriginal Peoples completed in the 19th Century? "