Ella Deloria's silences ~ Malinda Words

Ella Cara Deloria (1889 - 1971), also called Aŋpétu Wašté Wiŋ, meaning ‘Beautiful Day Woman’ in Lakota, the language of the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes, was an educator, anthropologist, ethnographer, linguist and novelist. Some of the wisdom of her people has been captured in ‘Deer Women and Elk Men: Lakota Narratives of Ella Deloria,’ a collection edited by Julian Rice.

That’s a book I haven’t read but plan to. What directed me to Ella Deloria and this book is a quote that pops up on social media every now and again. It’s almost like a finely distilled treatise on the different ways in which words or rather communication is understood by different cultures. She refers to white people and native peoples. The conclusions, hardly complimentary of white folk, were probably framed by the violent nature of a specific encounter between cultures.

If we were to ignore what encounter has inscribed on these reflections, there’s some very interesting thoughts, in particular about the use and abuse of words, and the largely unrecognised worth of silence.

‘People should regard their words as seeds. They should sow them, and then allow them to grow in silence. Our elders taught us that the earth is always talking to us, but we should keep silent in order to hear her.There are many voices besides ours. Many voices.’

We can’t force other people to be silent, but we can help dampen the cacophony simply by listening. Ella Deloria speaks of situations where silence troubles certain people to the point that they fill it with words. Any words. In fact, she observes, some people speak as though they are convinced that pause and, worse, silence indicate stupidity. They want to talk and are not willing to listen because listening requires silence and silence is feared since it might make others think one is stupid and therefore has nothing to say. So such people would interrupt others.

Ella Deloria likened words to seeds. Seeds are valued. They are not sowed aimlessly. The sowing or planting is a measured exercise. If you were to bury one seed in a fistful of seeds, plant growth will be inhibited. Indeed, it could very well diminish the yield. The worth of a word, likewise, gets devalued if it is buried under dozens of other words.

Those who speak slowly and with an economy of words are not necessarily dull. Perhaps they speak only when they feel they must and only when they can contribute to whatever is being discussed.

Ella Deloria made me think of dictionaries. She made me imagine all the words of a dictionary flying off the pages.

What do we do with a roomful of words? Do we take them one at a time, examine their shapes and ponder about their meanings? Do we wait for words to walk up to us on their own volition, demanding examination? Do we order them alphabetically? Do we pick a few randomly and see which configurations could make a grammatically correct sentence?

If there are indeed several grammatically correct sentence do we filter them through heart and mind, shelve them according to some form of categorization that makes sense to us, commit these to memory and, if the need did arise, pick the right one from the right drawer and with the solemnity typical of reading some sacred text speak out the words slowly and softly?

Do we reach out, collect a fistful of words and fling them in all directions? Would these words encounter other words similarly flung? What kind of conversations do words randomly picked and carelessly configured have with one another? What happens to word seeds willy nilly tossed around but unnourished by the water of silence? How many words survive this drought and will those that do not perish mutate to the point that they acquire the most grotesque shapes or lose meaning altogether? Do truths retreat from these clashes of ‘civilisations,’ scurry to find shelter from the ballistic missiles that some words have turned into, waiting for more discerning minds and hearts?

Ella Deloria said a few words. She was quiet for the most part. Maybe that’s why this morning I was drawn to her and that’s why I think I should stop. Right now.

13 May 2023

Ella Deloria's silences

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

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