Day 583 Daily Create Cowboy Shakespeare

Daily Create

Today’s Daily Create [ @ds106dc #tdc3565 ] is to translate “cowboy” into “Shakespear” Y’all bein’ or y’all not being’, that’s my ask.

Cowboy Talk

Since the generator didn’t seem to translate well, I did a little research and found some real cowboy talk to translate and some historical cowboy tales… enjoy the postcard translation above from this Flickr Commons image, and these few stories from the North Dakota Historical Society. I did a little stories search on “cowboy speech” and found these stories from 1887, Williston, ND [no copyright]. You many also find this “Cowboy Law” article interesting, also from the NDHS.

Historical Controversy

And you can read the words of cowboy General William F Cody– Buffalo Bill — here — although remember he’s only telling his version of a story for payment -different than actual facts as Native Americans would share. Still, in his later years, he was outspoken on Women’s Suffrage and rights of Native Americans.

• See the PBS American Experience on Buffalo Bill
• Smithsonian: A complicated man who supported Women’s Suffrage and Native American’s fighting back
• Buffalo News: Buffalo Bills’ history with Native Americans Was Complicated

Vine Deloria Jr., the late historian who was Standing Rock Sioux, wrote that Native performers offered white audiences a more nuanced sense of American Indian life, and that the performers themselves were “able to observe American society and draw their own conclusion,” making the show “worth more than every school built by the government on any of the reservations.”

Buffalo News: Buffalo Bills’ history with Native Americans Was Complicated

Life is Complicated

I grew up in North Dakota, with “Custer’s Last Stand.” But my learning in school and on my own found a different and more complete story of which Custer and the forts were not my focus. Instead I focused on the local tribal histories of the original people since I was fortunate to grow up on the land of the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Sahnish and with the history of their people. Most of my learning involved understanding the Hidatsa culture, whose villages once dotted the Missouri River on which Bismarck was established. I am thankful for access to the stories at these sites:

• Knife River Indian Village National Park Service
• On-A-Slant Indian Village National Park Service

On whose land did you grow up? Take a look here to find out.