Terri Peterson
On Belonging and Storytelling
How does storytelling maintain, restore, and empower who we are? We chat about storytelling and how it weaves into our own understanding, wisdom, and belonging.
Teresa (Terri) Peterson is Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and a citizen of the Upper Sioux Community. Terri Peterson describes herself as a writer, gardener, and relative.
Check out Terri here on her website.
New book: Voices From Pejuhutazizi: Dakota Stories and Storytellers.
TRANSCRIPT
Leah:
Boozhoo. I'm Leah Lemm, citizen of Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe
Daniel:
Hau Mitakuyapi, I'm Daniel Lemm, citizen of Lower Sioux Dakota Oyate.
Leah:
And this is Wisdom Continuum. We are bringing you conversations from awesome native folks to celebrate native wisdom for a healthier, thoughtful more just future.
Daniel:
Today, we have a great guest and we'll be talking about how storytelling maintains, restores and empowers who we are as native people.
Leah:
Teresa Peterson, or Terri, is Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and a citizen of the Upper Sioux community. Terri Peterson describes herself as a writer, gardener, and relative.
Daniel:
Teresa is an author, a poet and contributor to Voices Rising: Native Women Writers. Teresa and her Uncle Super LaBatte's book, Voices from Pejuhutazizi: Dakota Stories and Storytellers published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press is now available.
Leah:
I'm super excited to read it. I've heard nothing but great things.
Daniel:
Me too. I pre-ordered my copy, so I'm just waiting for it to come in.
Leah:
Yeah, storytelling is so important. It's so human and gosh, I've said it before and I'll say it again, no, I feel like if our stories stay alive, our people stay alive, and it is impossible for those who would rather that not be the case to erase us. So, storytelling is a top priority. Well, one of the top priorities, I should say, there are many.
Daniel:
And I know you and the work that you do is very much about story sharing and I'm really looking forward to talking with you and more about Terri and the stories that she tells through her work.
Leah:
Absolutely. All right. Well, let's do it.
Daniel:
All right.
Terri:
Hey.
Daniel:
Hey Terri.
Terri:
Oh, wow. It's so great to see you, Dan. Hi, Leah.
Daniel:
You too Terri.
Leah:
Hi. Nice to see you.
Daniel:
Terri, I don't think you've met Leah before and vice versa. So Terri, my wife, Leah, Leah long time great person, friend, Terri Peterson.
Leah:
It's nice to meet you. And Daniel and I are in the same house. We are just in different rooms. That's it. He's with the dogs.
Daniel:
So the room that I am in is not the dog house. It's just downstairs in my home office area, my makeshift home office area. And, yes, I've got the dogs with me.
Terri:
And you're not in the dog house, right?
Daniel:
Correct. Correct. Although, it might be warmer in a dog house.
Leah:
Are you staying warm, Terri?
Terri:
I hate to say this, but I'm down in Florida, so it is a little cool and rainier here, but not -12.
Leah:
Very nice. Okay. Can you take a few moments just to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do.
Terri:
Sure. So, [Dakota Introduction]. So greetings relatives and I shake your hand with a warm heart. It's really great to see you, Dan and I just actually got out of a Dakota Wicohan meeting, so Dan and I have good connection there. Yeah. So I am Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota, my Dakota name is Little Oak Woman, and I come from the place where they dig the yellow medicine, Pejuhutazizi. So what do I do? Well, I have been doing independent contracting, which I had a blast doing for a number of years now doing planning, evaluation, a little bit of facilitation and that kind of thing, so that's been really good. And then I recently joined NDN Collective, so that's been a blast.
Terri:
I've been there for a few weeks now. And I love when you can do something that you, like your skillset is really tapped and so, it doesn't feel like work. And then, you can be of service to your people, but just really advancing the work. I'll just stop there but I guess I want to say one more thing is I love gardening. And so, right now we're in that planning mode of gardening and thinking and dreaming about what we're going to be planting this coming season, so that's a little bit about me.
Daniel:
Terri what we want to talk with you about today is how storytelling maintains, restores and empowers who we are. So, no small topics by any means, and we were on your website earlier and we saw all of the work that you're doing. And you talked about those intersections, storytelling, identity, restoration, and invisibility. So right off the bat here, let's go for a big question, which is what is the responsibility of being entrusted with stories from your community and ancestors?
Terri:
Yeah, that is a big question. Well, I think first and foremost, really, the primary responsibility is just to share them. We have to share them for the next generation or they're not there. So one of the things I think about on the storytelling piece is my just immense gratitude to my uncle Super and my great grandpa, Waŋbdiṡka, Fred Pearsall and my great aunt Cerisse who really, obviously, must have saw the importance of sharing these stories. And it had such a significant impact on me. So I think of my uncle Super, really, he's a treasured mentor for me, he's been a lifelong mentor. And when you have a mentor, oftentimes you go to them with questions and perceived dilemmas and I'd ask him lots of questions and then he wouldn't really answer me.
Terri:
Well, he would, but he would do it in this story and I would sometimes walk away a little baffled, wondering, "Did he not answer that, or?" And then sometimes, I would start figuring it out or be thinking about it days later. But I think that's one of the great things about stories is that they cause you to really think critically instead of just giving you what we think is the right answer, which, of course, is not even a reality anyway, right? There's multiple answers. So, I'm just grateful for him for that. And then my great grandpa, Fred Pearsall wrote a letter before he passed away to his five daughters. And in there he tells stories, but he also tells this long story about their mother and grandmother and their story and their family.
Terri:
And I didn't really understand it until later on. And when I picked it up again, different times reading it, it just came to me that, wow, some of these stories tell of who I am. It might be about somebody else, but it's a story about who I come from, and I realize I come from this really long line of strong, amazing women. And so, I am so grateful that he wrote those stories down because he, of course, passed away before I was born. And then, my great aunt Cerisse, my grandma's sister self published it into this book. And so, I later came to understand about that. And so, that's the power of stories, right? Just really understanding who I come from and the resiliency and strength and, yes, there's all this pain and trauma in the story, but what emerged for me, what resonated and stood out for me was I come from a long line of amazingly strong women.
Terri:
So I'll just share two, if I can, just one tiny story in there and I'll just give you abbreviated version, but after the 1862 war, my great grandmother Tasinasusbecawin when she was 10 or 12 years old with her family were, many people were fleeing and heading North up to Canada and soldiers were chasing after them and they had to move very quickly. They had forgotten their bullets. Somebody said, "Who's going to go back and get them?" And she volunteered, isn't that phenomenal? Like a 10 or 12 year old volunteering to go back and get them. So she went back and ran and got them and then soldiers were shooting at her, and I just think about that. Who was I at 10 or 12 years old? And I was reflecting on that. How timid I was at that time. And I just imagine the bravery and courage that it took for her to do that, so she ended up saving the day for that. And so, that's one of those stories that just stuck with me forever.
Leah:
That's really beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I hear what you're saying so much about, in your case, hearing a story at first and wondering if did they even answer the question? A story is able to exist and not be necessarily a singular lesson, but when we read it and depending on, or listen to it and depending on where we are, what frame of mind we're in the story can take on a life depending on where we're coming to it from.
Leah:
So we might see courage and recognize the courage in ourselves in those moments, and I just love that. And to hear that you can let a story exist without trying to ram home some sort of lesson, specific lesson is very wise, because then the person can, the listener can gain the knowledge that they need instead of the prescribed knowledge.
Terri:
Yes, and in a moment of time and you come back to it, layers of it come back to you with new lessons and insights for whatever is needed at that time.
Leah:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Terri:
And so, I want to share just one more other tiny story just to get illuminate that example. So there's another story in there where they were coming back to Minnesota. So, this is their Homeland and they wanted to return and they didn't have a place to stay. And so, my great, great grandparents stayed with a friend of mine who's a friend of mine now, Sharon Pazi, stayed with her relatives and provided a home for them. And, of course, I had read this story before, but this is how many years ago was I reading this story? It was when I was Dan, you might have actually been on the Dakota Wicohan Board at the time, and I was looking to build, build out some more staffing.
Terri:
And so, I had asked Sharon, my friend to come home and she was living over in Michigan. And I was telling her to come home, and she had a different name at the time. And then, she had recently changed her name to Pazi and I didn't really understand the story of it or anything or why she did that. But I was reading that story over and it said my grandpa's writing is saying, "And they stayed with Pazi and Itate because they had no home of their own," and I was sitting there, I so remember this moment and tears were running down my face and my husband Jake came into the room and he said, "Honey, what's wrong?" And I said, "I don't know. I don't know what's wrong."
Terri:
And it took me some time, a few days later to realize, "Oh my God, that was such a spiritual story," right? That was an ancestral spiritual story where, see, I had been telling her to come home. "I have a job for you. Come home. I want you to come home." And it was like a reciprocal thing, so paying it back in some way, her family had taken care of our family those generations ago. And yeah, it just is amazing. So do you hear what I'm saying? Something that comes to you from generations and then, this layer and then the gift and understanding of what reciprocity and coming home means. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm getting a little bit choked up.
Leah:
Yeah, that makes so much sense too, because sometimes we'll feel those emotions come to the surface and not even know why when you hear a certain story. So you know there's something there to examine, and you might not know immediately what that lesson or that relationship to the story is, but upon examining and upon reflecting and discovering, that helps build almost your own story and your own relationship with the story that's being told.
Terri:
Yes, yes. So those just couple stories that I shared and, of course, they're abbreviated, but they really gave me a sense of place, a sense of belongingness, resiliency. So those stories gave that to me. And so, part of my responsibility then is of course, to share that and then I think about the different called these that my ancestors had went through. And so, my purpose then is to really, or my responsibility is to really live into my purpose, into my life's purpose because they did that, so I could be here today.
Leah:
Great.
Daniel:
Terri, part of what I hear is a cycle and a circle. And part of even with this podcast is about the past, present and future in Indigenous wisdom. And your second story there, it's what I'm thinking about right now is you're sharing story that happened long time ago. And then you're also bringing in the present, really, I mean, in the last couple of years into the story and it makes me think about future generations and how might that cycle, will it repeat itself again? And you share that story is also documented, orally as well as through a podcast here for your future relatives to hear and maybe they reflect on the same thing and how that cycle continues.
Terri:
Yes.
Leah:
So Teresa, how did you come to this work?
Terri:
This is something that was, I don't want to say life's work. I don't know if I could say it's my life's work, but it is something that I ended up pursuing as my research and then ended up being my dissertation was around storytelling and its role in sense of belonging. And it was so funny because I can remember our cohort was in Hawaii, oh, how nice was that? But it was an Indigenous cohort at the University of Minnesota Duluth and we were in Hawaii and I was sitting with Dr. Tom Peacock and we were proposing, pitching our idea of what we would want our research on. And I remember I was going into this long explanation and this feeling and whatever. And he goes, "Oh, you're talking about sense of belonging."
Terri:
And I was like, "What? Is that actually a thing?" And so, I ended up doing my whole research on that and there was tons of research and you guys might even remember Maslow's Hierarchy and sense of belonging is in that, which is great. I get that. But what I started doing is, of course, wanting to read from what do our Dakota scholars and our experts in our communities have to say about belongingness? And Ella Deloria talks a lot about belongingness. No one was outside of the circle, everyone belonged. And then, of course, some of our own contemporary Dakota experts like Glen and Tonwin Mary Louise Defender Wilson. And just a lot of others, what I learned was that, you know how Maslow's Hierarchy is and I can't quite remember where sense of belonging is, but it's a little further up the triangle.
Terri:
And what I found out is in Dakota, it is the base. It is the foundation to everything. So belongingness is like the core, everything emanates from that. So when you think about how our whole structure is set up, we have our tiwahe, our tiospaye, our Oyate, our family, our extended family and nation, our community. And so, everything starts with that beloved child and Ella Deloria talks of that. And then even some other scholars like John Powell, he talks a lot about how we can address so many of our issues, and he does a lot of things around structural racism and things like that, but he said, "So many of our issues, you don't need to throw money at it.
Terri:
We need to make sure that everybody belongs in the circle, and that they have a purpose and that they matter." And so, I just think about, man, we have it. So right. Our Dakota ways, we have it so we have it so right and some of these later people like Maslow and Powell, they're all catching onto this. And so, yeah, belongingness. So there's lots of ways we can gain belongingness, and I won't go into all those, but, of course, my focus is on storytelling and the role that storytelling can have in belongingness.
Leah:
Yeah. I think that is so wonderful because you can see yourself in story and it's this reciprocal relationship, even among the listener and the storyteller when it comes to the stories. That belongingness is everywhere. I can see how that might be or how that is, rather, the foundation. And Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, I used to of look at that a lot. I think maybe I had a project in school or something, where the foundation is shelter and food and stuff like that. But shelter and food, those things are made so much easier when you're in community, when you're in family and belonging.
Terri:
Yes. And, of course, if you look at that hierarchy, then I think it's the top is self actualization and that's when you don't have all these isms and everything, right? Well, what I would replace that with is I learned this concept from my father-in-law, who was one of my Dakota language teachers, Doug Peterson, who's no longer with us, but I remember reading an article out of Winds of Change, and it described like this community where everybody was working together. Everybody had a purpose, everybody mattered. It was like an interdependency and things like that. I said, "What is this? What is this called? This is the answer. This is what we need in our community."
Terri:
And he said, that would be wowachiye, wowachiye. So if you look in the Dakota dictionary, it says something like accountability, responsibility like that, which I don't think it really gives quite what it really means. So what my teacher, Doug taught me was that it is that. It's that the creator has given each of us a role and responsibility, and our job as adults is to nurture that within our young people, that they have purpose in life, that they matter, and we all are interdependent. We all rely upon each other, no matter what that gift is we all have that purpose. And again, it all comes from that sense of belongingness.
Leah:
I really appreciate that because it's almost hard to create a hierarchy, I think, when it comes to this. It's almost like a spiral or something where it just is more complex than a pyramid. And I think it's really even juxtaposed with the top of the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs. I don't mean to keep bringing that up, but the idea that self is the first word in that place that should all strive to be is just completely a different worldview than what I'm hearing. And this conversation is really clicking for me.
Terri:
Well, even in my introduction, I mean, I introduced myself, I could say, "Wasichuya Teresa Peterson, emakiyapi." It's not starting with I it's, they call me. And so, even in our language, it just calls you back to the understanding that we are connected, that you belong to a people, we belong to a space and place, so that belongingness is even embedded in our language.
Daniel:
I want to say Terri, you've got a book coming out with your uncle Super LaBatte, Voices from Pejuhutazizi: Dakota Stories and Storytellers. I just wanted to give you some space here to share a little bit about the book before I ask you about an excerpt from it.
Terri:
Sure. So, I mean, I told those couple stories that my grandpa Fred Pearsall had in that book that my aunt Cerisse ... So several years ago, I had visited my aunt Cerisse over the years, and, of course, she's gone now. And I was doing a little interviewing with her and things like that and asked her about the book. But she wrote this when it was a typewriter. And so, I would see, oh, there's things that could be cleaned up and maybe create a little bit more context to contemporary times. And so, we came to an agreement that I would rewrite, get this book republished. So it started out like that. That was like many years ago, many, many years ago. And I putzed around on it, worked on it.
Terri:
And then, I had all these kids and go to school and jobs and it just kept getting delayed. So this turned into a 20 year project and it morphed into asking my uncle to be a part of it, because he is our gifted storyteller and historian in our family. But then I had to figure out like all these voices, right? So there's like my grandpa's voice and then, he's telling story other people that were telling him stories, and then there's my uncle's story and different stories. So I had to make sense of it, which is, of course, the kind of job I really like doing, right? Planning and figuring things out and making design. So I remember I was over at Darlene St. Clair's house and she'd let me use her space, her sanctuary to figure this out, and I had giant pieces of paper all over the walls.
Terri:
And anyway, it came to me these are all stories of land and stories that transmit values and traditions and stories provide sense of belong and stories reconcile and stories entertain and stories lift up our heroes. And then, I just started moving stories into those little sections and then, ta-da, there you go. And then, I was in a Native writer's group and shout out to my Native women writers, just so grateful to them. I had Gaby Tateyuskanskan in our group and she had asked me some really tough questions. And so, they were so good. So I ended up becoming the narrator of the book. So I'm on the book ends, I'm on the beginning and the end and helping guide the readers through the book and then, in the center are all the stories in those categories.
Terri:
So it turned out really lovely and I'm grateful to Minnesota Historical Society Press that saw the value of our stories, the stories of Mni Sota Makoce and Pejuhutazizi. So, yeah, it's coming out and I'm super excited. Well, actually, it's out and we have our book launch, it turned into virtual because, of course, COVID so it's February 5th and I can send you the link too.
Leah:
Great.
Terri:
Yeah. So I'm super excited about it. It turned out great. We got some good pictures. We got some Dakota language in there. We even have a map, and then even, a little family tree to kind of help people if they really wanted to dig in deep to figure out what now? Who's she talking about here? Or that kind of thing.
Daniel:
Terri, I've got the book launch on my calendar and I've got my copy on the way, so I'm really looking forward to having both part of that launch as well as the stories themselves, and one of those, so we talked about an excerpt from the book, so I'm just going to read off the excerpt that I have here from your website. Because, of course, I don't have the book just yet where it says, "My cousins and I rode horses up and down the deer and people trails, bringing them to the creek to quench their thirst. As long as we ate our egg and spam sandwiches and we're back by the evening, we could be feral children exploring the hills and valleys along the Minnesota river," end of our excerpt.
Daniel:
That is a beautiful piece of, of storytelling there, Terri. I mean. I can almost see you, and I almost a similar story in my mind, except instead of a horse I'm riding a bicycle. So it's one of those things that even I can identify in some ways with that story. So it takes me back to simpler times, good times. But I want to ask you, if you could tell us how your identity and visibility were affected by sharing this particular story.
Terri:
Yeah. So, I mean, I just really drew from my own memory of spending time with my cousins on land at Pejuhutazizi and so, I shared several of those type of stories, but, yeah, they had Shetland ponies, so they weren't big giant horses, but they were big for us when we were little. But I think it's just a real sense sensory experience being on land, being with my relatives, how we took care of each other. I could be myself in all ways where I didn't have to feel censored or whatever. My cousins are like my sisters and my aunts were my summer mothers, and it just helped me understand, I have an extended family. And so, because I didn't grow up on the reservation. I grew up in a small farming community outside of St. Cloud, and typical nuclear families.
Terri:
And so, this provided really an understanding and extension beyond myself, beyond the nuclear family and an extension to land and relatives, that I am a part of place and a part of people and I'm connected to them. So, of course, today, I would tell my younger self that that's what being Dakota is that sense of belonging to place and to relatives. And we always have that phrase, Mitakuye owas'iƞ, we're all related. And that sensory experience reminds me of that. You think about the creek or if we go down to the river and there's the trees, the cottonwoods there, and I can imagine when we helped my grandma bake bread and just all the connections of land and place and relatives.
Terri:
I don't know if I even answered your question. I did a little trick there, but, yeah, that's what that story does for me. And I guess one thing I want to say is that this whole collection of stories and including my own story, when I was growing up in school, like probably many of us, those stories that tell me who I am and my purpose in life were completely absent in our education and schooling, and even felt like they didn't matter. And, of course, we talk about master narratives and what the truth or reality is and they do so much harm, I think, because it does the opposite of the belonging. We have this lack of belongingness and lack of connection, if we say, "This is what it is to be American," or, "These are the experiences for Americans," and you can't connect to them and they don't resonate and nobody looks and acts and feels, those sensory things are not there for you.
Terri:
So it's really important for our young people to have that connection of belongingness and, again, stories is just one of those ways that we arrive to that place of belongingness. And so, I want to say this one little quote, and I might have not quite right, but Thomas King says, "All we are is stories. All we are stories." And we understand that all stories matter. We need to make sure that we have diverse stories, that we have space for young people to be able to share story and make connections.
Daniel:
Terri, I want to say that you made the comment, you're not certain if you answered my question and I want to say to that, you did answer my question through a story that has me thinking. So to bring things back around full circle here, yeah, you did answer the question and you've got me thinking.
Leah:
It might have not been the answer to the question that he had, but it's answer to the question we should have asked.
Daniel:
Leah knows that all too well. Terri is there anything we didn't talk to you about that you wanted to make sure that we covered here today?
Terri:
I think just the one thing I want to share is that I want to encourage our young people, I want to tell them, you have a purpose and place in this world. You have a purpose and place and you matter, your story matters and then, I want to say to us adults, our job isn't to tell them what we think are the right answers. Our job is just really to nurture, for them to discover and figure out what their purpose in life is. That's what our job is. So we all have purpose. We all matter, and we all need each other, and especially in today's times. We got to figure this out. We all matter. We all belong. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Leah:
Miigwech Teresa. Really wonderful. 100% agree. And it is a great reminder. And, yeah, I appreciate you so much for sharing.
Terri:
This was fun.
Leah:
Good.
Terri:
We got to talk again some time. Yeah. That's great. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Leah:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Daniel:
Thank you so much, Terri. Pidamaya. Wonderful to hear more stories, Terri there's so much I learned about you and relatives here just during this conversation. So, yes, I look forward to future ones as well.
Terri:
Yes, I hope to see you guys at the book launch or somewhere down the road. In person [crosstalk 00:38:33].
Leah:
I know.
Terri:
We all have something to share. We all have a story to share. So I think this is fantastic. I love Wisdom Continuum. You guys keep doing it. Awesome.
Leah:
Miigwech.
Daniel:
Thank you.
Terri:
Tókša.
Daniel:
Thanks Terri.
Leah:
Terri Peterson, wonderful, wonderful person. I really loved so much what she had to say, especially about belongingness being foundational. I mean, I think that really speaks to our needs in life and how we can be fulfilled.
Daniel:
Exactly. And not putting ourselves at the center of everything and understanding how we relate to the world around us and vice versa.
Leah:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Terri Peterson is Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota, citizen of the Upper Sioux Community. Terri Peterson, and describes herself as a writer, gardener and relative.
Daniel:
Terri has a website, a really nice website called teresapetersonwords.com. Lots of information on her website about being a writer, a gardener, and a relative as well as how to order a copy of the book that's coming out, go to www.teresapetersonwords.com. Lots of great stories on there as well as other writings and thoughts that Terri has to share with the world. We are talking with so many of great people and we want to say that your input matters too. Do you know someone who's working on systems change or centering Indigenous values, or do you have a topic or interview suggestion? If so, then email wisdomcontinuum@gmail.com.
Leah:
Find Wisdom Continuum online at wisdomcontinuum.com and on social media on Instagram and Twitter at WisdomContinuum. Thank you to Wisdom Continuum's consulting producer, Multitude, miigwech to Manda Lillie for the production help. I'm Leah.
Daniel:
I'm Daniel. This is Wisdom Continuum.
