“My dad's sister died upstairs, when she was 10 years old, of spinal meningitis.”
Built with old, tan stone and rectangular windows with splintering, white wooden trim, the Pawnee Tribal Administration building has extensive history. A long walkway sits in front, a wide and welcoming entrance to all. Dawna Riding In Hare worked there for over two decades.
“Her younger sister, who was 8 years old, sat on the stairs right out there,” she said, pointing, “and cried when she found out. And so I worked in the building with their memories.”
Riding In Hare sat at the head of a wooden table in a small conference room, the afternoon light spilling warmly through faded white curtains. Sixty-five years ago, this had been the girls dormitory for the Pawnee Indian Boarding School — the very same boarding school her father and two aunts attended.
Riding In Hare, a professor of Native American studies, believes it is vital to keep alive the stories of those who came before her. That includes stories about her father’s experiences as a teacher. Old vanilla papers were splayed out on the desk in front of her.
“I have some letters from 1968, which I found in my dad's stuff,” she said. “I think the writing assignment was, ‘What is a good teacher?’ I looked at these dates, and my dad had just transferred from this school. … Those are just letters, and the ones that really stuck out to me [were] the ones where they kept talking about how he explained things to them.”
Like her parents, Riding In Hare is an educator. A professor at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, she teaches Intro to American Indian Studies, lecturing on American Indian history, culture, societal issues and important topics pertaining to Native American people. She also teaches American Indian Sovereignty, a course on tribal sovereignty, law, culture and politics.
Whether on the OSU campus or in Pawnee, Oklahoma, she can hardly step into an environment without someone rushing to talk to her. When she walks into the Pawnee Tribal Administration Building, all the workers call her name to say hello. Her tall frame, long silver hair, colorful dangling earrings and warm smile are easily recognizable.
Her parents were educators of Indigenous youth, so Riding In Hare grew up on the Navajo reservation, the Cheyenne reservation in Montana, and in Durant, Oklahoma, but not with her own people — the Pawnee tribe.
But Riding In Hare had close ties to her family. When her mother died, her aunt — the one who cried on the steps — stepped in to help raise her. She noted that in the Pawnee language, the word aritat means both mother and aunt, signifying the importance of aunts. Her uncle also cared for her when her father died, and now she wants to show others this same kind of love.
“My grandmother was a real small, little lady,” Riding In Hare said affectionately. “But I always felt so safe with her. I always felt that, because of the respect that people had for her, that I was always safe, right by her side. Even during political times, you know, when there was a lot of conflict politically, I knew that if I was next to her, that I was safe.”
Riding In Hare takes pride in her Pawnee heritage, finding her home in the Pawnee lands in Oklahoma because of the stories and memories of her family that are deeply woven in.
“I've lived a lot of places,” she said. “But I've never felt the contentment that I have living here. And it's kind of like a magnet, you know, and it draws people back.”
This story was reported and produced by Tylie Griffith Bookout as part of NPR’s Next Generation Radio, hosted by Indigenous Journalists Association, OSU School of Media & Strategic Communications and KOSU.
