Cover sample of a republished version of a Lakota/Dakota prayer book available online at www.amazon.com Free, online and public domain versions are linked below.
There is a common cross cultural saying emanating from around the world that goes something like this: when an elder dies, a whole library is lost. The common western notion of knowledge and information being encapsulated within manufactured vessels like books or digital platforms doesn't mean that everything important is to be found there. As T.S. Eliot once wrote: "Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?". That knowledge is to be found within elders whose lived experience and accumulated understandings form a unique collection of material that is singular and irreplaceable. The most important libraries are living among us.
Hazel Red Bird, who will be memorialized today at St Elizabeth's in Wakpala, South Dakota, was a frequent visitor to the library. She would frequently drive herself here to spend hours writing, reading and researching. She wanted to both share what she knew, while trying to help the local community with what she still had to give. She was a library of knowledge that spanned a youth on Standing Rock, before leaving in 1944 to serve as a nurse in World War II. Over 60 years later, she returned to Standing Rock after a full life. Hazel was sustained by her Episcopal faith with her obituary stating how much she enjoyed Lakota hymns and her Niobrara Wóčekiye Wówapi. We will miss her wisdom, wit and visits to the library.
Some of the oldest writings in the Lakota/Dakota language are tied to Christianity. Because of this, many Wóčekiye Wówapi (translated roughly as "religious or prayer writing) and Wóčekiye Olówaŋ (Lakota Songs) or Odówaŋ (Dakota), can be found on the internet in public domain form from libraries and affiliated catalogs like the Digital Public Library of America, Hathi Trust and Internet Archive. The Episcopal Church has an online copy of the Niobrara Wóčekiye Wówapi that you can read online here.