In the Winter 2025 issue of South Dakota History, Alex FireThunder, a Lakota language teacher and the chair of the Lakota Studies Department at Oglala Lakota College, edits a collection of previously unpublished texts by Ella C. Deloria, a Dakota Sioux educator and linguistic anthropologist.
In the 1930s, Deloria traveled to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to interview Lakota elders, including FireThunder’s great-great-grandfather Edgar Fire Thunder, to preserve Lakota stories and knowledge from being lost in a rapidly changing world. This issue collects these interviews with Edgar Fire Thunder, along with stories shared by another Lakota man, Asa Ten Fingers, and Deloria’s version of a winter count kept by Angelique FireThunder. Each text is presented in Lakota as well as literal and free-translated English versions.
Deloria’s analysis expands upon Edgar Fire Thunder’s insights into traditional Lakota stories and beliefs, providing an invaluable resource for understanding Lakota language and history. Alex FireThunder writes that these stories are “not merely archival documents. . . . [but] living voices from our people, preserved in their original form. Making these stories available to our communities and to students ensures that they continue to teach, inspire, and guide.”