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A Conversation With Mary Brave Bird

I did not learn until two hours before her speech that Mary Brave Bird would not be coming to the Sisters of Color conference in Bellingham. We were told only that Mary could not get a ride from Rosebud to the airport in Rapid City, South Dakota. At the last minute, Kate Trueblood arranged to have the Micmac poet Gail Tremblay read from her work, as well as from a chapter of Lakota Woman. Tremblay performed superbly, which lessened our disappointment. Audience members, especially those unfamiliar with Brave Bird’s writings, were visibly moved, and the opening session was a success. Still, my own disappointment remained. This was, in part, because I had seen the regenerative effect of Brave Bird’s writings upon my students at Western Washington. Luckily, the academic quarter neared completion, and I had a couple of weeks to drive out to South Dakota. I phoned my brother, R. Todd Wise, who lives in Sioux Falls and who teaches Native American Studies at the University of Sioux Falls. Todd agreed to drive out to Rosebud with me, to see if we couldn’t find Brave Bird. I phoned Mary’s mother, who seemed to think she would go along with the interview, but she warned us that Mary had just gotten out of the hospital and was on medication. Mary herself did not have a phone, so there was no way to confirm with her directly. On 19 June 1998, we drove the five hours or so from Sioux Falls to Rosebud, planning to ask around until we found Mary’s place. We found it without too much difficulty, a trailer structure on a three-tofive-acre spread. Her house sat alongside a muddy creek and was surrounded by trees and heavy brush. There was a broken satellite dish in front, where a bird had built its nest, and piles of wood chips everywhere. Mary pulled in behind us in a beat-up, red pickup. Her two kids, Summer Rose and Rudi, spilled out of the truck cab and ran toward us in curiosity. I told Mary who we were. She looked us over for a moment and then invited us inside. I could not tell she was on medication, though Todd mentioned later that her hands were slightly trembling. To me, she seemed only tired, listless.