Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle, PA.
“Choose your new name,” said the teacher.
The 11-year-old boy looked at the marks on the blackboard. Having grown up speaking the language of his Lakota Sioux (soo) people, he couldn’t understand them. He’d been told that each line of markings was a different white man’s name. Now he had to pick one.
But the boy already had a name: Ota Kte (OH-tuh kuh-TAY). His father, the Lakota chief Standing Bear, had given it to him when he was born in 1868. Standing Bear had taught him how to ride a horse and hunt buffalo using a bow and arrow.
His father had also raised him to follow a code of conduct in which honor, bravery, and service to one’s people were more important than life itself. It was a code followed by the Native American nations of the
For instance, his people believed there was no greater honor than to show bravery in battle by approaching an enemy and simply touching him rather than shooting him.
But Ota Kte was no longer with his people on the Pine Ridge
“Indicate the name that will be yours,” the white teacher said. She placed a long stick in Ota Kte’s hand.
The boy recognized the challenge he now faced: adapting to the world of the white people whose weapons and diseases had devastated his people. Thanks to his father’s lessons, he knew how to respond.
“I took the pointer and acted as if I was about to touch an enemy,” he would write years later.
The name he chose was Luther. From that day on, Luther Standing Bear would live partly in the white man’s world. But he would always carry his former life in his heart—and never stop fighting for his people.