My Heart Is on the Ground: The Diary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl, Carlisle Indian School, Pennsylvania, 1880

February 6

Names were carved on the boards that are black....

When my turn came, I asked Mrs. Mary,... "Why must I take a new name? I have a name, Little Rose." "Your old names are hard to say," she tells it. "Little Rose is not hard to say."

"They tie you to your savage past."

"My past is not savage," I told her.

"You are Sioux. Your people killed Custer."

My under-where is itching me all this time. I feel silly in my citizens' clothes. I trip on the skirts when I walk. I am angry....

Then Mrs. Camp Bell told me not to be disre-spect-ful. And to pick a name. So I did, for Mrs. Camp Bell. So now I am Nannie Little Rose. And now I am here. And I have learned to wear this citizens' clothes and write their words. But I will never forget my past.