Opinion
Yellow Bird: Laughing is a gift from the Creator


"As I was thinking about Indian humor, I realized it is different than the humor of our non-Native peers. At times when I've been in a non-Native group, something a little risqu� or "slapstick" would be funny to me and nobody else would laugh. My laughter grew from the sense of humor I learned those early days.

When I attended Indian boarding school in South Dakota and Kansas, there was a little different flavor to our humor there, too. We developed our own words and expressions that we found extremely funny, while our dorm matrons would look at us with deadpan faces.

Friends from those days will remember some of the terms, but when they say them out loud today, they seem awkward in conversation. At the time, it was our special language and our way of expressing humor. After marriage, I moved into the young adult circles in Oklahoma, Arizona, Oregon and Washington, D.C. Some of that humor carried over."

Get the Story:
DORREEN YELLOW BIRD COLUMN: Indian humor makes me smile (The Grand Forks Herald 11/15)

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