Intro:  In this piece, Francine D. Spang-Willis reimagines a relationship with oral history and technology to create artificial intelligence that is more representative of and responsive to maintaining and perpetuating Indigenous language, knowledge, and culture. The piece is inspired by Stephanie Dinkins' Oral History as Told by AI presentation given on April 2, 2020.

A spark to start reimagining a different way to engage with oral history, technology, and artificial intelligence (AI) came during the presentation Oral History as Told by AI by Stephanie Dinkins. Before  her talk, Stephanie shared a few written pieces that inspired her work.  The one that struck me the most was Rayvon Fouche's article on Black vernacular technological creativity. It incorporates Amiri Baraka's call, in Fouche’s words, "for black people to rethink their relationships with technology and take action to make technology more representative of black culture" and "more responsive to the realities of black life in the United States" [1]. This idea prompted me to rethink my relationship with technology, as a Cheyenne woman. I started with the previous work I did in the American Indian Tribal Histories Project (AITHP). The project combined oral history and technology to help maintain and perpetuate Indigenous history and culture from an Indigenous perspective.

In remembering the AITHP staff and narrators, I thought about my last visit with a beloved mentor, Rubie Sooktis, who I had worked with during the project. When I found out she had cancer, I made a special visit to see her. My mother, two aunts, sister, and niece unexpectedly joined us halfway through our visit. Within a few minutes, they, as the older generation, stopped speaking English and began to converse in the Cheyenne language. It sounds like this:

This short audio clip, one minute and forty seconds, includes Rubie Sooktis interviewing Elva Stand In Timber. They converse in Cheyenne and English. The interview is part of the American Indian Tribal Histories Project oral history collection at the Western Heritage Center museum [2].

Since I was unable to understand my elders’ conversation, I thought about their lives and my life, as Cheyenne women, and how the processes of colonialism impacted and shaped us. In the late 1800s, "Kill the Indian and save the man" was a prominent point of view in America, and Richard Pratt, along with others, put forth a tremendous effort to assimilate Indigenous children in residential schools. The children were often punished for speaking their first language [3]. During this era, they, Euro-Americans, had attempted to kill us, Indigenous peoples, culturally.

After remembering that particular aspect of American history, I turned my attention back to my family. They were still speaking to each other in Cheyenne. I quietly celebrated their resilience and ability to speak the Cheyenne language fluently. However, I became painfully conscious of my desire to join their literal conversation. I became frustrated with my inability to understand or speak the Cheyenne language due to the processes of settler colonialism. With a sense of defeat, I turned my attention to my sister and niece and started a conversation with them in English.

When it was time to leave, I acknowledged to myself that this visit could be the last time I would see them together or hear them speak Cheyenne. I barely pulled my car onto the highway, and tears spilled out of my eyes. I knew I was one of them, but I felt apart from them because I could not converse with them in Cheyenne. 

I have considered taking the time to learn how to speak Cheyenne. However, the major challenge I face is not living on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, where the most concentrated group of fluent speakers reside. If I did learn to speak Cheyenne fluently, I would not have the opportunity to engage with them consistently, and I am afraid that my ability to speak Cheyenne would subside.

In seeing the AI’s that Stephanie Dinkins has helped create, Bina48 and N'TOO, I began to imagine building a similar program to embody and perpetuate not only an Indigenous language but knowledge, culture, and identity that stems from it.  However, instead of replicating AI in human or object form, it might be more useful to create an operating system, or AI, that a person could converse with, in Cheyenne, through a cell phone and a portable speaker or earbuds. This type of AI might prove to be a more reasonably accessible option for a person to visit with in the Cheyenne language no matter their location.  Ideally, it would be designed to be far more complex than Siri or Alexa in that it would hold a conversation from an Indigenous lens or ideology.

The idea of creating AI that is more representative of and responsive to Indigenous peoples and culture is relevant, especially as more fluent Indigenous speakers become ancestors. An opportunity to reimagine is also timely considering the transitions that are taking place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This intersection of events has provided a perfect space to reimagine an old Cheyenne world anew.

[1] Fouche, R. (2006). Say it loud, I'm Black and I'm proud: African Americans, American artifactual culture, and Black vernacular technological creativity. American Quarterly, 58(3), 639-661.

[2] Stands In Timber, E. (2004, June 17). Interview by J. Charette and R. Sooktis [Video and Audio Recording]. Sweet Medicine Prophecies, American Indian Tribal Histories Project, Western Heritage Center, Billings, MT, United States.

[3] Calloway, C.G. (2008). First peoples: A documentary survery of American Indian history. (3rd ed.). Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Francine D. Spang-Willis is of the Northern Cheyenne Nation in Montana. She is an OHMA graduate student and Obama Presidency Oral History Fellow. Her oral history work intends to center Indigenous perspective and knowledge.