Stories from the Plains Sky- Part 2

The sky tells its story in many ways through observation, science and technology. In this episode, Dr. Randy Peppler from the University of Oklahoma explores how meteorology and Indigenous environmental knowledge intersect across the Great Plains and how listening to both reveal a deeper understanding of place and weather. 

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*Part two of a two-part series exploring the stories and science of the Great Plains sky. 

Transcript

Stories from the Plains Sky- Part 2 transcript

Welcome to Rooted in the Plains, a podcast about the people, places, and moments that shape the Great Plains. I'm Nicole. In Part 1, we heard from Matt Reed of the Pawnee Nation share stories and traditions that root the Pawnee people to the sky. In this episode, we turn to the science of that same sky. I talk with Dr. Randy Peppler, whose work blends indigenous environmental knowledge with the science of meteorology.

Nicole: Dr. Randy Peppler is the Associate Director of the Cooperative Institution for Severe and High Impact Weather Research and Operations at the University of Oklahoma. His work bridges meteorology, indigenous environmental knowledge, and the place-based tornado risk perception. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. Your research touches on indigenous environmental knowledge and weather risk perception. How did the plains communities historically interpret or respond to storms, seasonal shifts, or weather phenomena?

Dr. Randy Peppler: Okay, so if we're talking about indigenous communities, most I've talked to farmers and ranchers in southwestern Oklahoma from a number of tribes, especially Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Plains Indians. There were also some Wichita, Ketto, and Delaware folks that I talked to. Those they mostly came from like Texas or South, the southeastern U.S. So, their histories are a little bit different. Historically, talk about the Kiowa and maybe the Apache in particular, Wichita. They felt everything in the non-human world has a spirit. A river, a rock, a tree, an animal, certainly. Um I mean, we've seen in the last 10 or so years rivers given personhood, right, in other parts of the world, like in New Zealand and Bangladesh, because those rivers are sacred to the local peoples. 

The Kiowa, for example, feel that they can speak to the tornado with their language, right? The storm spirit or red horse, depending on what you look at, was something that could understand their language, and they would ask when the threat was imminent, they would ask that the storm pass over them. The Wichita would ask the storm to be split by throwing down an axe or a knife or something like that. Historically, I think the plains tribes and other um tribes that are in, you know, this part of the country felt that there was a spirit that they could communicate with and placate in order to reduce the risk. There's a couple of Kiowa women that I talked to that still do that. They'll tuck their loved ones into the storm shelter and then they'll pray, you know, to the storm before they come down. 

A lot of the farmers I talk to just their local observations of being outside all the time, their experience, their local knowledge of the weather and climate. And that's how they can interpret what's going to happen. It's not just looking at the sky, it's like watching what the animals in particular are doing. And for climate, it's more related to whether or not things grow the same each year, right? That some of them talked about pecan trees along some of the rivers and whether or not they were producing or not. And that would give them a sign as to whether or not it would be uh a good harvest year, you know, agriculturally.

Nicole: Saw that you had in one of your articles, you had talked about kind of going back to speaking to the tornadoes, they would talk to them or they would divert them.

Peppler:  You know, I heard that from a few people, but it's also documented in some of the Native American writers like Scott Momaday, who just passed away within the last year or two. His book, The Way to Rainy Mountain, um, talks about the storm spirit. So, it's also documented in some places. There was also the Silverhorn Collection, it's actually at the University of Oklahoma's natural history museum. It was it's called a 100 summers, and she looked at all the Silverhorn's calendar drawings that documented events over time, like a hundred years ago. They talk about red horse and in both the case of the storm spirit and red horse, and this is Kiowa, the storm has the tail of a great fish or serpent, and that's the tornado. And then the upper part, the clouds that produce the lightning, that's the head and body of a horse. So that's the spirit that they're talking to.

Nicole: Do you know what other signs that they would have had? I mean, like how would they have prepared for it?

Peppler: The article that I wrote for The Chronicles of Oklahoma really documents a lot of the signs that people use more from a historical perspective, but I also heard those same things. I mean, just one of the farmers I still talk to, he'll tell me, hey, all the cattle have massed in the one corner of the field, and then he'll show me a picture of the sky. You know, it's just observing animal behavior, things like that. And some of them are pretty good amateur meteorologists. They can just look at the sky and see certain things. So, the look at those things not only tells them what happened imminently, but they're also, you know, just keeping an eye on things long term. They combine their own observational knowledge with what they can find on the internet or see on television. It's not just traditional knowledge that helps them guide their agricultural operations. It's what they see from modern data collection and prediction and put it all together in an interesting way, I think.

Nicole: So, like historically, do you know any particular tribes that had weather or sky knowledge that stood out differently from other tribes?

Peppler: It was any of the I think each tribe's knowledge is different than the others because it's all rooted in place. You know, the places where they're living or they migrated through on an annual basis. A lot of observations are the same, but that they're all place-based. And I think that's maybe the most important thing to remember is that a lot of times there's been research done, or people are trying to do research on this sort of thing and say, Well, this tribe says this about observing that particular phenomenon, but it's you can't really just pick it up and apply it somewhere else. It's just related to their experience and their place. And it's not static, which is why I don't really like the term traditional knowledge. I think indigenous knowledge or local knowledge are better terms, because except for some of the plains tribes that used to come through here every year, you know, they'd go back and forth between Oklahoma, Texas, and then like places like Montana. Everybody was moved here at some point. All of their knowledge had to morph, right? From the place that they used to be in to where they are now. Some of the signs that they would look at or observations of animals or plants weren't relevant anymore because the animals and plants were different in place. So, the answer to that is yes and no, I would say. But a lot of what you see from tribe to tribe is similar as well. It's just based on a different experience.

Nicole: Kind of talked about this a little bit, but systems they use for cues, like sky color, wind, animal behavior, cloud formations, to kind of guide travel, gatherings, planning.

Peppler: I think plant behavior is another one. And like rivers and streams. Like I mentioned before, if the pecans didn't make during that year, they knew it was going to be a dry year coming up. A lot of plants in their local areas are used for like medicinal or food purposes. And if those things weren't growing well, you know, because of drought or whatever, they knew that times were going to be tough the next few months or whatever. It's just like they're observing the behavior of what's out there.

Nicole: Yeah, I think last winter I was looking up the persimmon thing. I hadn't seen that before. The like shape of the inside of the persimmon was a new kind of interesting.

Peppler: So, for tribes in areas where there are persimmons, then that was definitely a sign you know of what was going on or what could persist.

Nicole: Yeah, I had seen in one of your other articles regarding corn shucks, moon rings, sun dogs, and turtle shells were indicators.

Peppler: Yeah. Um, I think though it's sort of like, you know, you hear about you see mares tails like the cirrus clouds, you know, there's a weather change. That was just the moon rings and things like that. It's just a sign of cirrus clouds moving in, you know, that there's probably a storm system coming in.

Nicole: Um so when you work in this type of space, how do you blend or distinguish between scientific meteorology and the indigenous ways of knowing things?

Peppler: Well, I'm a scientist, of course, right? And you know, you have to go in if you to these kinds of situations and research endeavors with the attitude of how can I help them? I'm interested in their knowledge, but I'm not going to push my science onto them. If they wanted to know about it, I told them. So, we always try to keep things really separate, more interested in hearing from them and how they make sense of what's out there, right? In terms of weather and climate, rather than saying, you know, maybe you shouldn't be doing looking at that information. You should look at this. 

The one paper that I wrote with Kim Klockow on it was an indigenous population that we were talking to, the Alabama-Mississippi tornado outbreak in 2011, heard all kinds of local knowledge of weather and climate from local people. Maybe they were part indigenous or not, we don't really know. But um, it was just interesting to hear them explain things as a different way to make sense of the local weather and climate. And the National Weather Service went in after that event and did one of their service assessments. They usually do that where they send a bunch of a bunch of meteorologists in to chronicle all of the damage and talk to people. And they also heard some of the local stories that we heard. And in that service asset, there's a paragraph, a subsection that says we need to dispel all of these myths, as they call them. But Kim and I and our colleagues said, no, we shouldn't do that. We need to, if we're going to really communicate with these people better, we need to understand where they're coming from. Okay. And try to because some of what they're if we're going to believe the Native American farmers and what they're observing, I think we should believe what other people are telling us about their local geography and whatnot.

Nicole: Thanks so much. 

Peppler: Well, thank you. Appreciate it. 

Talking with Dr. Randy Peppler brings this story full circle. From the Pawnee stories to the science that studies the same sky. His reflections on weather, place, and the knowledge shared with him over the years remind us that understanding the plains means listening to the land, sky, and to one another. This first season of Rooted in the Plains comes to a close. I'm grateful for everyone who has shared their time, knowledge, and their stories. There's always more to uncover right here in the Great Plains. I'll be back for season two in January. But in the meantime, for photos, maps, and glimpses of Plains life, follow along on Instagram at Rooted in the Plains. If you send me a message on Instagram with your address, I'll send you one of the brand new Rooted in the Plains stickers. And as always, thanks for listening.