Heritage hatuúnú
Segment has bilingual street signs in English and Arikara
BY JAMES C. FALCON
editors@bhgnews.com
Traveling west into White Shield, an unusual sight may greet you as you drive into town.
Standing on a pole at Oahu Village – the colloquial name given to the neighborhood of houses on the east side of White Shield, near the reservation line – is a new street sign.
In the signature street sign green color, it reads Bitter Root Street. However, below it is a sign similar in shape. It is red and splashed across it are some unfamiliar characters; it reads kAséhtš hatuúnú – the Arikara translation for the street name.
This was one of the first such signs seen in White Shield, dating back to last fall. But now, every street in White Shield has a street sign, which not only gives its official 9-1-1 address, but proudly displays the name of the street in the Arikara language.
John Bearstail, a natural resource liaison for the White Shield segment of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, explained that the project fell into line with White Shield’s 911 addressing system, which also got an overhaul over the past year.
"We had homes that would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Across the street, they would be 200, 300...," Bearstail explained. "It didn't make sense."
Coupled with this, there would be problems with mail deliveries; UPS or FedEx had a hard time finding homes, he added.
