Native Americans recall torture, hatred at boarding schools: AP

NEW YORK, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- After her mother died when Rosalie Whirlwind Soldier was just four years old, she was put into a Native American boarding school in South Dakota, the United States, and told her native Lakota language was "devil's speak," reported The Associated Press (AP) on Saturday.

She recalls being locked in a basement at St. Francis Indian Mission School for weeks as punishment for breaking the school's strict rules. Her long braids were shorn in a deliberate effort to stamp out her cultural identify.