Showing posts sorted by relevance for query GHOST HAWK. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query GHOST HAWK. Sort by date Show all posts

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Where would we be without whites who like Indians? Or, a critical look at Susan Cooper's GHOST HAWK

As expected, Susan Cooper's Ghost Hawk is a contender for the Newbery Medal (2:26 PM Note: I do not have inside knowledge of the Newbery Committee's deliberations. My post is about Ghost Hawk being discussed as a contender in the mock Newbery discussion at SLJ's Heavy Medal blog).  Ghost Hawk is the topic today (October 15, 2013) at SLJ's Heavy Medal blog. The author of the post, Jonathan Hunt, thinks that the plot twist at the end of part one is "the best of the year."

The plot twist he refers to? The character, Little Hawk, is killed by a Pilgrim, but that's not the end of him. He goes from being a living person to a ghost that narrates the rest of the story, which focuses on John Wakely, a colonist who grows up and saves the life of a Native boy named Trouble. That Native boy grows up to be Metacom/King Philip. Yep--a leader of the Wampanoag, according to Cooper's story, only gets to be that leader because a white person saves him when he was a child.

Throughout part two and three, Little Hawk can reveal himself to John at a certain time and place on an island. He does so several times during the story. That's because, when Little Hawk was killed, he was unable to rest or go home because John has a stone blade that belonged to Little Hawk's ancestors.  

By the end of the story (part four in the book), we're in the present day. A woman lives on the island. With a helper, she works the land. That helper finds Little Hawk's tomahawk and gives it to the woman. The next day, she's holding the tomahawk in her hand and Little Hawk reveals himself to her (page 316):
"She sees a bare-chested American Indian, in deerskin pants and moccasins, his hair greased up into a scalp lock--but the body has no substance, and through it the trees are still faintly visible."
She is startled but they begin to talk with each other. They have what I find to be a troubling conversation about the land itself and land ownership, and she learns that he is kept from resting because of the tomahawk blade she now has in her hands. She realizes that she can free him by burying it. The tomahawk, he tells her, has been buried a long time. Strains of "bury the hatchet"--don't you think?! So, she plants a hickory tree and buries the blade with it. Then, we read (p. 320):
Time breaks open around me, and all at once there is more light than a hundred suns, more light than I have ever seen.
And,
I am gone to my long home at last, set free, flying high, high beyond the world. High, high, into mystery.
With those passages, Cooper is imagining what a Wampanoag person experiences when they die. It is a bit ironic, I think, that it is a person named Cooper doing that imagining, because another person named Cooper did a whole lot of imagining when he wrote his stories about Indians... Course, I'm thinking of James Fenimore Cooper. Remember that guy? He wrote Last of the Mohicans. 

Key points in Susan Cooper's story? White person saves Metacom. White person frees Little Hawk. In his discussion of the book, Jonathan says that Cooper's story, written from Little Hawk's perspective,
"engenders empathy for the disappearing indigenous people and their culture."
Perhaps it does, but how what does that empathy mean? What does IT engender? Below is the comment I submitted to Jonathan's post. As of this moment (9:26 AM, Central Time), it is in 'moderation mode' but I expect it to appear shortly. I encourage you to follow and participate in the discussion that will take place. Here's a link to the page:

Jonathan Hunt's post about Ghost Hawk

And, my comment to Jonathan's post (awaiting approval from Jonathan or whomever moderates comments for him):

Hi Jonathan,
As some people know, I blogged Part One of Cooper’s (http://goo.gl/lhf9iX) story in early June. The technique I used in that post is one that is very popular with my readers. They want to know about the process I go through as I read and analyze a book about American Indians. Some people feel strongly that doing that is unfair, particularly because I haven’t yet provided answers to concerns and questions I raised in that post. I have similar notes for posts about Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four and intended to write them up and post them, too, inserting answers to my questions/concerns as I conducted research necessary to answer my questions.
When I read the Author’s Note, however, I decided to write and post my overall thoughts on the book (http://goo.gl/vwimyd) because I don’t think the answers to my questions/concerns will change my primary concerns with the book. In a nutshell: we have an author using seventeenth century sources to imagine the life of a Native character, and then (presumably) using those same sources to imagine the after-life of that Native character. I see no evidence that she consulted any sources that counter the bias and misinformation in the ways that American Indians are portrayed in those seventeenth century sources. In the Author’s Note, she sends us to two websites, but the first one is sketchy and further adds to my concerns that she did not read any of the critical writing by scholars who counter bias and misinformation in materials about American Indians. As such, she’s doing a whole lot of imagining. She imagines the life of living/breathing Native people, and then she takes a huge leap and imagines how that tribe has laid out its spirituality. Given its glowing reviews, what she does works for most people, and that’s troubling. Shouldn’t we be past that kind of imagining that romanticizes American Indians?
A second concern is that in her story, her fictional main character, John Wakely, saves the life of Metacom/King Philip. According to the entry in Hoxie’s ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS, he “personified native resistance to colonial power in southern New England in the seventeenth century” (p. 373). John is so adored by the Indians, that they hold their children up high so they can get a glimpse of him. In a way, this is the John Smith/Pocahontas story all over again. But again–shouldn’t we be past themes in which whites save the day?
Obviously, I disagree that the writing is skillful and the themes distinguished. Cooper’s story, as Jonathan says, “engenders empathy for the disappearing indigenous people and their culture.” His use of “disappearing indigenous people” is telling, I think, because that is exactly what I’m talking about. As a society, most Americans want to love a certain kind of indigenous person and story about indigenous people. It is a superficial love for something imagined. Unfortunately, the kind they love is the kind that was mistreated but then disappeared.
Where’s the love of modern day American Indians critical of that superficial love?
It was/is a bit unnerving to read the comments to Jonathan’s earlier post (“October Nominations”), in which commenters discourage others from reading what I said in my post about Ghost Hawk.
I’m not hoping for people to love what I or any Indigenous people say. What we all need is a different perspective of Native/White relationships, past and present. What we need is a citizenry that can see and reject stereotypes of who American Indians are, and a citizenry that wants accurate, not romantic, stories about who we are. Heralding books like GHOST HAWK or SALT will keep us stuck in that same old place of honoring Indians, and that kind of honoring is superficial and not helpful to anyone.

Wednesday, June 05, 2013

Reading: Part One of Susan Cooper's GHOST HAWK

Editor's note, November 3, 2013: Discussion of this book over on the Heavy Medal blog started on October 15th. There, you'll see that some readers have read this post and are waiting for me to provide documentation of errors/inaccuracies in the book. As you read, you'll see where I've inserted updates regarding such inaccuracies. Some of what I object to is not a factual sort of thing. A good bit of what is wrong with Cooper's book has to do with imagining of Native culture, with that imagining rooted in romantic and biased views of Native peoples. These biased views are of several types. Indians as mystical. Indians as animal-like. Indians as stoic. Indians as tragic. Those--and others--are part of this book, which is a white lament of what happened to Native peoples. For me, that lament is first-cousin to those who wish to honor American Indians with things like mascots, or those who love movies like Dances with Wolves. For my additional writings on Ghost Hawk, see:

Friday, June 14, 2013: Susan Cooper on Ghost Hawk: "The only major liberty I've taken is..."
Tuesday, October 15, 2013: Where would we be without whites who like Indians?  

And read Elizabeth Bird's review, too: Review of the Day: Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper.

Below is my first post on Ghost Hawk, posted on June 5, 2013.

-------------------------------------------------------

On Monday, June 3rd, I received (from a colleague) an advanced reader copy of Susan Cooper's Ghost Hawk. My thoughts, as I read, are in italics.

Primarily a writer of fantasy, Cooper has a great deal of stature in children's literature. One of her books won the Newberry Award, and her series is much acclaimed. As such, she's got some built-in credibility for her writing and people will be eager to read Ghost Hawk. The question is, though, does she have the depth of knowledge, or did she do the research necessary, to give readers a book that doesn't lapse into stereotypes? 

We'll see. Below, I am sharing my chapter-by-chapter notes for part one of the book. In some cases, I paused and did some research that I share right away. In some places, you'll see I'm still digging.

Ghost Hawk opens with two epigraphs. The first is from Roger Williams and is dated 1643. Williams tells not to be proudful because "thy brother Indian" was made by the same God that made the English. That Indian, the epigraph says, is just as wise, fair, and strong as the English man. 

The second epigraph is a verse from Woodie Guthrie's song, This Land is Your Land. 

Why, I wonder, did Cooper choose those two? It was, by the way, rather patronizing of Williams to assume that his God made Indians. How does he know it didn't happen the other way around, with the Indians god making the Englishmen?! And what is the rationale for choosing Guthrie? Was Cooper giving readers a heads-up with the Guthrie song, perhaps, that someone (Cooper?) thinks the land doesn't really belong to the Indians? Is she defending her right to own land? In the Author's Note, she writes that "Seven years ago I built a house on Little Hawk's island" where she "listened to the land, and to its past" and decided to write the book. What is the name of the island? Is it one that the Wampanoag people lost to land-hungry Europeans? Is its ownership contested today? 

PART ONE: FREEZING MOON

Chapter 1

Spring or summertime. A man approaches a small bitternut hickory tree and gives it "a respectful greeting and explained what he was about to do" (p. 6). Then, he puts a stone blade in the 'v' of two branches of a young hickory tree and tightly binds the two branches above the blade. Over time, the branches will fuse, enclosing the stone. This is the way that a man makes a tomahawk for his son. This particular blade is precious to the man because it was part of the tomahawk used by his grandfather and father until the handle broke. As he returns to his canoe, he uses his bow and kills three ducks for the feast celebrating the birth of his son. the closing words of the chapter are:
"I was that son. Because Flying Hawk was my father, the name they were giving me was Little Hawk" (p. 6).
My thoughts: I spent a few hours trying to find information about that technique of putting a stone blade in a tree, and so far... nothing about that, specifically. I did find an old text that describes how the branch of a young tree could be bent around a stone blade and then then the branch tied to itself beneath the blade. And, I learned that hickory is a very hard wood and because of that, it is a great for tool handles.

Regarding the names Cooper gave to her characters...  How names are given is important, but rarely portrayed correctly. I don't know who the tribe is yet, so can't say much other than that Cooper's choice of Little Hawk fits within a mainstream expectation of how Native people give names.

Speaking to the tree also fits a mainstream expectation in which Native peoples live within an ethical framework in which they see themselves as part of a web of life rather than having dominion over the earth. While that ethic is valid, there's a tendency for writers to overdo it when they imagine living a life with that ethic as part of ones daily life. It is helpful to think of a character who is a devout Christian. That information could be established up front, and need not be reiterated on page after page.   

Chapter 2

Little Hawk is now eleven years old and his dad takes him out to the site of the hickory tree where he had bound that stone blade on the day of Little Hawk's birth. In the eleven years that passed, the two branches fused and became one, above the blade. Flying Hawk cuts the tree down. Before he does, though, he gives a pinch of tobacco to the tree's spirit, and Little Hawk says "Thank you, my brother" (p. 9). 

My thoughts: This giving of tobacco...  Some tribes use tobacco to make offerings, but would it be done before cutting down a tree? I don't know, but Cooper's use of tobacco and thanking the spirit of the tree definitely fits within a mainstream expectation of what Native people do/did. I initiated some discussion on child_lit about Ghost Hawk. Emails I got from Charlotte, in particular, are helpful in thinking about this aspect of Native spirituality. As I noted above, Native peoples see themselves as part of the world rather than dominant over it. That sensibility pervades life. Cooper, however (and many writers who over-do this spirituality) do it only in response to an act of taking. When they have a character taking something, they pack that taking with this "thank you, my brother" kind of activity and dialog. As Charlotte said, when that happens again and again, it takes on a caricature rather than a view of the world. 

The tomahawk will be made by wintertime, when it will be time for Little Hawk to "be taken deep into the woods, blindfolded, for the three-month test of solitude that would turn me into a man" (p. 9).

My thoughts: Three months? Dead of winter? Eleven years old? I did several searches on various combinations of Wampanoag, manitou, boy, and vision. When I used "Wampanoag vision quest" I found a book by David J. Silverman called Faith and Boundaries: Colonists, Christianity, and Community Among the Wampanoag Indians of Martha's Vineyard, published in 2005. It has information that supports some of what Cooper says. Specifically, boys did vision quests at adolescence, but, I've traced Silverman's sources and am not finding a specific age or duration of this test. I'm also not finding any reference to a blindfold. I've sent emails asking for help on this three-month-test-of-solitude.

Chapter 3

In their longhouse, Little Hawk's mom and sister are getting him ready to head out for that three-month test of solitude, which is also called his "proving time" (p. 10). His sister, Quickbird, is a tomboy. We learn that there are three other boys in the village who will also be sent out on this test. The other three are named Leaping Turtle, White Oak, and Spring Frog. 

My thoughts: Names, again... I wonder (here I am being snarky) why these three boys don't have "little" in their names like Little Hawk does? Does the naming convention Cooper used for Flying/Little Hawk not apply to everyone?   

Little Hawk's mom and sister plan to give him several items to take with him, but Flying Hawk glares at them. He is only supposed to take a boy, an axe, and a knife. With these things, he will "come back a man" (p. 14). 

Little Hawk and his dad go to a sweat lodge where they "sit naked in the hot steam" (p. 15). Sometimes whole families go there to sweat out "the dirt on our bodies" but this time, it is just the men, and they're going to sweat out "the fears in our minds" (p. 15). 

My thoughts: Sweat lodge as family bathing? I don't think I've seen THAT before! But---I'm checking on it.

The day after the sweat, Flying Hawk gives Little Hawk a knife with a metal blade. Such knives are rare. It was made by the white men. The three-month test of solitude starts out with Flying Hawk putting a blindfold on Little Hawk, and then handing him one end of a long deerskin strap. With the leash, Flying Hawk leads him into the forest for a long time (no mention of hours/distance) and then removes the blindfold, hugs him, and takes off. Because some snow has fallen already (it is early winter), they wear snowshoes.

My thoughts: The blindfold part of this whole thing adds to my skepticism of it being something anyone would actually do, especially to an eleven year old boy. Course, I need to do some research to see if I can find anything that supports what Cooper describes.

Alone in the forest, Little Hawk is not afraid. He likes to be alone. He remembers a story about him as a two-year old. He'd wandered off and people had looked for him all day. They found him beneath a maple tree they'd set up to tap its sap. He'd eaten the sap in the birch bark bucket and was waiting, mouth open beneath the tap, for more of the sap. "For some time after that I was called Little Maple, because--they said, making my poor mother cross--I had chosen to be suckled by a tree instead of a woman" (p. 21).

My thoughts: Changing his name, even in jest, as Cooper does here fits within the mainstream notion that Indian names are given based on something near in the proximity of the child. There's lot of crude and insensitive jokes about naming out there. Cooper isn't being insensitive but it is ignorant.

Little Hawk sets out walking. He promptly falls into a tangle of greenbrier vines and hurts his ankle. He makes a shelter beneath the vines and builds a fire. He is hungry, and remembers his grandmother, Suncatcher, teaching him how to dig roots. He thinks he'll dig greenbrier roots but then remembers he's supposed to be fasting. He decides to dig the roots up anyway and save them for later, when he can eat. 

Chapter 4

Little Hawk wakes, thinking of his grandmother. She is a member of the tribal council. She had not been home the day Little Hawk left because she was with his older sister, Southern, at the "women's house" (p. 27) where women go when they're menstruating (on page 12, Cooper called this "moontime bleeding.")

My thoughts: Some tribes use "moon" but "moontime bleeding" is not something I remember reading or hearing about. In my research so far, "moontime bleeding" pulls up New Age items.

Several days pass. Little Hawk gets hungrier and more tired, but he's got to fast until the Great Spirit sends his Manitou to him. One night he wakes in his shelter and finds that it is covered with deep snow. He is cold and scared and starts to cry, but since "a man does not show weakness, ever" (p. 32), he forces himself to howl instead, like a coyote. He falls into a "trance of despair" and in that state, his Manitou comes to him. It is an osprey, or, a fish hawk. It tells him to "stop this" (presumably the despair), and that it will show him his strength. Little Hawk flies into the sky with the osprey. As they fly, the osprey tells him many things "that I may not tell to you." 

My thoughts: I so badly want to quit reading this book. Ah well. This is stoic-Indian for sure. Or, stoic-male! 

Little Hawk wakes up, pushes the snow away, and sees a red-tailed hawk and knows that his Manitou sent that hawk and that he must follow it. It leads him to a pond, and, a deer trail. 

Chapter 5

Little Hawk waits for the deer to come by on the trail. He breaks his fast by chewing on pine bark. He cuts branches to make a bed in a little cave nearby the pond. In the cave he finds a cache of acorns and uses them to sets snares to catch squirrels. He cooks the greenbrier roots and eats them slowly. When he wakes up the next morning, there's a squirrel in his trap. He kills and eats it, working its hide for later use. 

My thoughts: He doesn't do any kind of prayer for the squirrel. In fact, what he does think kind of flies in the face of a reverence for the earth and its creatures: "Perhaps I had caught him with one of his own acorns, but he would save me from starving" (p. 38). 

He sees a lone wolf but manages to scare it away. Little Hawk is getting weaker without foot and then, he sees two deer. He wounds one and spends several hours tracking it. When he finds it, he sees that the lone wolf got to it first and is eating it. He yells at it, it turns on him, and he shoots it. It is wounded and takes off. Little Hawk gives thanks to the Great Spirit, his Manitou, and the spirit of the deer. He breaks the skull open with a rock so he can get the brain, which he'll use to tan the deerskin. He skins the deer, cuts off one of its legs, hauls the brain/skin/leg back to his cave and goes back for more meat.  

That night at his cave, he is "very tired and very dirty" and thinks about the sweat lodge. He cleans up with snow, makes a fire, cooks some meat, and goes to sleep. Over the next few days, he understands that the squirrel and the deer and he himself have a "part in a long harmony of things, a balance" and that is why his people send the boys out on this "solitary voyage of learning" (p. 46).


Chapter 6

One day when he's out, the wolf goes into the cave and eats Little Hawk's deer meat. He and the wolf fight. He kills the wolf but gets a deep gash on his face during the fight. He has to honor the wolf by burying it, which he does. He remembers one of his grandmother's bark remedies for cuts, finds some of it, and uses the squirrel skin and some sinew to make a bandage. He must find more food, too, so makes a hole in the frozen pond below his cave. His first catch is an eel. In pulling it out of the hole, his knife falls into the hole, gone forever. 

A few days later he sees the stars dancing in the sky (something his father showed him) and interprets that as a sign that he should make ready to return home. He imagines his return, and then after awhile, heads home.

Chapter 7

He runs into the center of the village but there is nobody around. He stumbles over a body (covered in snow) and then runs home. Inside, he finds his grandmother. She's weak, and tells him that the white man's sickness has killed everyone. Little Hawk figures out that the sickness was brought into the village by his father, who had traded with a white man for the knife he had given to Little Hawk. His grandmother grows stronger. One day, the flap door opens wide, and Leaping Turtle is there, wondering what has happened.

Chapter 8

Little Hawk, Suncatcher, and Leaping Turtle live together. One day the boys see smoke to the west of them. There's a break in the smoke, followed by a puff of smoke, and then two more breaks/puffs. The people in the village to the west of them are using smoke signals to talk to them. "Three smokes--remember? It's the greeting for anyone who sees it. Three just means 'I am here'" (p. 83). They decide to respond. One puff means danger, two puffs means come, four means I am coming. They choose to send three smokes but get no response. Darkness falls and they return to the house.

My thoughts: Aha! Smoke signals! And these ones even have the code!!!!! You could interpret my use of many exclamation points as me alternately rolling my eyes and laughing aloud at how ridiculous this is. I'll look, though, to see if I can find some old sources that give that code... It will be useful to see what Cooper's source for this is. In the meantime, the National Museum of the American Indian has a book called Do All Indians Live In Tipis. In it, there's a section on smoke signals

Suncatcher thinks the two boys should go to that village without her. She can't make a journey because the cold had "done something bad to her feet" (p. 84).  Little Hawk saw that the skin was very dark and tight.

My thoughts: Apparently, Suncatcher got frostbite before Little Hawk returned to the village. But, several days have passed by this point in the story. Wouldn't they be needing medical care? And, she's the one who knows how to do things... why is she not taking care of her feet?!

Little Hawk and Leaping Turtle decide to make a litter so they can carry her. They also decide to bury the body Little Hawk tripped over, which is that of Suncatchers brother, Morning Star, who was a medicine man. Before they start out for that village, however, three men from there arrive: Hunting Dog, Wolfchaser, and One Who Waits. One Who Waits is the sachem. They've built a new village and someone from Little Hawk's village is at the village, but they won't say who it is. When they all get there, Little Hawk sees that it is his little sister, Quickbird.

Chapter 9

Quickbird recounts the last days in their village. Morning Star told her to go to the other village because "The gods are angry with our people here." Listening to her, Wolfchaser agrees about the gods being angry and thinks they should pray that the anger of the gods is satisfied.

My thoughts: Sounds like Christian theology... a god who punishes his people... 

Suncatcher disagrees with the idea that angry gods would do this. She says the plague is from the white men and that it kills Indians, not white men. Wolfchaser thinks that perhaps the gods aren't angry with the white man. One Who Waits tells them that the white men came on a ship. Little Hawk remembers that he heard the story of this ship. 
"South of here, not far from the Pokanoket village of Sowams, where our great sachem Yellow Feather lived, a trader from across the sea had invited a number of our people aboard his ship and suddenly, for no reason, had killed them all." (p. 94)

My thoughts: Finally! Cooper gives us the name of a tribe! Yellow Feather is Massasoit, but I'll need to do some research to see who that trader was. All this angry-gods stuff also fits within the mainstream expectations of a primitive people. These Indians think they've brought these troubles onto themselves. They're to blame. 

In the weeks and months that follow their move to the new village, they hear a lot about the white men. The people in the village, including Spring Frog (he ended his test at their village rather than his own) work hard to build houses and get winter stores of food ready. Wolfchaser seems to be sweet on Quickbird. As time passes, they get ready for a deer drive. A deer drive is a technique in which deer are herded into an enclosure where they are more easily shot. 

My thoughts: I never heard of a deer drive and will need to look it up. 

As they wait for the drive to start, Little Hawk and Leaping Turtle talk with Wolfchaser. He tells them that his father (One Who Waits) has gone to Sowams because Yellow Feather has called all the sachems together. "Many white men have come in a big boat--not just traders, but whole families. Yellow Feather is not happy; he would like them to go away" (p. 99-101). 

My thoughts: I've pulled up the transcript for "After the Mayflower" from the PBS We Shall Remain series. Its consultants are amongst the top Native and non-Native scholars in the country. Reading the transcript, I learned that there was a plague from 1617 to 1619 but that nobody knows what exactly it was. Historian Neal Salisbury says that sickness was usually interpreted as the invasion of hostile spiritual powers. Not---as Cooper tells us---as gods that are angry. 

Wampanoags were especially devastated by this plague, and the Narragansetts, who did not get that plague, set upon them while they were vulnerable. In 1620, an English ship lands. On it is Miles Standish and many families. They enter Patuxet, an abandoned village that was hit hard by the plague. Colin Calloway says that the English think that God killed its inhabitants to make way for them (the English).  Jill LePore says that Wampanoag's view this ship of people different than others because they've brought families, which means they're not there to make war. Through the winter, Massasoit watches the small group in the village they've called New Plymouth. He thinks they could be allies for them in their struggles against the Narragansetts. 

The group stops talking about the white families when the deer come towards them. They kill 23 deer. The share for their village is 14. Swift Deer, who is in charge of the drive, cuts off the tongue and left hind foot of each deer as an offering. He calls out a prayer of thanks to Mother Earth and the deer spirit. 

My thoughts: So.... what will they do with the other nine deer? And what is this business of cutting off the tongue and the left foot? Why the left foot???!!! Remember what I said earlier about exclamation points...  

When they get back to the village, there's a traditional celebration of the hunt. They sing, dance, and eat. One Who Waits is back from meeting with Yellow Feather, and he seems uneasy. A few days later, One Who Waits is visiting Suncatcher. He tells Suncatcher and Little Hawk that Yellow Feather has decided to offer help and friendship to the white men, "now that our pleas to the spirits have not sent them away." One Who Waits also says that Yellow Feather does not enjoy war, and that the Wampanoag, weakened by the plague, are paying tribute to the Narragansetts. Little Hawk asks what the white man wants, and One Who Waits replies "I think our father Yellow Feather fears that they want the land" (p. 103). 

My thoughts. So, their spirits are again leaving them hanging. Prayers unanswered, the only recourse is to make friends. Again---this praying stuff makes me very skeptical. But the history itself is correct. Massasoit did make that treaty, and the white man did want the land. 

Chapter 10

Springtime brings the fish run when herring, shad, and bass rush from the sea into the rivers to spawn. The villagers head to the streams. They catch so many fish that Quickbird complains that they all smell like fish and she can't wait to get back to the village and the sweat lodge to clean up. 

My thoughts: Again---sweat as a way to get cleaned up? Gotta check on this. I was talking with Jean Mendoza about this, and she asked an obvious question. They were at the river! Why couldn't they get cleaned up there, in all that fresh running water?! 

As they fish, the villagers see One Who Waits and Swift Deer walking from the camp towards the river with a group: "there were some strangers with them: an important-looking warrior wearing an ornate beaded headband with an eagle feather, and three others" (p. 106). Two are white men and one is a five year old boy. They gather round.  "Swift Deer and Wolfchaser came forward to join us; Swift Deer was very wet, and shook himself like a dog" (p. 107).

My thoughts: Oops. That's a bit confusing. Swift Deer was in the river? Or in the camp? I'm thinking he was in the river and that's why he was wet. But... shaking like a dog to rid himself of the water?! COME ON, SUSAN COOPER!!!  

One Who Waits calls out to the villagers "My sons! You remember the one they called Squanto?" (p. 108).  Swift Deer and Wolfchaser greet offer greetings but Little Hawk detects uncertainty in their voices. Squanto is the important man wearing the beaded headband with a feather. One Who Waits goes on to tell them that Yellow Feather wants them to be helpful to the white men because "they are friends of our people. They are in care of Squanto, because he speaks their language" (p. 108). Little Hawk thinks Squanto "clearly knew he was somebody special" (p. 108). Squanto tells them the names of the Englishmen and that he has taught them how to catch eels and how to plant, but wants them to learn how to fish the fish run, so has brought them to watch and learn how to do it. Suncatcher steps forward with bowls of soup for Squanto and the Englishmen, but they decline her offer. Squanto tells them that "The white man is not good at eating our food" (p. 109). 

My thoughts: Was Squanto dressed that way?! And, I wonder if Cooper is going to tell her readers why Squanto knows English? As the historical record shows, he was kidnapped and taken to Europe where he learned to speak English. He eventually made his way back, but his village (Patuxet) was gone. And, he was a troublemaker. 

Wolfchaser demonstrates how they use woven mats to catch the fish. Squanto translates for the Englishmen. The little boy wanders off to Quickbird and two children that are with her. One of them shows him a toy and they start playing. Quickbird watches them and says "Look how different they are!" and "The same, but so different!" (p. 110). 

My thoughts: Nice touch, to demonstrate the humanity in children, regardless of who they are.

Quickbird decides to teach the white boy their names. She takes his hand, points to herself, and says "Quick bird." Turtledove (one of the children) does the same thing, and "with some difficulty" the boy says "Turtle dove" and then "Bird." 

My thoughts: I guess we ought to be, in our minds, thinking that the Wampanoags are speaking in their own language, and as such, it would be hard for the little white boy to enunciate turtledove or quickbird in the Wampanoag language. Without the actual use of those names in the story, that learning-of-names seems a bit odd to me. 

The boy then taps his own chest and says "John." John then looks around and sees Little Hawk and the scar on his face (from the wolf attack). John reaches up to gently touch the scar. He wants to know Little Hawk's name. He listens to it, and then and says "Hawk."

Again---the use of English translations for their names rather than their names makes this learning of names awkward. 

Quickbird has given Turtledove and Little Fox some pellets made from the boiled-down maple sap. Little Hawk gives some to John. John's father comes over, and Little Hawk detects a sour, unwashed smell about him. John points to Little Hawk and says "Hawk," and then Squanto comes over and leads them on their way. The villagers insist on giving them two baskets of fish.

In the sweat lodge where they've gone to get rid of the fish smell, One Who Waits tells Little Hawk, Wolfchaser, and Swift Dear that Squanto knows English "by living in their country. He and some others were carried there in a boat to become slaves, and he was there for some years before a white man from a different tribe brought him back again" (p. 112). When he got back, he found the plague had taken most of his village. He is "useful to Yellow Feather, because without him we could not talk to the white men" (p. 113). 

My thoughts: Good to see that Cooper does tell her readers why Squanto knows English, but I don't know what to make of the white man from "a different tribe." 

The fish they took is to be used as fertilizer for their corn. Swift Deer says that the corn they're going to plant was stolen from the Nausets. Wolfchaser says he'd heard the corn they took was from a village where the Nausets had all died of the plague. One Who Waits tells them its time to leave the sweat lodge so others can use it and get clean, too. 

Chapter 11

The new village grows as more families move to it. Little Hawk is glad of that because it means more children to scare crows, raccoons, woodchucks, and jays away from the fields. The children are taught that they must never kill Brother Crow "because it was his ancestor who brought mankind the corn and bean seeds in the first place, one seed in each of his ears" (p. 116).

My thoughts: Crows have ears? I really don't know much about birds. I need to see what I can find out about Wampanoag traditional stories about crows. 

Little Hawk and Leaping Turtle return to the old village twice. Once to get a birchbark canoe they had made there the year before, and a second time to do Suncatcher's bidding, which was to dig "a memory hole" (p. 117) in honor of the people who died in the village. A memory hole "was a round hole about a foot deep, lined with stones, and now that it was there it would be kept open by generations of people to come. These memory holes were all over our land, on our trails; they were the record of the people who lived before us, and of what happened in their time" (p. 117). 

My thoughts: Memory holes? I gotta look that up! Added to Heavy Medal blog on October 17, 2013; added here on November 3, 2013: Memory holes. I do have an answer on that one. When I called the Mashpee Historic Preservation office in June, I asked specifically about memory holes. The woman I spoke with said it sounded like something from Philbrick’s MAYFLOWER. So, I got a copy and found memory holes on page 105. The woman was rather derisive in referencing Philbrick’s book. I remembered that Indian Country Today (ICT) had run an article about a forum on the book, and that I’d pointed to their article, so I went back into my site to find it. My link doesn’t work right now because ICT is redoing their website and not all of their items are archived/available yet, but I was able to find the article in its entirety at another site. Here’s the link: http://www.firstnations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=526 The article does not specifically address memory holes, but I think it is fair to say that the response to the book casts a lot of doubt on Philbrick’s book. I haven’t read it, but from the reviews, it sounds a lot like he did what Cooper tried to do.

Bearclaw, a friend of Swift Deer's, has been keeping watch on a white settlement nearby the Massachusetts tribe. He's on his way to give Yellow Feather a report. The people in the settlement are not doing well and the Massachusetts are using some of them as laborers in exchange for food. One Who Waits asks Bearclaw to give his greetings to Yellow Feather and hopes that he is well, but Bearclaw says that Yellow Feather is not well. 

All year long, the people have been talking about the treaty Yellow Feather made with the English. There is a lot of unrest. Disagreements abound, including ones Squanto incites between Yellow Feather and the English.

My thoughts: I recall that Squanto does this sort of thing... He's definitely an opportunist. 

Leaping Turtle doesn't trust the white people, but Little Hawk has faith in Yellow Feather's wisdom. Winter comes and rumors prompt One Who Waits to call a council meeting. He tells them Yellow Feather had been sick, but was healed by a white man named Winslow. He also tells them about a white man named Standish who invited two Massachusetts warriors named Wituwamet and Pecksuot to eat with him, but that was a ruse. He killed them and three other men. One Who Waits reminds the people that they are aligned with the English, and that the Massachusetts and the Narragansetts have acted aggressively towards the Wampanoag. The English, he reminds them, are their friends, and he also says that the English know that the Wampanoag's are not the same as the Massachusetts and the Narragansetts. Swift Deer asks to speak. Reluctantly, One Who Waits lets him talk, and he tells the people that Standish beheaded Wituwamet and put his head on a pole at Patuxet. The people are upset but One Who Waits tells them that they should not seek war. In the silence, Suncatcher sings a song in which the lines tell Little Hawk to fly in peace. The meeting ends and they all leave.

Chapter Twelve

Leaping Turtle and Little Hawk are chosen to be runners who will carry messages for Yellow Feather. They are now about 17 years old. On the way, they hear the sound of a tree falling, followed by screams. They race to the sounds and find that a white man had cut the tree and it fell on him. 

Another white man is pinned. Little Hawk wants to help get the man out, especially when he realizes that the boy is John, now 10 years old. He raises his tomahawk to cut away at the tree to free the man. At that moment he is shot and killed. 

My thoughts: That is how Little Hawk becomes Ghost Hawk!!! Naming! Again! 

----end of part one---
On to part two, but, based on what I've read so far, I can't recommend Ghost Hawk. 






Friday, June 14, 2013

Susan Cooper on GHOST HAWK: "The only major liberty I've taken is..."

In the Author's Note of Susan Cooper's Ghost Hawk, she says "The only major liberty I've taken is in copying for John Wakeley the whipping inflicted by the Massachusetts Bay Colony on the Baptist Obadiah Homes in 1651" (p. 327).

I beg to differ.

From my point of view, Cooper took many liberties in the ways that she portrays Native peoples in Ghost Hawk. There are so many, that it will take a great while for me to address the questions I've raised in part one, and typing up/uploading/addressing the questions I've got about part two, three, and four.

In part one, we met John Wakeley (he was five years old) when he and his father were visiting an Indian village to learn how to fish. John met Little Hawk (who was several years older than John) at that village. About five years later, John and his dad are chopping down a tree. It falls on John's dad. Little Hawk is nearby and tries to chop a branch to free John's dad, but is shot by a Pilgrim man who thinks Little Hawk was going to kill John.

In part two, the story is told by Little Hawk, but since he was killed at the end of part one, he tells the story as "a spirit" who can see past and present and understand any language, which is why he can tell us what happens to John in the rest of the book. Another important piece of information: As a spirit, he can choose to be seen and speak. In part one, he revealed himself to John and taught John how to speak the Wampanoag language (below, Cooper says "Pokanoket" but the Mashee Wampanoag use "Wampanoag" at their website).

This scene is in chapter 11 of part two.

John is an adult and visiting Plymouth. Little Hawk (the ghost) tells us that there are lot of people in Plymouth, including several Indians. As John walks, he sees a large group of Pokanokets. A wagon comes down the street, and from the group, John sees a small boy run into the wagon's path, chasing a ball.
"Instinctively he dived forward to grab the child, and caught him just in time" (p. 248).
The child is whimpering, and John speaks to him softly in Pokanoket, "it's all right, don't be afraid, everything's all right." (p. 248).

I've got a lot of questions about that passage, but am focusing on one for this post. The child, according to Cooper, is called Trouble. A few pages later, John visits Yellow Feather/Massasoit's village and home. We learn that Trouble is Massasoit's youngest son, Metacom, or King Phillip.

In Cooper's story, a white person (John) has saved the life of a Native person (Metacom) who will become an important leader (King Philip).

That is a major liberty Cooper has taken in telling this story. She's made John Wakeley into a savior. Where would the Wampanoag's in her story be without him?!

Lest you think that Cooper is relating something factually accurate in that passage, I should also tell you that in her author's note, she says John Wakeley is a fictional character. Did a white person actually save Metacom's life? I'll be looking for that info. If you find it, submit it in a comment or send it to me by email.

In Cooper's story, John is so important that the Wampanoag people gather round to see him. Here's that passage:
Gradually the house filled with people eager for a sight of the white man who had saved Yellow Feather's son" (p. 261).
And later on when John leaves the village, people gather round again. One man holds his son up high overhead so he can see the Speaker. The images those two scenes bring to my mind are gross.

I know a lot of people (looking at you, Richie) love this book, but stop and think about WHY you love this story. Why is it tugging at your heart strings?

If you're a writer, don't create a character who rescues a Native person. No doubt that happened, but the larger picture is not one of benevolence.

If you're a reviewer and you read a book where that happens, point it out.

If you're a librarian or a teacher, don't buy books like this. If it is too late and you've already bought it, discuss what Cooper does. Or, see if you can get your money back. Write a letter to the publisher objecting to the story. If they hear from enough of us, hopefully they won't publish a book like this again.

Creating a character that saves Indian lives obscures the reality of what happened. Let's not hide reality. And let's not whitewash it, either.








Saturday, September 17, 2016

Not recommended: GHOSTS by Raina Telgemeier

Eds. Note: At bottom of this post, there are links to additional reviews. 

On Monday, September 19th, Raina Telgemeier will launch her new book, Ghosts, in Minneapolis. She's a much acclaimed writer with several best selling books. 

Anytime I see a book that has something to do with ghosts, I wonder if the author is going to be contributing to the too-high-pile of problematic books with characters who are haunted or inspired by the ghost of a Native character. One example (there are many) is Susan Cooper's Ghost Hawk. 

I think Telgemeier's Ghosts is one of those problematic books, but I don't think that Telgemeier is aware that she's doing that same thing. The story she tells, and the reviews of her story, demonstrate (yet again) an ignorance of history. I imagine some people defending the book by saying its audience isn't old enough for the complexity of that history, but that holds true only for a selected (possibly white) audience. Native children, and children of color, know far more history than one might expect, because history informs and shapes our daily lives, today. History, of course, informs the daily lives of White children, too, but in a way that means they're ignorant--and are taught ignorance--until they're deemed "ready" for that dark history. 

So, let's get started. Here's the synopsis for Telgemeier's Ghosts:
Catrina and her family are moving to the coast of Northern California because her little sister, Maya, is sick. Cat isn't happy about leaving her friends for Bahía de la Luna, but Maya has cystic fibrosis and will benefit from the cool, salty air that blows in from the sea. As the girls explore their new home, a neighbor lets them in on a secret: There are ghosts in Bahía de la Luna. Maya is determined to meet one, but Cat wants nothing to do with them. As the time of year when ghosts reunite with their loved ones approaches, Cat must figure out how to put aside her fears for her sister's sake - and her own.

The ghosts in Bahía de la Luna (that is a fictional town) are primarily the ones they see at a mission. This starts on page 73, when Carlos (the neighbor boy who tells them about ghosts) takes them to the mission, "where the ghosts' world and ours mostly closely overlap." The three get separated on the way up there. Cat arrives, alone. The mission itself is run down. 




Nobody is there, which is interesting in itself because those missions are a key piece of California's tourism industry. There may be some that are like the one in Ghosts, but I kind of doubt it. After wandering around a bit, Cat sees a ghost. She follows it and finds Maya and Carlos in the courtyard:




Carlos opens a bottle of orange soda, hands it to Maya, and then one of the ghosts goes right up to her, smiling:




At first she's taken aback, but in the next panels, we see the ghost hug her, so she decides it is a friendly ghost. She says hi, but Carlos tells her that most of the people buried there were from Mexico, so, they like it when people speak Spanish to them. So, Maya calls out "Hola!"

That visit to the mission is the point where--for me--the story really starts to unravel.

The missions were there (obviously) for a specific reason: to turn Native peoples into Catholics and to claim that land for Spain. Some see missions and missionary work as a good, but if you pause for a minute and think about what they and that work is designed to do, and if you do a bit of reading, you'll learn that it was far from the benevolent character with which it is regarded by most of society.

At the missions, life for Native people was brutal. There was rape. Enslavement. Whippings. Confinements. And of course, death. Analyses of the bones at the mission burial sites that compare them with bones found elsewhere show that the bones of those who died at the missions were stunted and smaller than the others.

Some of Telgemeier's ghosts might have spoken Spanish, but it is far more likely that their first language was an Indigenous one. Did they joyfully want to be spoken to in Spanish, the language of their oppressors? Given the history, I think it is unlikely that these ghosts would be smiling as Telgemeier shows:



And I wonder, too, about those cemeteries. There are a lot of accounts that report that Native peoples were buried in mass, unmarked graves, elsewhere.

One might defend Telgemeier by saying that her ghosts are of the Spanish priests and maybe soldiers, and, maybe Native peoples who had been successfully Christianized, but the overwhelming evidence of the history is what I think should hold sway when we look at the missions, and when we give children stories about them.

I strongly urge people to read Deborah Mirandah's Bad Indians. Look, especially, at her chapter, The End of the World: Missionization. There, she presents an accurate version of what children across California are asked to do: a mission study. But Deborah's doesn't soft pedal or whitewash what happened. She describes items, like a cudgel (p. 15):
Wooden club used to strike quickly; alcaldes, soldiers, and sometimes padres carried these with them for spontaneous corrections throughout their day. The alcaldes used these during services in church to remind the Indians to be quiet, to pay attention, and to stay awake. A longer cudgel or cane was useful during Mass because the alcalde could reach far into a crowd without having to move very much.
Look, too, at A Cross of Thorns: The Enslavement of California's Indians by the Spanish Missions by Elias Castillo. He writes about treatment of Native people who tried to escape the missions. When caught, the friars at Mission San Francisco burned crosses into the faces of men, women, and children.

If you can't get Bad Indians or A Cross of Thorns right away, then read The Lesser-Told Story of the California Missions, which includes quotes from their books.

Above, I wrote that this brutal history is usually kept away from children--but I also noted that the children it is kept from is not Native children, or children of color. Indeed, Castillo's book includes a foreword, written by Valentin Lopez, Chair of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of the Costanoan/Ohlone Indians. He writes:
Until now, the true and full history of the California missions has never been told. When visitors tour the missions, they are usually presented with stories and images of peaceful, loving priests and soldiers who treated the Indians as adored children. 
These stories belie the truth of the missions, where Native Americans suffered under harsh and brutal conditions. As a young boy, I listened to stories from my elders about the cruelty of the missions. There were tales of how native women were captured— with their thumbs tied together with leather straps to form human chains— and marched forcibly from their tribal lands to the missions. If the Indians did not cooperate, the soldiers, at times, killed them. In one incident, more than two hundred women and children of the Orestimba tribe (living near what is now the town of Newman) were being taken to Mission San Juan Bautista. When, after passing the summit at the Orestimba Narrows, these women refused to go any farther, the Spanish commander ordered the women and children killed with sabers and their remains scattered. 
The oral traditions of our tribal band, the Amah Mutsun, taught us stories of how certain Spaniards would appear when the Indians were first brought into the missions so they could get their pick of the young girls and boys for their perverted appetites, always with the tacit approval of the priests.
I know most people don't want to read about such things, but for certain, we cannot go forward presenting the missions as Telgemeier does. Can you imagine what Mr. Lopez's response to Ghosts? Can you imagine how teachers will use this book in the classrooms? On a superficial level, it looks to be the perfect "diverse" book. It isn't. Head over to Reading While White's post about Ghosts and see the conversation and links there. In particular see what Yuji Morales and Patricia Encisco submitted in their comments about the book.

Published in 2016 by Scholastic, I do not recommend Raina Telgemeier's Ghosts. 

__________
Eds. Note: AICL will add links to additional reviews about concerns with the book.

Thursday, May 07, 2015

Indian-as-spirit in SMEK FOR PRESIDENT by Adam Rex

Earlier this year, I did an analysis of the Native content in Adam Rex's The True Meaning of Smekday. I found the ways that Rex used Native characters and history to be troubling. Some see his parallels to colonization of Natives peoples as having great merit, but the story he tells has a happy ending. The colonizers (aliens called Gorgs from another solar system) do not succeed in their occupation of Earth. They are driven away.

Some people also think Rex cleverly addressed stereotypes in the way that he developed "the Chief" in that story, but I disagree, especially given many things he raised and did not address, like the drunken Indian stereotype.

And some people think that we can overlook all the problems with Native content because there are so few books with biracial protagonists. I disagree with that, too. Why throw one marginalized group under the bus for the sake of another?! That seems twisted and perverse to me.

One of the what-not-to-do cautions in the creation of characters of marginalized populations is "do not kill that character." In The True Meaning of Smekday, Rex killed "the Chief."

In Smek for President, Rex commits another what-not-to-do: use a Native character as a spiritual guide. That character? "The Chief." He died in the first book.

Smek for President opens with a series of cartoon panels that tell us what happened in The True Meaning of Smekday. Amongst the panels are these two. In the first one, we're reminded about "this guy everyone called Chief Shouting Bear."



Back in The True Meaning of Smekday, we learned that his name is actually Frank, but Tip (the protagonist in both books) just calls him "the Chief." She likes him--there's no doubt about that--but persists in using the dehumanizing "the Chief" throughout the book.

In the first book, Tip had a run-in with a Gorg. That run-in is depicted in the next panel in Smek for President:



See "the Chief" in the top panel, approaching that Gorg and Tip? He told that Gorg to leave Tip alone. As you see, the Gorg punched "the Chief" (accident is not the right word for what happened!), knocking him out. Tip and J.Lo (he's a Boov) took him to an apartment to get help. That's when Vicky (another character) asks if he'd been drinking.

Towards the end of The True Meaning of Smekday, "the Chief" dies.

But he appears again and again in Smek for President... 

On page 25, Tip and J.Lo are in their spaceship, flying to New Boovworld and looking out the window at Saturn. Tip thinks back to the time that "the Chief" took her and J.Lo to look at Saturn through a telescope. Here's that part (p. 25-26):
"My people called it Seetin," said the Chief. "Until the white man stole it from us and renamed it."
I turned away from the eyepiece and frowned at the Chief. "Until... what? How can that be true?"
The Chief was smirking. "It isn't. I'm just messing with you."
And now, as we skimmed over the planet's icy rings, I said to J.Lo, "I wish the Chief could have seen this."
He'd died over a year ago, at the age of ninety-four--just a few months after the Boov had left Earth.
That passage is another good example of the author taking one step forward and then two steps backward. By that, I mean that it is good to bring up the idea that Native lands were stolen and renamed, but the "just messing with you" (the humor) kind of nullifies the idea being raised at all. It may even cause readers to wonder what part of "the Chief's" remarks is not true. That his people had a different name for Saturn? That white people didn't really steal Indians?

Tip and J.Lo land their spaceship on New Boovworld. On page 74, Tip is inside an office. She hides by climbing into a chute that drops her in a garbage pit:
Back when the Chief was alive, he and I had all kinds of long talks. Arguments, sometimes. So I don't want you to think I'm schizophrenic or anything, but I occasionally imagine the Chief and I are having one of those talks when I need a little company. And I needed a little company.
"Hey, Stupidlegs," said the Chief.
"Hey, Chief," I answered, smiling. And I opened my eyes. He was to my left, standing lightly on the surface of the trash.

I know people will think it is nice that Tip would imagine an Indian person as the one she'd turn to when she's in need of company, but it is like that far too often!

People love Indian mascots. Indians were so brave, so courageous! Never mind that the mascot itself is a stereotype---we real Native people are told we should feel honored by mascots!

People love Indian spirits, too. Remember "Ghost Hawk" -- the character Susan Cooper created? He started out as Little Hawk but gets killed part way through the story. He stays in the story, however, as a ghost or spirit that teaches the white protagonist all kinds of things.

People love Indians that remind them of days long past, when the land was pristine. Remember Brother Eagle Sister Sky by Susan Jeffers? A white family laments deforestation and plants trees. Throughout the book, there are ghost-like Indians here and there.

People love scary Indian ghosts, too. All those stories where a house is built on an old Indian burial ground! Those angry Indian spirits do all kinds of bad things. Earlier this year I read a Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew story where Nancy was sure an angry Indian spirit was up to no good. And how about that angry Indian in the Thanksgiving episode of Buffy the Vampire Killer?

My point is that this trope is tiresome. If you see a review that notes this problematic aspect of Smek for President, do let me know!


Monday, March 17, 2014

2013 CCBC Data on Fiction by/about American Indians - US Publishers

I studied the 2013 list of books received by the Cooperative Center for Children's Books (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that CCBC lists as being by/about American Indians/First Nations/Latin America.

CCBC is careful to note that the list means nothing about quality. It is just a tally of books they received. In total, the list they shared with me has 34 books on it. I am going to analyze the books on the list. I am grateful to CCBC for sending me the list, and I'm grateful to them for compiling this data every year. This is the first year I'm doing this analysis.

To start with, I am limiting my analysis of the list to works of fiction published by U.S. publishers, which means 13 books (I am excluding Little Red Riding Boots, which is on the CCBC list for its illustrator; the book itself has no cultural content specific to American Indians).

BIG FIVE PUBLISHERS*

The "Big Five" publishing houses and/or their imprints published four works of fiction. None of them are by Native writers.

I do not recommend Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper or Crazy Horse: Brave Warrior by Ann Hood because there is a great deal of stereotyping in both. From the way the Native characters behave to the way they speak... stereotyping. Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon and Schuster)

I do not recommend Salt: A Story of Friendship in a Time of War by Helen Frost because I find it problematic to look for Indian people, make friends with them, and report that they asked you to write a book about them. And then, that book turns out to be a not-plausible work of historical fiction where White people and Indian people, before and after intense war, were friends. Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Macmillan)

I do not recommend Written in Stone by Rosanne Parry, partly became she writes at length of "Chief Lelooska" and the Lelooska Foundation which perform and stereotype rather than educate, and, she sends her young readers to Lelooska, too. Though she taught children at the Quinault school, Parry's book echoes stereotype rather than reality. Publisher: Random House.

The fourth book is Bo at Ballard Creek by Kirkpatrick Hill. Set in a gold mining camp in Alaska, the author tells us it is from her memories of living in a mining camp when she was a child. At her site, she says "Gold rushes are inherently sexy, with lots of wild, death-defying activity, over-the-top characters, and some dazzling rags-to-riches stories." It fails in the same way that Locomotive did. It celebrates something that has a very dark side to it, with that dark side having a negative impact on Indigenous people. Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (Macmillan)

These writers meant well. Each one of them has written about their motivation for writing these books. Each one, however, approached the project from a well-intentioned, but ultimately flawed, desire to tell a Native story, from a Native perspective (the exception is Bo at Ballard Creek, which does not take a Native perspective). To varying degrees, they are the white person so enchanted by our spirit or culture, or so infuriated by how we and our Nations are treated historically and in literature, that they decided to write these stories. Many readers--reading from that same position--feel very moved or inspired by their motivation and their books. There are others, however, who do not feel that same inspiration. Some (like me) are often more than a little irked that we keep getting books by white writers who just recycle stereotypes and biased stories. It plays to the mainstream expectation of what Native peoples are supposed to be, but that expectation is so far from what Native and non-Native readers ought to get, especially in books for young people.

SMALLER PUBLISHERS

Nine works of fiction by smaller publishing houses are on the CCBC list for 2014. One is by a writer who is not Native; eight are by Native writers.

The one by a writer who is not Native is Rob Owen's Spy Boy, Cheyenne, and 96 Crayons. It is published by Pelican Press. I am not able to get a copy of it and can't say anything about it.

The other eight? I recommend them. They don't stereotype. As far as my research has determined, they don't err with cultural material.

Joseph Bruchac's Killer of Enemies is published by Tu Books of Lee and Low. It is a post apocalyptic story with a female protagonist named Lozen who is a descendent of a noted Chiricahua Apache woman. Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

Art Coulson's The Creator's Game: A Story of Baaga'adowe/Lacrosse, published by the Minnesota Historical Press, is about Travis, a present-day boy sixth-grade Ojibwe boy who is getting started as a lacrosse player.

Eric Gansworth If I Ever Get Out of Here is one of my all-time favorites. I highly recommend it. No stereotyping in it. No romanticizing of a Native identity or history in it, and no performance of a not-legit Native identity, either. Elsewhere on AICL I've written about it, so won't go on and on here. It is by Arthur A. Levine Books (an imprint of Scholastic).

Gary Robinson's Little Brother of War, published by 7th Generation, is about a present-day Choctaw boy who thinks he's not an athlete like his big brother who was killed in Iraq. At a Choctaw gathering he finds himself playing stickball (a traditional game known as Little Brother of War), at which he excels.

Tim Tingle's How I Became a Ghost is published by Road Runner Press. It is set on the Trail of Tears, but in Tingle's deft storytelling voice, the story is more about the humanity and perseverance of the Choctaw people than the tragedy of removal.

Tingle's Danny Blackgoat: Navajo Prisoner is published by 7th Generation. This is the only book of Tingle's in which he writes outside of his own people (Choctaw). Though his storytelling skills are present, it doesn't have the depth that his Choctaw stories do. Even so, it is far more commendable than Cooper, Hood, Frost, Parry, or Hill.

Richard Van Camp's Little You, published by Orca, is a delightful board book celebrating a child's birth and childhood. Coupled with art by Metis artist Julie Flett, this book is gorgeous.

Richard Wagamese's Him Standing, published by Orca, is not--in my view--meant for young adult readers who are at the younger end of that scale (the range of YA is 12-18). A very dark thriller, the protagonist in Wagamese's book is 20 and living with his girlfriend.


SOME INITIAL CONCLUSIONS

The comparison between the two sets of books is lopsided in terms of quality. Really lopsided. The problematic books from the Big Five are doing well in the marketplace, which is no surprise. They have the marketing force of a major publisher, and, the stories cater to mainstream expectations of what stories about Native people will be about, and that's too bad! How are we going to get that depiction off of center stage?

My answer is:

1) Reject those problematic books. Tell others what is wrong with them.

2) Buy and recommend books that provide readers with stories that accurately present Native characters and culture. Tell others about them.

Bottom line of my analysis? Of the 13 books that I was able to read, I recommend 8 of them.

On March 16th, 2014, The New York Times ran an opinion piece by former children's literature ambassador, Walter Dean Myers. Titled "Where are the People of Color in Children's Books?", Myers pointed to the CCBC data. Of the 3,200 children's books published in 2014, 93 were about black people. I'm curious about the 93 books. What genre? What quality?

In 2013, CCBC received 34 about American Indians. In the analysis above, I looked only at fiction by US publishers. I have not yet looked at fiction by Canadian publishers, and nonfiction by US or Canadian publishers. Here's the numerical breakdown of that:

Fiction - US publishers = 14
Fiction - Canadian publishers = 8
Nonfiction - US publishers = 7
Nonfiction - Canadian publishers = 3

In 2013, CCBC reports that:

5000 books were published
3200 of those 5000 were sent to CCBC
13 of them were works of fiction about American Indians/First Nations/Latin America

Of those 13 works of fiction, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) recommends eight. As a society, we need those eight works of fiction in every school and public library, and in every classroom. Buy them. Booktalk them. Promote them every chance you get.

We need to buy those eight works of fiction so that the publishers and editors who worked on them will be encouraged to seek out additional manuscripts by those writers.

We need to thank editors like Cheryl Klein who worked with Eric Gansworth on If I Ever Get Out of Here, and Jeanne Devlin who worked with Tim Tingle on How I Became A Ghost, and Stacy Whitman who worked with Joseph Bruchac on Killer of Enemies for the care they took in bringing those books to us.


We thank those individuals by buying the books. 

By buying more than one copy of the books.  


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*On April 10, 2016, I edited this post. Though Scholastic is a major publisher, it is not considered to be one of the Big Houses.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

An Open Letter to People Who Are Not "Fans" of "Call Out Culture" on Social Media

Dear People Who Are Not "Fans of "Call Out Culture" on Social Media,

Today (October 13, 2015), The Guardian ran an article on Meg Rosoff's "row" over her remarks on Edith Campbell's Facebook page. There, Rosoff wrote that there are thousands of books out there where kids can see themselves. In The Guardian, writer James Dawson said that he disagrees with Rosoff's remark that there are thousands of books, saying there are "numerous" books and that they're hard to find. Then, he said this:  


Just in case you didn't realize it, Mr. Dawson and others who aren't fans of "call out culture," you're asking me to shut up with my critiques of the ways that Native peoples are depicted in children's and young adult books. 

Some of you are like Dawson, and think that buying books by diverse writers is enough. You think the mirrors in those books are enough.

But you forget, don't acknowledge, or maybe you don't even know, that the mirrors that Native kids get in classic, popular, and award-winning books aren't those nice shiny things you have in mind.

Far and away, what Native kids get are fun house mirrors* like the ones we see at carnivals, fairs, and theme parks. The ones that take your image and distort it. That make it look funny. Or uber cool. Or scary. Or stupid.

Source: http://www.dianasprinkle.com/2011/12/funhouse/


We have to call out these distortions, and you should, too. Lift books that give kids accurate representations of Native people, but call out the ones that are not ok, too, so that your buds will know those books are not ok. So they won't be put onto those school reading lists.

I'm talking about Ghost Hawk. And Island of the Blue Dolphins. And Little House on the Prairie. And Brother Eagle Sister Sky. And The Education of Little Tree. And Walk On Earth A Stranger. And... I could go on and on and on.

Your silence affirms their existence. Your silence harms what Native kids get, and what non-Native ones "learn" from those distorted images.

Join me. Call out the bad. You're not being a "fan" of call out culture. You're being a person who cares about what kids get in books.

Sincerely,
Debbie Reese
American Indians in Children's Literature

__________
*Update on Friday, Feb 25, 2022: In searching for something else, I came across Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop's use of the phrase "fun house." In Shadow and Substance: Afro-American: Afro American Experience in Contemporary Children's Fiction she wrote that "black children exploring the world of children's books found themselves looking into a kind of distorted fun-house mirror that resisted sending back reflections at all..."  

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Beverly Slapin's Review of S.D. Nelson's SITTING BULL: LAKOTA WARRIOR AND DEFENDER OF HIS PEOPLE

Editor's Note: Beverly Slapin submitted this review of S. D. Nelson's Sitting Bull: Lakota Warrior and Defender of His People. It may not be used elsewhere without her written permission. All rights reserved. Copyright 2016. Slapin is currently the publisher/editor of De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children.

~~~~~

Nelson, S.D., Sitting Bull: Lakota Warrior and Defender of His People. Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2015; grades 3-6 (Hunkpapa)

A basic criterion for good historical fiction is that facts about people who actually lived and events that actually happened must be accurate, and any deviations must be clearly pointed out. This is especially important in books for young readers. Fictionalized biographies and autobiographies must contain the same facts and the characters must be portrayed as if the books were nonfiction. All illustrations must accurately reflect the time and place as well.


In neither text nor art does Sitting Bull: Lakota Warrior and Defender of His People meet these basic criteria. Rather, there are distortions of history and factual errors on just about every page.

“SITTING BULL”
Tatanka Iyotake (Buffalo Bull Who Sits Down) was a father and grandfather, Sun Dancer and holy man, warrior and leader. He did not refer to himself as “Sitting Bull,” because that was not his name. Only at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, where he spent a short time in 1885, did he autograph picture postcards as “Sitting Bull,” in the cursive writing he was taught to sign his name. Yet here, Tatanka Iyotake consistently refers to himself as “Sitting Bull,” rather than his actual name:[i]

“Later I would earn the name Sitting Bull—he who, like a mighty buffalo, would not back down.” (page 4) “Forever after I was known as Sitting Bull, symbolizing a powerful buffalo that holds his ground and never backs down.” (page 6)

LaPointe (pages 26-29) tells a different story: After having a vision while he was part of a small group scouting for buffalo, young Jumping Badger’s father, Returns Again, had taken the name, Tatanka Iyotake. When Jumping Badger was 14, he joined a raiding party on an encampment of Crow and counted first coup. In recognition of his son’s bravery, Jumping Badger’s father had a giveaway of horses to those who needed them. And then he took the name, Jumping Bull, and bestowed his own name, Tatanka Iyotake, on his son. LaPointe’s version substantiates Utley’s story (pages 14-15). Although Utley ascribes symbolism to this name, LaPointe does not.


AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN PAST TENSE
Towards the beginning of his narration, “Sitting Bull” talks of his own people in the past tense, thereby prompting young readers (and their teachers) to relegate Indian peoples to the past. On page 3, for instance:

My band of people called ourselves the Hunkpapa. We were one of seven Lakota tribes that lived on the Great Plains of North America. Outsiders called all of us the Sioux. We believed that there is a living spirit in all creatures and things. We called this sacred spirit Wakan Tanka, or the Great Mystery. Into this land of mystery I was born. (emphasis mine)

Further, Tatanka Iyotake would not have described his home territories as the “Great Plains of North America.” And “Sioux” was not just a convenient term for outsiders; rather, it’s derived from the pejorative, “nadouessioux” (adder snakes), by which their Ojibwe enemies referred to the Lakota/Dakota peoples. In addition to these errors, fanciful language such as “into this land of mystery I was born” is not the way that Indian oral autobiographies from the 1800s were dictated—even before they were recorded and translated into English.  

Then there’s the bragging. It’s everywhere, and unlike how Tatanka Iyotake, who was known to be a humble person, would have spoken of himself.[ii]

From an early age, I sensed that I would be a strong warrior. My arrows flew more swiftly and true to their mark than those of the other boys. My weapons seemed to have “medicine power” that gave me added strength. (page 4)


INAPPROPRIATE HEADING QUOTES
The heading quote on page 2 reads:

Wakan Tanka . . . Wherever the sun, the
moon, the earth, the four points of the wind,
there you are always. —Sitting Bull

This heading quote, a fragment of a prayer, is set at the beginning of “Sitting Bull’s” narrative of his early life, above an illustration of three boys riding their ponies and facing a description of Jumping Badger’s childhood. Nelson cites the quote to Utley (page 144), but Utley’s complete version of Tatanka Iyotake’s prayer is: “Wakantanka, pity me. In the name of the tribe I offer you this peace pipe.[iii] Wherever the sun, the moon, the earth, the four points of the wind, there you are always. Father, save the tribe. I beg you. Pity me. We want to live. Guard us against all misfortunes and calamities. Pity me.” According to Utley, this was an offering and appeal for the wellbeing of his people—on the day before and at the same place that Custer and his men fell. It was a prayer uttered by a grown man for a specific reason, and did not have anything to do with Jumping Badger’s childhood. 


FIRST KILL
In the section in which “Sitting Bull” describes his first kill (page 5), the narrative reads:

In 1841, when I was ten years old, I killed my first buffalo. I galloped my horse alongside the young horned animal, loosing my arrows into his ribs. My pounding heart thrilled with excitement and fear. When the buffalo fell, I howled like a wolf in triumph. And yet, as I stood over the fallen creature, I also felt sadness deep inside me. I knelt close to my first kill, and whispered into his ear, “Thank you, Brother Buffalo, for giving your life so that my people will live.” (emphasis mine)

Although it’s expected that this young person would thank his kills as he’d been shown, the way that Tatanka Iyotake later told his story is fundamentally different from this version: no heart pounding with excitement and fear, no howling like a wolf, no deep sadness. Rather, Tatanka Iyotake’s story forefronts generosity, one of the core values. In LaPointe’s biography (page 15), the young Jumping Badger chose and downed a particularly large bull, ate a portion of the liver to thank the spirit of the buffalo as he had been instructed to, and told his mother to take some of the choice portions of the meat to a widow and her children. (And Tatanka Iyotake would not have used a numbered year as a reference point—this appears to have been inserted for the benefit of non-Native readers.)


FIRST COUP
On page 6, “Sitting Bull” describes his first coup, which earned him his adult name. Here, he relates (for the benefit of young readers) information about his people:

My Lakota people were warriors, feared and respected. We needed to be fierce in order to survive. We constantly struggled with other tribes over the use of hunting grounds. Our enemies…were always trying to steal our horses. So we did the same to them.

At fourteen years of age, I earned my first eagle feather during a raid against our Crow enemy. On horseback, yelping and shrieking, I closed in on a mounted warrior and chopped him with my tomahawk. (emphasis mine)

Terms such as “feared,” “fierce,” “yelping” and “shrieking” are not how Tatanka Iyotake would have described himself or his people. Rather, they are derogatory terms frequently used by outsiders.

And on page 6, accompanying the text about “warriors,” is a photograph of eight Lakota men standing together. The caption is “A Sioux war party, c. 1880,” but there doesn’t appear to be anything in the photo that would identify them as a “war party.” When the photograph was taken, appending this kind of stereotyped caption was done to promote sales; here, the author perpetuates the stereotype rather than questioning it.


“WASICHUS”
On page 8, “Sitting Bull” narrates:

Many years before I was born, strangers began to come to our land. Their pale skin was curious, so we called them wasichus [sic], or white men. At first they were few in number and said they only wanted to pass through the territory. They claimed they came in peace to trade for furs and buffalo robes. The wasichus [sic] offered amazing treasures and wondrous trinkets in exchange—horses, guns, wagons, kettles, knives, beautiful glass beads, coffee, sugar, and much more. Sometimes my people traded buffalo robes. Other times, we raided the wagons of the intruders and took what we wanted!

As the story goes (Marshall, 2007), when a group of Sicangu Lakota hunters along the Missouri River encountered two starving white men digging up a cache of tallow, they were dubbed Wasin icupi, or “they took the fat.” “It’s entirely likely,” Marshall writes, “that the Lakota word for whites—wasicu—evolved from that tongue-in-cheek description of two hungry white men.” But the word does not refer to pale skin or whiteness as suggested here.

Both Marshall and LaPointe, fluent Lakota speakers, refer to the word, “wasicu,” as spelled the same way in singular and plural forms. I’ve also heard the plural pronounced as “wasichun,” with a slight nasal “n” at the end. But not “wasichus.”


TRADING WITH THE INTRUDERS
By the use of the terms “amazing treasures” and “wondrous trinkets” to describe the items the emigrants offered to trade for the valuable buffalo robes, the Lakota people appear wide-eyed, childlike and easily scammed. The Lakota people indeed welcomed European goods that were useful for everyday life—such as guns, knives, needles, iron pots and pans, tin plates, and wool blankets. But coffee, sugar and glass beads were not essential and none of this was seen as “amazing” or “wondrous.” It seems unlikely that the Lakota people at that time, who successfully used camp dogs and pony drags to haul their belongings, would have had use for heavy, cumbersome covered wagons that could not be taken apart at camp, with their huge wheels that dug into the trails. And it’s unlikely that the emigrants would have wanted to trade them anyway.

People raided the intruders’ wagons for a number of reasons, not just to “take what [they] wanted.” Rather, they saw the wasicu disrupting and endangering the buffalo herds, spreading infectious diseases (such as smallpox and cholera), trampling grasslands and cutting timber.
Thousands upon thousands of heavy, overloaded wagons rutted the 2,200-mile Oregon Trail, which the people sarcastically dubbed the “Holy Road.” The emigrants littered the area with all kinds of detritus—including discarded household goods, rotting food and dead horses, mules and oxen; and even dead humans, hastily deposited into shallow graves all along the way. And the ruts, which were 50- to 60-feet wide and five- to six-feet deep, frightened away the game animals and disrupted age-old migration patterns.


“YOU ARE FOOLS…”
The heading quote on page 10 reads:

You are fools to make yourselves slaves
to a piece of bacon fat, some hardtack,
a little sugar and coffee. —Sitting Bull

Here, the author cites Marrin (page 92), but this quote does not appear to be in Marrin’s book. It’s actually in Utley (page 73), and the context, which Nelson omits, is that it was Tatanka Iyotake’s challenge to a group of Assiniboines:

“Look at me. See if I am poor, or my people either. The whites may get me at last, as you say, but I will have good times till then. You are fools to a make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hard-tack, and a little sugar and coffee.”

As a challenge, above, Tatanka Iyotake, as a representative of his people, makes a political point. But in the abbreviated quote, “Sitting Bull” just throws out a taunt.


SLAUGHTER OF THE BUFFALO
The text on page 10 has “Sitting Bull” describing the whites’ slaughter of entire herds of buffalo, (which occurred between 1869, when the Transcontinental Railroad was completed; and the mid-1870s). But in the text on page 11, Nelson supports the quote on page 10, a reaction to the US’s “insistence” (see next section) that the Lakota sign “treaty papers that would allow their people safe passage through our land” in exchange for which they would receive “rations of food—flour, bacon, sugar, and such.” To add to the confusion, all of a sudden, “Sitting Bull” is taking up his lance and leading “our people in many battles against the wasichus [sic].”

On page 11 (first paragraph of text) “Sitting Bull” says,

The United States government said that we Lakota must sign treaty papers that would allow their people safe passage through our land. In exchange, the government would give us rations of food—flour, bacon, sugar, and such. I refused to sign any treaties. We heard stories of terrible battles being fought between the U.S. soldiers and distant tribes. We were told that great forces were marching toward us. Their intention was the complete conquest of our people. (emphasis mine)

At that time, the Lakota were in a position of power, and the wasicu were pleading for them to sign papers ensuring the emigrants safe passage. At that time, the US government was not yet a threat with “great forces marching” toward the Lakota, with “the intention of complete conquest,” so for Tatanka Iyotake to be thinking in those terms would be more the author’s futuristic projection than Tatanka Iyotake’s prediction.


WARPAINT TRENDS
Here, the author spends more text and illustration on “Sitting Bull’s” description of battle gear:

In preparation to fight, we warriors always prayed to Wakan Tanka for strength. We tied feathers in our hair and painted our bodies and our horses for combat. We believed doing so gave us medicine power. Often I painted my face red and my body yellow. I painted my horse with lightning bolts and hailstones.

In the art that accompanies the second paragraph of text (on page 11) are three young men readying themselves and each other for battle. “Sitting Bull” says, “I painted my horse with lightning bolts and hailstones.” And on page 18, Nelson depicts Tashunke Witko (His Horse is Crazy) as being painted with lightning bolts and hailstones. Tashunke Witko’s battle paint did indeed include a lightning bolt on his face and blue hailstones on his chest and shoulders, but there is nothing to suggest that Tatanka Iyotake’s war pony was painted with a similar design; it’s more likely that the author just made it up, based on Tashunke Witko’s battle paint.


HARD LESSONS OF KILLDEER MOUNTAIN
The heading quote on page 12 reads:

We must act with vindictive earnestness against the
Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women, and
children. —General William Tecumseh Sherman, U.S. Army, 1866

Nelson correctly attributes this quote. However, the text that follows (page 13) describes the Battle of Killdeer Mountain, a deadly offensive led by Brigadier General Alfred Sully two years earlier, in 1864.

In describing the aftermath of the Battle of Killdeer Mountain, “Sitting Bull” narrates:

The U.S. Army won the Battle of Killdeer Mountain, but it takes many battles to win a war. I did not plan to surrender. Instead, I intended to teach the wasichus [sic] a lesson. Later that summer, I led an attack against a wagon train of white settlers heading west under military guard. On horseback and in close combat, I tried to push a soldier from his mount. He pulled his pistol and shot me through the hip. I was the one who learned a hard lesson. (page 14)

What “hard lesson” did “Sitting Bull” learn? Don’t get too close to a soldier? And why is he using the terms “wasichus” [sic], “white settlers,” and “trespassers” interchangeably?


FORT LARAMIE TREATY
On pages 16-17, “Sitting Bull” discusses the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. “Great conflict,” he says, was caused because “the wasichus [sic] did not understand” that the Lakota “did not have one leader who represented all our different tribes.”

[T]hey picked Indians who favored their intentions and declared them to be chiefs. These so-called chiefs signed treaties, but they did not represent the will of all the Lakota people. This caused great conflict, because many Lakota refused to honor the treaties, and the U.S. government then claimed we were in the wrong. We were not in the wrong. We had not agreed to their invasion.

Of course, the US government “understood” very well Lakota political organization. This was no “misunderstanding”—it was a divide-and-conquer political manipulation, forced on the Lakota peoples. Tatanka Iyotake understood this well—he, along with Tashunke Witko and others, were astute leaders, not easily scammed.

“Sitting Bull” continues:

The agreement created the Great Sioux Reservation (in what is now South Dakota and Nebraska). On this reservation the U.S. government would teach my people a new way to live—to farm, to speak English, and to follow the ways of the Christian religion. In exchange, the chiefs promised to end the violent fighting among tribes and stop all raiding against white settlers. They agreed to allow settlers safe passage on wagon roads and new railroads to be built through what had once been Indian territory. (emphasis mine)

Here, “Sitting Bull” abruptly switches time spans: In a discussion about an event that took place in 1868, he mentions South Dakota, which became a state in 1889; and Nebraska (which had already become a state), in 1867. And the Treaty of Fort Laramie was far from an “exchange” of cultures, as “Sitting Bull” implies here—it was the enactment of a massive land grab that devastated the Lakota peoples.


IN CANADA
The heading quote on page 18 reads:

I will do to the Americans as they have done
to me. It is not my wish to go to war, but I must.
I never told you before that I was a chief;
today I tell you I am one. —Sitting Bull

Nelson’s correctly cites this quote to Utley (page 205), but cuts off the important first part of what Tatanka Iyotake said. What he actually said was this:

I wish you to tell the Grandmother that I will do to the Americans as they have done to me. It is not my wish to go to war, but I must. I never told you before that I was a chief; today I tell you I am one.

In the midwinter of 1878-79, there was a crisis in which Tatanka Iyotake attempted an alliance with the Crows, who then were allowed to cross the border into Canada and launch a successful horse raid that ran off nearly 100 Lakota head. Humiliated and infuriated, Tatanka Iyotake saw the Crow as surrogates for the Americans and poured out his indignation to the Queen through Major James M. “Long Lance” Walsh.

By editing out the first eight words of what Tatanka Iyotake said, and by not providing the historical context, Nelson implies an incorrect historical link between this quote and the text on the next page.


CRAZY HORSE
Also on page 18, “Sitting Bull” narrates:

One of Chief Red Cloud’s warriors resisted and continued to live free on the prairies with a band of Oglala. His name was Crazy Horse. In battle, he painted a thunderbolt down his face and hailstones on his shoulders and chest. He fought like a thunderstorm. I liked that man.

Tashunke Witko (His Horse is Crazy) was a Thunder Dreamer who, just before battle, painted a thunderbolt on his face and hailstones on his chest because he had received these instructions in a vision when he was young. “[Fighting] like a thunderstorm” has nothing to do with Tashunke Witko’s battle paint. And the relationship between Tatanka Iyotake and Tashunke Witko was more than mere friendship; they were staunch allies, warriors and leaders who always had each other’s back.

In the accompanying illustration, lightning bolts are going through Tashunke Witko and his horse while both are in motion, and there’s an iconic image of a Thunderbird in the upper right corner. Tashunke Witko is wearing an eagle feather—which he was instructed never to do. Rather, he wore the tail feathers of a red-tailed hawk. And his hair was not black, it was brown.


“ONE LEADER”
On page 19, “Sitting Bull” narrates:

Leaders from our seven different bands agreed that we needed one leader to help unite our people against the wasichus[sic]. Many times those leaders had seen my success in battle. They had heard my songs of prayer to Wakan Tanka. They believed me to be a Wichasha Wakan, a holy man who would always put his people first and save them from destruction. A respected man named Four Horns turned to me and made the proclamation: “For your bravery on the battlefields and as the greatest warrior of our bands, we have elected you as our war chief, leader of the entire Sioux nation. When you tell us to fight, we shall fight; when you tell us to make peace, we shall make peace.” Hundreds of Cheyenne and Arapaho also joined us. Together, we would be strong—like a herd of buffalo that never backs down![iv]

Four Horns—the “respected man” to whom “Sitting Bull” refers in Nelson’s version—was actually Tatanka Iyotake’s uncle. As the most respected Hunkpapa leader, he was concerned that, with white encroachment growing daily, his leadership needed to be passed on to another strong Wichasha Wakan—his nephew—whose reputation was above reproach. According to LaPointe (page 50), both Tashunke Witko and Gall were in agreement with Four Horns that a strong new leadership was necessary.

According to Utley (page 87), this kind of office had never existed and, in fact, was “alien to Sioux thinking about political organization.” And, although not everyone supported this idea, Tatanka Iyotake’s leadership—along with Tashunke Witko as second in command (until his assassination in 1877)—was able to hold the people together who stood against US depredation of their lands for 23 years. Nelson oversimplifies this difficult and contentious, yet necessary, political reorganization as occurring because leaders had “seen [his] success in battle,” “heard [his] songs of prayer to Wakan Tanka,” and “believed [him] to be a Wichasha Wakan…”

In his artwork on this page, Nelson depicts three men, sitting on the ground, cross-legged. “Sitting Bull,” in the center, is dressed in full regalia. He is holding a Calf pipe in one hand and a braid of sweetgrass in the other, together reminiscent of the imperial sword and scepter. To “Sitting Bull’s” right, a painted warrior offers him a bow and four arrows; and to his left, Tashunke Witko, in full battle paint (and with black hair and eagle feather), offers him a rifle.

To Four Horns and the other leaders who joined him, this move was about unity and strength. Nelson’s interpretation—in text and artwork—is that this move was all about “Sitting Bull,” the individual.


RED HORSE
The heading quote on page 20 reads:

I am tired of being always on the watch for
troops. My desire is to get my family where
they can sleep without being continually in
the expectation of an attack. —Red Horse

After having defeated Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Greasy Grass Battle, people were exhausted and many—demoralized, looking into the future—broke off and began to head toward the agencies (reservations) set up by the US government. At Cheyenne River in 1877, Red Horse explained why he was leaving. But, accompanying Red Horse’s comment—without context—are photos of Custer’s camp in the Black Hills in 1874, as well as portraits of Custer and the other generals. And the text leads up to the battle in 1876—all before Red Horse’s comment. The next few pages of text as well describe the Sun Dance camp before the Greasy Grass Battle and the battle itself. This is all, at the least, confusing.


GAZING AT THE SUN
The heading quote on page 23 reads:

I will give my flesh and blood that I may
conquer my enemies! —Lakota Sun Dance vow

Nelson cites this generic “Lakota Sun Dance vow” to Marrin (page 39), who does not attribute it. According to LaPointe (page 44), the Wiwang Wacipi (Gazing at the Sun as You Dance) “is a ceremony an individual performs for the health and welfare of the people. It is also a fertility ceremony for the continued existence of the Nation.” LaPonte also describes Tatanka Iyotake’s prayer the day before Greasy Grass Battle:

He selected a place to pray and put his offerings in a circle. He filled his Cannupa, sang a Thunder song, and prayed for the large gathering of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho camped just below. He prayed and asked that the people might live and that the spirits would protect and have pity on them. He finished his prayers, smoked his Cannupa, and then returned to camp. It was the evening of June 24, 1876.

For the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota peoples, it’s unlikely that the Wiwang Wacipi, one of seven sacred rites given and taught to the Nation by White Buffalo Calf Woman, would be an attempt to strike a bargain with the Creator. Nor would it be about what one would do to people; rather, who one is in relationship with people.

Sundance continues today with every detail intact. Although old photographs can be found and a few disreputable people who call themselves “Sundance Chiefs” allow outsiders to witness and even participate in Sundance, traditionalists do not allow this sacred ceremony to be photographed or illustrated. Here (on page 22), the author has painted his version of Sundance for all—including children—to see. And he doesn’t mention White Buffalo Calf Woman.

In this book, “Sitting Bull” explains Lakota beliefs and ritual to the child reader in a way that Tatanka Iyotake never did and never would have.


ROSEBUD
On pages 24, there’s a brief account of the advance—and quick retreat—of General George Crook and his soldiers, accompanied by some Crow and Shoshone, at the Rosebud Creek, where Tatanka Iyotake’s people were encamped. Here, “Sitting Bull” says, “My arms were so swollen that I could not join in the fight. Crazy Horse led our warriors in a daylong battle that routed Crook and his bluecoats.” Actually, it had not been Tatanka Iyotake’s role to lead this battle, and no “excuse” was necessary. He had already fulfilled his role.

On page 25, “Sitting Bull” says,

Some asked if the battle was the fulfillment of my Sun Dance vision. Regretfully, I had to tell them that a greater assault was to come. Still, the feeling of victory filled everyone’s heart. Our thundering drums and our deep-throated songs echoed the valley.

“Thundering drums” and “deep-throated songs” notwithstanding, Crook’s defeat left more than a “feeling” of victory and there were no regrets. According to LaPointe (p. 65), “Tatanka Iyotake told the people this was a great victory, but it was not the vision he had received at the Wiwang Wacipi.”


GREASY GRASS
On pages 26-28, “Sitting Bull” describes the Greasy Grass Battle:

The screaming horses, yelling men, and hail of bullets raged like a thunderstorm. Arrows filled the dust-choked air. The fearless Crazy Horse yelled out, “Ho-ka hey! It is a good day to fight! It is a good day to die! Strong hearts, brave hearts, to the front!” More than one thousand Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho swarmed over the bluecoats like angry ants.

Purple prose notwithstanding, one might wonder how Tatanka Iyotake would have known what “the fearless Crazy Horse yelled out.” Tatanka Iyotake wasn’t there. As “Sitting Bull” narrates:

I rode among the tipis, shouting encouragement. “Brave up, boys. It will be a hard time. Brave up!” As the people’s chief, I directed all warriors toward the fight.

Actually, LaPointe writes that Tatanka Iyotake’s role was different. As he was preparing for battle, Tatanka Iyotake’s mother told him that he would better serve the people by defending the camp and letting the younger warriors prove their worth. “The wisdom of women was much respected and admired,” LaPointe writes (p. 69), so Tatanka Iyotake, “who had the ultimate respect for his mother’s advice…accepted her wisdom and bowed to her wishes by not participating in the battle. Instead, he guided the vulnerable noncombatants to a safe place.”

Tatanka Iyotake’s vision had predicted victory, and, indeed the Greasy Grass Battle was a rout. Gall’s arrival, writes Marshall (pp. 53-55), “probably turned Custer’s offensive pursuit into a defensive action.” Warriors surrounded the bluecoats, some of whom dismounted to form ineffective skirmish lines. Breakaway troops who ran for the high ground found themselves pursued from the rear. And other disorganized troops panicked and were cut down. “Between Crazy Horse’s thunderous charge and Gall’s sharpshooting riflemen,” Marshall writes, the battle was quickly over. As LaPointe points out (p. 70), “The fight with the Long Knives lasted as long as a hungry man eats his meal.” 

“Sitting Bull” continues:

Warriors expect fierce combat. But it was wrong for Custer to attack a group including so many women and children. As our enraged fighters overwhelmed his, Long Hair realized too late that he had made a terrible mistake. Many Lakota believe that Custer saved one last bullet for himself; that would explain the hole in his left temple. He knew what awaited him if he fell into the hands of the people he had wronged!

Of course it was “wrong” to invade a camp of thousands of people, most of whom were noncombatants. But it happened all the time. There was the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864, for instance; and the Washita Massacre (by Custer’s own Seventh Cavalry) in 1868. So, it would be difficult to believe that, in a sudden realization that “he had made a terrible mistake,” Custer shot himself. Yet, on page 29, right in the center, Nelson depicts Custer, with long hair, in his famous buckskin jacket, shooting himself in the head.

Only that’s not what happened. We know that Custer was among those shot and killed at the Greasy Grass. We know that he had cut his hair short and had not worn his usual buckskin jacket because he did not want to be recognized.

In June 1976, Smithsonian Magazine published an article by artist Eric von Schmidt, who investigated in detail the battle and its aftermath.[v] Von Schmidt’s work didn’t determine who killed Custer, but it sheds light on the way that he was killed: 

“Custer was not killed by arrows,” von Schmidt writes.

According to Lieutenant Godfrey, “He had been shot in the left temple and left breast. There were no powder marks or signs of mutilation.” This emphasis on the lack of powder burns and mutilation was meant to dispel rumors that Custer had committed suicide and had been horribly mangled by the Indians.

Elsewhere in the article, von Schmidt writes,

Mention of suicide among the troopers is almost as taboo today as 127 years ago. But one old Western cavalryman has said, “It was understood by every soldier, trapper and mountaineer, who knew the habits of the wild Indians that he should save the last shot for himself and take his own life rather than be captured.”

So this “saving the last bullet for himself” business was not, as “Sitting Bull” says, what “many Lakota believe[d].” Rather, it’s drama more worthy of dime novels and 1940s Hollywood movies than actual history.

Years later, when interviewed by historians, Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors who had participated in the Greasy Grass Battle were circumspect about their own participation. They feared reprisals. But, according to a Winter Count, this coup clearly belonged to Rain-in-the-Face. And, according to Utley (page 240), it was “Rain-in-the-Face, whom everyone supposed to be the Indian who killed Custer.”


SURRENDER
On page 34 (first paragraph), “Sitting Bull” describes his steamboat passage down the Missouri River:

The soldiers put us on a steamboat and sent our little band of Hunkpapa down the Missouri River. I had never been on a steamboat before. The great machine had a fire burning in its belly and could go anywhere it wanted on the water. I was confounded—where did the washichus [sic] get such power?

No, Lakota adults did not think like naïve children. They had seen machines, including railroad trains, and did not think of them “going anywhere they wanted.” Indeed, they had even seen their children—in trains—being taken to Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania in 1879. No, they were not easily “confounded.”

In the second paragraph, “Sitting Bull” begins to describe his surrender at Fort Buford and submission to reservation life. Narrating yet more broken promises, “Sitting Bull” says:

Instead of letting us join our people as promised, they sent us farther downriver and confined us at Fort Randall (in South Dakota) for the next two years. We received food rations and lived in a little village of tipis west of the fort. Soldiers kept guard over us. I had become the thing I loathed the most—a Hang-Around-the-Forts. (page 33)

No. Tatanka Iyotake well knew that he and his people were prisoners of war. Under armed guard, they were confined at Fort Randall. They were not free to leave. And yet, here, “Sitting Bull” calls himself a “Hang-Around-the-Forts”—a term used even today among Indian people to denote “loafers” or “sell-outs.”[vi]

The heading quote on page 34 reads:

I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or
railways or clothing or food, that is as good as the right to
move in the open country, and live in our own fashion.
—Sitting Bull, at Fort Randall

Comparing houses and railways and clothing and food to moving in the open country, this last portion of a longer piece, cited to Utley (p. 246), offers nothing critical for children to consider. Rather, what Tatanka Iyotake actually said compares the difference between two cultures; between, as he saw it, slavery and freedom:

White men like to dig in the ground for their food. My people prefer to hunt the buffalo like their fathers did. White men like to stay in one place. My people want to move their tepees here and there to the different hunting grounds. The life of white men is slavery. They are prisoners in towns or farms. The life my people want is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or railways or clothing or food, that is as good as the right to move in the open country, and live in our own fashion.


On page 34, below Tatanka Iyotake’s partial quote, is a photo of an Indian man with two horses and a makeshift plow. The caption reads, “On the reservation, the Lakota were given plots of land to farm.” And on page 35, “Sitting Bull” describes poor farming conditions and the meager rations at Standing Rock, while the photo below is captioned: “The Lakota line up to receive food and other rations.” (emphasis mine)

“We had little choice in the matter,” “Sitting Bull” says, “for the buffalo were all gone now. I was bewildered—how was it possible for the great herds to vanish in my lifetime?” (emphasis mine) Of course, the Lakota people were “given” nothing. They “received” nothing. And the great herds did not “vanish.” The US had stolen Lakota land, slaughtered the great buffalo herds, and imprisoned the people. And Tatanka Iyotake was not “bewildered.” He knew exactly what the US had done to his people. That’s why he fought them for much of his adult life. That’s why they feared him.


BUFFALO BILL’S WILD WEST SHOW
On page 37, “Sitting Bull” describes his participation in the summer of 1885 with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, traveling throughout the eastern US and into Canada:

People came by the thousands to see Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. They seemed to think I was the Indian who had personally killed Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. I was booed with catcalls by some spectators, but cheered on by others. To them, I was a celebrity!

People “seemed to think” that Tatanka Iyotake killed Custer because that was how he was presented. “When he was invited to speak,” James Welch writes,

[H]e spoke of peace, of his people’s lives, of his desire to get along with America. But what came out of the “translator’s” mouth was a blood-curdling account of savagery at the Little Bighorn. (page 263)

What Nelson doesn’t describe—and what would be important for child readers to know—was that, while Tatanka Iyotake made lots of money appearing at the shows and selling autographs and photos of himself, he gave most of it away to the orphan children he met on the streets. He once told young Annie Oakley—the famed “Little Sharpshooter” whom he adopted as a sister—that he didn’t understand how white people could be so uncaring about their own poor. (Brown, page 427)

“The white man knows how to make everything,” he said, “but he does not know how to distribute it.”


MEADOWLARK’S WARNING
On pages 38-39, Nelson’s version of Meadowlark’s message occurs just after “Sitting Bull” returns home to Standing Rock from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He’s depressed, dazed and confused:

The gray horse rode the train with me back home to the Standing Rock Agency on the Indian reservation. My thoughts were confused with all I had seen and heard. My world had been turned on its head. How could my people adapt? I was an old man and tired. Sometimes I would ride the gray circus horse on the prairie. Together we wandered here and there beneath the great blue sky. I prayed for answers. And the answer came. In the last days of summer, Sister Meadowlark sang her song. She sounded lovely, but her words were terrible and sad: Your Lakota people will kill you. My troubled heart did not understand. Everything in this new world now seemed to have two different faces—beautiful and cruel. (emphasis in text)

The actual incident occurred, not in 1885, but five years later. Tatanka Iyotake had realized that the Ghost Dance was taking over his people’s lives. According to LaPointe,

He went out on the prairie to pray and to receive inspiration from Wakan Tanka. As he was returning to his cabin, he encountered a Tasiyagnupa (meadowlark), one of his special winged messengers. The meadowlark spoke a warning to him, saying, “The Lakota will kill you.”

That was on August of 1890. Despite the meadowlark’s warning, Tatanka Iyotake felt he could not abandon his people. He had to try to get them to realize that the dance could not provide what it promised; he had to try without throwing them back into despair and hopelessness. (page 93)

In the first passage, Nelson places Meadowlark’s warning in a different time and for a different reason, and gives Tatanka Iyotake no option. Nelson’s vision appears to be exactly the opposite of Tatanka Iyotake’s vision.


CONVERSATION WITH “LONG LANCE” WALSH
The heading quote on page 40 reads:

I will remain what I am until I die, a hunter, and
when there are no buffalo or other game I will send
my children to hunt and live on prairie mice, for
where an Indian is shut up in one place his body
becomes weak. —Sitting Bull

This comment, cited in Utley (page 206) is from a political discussion Tatanka Iyotake had had with his friend, Major James M. “Long Lance” Walsh—in Canada—in 1879, before he and his people had surrendered at Fort Buford and were imprisoned at Fort Randall (1881) before they were relocated to Standing Rock (1883), and before he joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show (1885).

But Nelson’s illustration below the comment—is of Tatanka Iyotake, arguing with James McLaughlin, the agent in charge at Standing Rock, 11 years later, in 1890. And worse is that, in the background, are Lakota people—Ghost Dancing—a circumstance that would never have happened. Tatanka Iyotake wouldn’t have had an argument—with anyone, much less a representative of the United States—on sacred ground, during a Ghost Dance.


GHOST DANCE
On page 41, “Sitting Bull” describes the Ghost Dance:

In the winter of 1890, in a last-ditch effort, hundreds of Lakota gathered at different places across the reservation for the Ghost Dance—a new ritual to reunite the living with the spirits of the dead and to bring peace and prosperity. Many came to my little settlement on the Grand River. In their prayers and dancing, they appealed to Wakan Tanka. But their pounding drums and chilling songs terrified the wasichus [sic], who feared there would be an Indian uprising. (emphasis mine)

The Ghost Dance first circulated among the Paiutes and California nations (and the Mormons as well) around 1870. In Nevada in 1889, Wovoka, a Paiute holy man, taught his vision, a mixture of Christian doctrine and Indian ritual and belief, to delegates from several Indian nations. Among them were Kicking Bear and Short Bull, who brought Wovoka’s teachings back to the Lakota. Wovoka taught them that, by embracing his faith and dancing the Ghost Dance,

Indians could live in a land without white people, “a land inhabited by all the generations of Indians that had gone before, a land bounteous in game and all the other riches of the natural world, a land free of sickness and want, a land where all tribes dwelt in peace.” (Utley, page 282)

It wasn’t “pounding drums and chilling songs” that “terrified the wasichus [sic].” Rather, as the Ghost Dance and its prophetic vision continued to spread, reservation officials saw this non-violent religious movement—a spiritual display of Indian unity—as a threat to US Indian policy. Everything the people did together was a threat to US Indian policy; the Ghost Dance became a convenient excuse to interrupt this unity—and an excuse to get rid of Tatanka Iyotake.

While Tatanka Iyotake maintained his traditional beliefs and did not participate in the Ghost Dance, he allowed Kicking Bear to teach about it, and he defied all government efforts to compel him to shut it down.


TATANKA IYOTAKE’S ASSASSINATON
Probably the eeriest part of this “fictional autobiography” is the narrative on pages 42-45, where “Sitting Bull” describes his own assassination, and then the next few pages, where he opines about where his body may or may not be.

In the end, my own people came for me wearing the blue coats of American policemen. Can you believe it? Not only had they adopted the white man’s clothing, but they had become a new kind of Indian. Perhaps they understood the way of things more than I did. Change was upon us, so they were changing….

They stuck a pistol in my back and pushed me out into the yard….Anger began to stir in my heart. I pushed back and accused the policemen of having some nerve to come into my home in such a manner….Hearing the commotion, more Lakota appeared to defend me. Heated arguing and pushing followed. A shot came from the crowd, and one of the Lakota bluecoats tumbled to the ground.

More flashes of gunfire erupted. In the gunfight that followed, I took one bullet in the ribs and another Lakota policeman put a bullet in my head. It ended for me that way. My handsome son Crow Foot and six members of my band fell dead with me. Another six Lakota policemen lay dying, along with two fallen horses.

So, just to be clear in case young readers won’t “get” this part: While he’s describing the tribal police’s assassinating him, “Sitting Bull” is making excuses for them: “Perhaps they understood the way of things more than I did.”

The real story of how Tatanka Iyotake was assassinated is different, in many ways, from the distorted version above. Ernie LaPointe, Tatanka Iyotake’s great-grandson, relates the events of Tatanka Iyotake’s assassination, as passed down to him by his relatives:

[A]ccording to his stepsons, the police knocked on the door and asked him to come out. They waited for him while he got dressed, putting on his shirt and leggings…. When Tatanka Iyotake walked toward the door of the cabin, [his 17-year-old son] Crowfoot jumped up and picked up his weapon. He told his father he would protect him. “I will stand with you.”

At the door, Tatanka Iyotake paused, then turned around and sang a farewell song to his family. He sang, “I am a man and wherever I lie is my own.” As he turned and stepped out the door, Crowfoot walked behind him carrying his weapon. Those inside the cabin said it seemed like forever when gunfire erupted. Tatanka Iyotake fell in front of the door, and a few seconds later Crowfoot fell next to his father. Six Silent Eaters of the Midnight Strong Heart Society died along with their friend, chief, and Sun Dancer that cold December morning. (pages 193-195)

And, “[a]s the US Army unit assigned to back up the Indian police moved into the camp,” LaPointe writes, “the family and other residents fled for their lives.”

The heading quote on page 46 reads:

He should have been buried in the old way—on a
scaffold, safe from hungry wolves, in that high place
reaching up to the stars of night.  —Flying Cloud

The citation for this quote in the Endnotes (page 54) reads, “Quote by S.D. Nelson.” In his Author’s Note (page 52), Nelson writes, “My given Lakota name is Mahpiya Kiny’An, or Flying Cloud.”

And. On page 46, there are two photographs. One is of some of Tatanka Iyotake’s relatives—Lodge in Sight, Four Robes, Seen By Her Nation, and Standing Holy—shortly after his assassination. (I have seen this photo many times. These women look miserable, probably in shock.)

The second photograph is labeled “A traditional Lakota burial platform.” It’s actually “A burial platform—Apsaroke,” by Edward S. Curtis, 1908. The Apsaroke people, also known as Crow, were bitter enemies of the Lakota/Dakota people. Their traditional burial scaffolds may or may not have been similar, but they are not interchangeable.


TATANKA IYOTAKE’S BURIAL
And finally, on page 47, the last page of “Sitting Bull’s” narration, there is this:

Some claim I was buried in one location, while others say my remains were taken elsewhere. In truth, no one knows where I sleep the long sleep. I should have been buried with my lance and my shield. But it makes little difference.

This is incorrect. And it makes a big difference. According to LaPointe, relatives of the slain Lakota policemen had mutilated Tatanka Iyotake’s body, which was then taken to the cemetery at Fort Yates, where it was unceremoniously buried in a plain pine box. Later, under cover of night, Tatanka Iyotake’s relatives and friends found the bodies of Crowfoot and the six Silent Eaters, and “changed their clothing to make them presentable for their journey to the Spirit World.” A week later, they were buried by agency Indians—for pay—without ceremony, in a mass grave.

Tatanka Iyotake’s bones were moved to and remain in a burial site on free land in Mobridge, South Dakota. There, according to LaPointe, “it has become a party place for the youth from Standing Rock and Mobridge,” a trash dump of beer cans, cigarettes and used condoms.  Everyone knows where Tatanka Iyotake’s gravesite is. His direct lineal descendants have been fighting the Mobridge Chamber of Commerce and the Standing Rock Sioux for many years to have the bones of their beloved ancestor moved and reburied with proper ceremony, at a place of their choosing.

But here, “Sitting Bull” continues:

What matters is that my people fought the good fight. We are not ashamed that we lost. We remain warriors, for the ways of the world are mysterious and fierce.

To my people I say: Brave up! There will be hard times ahead. Strong hearts to the front! Look, do you see? The buffalo are returning! Bury bitterness, for the wrongs of the past cannot be changed. Remember to honor those traditions that still serve our people. Share them with all who seek understanding. Go forth with a good heart.

In the end, everyone’s spirit joins with the stars. Look for me there—riding my gray painted horse with feathers tied in his windblown mane.


Sitting Bull: Lakota Warrior and Defender of His People misrepresents Tatanka Iyotake, Tashunke Witko, and the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota peoples and the history of the Indian struggles for survival and sovereignty. It is little different from anything else ever published that perpetuates the Lakota peoples as “relics of a tragic past.”

Nelson’s misrepresentations aren’t solely relegated to his text and artwork. There are also numerous errors of fact, interpretation and omission, both in the frontispiece map and in just about all of the back matter as well. Massacres are called “battles,” genocidal attacks are called a “clash of cultures,” information about the Lakota people in general and the role of women in Lakota society are rife with errors, and generally, the implied subtext is that the Native peoples of the Plains were doomed from the beginning.

A glance at the bibliography may provide a clue as to why this material is so faulty. Of the 25 titles listed, only three are reputable Native sources (and two are by the same person). The rest of them are a mix of Time-Life books and the usual collection of non-Native archeologists, anthropologists and Indian experts. Nelson seems to rely most on three titles: John G. Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux (which has been roundly criticized both by critics and Black Elk’s family); Albert Marrin’s egregious Sitting Bull and His World[vii]; and Stanley Vestal’s Sitting Bull: Champion of the Sioux. Although the latter is cited in many published histories, it’s inherently problematic in that it’s based solely on interviews with people who have been described as Tatanka Iyotake’s “betrayers and murderers.”[viii]

But, given the accolades this book has received, it will probably be widely read by youngsters and their teachers, who will think that they’re reading real history. They are not.


CITATION SOURCES
Brown, Dee, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. Holt, 1970.
LaPointe, Ernie, Sitting Bull: His Life and Legacy. Gibbs Smith, 2009.
Marrin, Albert, Sitting Bull and His World. Dutton Children’s Books, 2000.
Marshall, Joseph M. III:
The Day the World Ended at Little Big Horn: A Lakota History. Viking Penguin, 2007.
The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History. Viking Penguin, 2004.
Utley, Robert M., The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull. Henry Holt, 1993.
Welch, James, with Paul Stekler, Killing Custer: The Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Fate of the Plains Indians. Norton, 1994.


—Beverly Slapin




[i] Where the name, “Sitting Bull” is encased in quotes, it refers to the “Sitting Bull” in Nelson’s book. In all other places, he is referred to by the name Tatanka Iyotake, which was his name and how he referred to himself.

[ii] The core cultural values of traditional Lakota society (and of other traditional Indian societies as well) include honor, respect, humbleness, and compassion. Ernie LaPointe, great-grandson and one of four living linear descendants of Tatanka Iyotake’s, repeatedly stresses these and other core values in his book, Sitting Bull: His Life and Legacy, which became my primary source of information here.

[iii] It’s doubtful that Tatanka Iyotake would have used the term “peace pipe.” More likely, he would have referred to it as the Calf Pipe. This may have been an inaccurate translation.

[iv] Although this event took place in 1869—the year after the disastrous Fort Laramie Treaty was signed and enacted—Nelson doesn’t mention its significance within this important historical context.

[v] This article can be found at http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/Smithsoniancoverage.htm

[vi] The terms, “loafers” or “hang-around-the-forts,” were originally used to describe those Indian people who had become dependent on the whites at Fort Laramie—fur traders, soldiers at the fort, emigrants along the trail and the Indian agent—for food and clothing.

[vii] See an full critical review of this title in A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children (AltaMira Press, 2005, pp. 331-334)

[viii] See a discussion of the author and his work in Ernie LaPointe’s Sitting Bull: His Life and Legacy (Gibbs Smith, 2009, pp. 16-17).