Beverly Slapin's review of Paul Goble's CUSTER'S LAST BATTLE: RED HAWK'S ACCOUNT OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN

Editor's Note: Beverly Slapin submitted this review essay of Paul Goble's Custer's Last Battle: Red Hawk's Account of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Slapin uses quotation marks around the name "Red Hawk" because that is a fictional character. Slapin's review 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.

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Goble, Paul, Custer’s Last Battle: Red Hawk’s Account of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, with an introduction by Joe Medicine Crow. Wisdom Tales / World Wisdom, 2013.

Each year on June 25, Oglala Lakota families at Pine Ridge gather to celebrate the Lakota people’s victory at the Battle of the Greasy Grass, where, in 1876, as Oglala author and activist Debra White Plume says, “Custer wore an Arrow Shirt.”

“Warriors get ready,” the announcer calls. “Be safe, and thank your horse when you’re done.” The warriors, mostly teens, race off to find and count coup on the white guy who’s volunteered to stand in for Custer. No one knocks him off his horse, but they take his flag. “Our ancestors took that flag from the United States of America,” White Plume says, smiling. “We’re the only people who ever did.”

“I think it’s important,” she continues, “for the young men and young women to receive the training of the Warrior Society as our ancestors lived it, because that’s where the important values are played out, like courage and helping your relative and taking care of your horse and taking care of the land. All of that was important to us then and is important to us now.”[1]

How different the people’s reality is from “Red Hawk’s” lament at the beginning of Goble’s story:

We won a great victory. But when you look about you [sic] today you can see that it meant little. The White Men, who were then few, have spread over the earth like fallen leaves driven before the wind.

Goble’s new edition of his first-published book contains a revised “narrative,” a new Author’s Introduction, and a short Foreword by Crow historian Joe Medicine Crow, whose grandfather had been one of Custer’s scouts. According to Goble himself, “The inclusion of the Foreword by Joe Medicine Crow… gives the book a stronger Indian perspective.” Of the 20 sources in Goble’s reference section, only two are Indian-authored—My People, the Sioux and My Indian Boyhood—both by Luther Standing Bear, who was not at the Greasy Grass Battle (because he was only eight years old at the time).

In the two previous editions of Red Hawk’s Account of Custer’s Last Battle, Goble acknowledges the aid of “Lakota Isnala,” whom one might presume to be a Lakota historian. He was not. In this 2013 edition, Goble finally discloses that “Lakota Isnala” was, in fact, a Belgian Trappist monk named Gall Schuon[2], who was adopted[3] by Nicolas Black Elk. Custer’s Last Battle, writes Goble, is his fictional interpretation of Fr. Gall Schuon’s interpretation of John G. Neihardt’s interpretation of Nicolas Black Elk’s story. (And there has been much criticism by scholars—and by Black Elk’s family—of Neihardt’s exaggerating and altering Black Elk’s story in order to increase the marketability of Black Elk Speaks.)[4] In other words, Goble’s book is a white guy’s interpretation of a white guy’s interpretation of a white guy’s controversial interpretation of an elder Lakota historian’s oral story, which he related in Lakota.[5] Finally, at the end of his introduction, Goble writes, “Wopila ate,” which is probably supposed to mean, “Thank you, father.” Except it doesn’t. “Wopila” is a noun and means “gift.” So, “wopila ate” would mean, “gift father,” which is just a joining of two unrelated words. “Pilamaya,” which is a verb, means “thank you.”

Returning to Goble’s introduction, there’s this:

Because no single Indian account gives a complete picture of the battle, Indian people telling only what they had seen and done, I added explanatory passages in italics to give the reader an overview of what might have taken place…

In truth, Native traditionalists in the 1800s[6] did not offer linear recitations of events. Rather, they narrated only those events in which they had participated. Sometimes historical records consisted entirely of these narratives. Sometimes contemporaneous Indian historians, such as Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa)[7], assembled credible historical records. Sometimes persons from outside the culture, who knew and respected the Indian traditionalists, successfully assembled written records of oral narratives.[8] And there certainly is, today, a wealth of material, much of it put together by descendants of those who fought in the Greasy Grass Battle.[9]

In the same paragraph, Goble writes,

[T]here were no survivors of Custer’s immediate command, and there has always been considerable controversy about exactly what happened.

By limiting his discussion (and the story) to the casualties of Custer’s “immediate” command, Goble sidesteps the reality that, although five of the 12 Seventh Cavalry companies were completely destroyed, there were many survivors in the other seven. And, according to the histories passed down by Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho traditionalists, there was never any “considerable controversy about exactly what happened.” In one of the major battles, for instance, it’s said that as the fighting was coming to an end, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse saw no sense in continuing. Rather, Crazy Horse posted snipers to keep the surviving Blue Coats behind their barricades—watching helplessly as he and his thousands of warriors returned to camp to help take down their lodges and move south.[10]

So, to be clear, there is nothing in Goble’s fictional Indian narrator’s voice, accompanied by Goble’s explanatory passages—even if they were accurate and appropriate, which they’re not—that might add anything of value for children or anyone else.

Piling romantic metaphor onto romantic metaphor appears to be Goble’s way of trying to imitate “Indian” storytelling style, which it doesn’t. Toward the beginning of the story, for instance, “Red Hawk” describes Crazy Horse: “A tomahawk in his hand gave him the power of the thunder and a war-bonnet of eagle feathers gave him the speed of the eagle.” Goble’s magical tomahawk stuff notwithstanding, Crazy Horse never wore a headdress. Following instructions given to him in an early vision, Crazy Horse wore the tail feathers from a red-tailed hawk at the back of his head, and a reddish-brown stone behind his left ear; his battle paint was a lightning mark across one side of his face, and blue hailstones on his chest.* 

Besides being mired down with cringe-worthy metaphor and misinformation, Goble’s fictional narrative paints the Lakota people as “brave yet doomed.” Here, for instance, “Red Hawk” relates the camp’s panicked response to an impending cavalry attack:

In an instant everyone was running in different directions…. The air was suddenly filled with dust and the sound of shouting and horses neighing. Dogs were running in every direction not knowing where to go…. Warriors struggled to mount their horses, which reared and stamped in excitement, while women grabbed up their babies and shrieked for their children as they ran down the valley away from the oncoming soldiers. Old men and women with half-seeing eyes followed after, stumbling through the dust-filled air. Medicine Bear, too old to run, sat by his tipi as the bullets from the soldiers’ guns already splintered the tipi-poles around him. “Warriors take courage!” he shouted. “It is better to die young for the people than to grow old.”

Goble’s melodrama notwithstanding, the Indian camps were extremely well organized. In times of war, everyone knew what to do. Children were protected, as were elders—not abandoned, helplessly sitting around “splintered tipi poles” or “stumbling through the dust-filled air.” Compare Goble’s fictional “narrative” above with a piece from Joseph Marshall III’s In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse, in which Grandpa Nyles explains what happened to his grandson:

It was customary for Lakota wives and mothers to hand weapons to their husbands and sons. And they had a saying that gave them encouragement and reminded them of their duty as warriors…. The women would say, “Have courage and be the first to charge the enemy, for it is better to lie a warrior naked in death than it is to run away from the battle.”…It means that courage was a warrior’s best weapon, and that it was the highest honor to give your life for your people.

And. Goble’s description of “shrieking” women is taken from the many outsider accounts of “wailing” women. In reality, the camp women were singing Strong Heart songs to give their warriors courage as they rode off to battle.

And. “Red Hawk’s” recounting of what Medicine Bear said seems to have been “borrowed” from Luther Standing Bear’s Land of the Spotted Eagle. But what Standing Bear really wrote was this:

When (I was) but a mere child, father inspired me by often saying: “Son, I never want to see you live to be an old man. Die young on the battlefield. That is the way a Lakota dies.” The full intent of this advice was that I must never shirk my duty to my tribe no matter what price in sacrifice I paid…. If I failed in duty, I simply failed to meet a test of manhood, and a man living in his tribe without respect was a nonentity.

More misinformation: Toward the end of “Red Hawk’s” story, he says, “White Men have asked me which man it was who killed Long Hair. We have talked among ourselves about this but we do not know. No man can say.”

Although there may not be written narrative accounts of who killed Custer, Indian people know it was Rain-In-The-Face. Besides the oral stories that have been handed down, there exist Winter Count histories in pictographs, which are at least, if not more, reliable than histories written by outsiders.[11] On one particular Winter Count, the pictograph detailing the most important event of that specific year, or winter, shows Rain-In-The-Face (along with his name glyph, or signature tag, of rain falling in his face) firing a rifle (with smoke coming out of it) directly at Custer (who is shown with long hair, falling backwards).

For the most part, and for cultural and pragmatic reasons, Indian people at the time did not have a lot to say to white people about their participation in the Battle of the Greasy Grass. Dewey Beard, for instance, said only that: “The sun shone. It was a good day.” But Goble chose to rely on the easily available written versions, rather than on the oral and pictograph versions—which he probably would not have understood or respected anyway.

In what has come to be known as ledger art, the Indian artists used basic media of whatever was available—crayon, colored pencil, and sometimes ink—on pages torn out of discarded ledger books. What they created was art of great beauty. Early ledger art related the histories of the great battles, the buffalo hunts, and other scenes from their lives. In the battle scenes, there were iconic name glyphs over the heads of individual warriors to identify them. There were handprints on their horses—coup marks—to show that these horses were war ponies, that they and their riders had previously seen battle. There were horses of many colors—reds, yellows, purples, and blues—because people who really knew horses could see their many shades. There were hoof prints at the bottom of the pages to denote action. The warriors shown often carried the prizes of war that they had taken from the enemy—US flags, cavalry sabers and bugles—that represented power. And often, there were wavy lines coming out of the mouths of the warriors as they charged, to symbolize that they were “talking” to the enemy—“I’m not afraid of you!” “I’m coming to get you!”

Although the details were generally the same or similar, techniques varied from tribe to tribe. According to Michael Horse, a talented contemporary ledger artist and historian, Cheyenne and Lakota styles, for example, were mostly stick figures, while Kiowa and Comanche styles were more realistic.

Even after people had been incarcerated in the prisons and on the reservations, these ledger paintings represented freedom and bravery.

On the other hand, Goble, as a European transplant, has transplanted his European aesthetic and style onto his “Indian ledger art.” It’s clear that he has looked at—maybe even studied—the old ledger paintings, taken what elements or designs he considers important or typical or romantic, and discarded the rest. His paintings are devoid of the historical and cultural content that were so important in the originals—they have no story and no spirit. All of Goble’s warriors are decked out in regalia and carrying weaponry—much of it unbelievably cumbersome—yet none of the warriors is identified by a name glyph, so we don’t know who they are. The warriors are not shouting at their enemies—they don’t even appear to have mouths. There are no symbolic, brightly colored war ponies—Goble’s “Indian” ponies exist only as blacks, browns, roans and an occasional gray. None of the ponies has a coup sign. There are no hoof prints, so there is no motion—just ponies and their riders suspended in space and time. They are indistinguishable, with a lack of identity, a lack of action, and a lack of Indian reality.

It would not be a stretch to say that Paul Goble does not know—and probably does not care to know—how to read Indian ledger art. Rather, it would seem that he perused actual direct statements from the original artists and saw only “decorative motifs” to be kept or discarded. I would also opine that Goble does not regard Indian ledger artists—traditional or contemporary—as artists.

Speaking at a conference a few years ago, Joseph Bruchac coined the term, “cultural ventriloquism,” to refer to the many non-Native authors who create “Native” characters that function as dummies to voice the authors’ own worldviews. So it would not be a stretch to imagine that Goble’s “using the voice of a (fictional) Indian participant” and “illustrat[ing] the picture pages in the style of ledger-book painting” are to showcase his own art by pretending to make this whole thing authentic. As such, Custer’s Last Battle can in no way be considered an Indian perspective of an historical event. It’s not even a well-told story that approximates an Indian perspective. It wasn’t successful in 1969 and it’s not successful now.

Returning for a moment to Goble’s introduction. He writes,

I grew up believing that Indian people had been shamefully treated, their beliefs mocked, their ways of life destroyed. I tried to be objective in writing this book, but for me the battle represented a moment of triumph, and I wanted Indian children to be proud of it. (italics mine)

Plains perspectives of the Battle of the Greasy Grass are not difficult to understand and do not need to be interpreted by someone from outside the culture. Plains traditional narratives are not incomplete and do not need to be rewritten by someone from outside the culture. Plains traditional and contemporary ledger art forms are not primitive and do not need to be fixed by someone from outside the culture. The children at Pine Ridge, against all odds, are holding on to their traditions, histories, arts, and cultures. The last things they need are fake narratives and fake art, combined with a cultural outsider’s arrogance and sense of entitlement—to “give” them pride.

—Beverly Slapin

References

There are many excellent sources of information about the Battle of the Greasy Grass; biography, fiction and nonfiction about the people who lived in that time period; and historic and contemporary ledger art. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

An outstanding short film, produced by the Smithsonian and from an Oglala perspective, is “The Battle of the Greasy Grass,” and might be a good beginning for study (grades 4-p). 

An important documentary, from American Experience and produced by James Welch and Paul Stekler, is “Last Stand at Little Big Horn—Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse Battle Custer”. 

For information about the Battle of the Greasy Grass or that era, see:

Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa), Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains

Edward and Mabel Kadlecek, To Kill an Eagle: Indian Views on the Last Days of Crazy Horse

Joseph Marshall III:

The Day the World Ended at Little Big Horn: A Lakota History (2007)

In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse (2015)

The Long Knives are Crying (2008)

Soldiers Falling Into Camp: The Battles at the Little Rosebud and the Little Big Horn (2006)

Luther Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle

James Welch and Paul Stekler, Killing Custer: The Battle of Little Big Horn and the Fate of the Plains Indians

For examples of, and information about, traditional ledger art, see:

Howling Wolf and the History of Ledger Art by Joyce M. Szabo (University of New Mexico Press, 1994)

Keeping History: Plains Indian Ledger Drawings (Smithsonian, November 2009-January 2010). 

The Ledger Art Collection, Milwaukee Art Museum. 

Ledger Narratives: The Plains Indian Drawings in the Mark Landsburgh Collection at Dartmouth College, by Colin G. Calloway and Michael Paul Jordan (University of Oklahoma Press, 2012).

The Schild Ledger Book: Drawing a Culture in Transition, in Texas Beyond History, University of Texas.

For examples of, and information about, contemporary ledger art, see:

“Ledger Art: Looking Between the Lines” by Gussie Fauntleroy, in Native Peoples Magazine, September-October 2011.

“This is Not Your Great-Great-Grandfather’s Ledger Art” by Wilhelm Murg, In Indian Country Today, 10/25/13.

Women and Ledger Art: Four Contemporary NativeAmerican Artists by Richard Pearce (University of Arizona Press, 2013).

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[1] Quotes here are from the short video, “The Battle of the Greasy Grass,” produced by Smithsonian Magazine. 

[2] Goble writes, “Father Gall spoke Lakota fluently and was steeped in all things related to Lakota people. While working on the book many letters passed between us to verify one thing or another.”

[3] While Father Gall Schuon appears to be an interesting character, we don’t know in what sense he was “adopted.”

[4] The full title of this book is Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of an Oglala Holy Man, as told through John G. Neihardt (Flaming Rainbow).

[5] As Black Elk told his story, his son, Ben Black Elk, translated.

[6] On both sides of the Greasy Grass Battle, these might include Lakota traditionalists Sitting Bull, Two Moon, Gall, Crazy Horse, as well as Cheyenne, Arapaho and Crow traditionalists.

[7] See, for example, Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, vivid biographical sketches of people Eastman knew well: Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Rain-in-the-Face, Sitting Bull, Little Crow, Chief Joseph and others.

[8] See To Kill an Eagle: Indian Views on the Last Days of Crazy Horse by Edward and Mabel Kadlecek, who lived near Pine Ridge and listened to the stories of Indian elders who had known Crazy Horse.

[9] Some of the best accounts of this historic battle, in fiction and nonfiction, include: Killing Custer: The Battle of Little Big Horn and the Fate of the Plains Indians by James Welch (Blackfeet / Gros Ventre) and Paul Stekler (1994); Welch and Stekler also collaborated on the important documentary, “Last Stand at Little Bighorn.” There’s also The Day the World Ended at Little Big Horn: A Lakota History (2007), The Long Knives are Crying (2008) and Soldiers Falling Into Camp: The Battles at the Little Rosebud and the Little Big Horn (2006) by Joseph Marshall III (Sicangu Lakota), as well as Marshall’s new children’s book, In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse (2015).

[10] See a description of this maneuver, for example, in Marshall’s In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse, pp. 120-121.

[11] Each Winter Count pictograph portrays the most important event that occurred in a particular winter, or year. It could be a major battle, or an outbreak of disease, or the death of a leader, or something else. The pictograph that represents 1876 shows the killing of Custer at the Battle of Greasy Grass.

*Edits to this paragraph made on Feb 8 2016 at the request of Beverly Slapin. 

Paul Goble's CROW CHIEF

This is a how-Debbie-analyzes-a-book post.

Earlier today, a librarian wrote to ask me about Paul Goble's Crow Chief. It was published in 1992 by Orchard Books. Here's the synopsis, from Amazon:

Crow Chief always warns the buffalo that hunters are coming, until Falling Star, a savior, comes to camp, tricks Crow Chief, and teaches him that all must share and live like relatives together.

I don't have the book itself in front of me but am able to look at the first pages via Amazon's 'look inside' option. The full title of the book is Crow Chief: A Plains Indian story. 

Goble opens the story by saying that a long time ago, all the crows were white. Then he says:

In those long-ago days, the Crow Nation once had a great leader. They called him Crow Chief.

With that sentence, Goble moves from the broad "Plains Indian" to the specific: "Crow Nation." When I turn back to his page of references, then, I expect to see a source specific to the Crow Nation, but there isn't one. Here's the list of books he references, and what I've been able to find in them.

Maurice Boyd, Kiowa Voices
The full title of Maurice Boyd's Kiowa Voices is Kiowa Voices: Ceremonial Dance, Ritual, and Song. I can't read it online, but the descriptions of it say Kiowa. My guess is that it does not have a Crow Nation story in it. It might have a Kiowa story about a white crow.

George A. Dorsey and Alfred L. Kroeber's Traditions of the Arapaho
On page 276 of Traditions of the Arapaho, there is a story called The White Crow. This crow keeps all the buffalo for himself, hidden in a hollow mountain. The people plot to catch him. When they do, they tie him to their tent and he turns black. Later they let him go and follow him. They let the buffalo go. It is an Arapaho story, not a Crow one.

Richard Erdoes, The Sound of Flutes
I am unable to see this book anywhere online. It exists, but Amazon, Google Books, Hathi Trust, and Internet Archive don't have any portions of it that are viewable online. I do have a copy of American Indian Myths and Legends edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz. In it is "How the Crow Came to be Black." It is on page 395 and is noted as a Brule Sioux story. In it the crow is thrown into a fire and his feathers are charred.

George Bird Grinnell's By Cheyenne Campfires
Grinnell's By Cheyenne Campfires has a story in it called Falling Star about a white crow, but it is a Cheyenne story, not Crow. It starts on page 182. On page 187, an old woman tells Falling Star she has nothing to feed him because a white crow has been driving the buffalo away. Falling Star catches it, takes it to the chief, who decides to put it in the smoke hole of his lodge to smoke the crow to death. It gets away, is caught again, and killed.

James LaPointe, Legends of the Lakota
LaPoint's Legends of the Lakota has a story about a white crow. I'm able to see snippets of the story that appear on page 74 and 75. There, I see that the crow used to be white, and that there were no buffalo. It is set in a Lakota encampment, so I suspect it is presented as a Lakota story rather than a Crow one. I ordered a copy of this book because it was published by the Indian Historian Press. That press is significant in Native studies.

John G. Neihardt, Eagle Voice
Neihardt's Eagle Voice - I couldn't find that title, but did find When the Tree Flowered: The Fictional Biography of Eagle Voice by Neidhardt. It was published in 1951. It has a story called The Labors of the Holy One. In it, Falling Star is a main character. There is a white crow that scares the buffalo when the hunters are coming. It is tricked by Falling Star and ends up being black. But, the story is a work of fiction by Neidhardt, who was not Native.

Vivian One Feather, Ehanni Okunkakan
I am unable to find Vivian One Feather's Ehanni Okunkakan, but information about it indicates the items she wrote are Lakota, for use at Red Cloud Indian School.

Ronald Theise, Buckskin Tokens
The full title of Theise's Buckskin Tokens is Buckskin Tokens: Contemporary Oral Narratives of the Lakota. I am unable to see it but given its title, my guess is that the stories in it are Lakota, not Crow.

Clark Wissler and D. C. Duvall, Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians
Wissler and Duvall's Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians has an introduction that says the stories in it are Blackfoot. On page 40 is a very long story called The Twin Brothers, or Stars. On page 50 is where I come to a part of the story about crows driving buffalo away. Crows used to be white. On page 51, Crow is tied in a smoke hole and becomes black.


So where does that leave me at this point?

Looking through the references Goble used for this book, I am not able to find one that is about the Crow Nation and their stories. Do you know Betsy Hearne's article, Cite the Source? It is about traditional stories. In it, she talks about the importance of citing the source. Goble has cited a lot in Crow Chief but I'm thinking that what he's shared isn't really helpful for anyone who is trying to determine the accuracy of the story he tells. Some might argue that it is not fair to judge Goble's book from this point in time (2015) because it came out in 1992. Hearne's article came out in 1993. He, therefore, didn't have her article for guidance.

It is possible that Goble meant nation of crows-the-birds rather than the Crow Nation of people. If he did, then the story might be ok but I think viewing it that way injects too much confusion, and we still have too much ambiguity.

The Crow Nation is amongst the many Plains Nations, but that doesn't mean they are the same from one to the other. It is interesting to find that the Kiowa, Cheyenne, Lakota, and Blackfoot have stories about a white crow, but they aren't the same. There are variations. Some elements are similar but others are not. I wonder if the Crow Nation has a white crow story? I'll keep looking...

Update, 6:02 PM, Feb 3 2015:

An important bit of information that I must share. In the late 1800s, the Bureau of American Ethnography sent people to gather stories from the tribes out of a concern that we were dying off and our stories would be lost forever. The stories were published and seen as legitimate source material. Sometimes they are and sometimes they are not. Frank Hamilton Cushing, for example, collected stories at Zuni. His are not reliable. Some of the collectors were not aware of their own biases as outsiders. That bias and outsider perspective is in those stories.

Was Paul Goble adopted into the Yakima and Sioux tribes?

Within the framework of children's books, one thought that comes to mind when I hear the word "adopted" is Paul Goble. Let me preface this post by saying that I find his children's books highly problematic. See Paul Goble's The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses for background.

For years, I've read that he was adopted by Chief Edgar Red Cloud. Here's an example from the World Wisdom website:

Paul Goble was adopted into the Yakima and Sioux tribes (with the name "Wakinyan Chikala," Little Thunder) by Chief Edgar Red Cloud.

I've been skeptical of such statements and have started some research into that statement. I kind of doubt he was adopted into either one. Maybe Chief Edgar Red Cloud adopted him into his own Lakota family, but I doubt it was an adoption into the nation itself, wherein Goble's name was put down on the tribal census. The Oglala Lakota tribal constitution says members are those who are born to a member of the tribe.

The Yakima and Sioux are two distinct nations, by the way, and using both in that sentence tells us that the person who wrote it doesn't understand that they are two different nations.

I did some searching using "Paul Goble" and "Little Thunder" and found this at the website of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library:

His interest in Native Americans was so deep and genuine that he was adopted into the Yakama (Yakima) tribe by Chief Alba Shawaway and into the Sioux tribe by Chief Edgar Red Cloud.

Alba Shawaway was Yakama and maybe he did adopt Goble into his immediate family, but again, I doubt he would have been adopted into the tribe itself. 

Doing some research on Edgar Red Cloud, I came across Phil Jackson's book, Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior. Jackson is a big name in the National Basketball Association. Edgar Red Cloud gave him a name, too in 1973: Swift Eagle.  Jackson writes:

Call me Swift Eagle. That's the name Edgar Red Cloud gave me during the 1973 basketball clinic that Bill Bradley and I conducted at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Edgar, the grandson of the famous chief Red Cloud, said I resembled an eagle as I swooped around the court with my arms outstretched, always looking to steal the ball. Swift Eagle. Oknahkoh Wamblee. the name sounded like wings beating the air. 

In the next paragraph, Jackson writes that Edgar Red Cloud gave Bill Bradley a name, too: Tall Elk.

But let's get back to Goble. I haven't found anything he's written himself that says he was adopted. Here's the dedication in his Adopted by the Eagles: 

See that? He says he was given a Lakota name and called son by Chief Edgar Red Cloud, but Goble doesn't say he was adopted. He doesn't say anything about it in an interview at the Wisdom Tales website.* And he doesn't say anything about it in his autobiography, Hau Kola-Hello Friend published by Richard C. Owen Publishers, Inc. in 1994.  

So... what is the source of information that says he was adopted? I'll keep looking. If you find something, do let me know.

Why it matters: Having his work cloaked with an adoption story suggests that he's got an insider perspective. As my post on The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses indicates, I find his work problematic, and so do Doris Seale, a librarian who is Santee, Cree, and Abenaki, and Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, an American Indian Studies professor who is Crow Creek Sioux. At the bottom of that post, you'll see a link to a post where I quote them. That post is About Paul Goble.

NOT RECOMMENDED: Paul Goble's THE GIRL WHO LOVED WILD HORSES (updated re Goble's identity)

Is Paul Goble's The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses one of your favorite books? Published in 1978 by Bradbury Press, it won the Caldecott Medal thirty-five years ago. Let's take a look at it. 

Here's the first paragraph in the story:

The people were always moving from place to place following the herds of buffalo. They had many horses to carry the tipis and all their belongings. They trained their fastest horses to hunt the buffalo.

With the word 'tipis' in that paragraph Goble suggests that these are Plains people. The buffalo are another clue that suggests the story is one belonging to the Plains tribes.

As the story begins, we learn of "a girl" (we are never given her name) who loved horses. People in the village see that she has a way with them. One day when she is out with the herd of horses, a huge storm erupts. She leaps onto one as the herd races in fear. When the horses stop that night, the girl looks around and realizes that they are lost. The next morning she wakes to the neighing of a handsome stallion who tells her he is the leader of the wild horses that roam the hills. He welcomes her to live with them. She and her herd are happy.

Meanwhile, her people spend the next year looking for her. One day, two hunters see the stallion and the girl, too. She's on a horse, leading a colt. They call and wave at her. She waved back, but the stallion drove her and the herd away from the hunters. Other men join them in an attempt to reach the girl, but the stallion keeps them away from the girl and the colt. But, the girl's horse stumbles, and she falls. The hunters take her back to the village. She was happy to see her parents but she is sad. She misses the colt and the wild horses. At night, the stallion calls to her. The girl is lonely and gets sick. Doctors ask what would make her happy again, and she says she wants to return to the wild horses.

The stallion and wild horses come to the village. The people give the horses blankets and saddles and they give the girl a beautiful dress and the best horse in the village. The girl gives her parents a colt, and she rides away, beside the stallion, reunited with the herd. Each year, she brings her parents another colt. But one year, she doesn't return at all.

Then, the hunters see the stallion again. Beside him is "a beautiful mare with a mane and tail floating with wispy clouds about her." They believe the girl is that mare, that she has become a wild horse, too. The story ends with:

Today we are still glad to remember that we have relatives among the Horse People. And it gives us joy to see the wild horses running free. Our thoughts fly with them.

Nowhere in The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses do we have any sources for that story. As noted earlier, Goble's use of 'tipis' suggests a Plains tribe. What we know as the Great Plains is a vast area. Here's a map from the Smithsonian:

See how that area stretches from the north to south, spanning at least 1500 miles? See the 20 or so tribes listed in that area? There's a lot more than just those 20. They don't speak the same language and they don't tell the same stories.

The question is, who does this story about a girl who became a wild horse belong to? It'd be good to know. If it is a story Goble came up with, then it isn't a Native story, is it?

Though it won the Caldecott, and though a lot of people love Goble's art, I think it is (past) time to set aside The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses. What do you think?


Update, 6:00 AM, June 11, 2014

(1) Elsewhere people are noting how much like they like his art. It is a style most people would recognize as "Goble" but let's pause again. I haven't done a close study of it, but does it suffer from the same ambiguity we see in The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses?

(2) Someone noted that Goble was adopted by a tribe.  His Adopted by the Eagles (Macmillian, 1994) includes this:

Does being given a name and being called "Son" mean he was adopted? Was he adopted by Edgar Red Cloud? Or was it by a tribe, as was done with President Obama? I've ordered Goble's autobiography and will revisit this post when it arrives. It may provide details about how he met Edgar Red Cloud.

(3) The Author's Note for Adopted by the Eagles says:

"I would like to think that Edgar somehow sensed, right from the start (1959), that I would one day make books of some of the stories he told me."

Many authors say something similar to that... about how Native people they know/live amongst asked them to write a story about them. As readers of AICL now, I frown on that phrase.

(4) Goble's note ends with this curious paragraph:

Finally, it needs to be stated that the traditional kola friendship of the two Lakota men, as described in this story, was never a homosexual relationship. Kolas sought to guard each other from all errors; to share their strengths while walking life's Good Red Road together.

I wonder why Goble felt compelled to include that paragraph? Adopted by the Eagles was published in 1994. Perhaps it was prompted by a fear that people wouldn't buy a book about friendship between two men, but, do other books published then have a similar disclaimer?

(5) The last item on the page with the Author's Note is a very important note for teachers. Here it is, in its entirety:

When a book like this has been read in the classroom, students are sometimes asked to write their own "Indian" stories. It is not asked with bad intentions, but it belittles these traditional stories, suggesting that any child can invent them. When studying the Greek myths, or the legends of King Arthur, or Bible stories, students would never be asked to invent stories in the manner of... Instead, children should be encouraged to write down the stories in their own words to help remember them. Over the years they will come to think about the inner meanings which all these stories hold.

I say that, too. I'm glad to see it in Goble's book. But he's invented stories! Is it ok, since he is not a child? I don't think so!

See my previous posts about Goble. I'll have more to say when I get Goble's biography.
July 22, 2009: About Paul Goble and his books...
April 3, 2011: Dear Mr. Goble: 

About Paul Goble and his books...

I get a lot of questions about Paul Goble. Are his books accurate? Reliable? I have not studied them myself, but can refer you to the works of two Native women: Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, and Doris Seale.

Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is a Crow Creek Sioux poet, novelist, and scholar and she is one of the founding editors of Wicazo Sa, one of the leading journals in American Indian Studies. In her essay "American Indian Intellectualism and the New Indian Story" Cook-Lynn writes (p. 117-118):

A transplanted Englishman, Paul Goble, who lived in the Black Hills of South Dakota for a time and married a woman from Sturgis, South Dakota, with whom he has a child, has been the most intrepid explorer of this genre [children's stories about Indians] in recent times. He has taken Iktomi (or Unktomi) stories, the star stories, and the creation myths of the Sioux, a vast body of philosophical and spiritual knowledge about the universe, to fashion twenty or more storybooks for children ages 3 to 14 which he, himself, has illustrated in a European aesthetic and style. Now living in Minnesota, he has successfully used several people as "informants," including a popular hoop dancer, Kevin Locke, who lives on one of the South Dakota Indian reservations. It is no wonder, when Native cultural philosophy and religion are used to entertain and inform white American children, that the idea of "Indian Intellectualism" in America is dismissed.
[...]
Goble takes his place not alongside, but a step ahead of those other white writers of children's stories who, knowingly or not, have long trivialized the rather sophisticated notions the Lakotas have held about the universe for thousands of years.
[...]
[C]onsidering the vast ignorance the average person has concerning native intellectualism, the non-Lakota speaking Englishman's interpretation of the native Lakota/Dakota world-view and spirituality through the lens of his own language and art is, at the very least, arrogant.

It has not occurred to anyone, least of all Goble himself, to ask why it is that tribal writers, except in carefully managed instances, have chosen not to use these stories commercially. If one were to inquire about that, one would have to explore the moral and ethical dimensions of who owns bodies of knowledge and literature. That is a difficult exploration in a capitalistic democracy that suggests anything can be bought and sold. Many white American critics refuse to enter into this debate, believe Native American literature and knowledge cannot "belong" to any single group. A discussion of who "transmits" and who "produces" usually follows.

Cook-Lynn's essay is in Devon Mihesuah's Natives and Academics, published in 1998 by the University of Nebraska Press. She's written several books and essays, including a recent article in Indian Country Today about Ward Churchill, who, by the way, is not Native: Lessons of Churchill fiasco: Indian studies needs clear standards.

Doris Seale is Santee/Cree/Abenaki and a co-founder of Oyate. In 2001, she received the American Library Association's Equality Award for her life's work. The essay I'm excerpting from below appears in A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children, edited by Seale and Slapin. In the essay, Seale writes (p. 158-160):

In the beginning at least, there seemed to be some understanding, and some humility about the fact that he was venturing into a world that he could never more than partially comprehend.
[...]
Whether Goble has reacted to an increasing insistence in the Native community that it is time for us to tell our own stories, or at the very least that they should be told accurately, or to criticism of himself specifically is unclear, but as a young friend put it, "Man, something happened to him!" His work has come with increasingly longer lists of references, mostly to ethnographic texts from the late 19th- and early 20th Centuries, as a sort of justification. Lately, Goble has been specializing in Iktomi stories--Iktomi, for those who may not know, being the Lakota "trickster" figure. The introductory material in these books, "About Iktomi," gives the impression that Goble has come to believe in his entitlement to do pretty much what he wants to with any of our stories, and that the result should be beyond criticism. In Iktomi Loses His Eyes, a "Note to the Reader" tells us that "there is no 'authentic' version of these stories. The only rule in telling them is to include certain basic themes."
[...]
In the author's note to the Bison edition of Brave Eagle's Account of the Fetterman Fight (1992) Goble said this:

"I wrote the book for Indian children because I wanted them to know about and to feel proud of the courage of their ancestors. I have written all my books primarily with Indian children in mind..."

Assuming, apparently, along with many anthropologists, that we have so lost our traditions, cultures and histories that we must be taught them by a white person.

There is no reconciliation for us to the things that have been done to us, to the things that are believed about us, to the fact that, even now, there is nothing of ours that is not fair game. If some white person wants it, there is nothing precious or sacred enough not to be touched.

Is it necessary to say, in the 21st Century, that this is not right?

I am fairly certain that every elementary school and public library has at least one of Goble's books on the shelf, and I'm sure that they circulate pretty well.

I suggest to librarians, when one of them is torn or dirty, that you remove the book and NOT replace it. There are better choices, and readers in your libraries should have those books instead.

I know, I know.... As your eyes read over my words, you are thinking about the Library Bill of Rights, and free speech, and all of those things that America privileges.

Nonetheless, I encourage you to think about what Cook-Lynn and Seale wrote, and give this some thought.