American Indian Stories

by Zitkala-Sa

• ISBN13: 9780803299023
• ISBN10: 0803299028
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1985-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

Zitkala-sa (Gertrude Bonnin) was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition.Impressions of an Indian Childhooddescribes her first eight yeas on the Yankton Reservation, where she was born in 1876. Her schooling in Indiana revealed a gift for writing that led in 1901 to the publication ofOld Indian Legends, also a Bison Book. For the rest of her rife, this Sioux was in the poignant but creative position of trying to bridge the gap between her own culture and the dominant white one, unable to return fully to the former or to enter fully into the latter. These pieces, largely autobiographical, were first collected and published in 1921. With their reissue, Zitkala-sa takes her rightful place among such native interpreters of Sioux culture as Charles A. Eastman and Luther Standing Bear .

Table of Contents

Impressions of an Indian Childhood	7	(40)
The School Days of an Indian Girl	47	(34)
An Indian Teacher Among Indians	81	(20)
The Great Spirit	101	(8)
The Soft-Hearted Sioux	109	(18)
The Trial Path	127	(10)
A Warrior's Daughter	137	(18)
A Dream of Her Grandfather	155	(4)
The Widespread Enigma of Blue-Star Woman	159	(26)
America's Indian Problem	185