A Doctor Among the Oglala Sioux Tribe

by Ruby, Robert H.; Collins, Cary C.; Mutschler, Charles V.

• ISBN13: 9780803226258
• ISBN10: 080322625X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

In 1953 young surgeon Robert H. Ruby began work as the chief medical officer at the hospital on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He began writing almost daily to his sister, describing the Oglala Lakota people he served, his Bureau of Indian Affairs colleagues, and day-to-day life on the reservation. Ruby and his wife were active in the social life of the non-white community, which allowed Ruby, also a self-trained ethnographer, to write in detail about the Oglala Lakota people and their culture, covering topics such as religion, art, traditions, and values. His frank and personal depiction of conditions he encountered on the reservation examines poverty, alcoholism, the educational system, and employment conditions and opportunities. Ruby also wrote critically of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, describing the bureaucracy that made it difficult for him to do his job and kept his hospital permanently understaffed and undersupplied. These engaging letters provide a compelling memoir of life at Pine Ridge in the mid-1950s.

Author Biography

Robert H. Ruby is the author of numerous books, including Oglala Sioux: Warriors in Transition, available in a Bison Books edition. Cary C. Collins is the editor of Assimilation’s Agent: My Life as a Superintendent in the Indian Boarding School System (Nebraska 2007) and Oglala Sioux: Warriors in Transition, available in a Bison Books edition. Charles V. Mutschler is the university archivist at the Eastern Washington University Archives and the author of Wired for Success: The Butte, Anaconda, and Pacific Railway, 1892–1985.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vi
List of Maps	p. vii
List of Figures	p. viii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: The Deadliest War	p. xi
Timeline of Selected Events in the Life of	p. lxv
Editors' Comment on Editorial Methodology	p. lxix
August 1953	p. 1
September 1953	p. 22
October 1953	p. 35
November 1953	p. 49
December 1953	p. 67
January 1954	p. 78
February 1954	p. 100
March 1954	p. 132
April 1954	p. 154
May 1954	p. 174
June 1954	p. 204
July 1954	p. 220
August 1954	p. 243
September 1954	p. 274
October 1954	p. 300
November 1954	p. 313
December 1954	p. 320
Editors' Postscript	p. 324
Appendix	p. 327
Notes	p. 329
Bibliography	p. 345
Index	p. 351
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