Winter Count

Winter Count is the love story of a young Teton Sioux man, Turtleheart, and Evensigh, a white woman captured as a child by the Teton Sioux tribe. Evensigh knows no other life than that of the Sioux and loves deeply both the tribe and her new husband. Shortly after their marriage, Turtleheart and Evensigh are betrayed by a Santee Sioux spy who is leading three white men in search of gold. Once the men realize Evensigh is a white woman, their plans to steal ponies evolve into a conspiracy to return her to white society. Believing the white men have killed her husband, Evensigh struggles to assimilate into white culture. Despite her fondness for a caring foster family, however, she eventually attempts to return to the tribe, whom she still considers her people.The Teton Sioux's history forms the backdrop against which the fortunes of the young couple unfold and covers the fifteen turbulent years leading up to the infamous Wounded Knee Massacre. Originally published in 1967, Winter Count is one of the few novel-length works of fiction produced by a Native American.Dallas Chief Eagle lived most of his life on the Rosebud Reservation. Chadwick Allen is an assistant professor of English at Ohio State University and the author of Blood Narrative: Indigenous Identity in American Indian and Maori Literary and Activist Texts.