American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)

Author: Zitkala-Sa

Brand: Penguin

Color: Multicolor

Binding: Paperback

Number Of Pages: 320

Release Date: 25-02-2003

model number: notes

Part Number: notes

Details: Product Description
A thought-provoking collection of searing prose from a Sioux woman that covers race, identity, assimilation, and perceptions of Native American culture

Zitkala-Sa wrestled with the conflicting influences of American Indian and white culture throughout her life. Raised on a Sioux reservation, she was educated at boarding schools that enforced assimilation and was witness to major events in white-Indian relations in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Tapping her troubled personal history, Zitkala-Sa created stories that illuminate the tragedy and complexity of the American Indian experience. In evocative prose laced with political savvy, she forces new thinking about the perceptions, assumptions, and customs of both Sioux and white cultures and raises issues of assimilation, identity, and race relations that remain compelling today.
From Booklist
Sioux writer and activist Zitkala-Sa (1876-1938) was born in the year of the infamous Battle of Little Big Horn--her people's last victory over the invasion forces that would soon force them onto reservations, on one of which she grew up under a regime of forced assimilation. Her writing career blossomed early, with stories published in the
Atlantic Monthly when she was in her early twenties. She could have been a mere exotic, but she found a way to capture the interest of non-Indian readers, who preferred the romanticized noble savage to the often-sad reality of Indian life, and to give voice to her threatened culture. Her work, surprisingly, seems undated, perhaps because, unfortunately, the situation of Indian people has changed so little. This first comprehensive collection of her work, consisting of a significant sequence of mythic tales as well as memoirs and poetry, reveals Zitkala-Sa as a crusading, spiritually aware woman.
Patricia Monaghan

Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
About the Author
Zitkala-Sa (1876–1938) was born Gertrude Simmons at the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota. Writer, teacher, and activist, she was editor of
American Indian Magazine and founder of the National Council of American Indians, the tribal advocacy group that she led until her death.
 

Cathy N. Davidson teaches English at Duke University, where she is Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
 
AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES, LEGENDS, AND OTHER WRITINGS
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Introduction
 
I - OLD INDIAN LEGENDS
Preface
Iktomi and the Ducks
Iktomi’s Blanket
Iktomi and the Muskrat
Iktomi and the Coyote
Iktomi and the Fawn
The Badger and the Bear
The Tree-Bound
Shooting of the Red Eagle
Iktomi and the Turtle
Dance in a Buffalo Skull
The Toad and the Boy
Iya, the Camp-Eater
Mans̈tin, the Rabbit
The Warlike Seven
 
II - AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES
Impressions of an Indian Childhood
The School Days of an Indian Girl
An Indian Teacher Among Indians
The Great Spirit
The Soft-Hearted Sioux
The Trial Path
A Warrior’s Daughter
A Dream of Her Grandfather
The Widespread Enigma Concerning Blue-Star Woman
America’s Indian Problem
 
III - SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN INDIAN MAGAZINE
The Indian’s Awakening ( January-March 1916)
A Year’s Experience in Community Service Work Among the Ute Tribe of Indians ...
The Red Man’s America ( January-March 1917)
Chipeta, Widow of Chief Ouray with a Word About a Deal in Blankets ( ...
A Sioux Woman’s Love for Her Grandchild (October-December 1917)
Editorial Comment (July-September 1918)
Indian Gifts to Civilized Man ( July-September 1918)
Secretary’s Report in Brief ( July-September 1918)
Editorial Comment (Winter 1919)
America, Home of the Red Man (Winter 1919)
The Coronation of Chief Powhatan Retold (Winter 1919)
Letter to the Chiefs and Headmen of the Tribes (Winter 1919)
Editorial Comment (Spring 1919)
Editorial Comment (Summer 1919)
An Indian Praying on the Hilltop (Spring 1919)
Address by the Secret

EAN: 9780142437094

Package Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches

Languages: English