Culture

Zitkala-Sa (Red Bird) (1876-1938), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was one of the best known and most influential Native Americans of the twentieth century. Born on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, she remained true to her indigenous heritage as a...

During the 1920s and 1930s, Josephine Waggoner (1871-1943), a Lakota woman who had been educated at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia, grew increasingly concerned that the history and culture of her people were being lost as elders...

The Sioux constitute a diverse group of tribes who claimed and controlled almost a quarter of the continental U.S. from the late 1700's to the 1860's. The name Sioux was coined by the French traders and was taken from the Anishinabe word Nadoweisiw-eg,...

The Sicangu (burnt thighs) received their name when some of the Lakota peoples' legs were burned in a great prairie fire. The French later named them Brule and two large groups of the band would be settled on two reservations, Rosebud and Lower Brule in...

The Last Comanche Chief: The Life and Times of Quanah Parker by Bill Neeley is a compelling book of Quanah Parker who was born into both the red and white worlds. He was the son of a white captive woman named Cynthia Ann Parker and Comanche Chief Peta...

"No two people ever remember a single event in identical ways, especially with the passage of time." ~Excerpt from the book.This fascinating look into history tells the tale of the people who were directly involved in the war of 1862. There are differing...

A child, an elder and the light from an ancient sky. A haunting dream that will not relent pulls author Kent Nerburn back into the hidden world of Native America, where dreams have meaning, animals are teachers and the "old ones" still have powers beyond...

As the year 1890 wound to a close, a band of more than three hundred Lakota Sioux Indians led by Chief Big Foot made their way toward South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to join other Lakotas seeking peace. Fearing that Big Foot's band was...

Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet, as Andres Resendez illuminates in his myth-shattering THE OTHER SLAVERY, it was practiced for centuries as an open secret.There was no abolitionist movement to...

These thirteen essays, taken from the pages of SOUTH DAKOTA HISTORY, the quarterly journal of the South Dakota State Historical Society, explore modern American Indian political and cultural life.In five themed sections, contributors examine the...

The story of Spotted Tail and his people is the story of the deadly game of resistance and subjugation. The government expected the Sioux to live on a reservation, to farm the land, raise cattle, send their children to school and adopt Christianity - all...

Red Cloud, the great Sioux warrior-statesman, was the only American Indian in history to defeat the United States Army in a war, forcing the government to sue for peace on his terms.At the peak of Red Cloud's powers the Sioux could claim control of...

There is a rock of incredible legend and history that stands before the Standing Rock Agency. Years ago a Dakota man took a second wife, thereby bruising the ego of his first. As camp was breaking up and the tribe was moving on, the first wife pouted and...

Originally published in 1967, this remarkable pictographic history consists of more than four hundred drawings and script notations by Amos Bad Heart Bull, and Oglala Lakota man from the Pine Ridge Reservation made between 1890 and the time of his death...

A political history. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the United States government, through its agents, superintendents and commissioners, endeavored to reshape Lakota society in accordance with American ideals.Part of this acculturation...

The religious fervor known as the Ghost Dance movement was precipitated by the prophecies and teachings of a northern Paiute named Wovoka (Jack Wilson). During a solar eclipse on New Year's day, 1889, Wovoka experienced a revelation that promised...

"I, Ta-o-ya-te-du-ta, am not a coward. I will die with you." With this statement, Little Crow reluctantly put himself at the head of the Indian forces and plunged his nation into war against the United States.At a time when Union and Confederate armies...

Sitting Bull's name is still the best known of any American Indian leader, but his life and legacy have been shrouded with misinformation and half-truths. In Sitting Bull, Bill Yenne follows the history of this remarkable man from his headstrong youth...

Through essays, personal stories, case studies, satire, and poetry, "The Great Vanishing Act" brings together writers from around the world to explore the biological and cultural metaphor of blood quantum, the most critical issue facing Indigenous...

On the sparkling morning of June 25, 1876, 611 U.S. Army Soldiers rode toward the banks of the Little Big Horn in the Montana Territory, where 3,000 Indians stood waiting to battle.The lives of two great warriors would soon be forever linked throughout...

"This is my prayer that, through our sacred pipe and through this book in which I shall explain what our pipe really is, peace may come to those peoples who can understand, an understanding which must be of the heart and not of the head alone." ~Black...

Discover the timeless wisdom of the Lakota people. Rich with storytelling, history and folklore, THE LAKOTA WAY expresses the heart of Native American philosophy and imparts the path to a fulfilling and meaningful life.Joseph Marshall is a member of the...

A broad range of perspectives from Natives and non-Natives makes this book the most complete account and analysis of the Lakota Ghost Dance ever published. A revitalization movement that swept across Native communities of the West in the late 1880's, the...

This book presents Sioux life as it was in the years of its greatest vigor – 1830 to 1870. It traces the origins of the Sioux and brings them up to the present day, explaining the author’s opinion of why this tribe has not been assimilated...