Shortly before his death in 1923, Two Leggings was extensively
interviewed by a representative from New York's Museum of the
American Indian Mr. Nabokov, a research associate of the Museum,
has done a creditable rewrite job and what emerges is a life story
which adds immeasurably to anthropological and historical records.
Orphaned at an early age, Two Leggings tells of his youth and his
driving ambition to be a war chief. He displays, in the
intrinsically poetic language of his people, the motives guiding
them. The details of how he acquired his "medicine" are
particularly interesting. Two Leggings became a member of an
underground warrior society and distinguished himself in battle,
leading the last of the Crow warrior parties before they were
shuttled off to a reservation. He is reticent about his reaction to
the white man and uninformative on domestic affairs (there is a
smattering of detail on wife-stealing, some remarks upon finally
meeting the girl he had envisioned). But it's a stimulating study
for scholar and layman alike. (Kirkus Reviews)
'Two Leggings ...was one of the last Crow Warriors. From 1919 to
1923 he told his story of Crow life and wars to William Wildschut,
an ethnologist with the Museum of the American Indian ...This is
the poignant story of the end of traditional Crow life and
attitudes, which Two Leggings saw ending with the last warfare
rather than the death of the buffalo' - "Pacific Historian". 'This
is the story of Two Leggings' desire for fame, his rise as a
warrior, and his efforts to achieve a spiritual vision. He takes us
along on buffalo hunts, war parties against the Piegans, and horse
stealing raids against the Piegans and Sioux. His obsession to
become a chief and famous warrior drove him to repeated forays
against enemy tribes for scalps and horses. He relates the
religious relationship between vision fasts, medicine bundles, and
a war raid's outcome, sun dances in which performers pierced their
breast muscles with wooden skewers, and wife stealing between rival
warrior societies...It is a remarkable story' - "Chicago Tribune".
'This is a rare piece of Americana - a first-person account of the
psychological, religious, and social life of a nineteenth century
Indian. The dramatic recital is a real contribution to our native
biography, history, and ethnology, and an important treatise in a
fascinating but curiously neglected field' - "Baltimore Sun". 'A
valuable addition to our knowledge of the life of the Plains
Indian' - "New York Times". '"Two Leggings" lifts the curtain on a
kind of life it is almost impossible to imagine anywhere in the
United States during the second half of the last century. Mr.
Nabokov has preserved a priceless document not only for
ethnologists bur for plain readers as well...His narrative lays
open, as by a surgeon's knife, the inner world of Indian religion
and morality' - Mark Van Doren. Peter Nabokov is on the faculty of
the Department of Anthropology and the American Indian Studies
Program, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the author of
"Native American Architecture" (1988) and editor of "Native
American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian and White Relations from
Prophecy to the Present, 1492-1992" (1991).
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