|
Showing 1 - 25 of
59 matches in All Departments
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.
American Indian Stories (1921) is a collection of stories and
essays from Yankton Dakota writer Zitkala-Sa. Published while
Zitkala-Sa was at the height of her career as an artist and
activist, American Indian Stories collects the author's personal
experiences, the legends and stories passed down through Sioux oral
tradition, and her own reflections on the mistreatment of American
Indians nationwide. In "My Mother," Zitkala-Sa remembers the walk
she would take with her mother to the river, where they would
gather water to use in their wigwam. This simple chore becomes a
cherished tradition between the two, allowing Zitkala-Sa's mother
to educate her on the circumstances that led their people to the
reservation, depriving them of land and life itself. "The Legends"
traces Zitkala-Sa's childhood experience of learning from the oral
tradition passed down from the Dakota elders. In "The Coffee
Making," she remembers the first time she made coffee. While her
mother has gone out for the day, an elder pays a visit to their
wigwam. Remembering that her mother usually makes coffee for
visitors, Zitkala-Sa attempts to play hostess to her visitor, who
humors her and takes the time to share stories about his life and
their people. American Indian Stories is a charming and politically
conscious collection of stories from one of the leading American
Indian writers of her generation, a committed activist and true
voice for change who saw through her own eyes the lives and
experiences of countless others. With a beautifully designed cover
and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Zitkala-Sa's
American Indian Stories is a classic of American Indian literature
reimagined for modern readers.
|
Old Indian Legends (Paperback)
Zitkala-Sa; Contributions by Mint Editions
|
R157
R130
Discovery Miles 1 300
Save R27 (17%)
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
Old Indian Legends (1901) is a collection of traditional stories
from Yankton Dakota writer Zitkala-Sa. Published while Zitkala-Sa
was just beginning her career as an artist and activist, Old Indian
Legends collects fourteen traditional legends and stories passed
down through Sioux oral tradition. Intending to keep the stories or
her people alive, Zitkala-Sa popularized and protected these
cultural treasures for generations to come. In "Iktomi and the
Ducks," spider-trickster spirit Iktomi befriends a group of ducks
by playing them music to dance to. Gaining their trust, he sends
them into a dancing frenzy causing them to break their necks, after
which he takes them to his teepee to cook a meal. When a tree
branch snaps outside, distracting Iktomi, a pack of wolves moves in
for a feast of their own. In "Iktomi's Blanket," a starving Iktomi
prays to Inyan for a blessing of food. Stumbling across a deer
carcass, he believes his prayers have been answered and prepares a
fire to roast the deer meat over. Feeling a chill, however, he goes
to his teepee for a blanket, leaving the fire unattended.
Throughout her collection, Zitkala-Sa faithfully and respectfully
retells the stories of her people. Old Indian Legends is a charming
compilation from one of the leading American Indian writers of her
generation, a committed activist and true voice for change who saw
through her own eyes the lives and experiences of countless others.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset
manuscript, this edition of Zitkala-Sa's Old Indian Legends is a
classic of American Indian literature reimagined for modern
readers.
Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (1876-1938), better known by her pen name,
Zitkala-Sa, was a Native American writer, editor, musician, teacher
and political activist. She was born and raised on the Yankton
Sioux Reservation in South Dakota by her mother. Zitkala-Sa lived a
traditional lifestyle until the age of eight when she left her
reservation to attend Whites Manual Labor Institute, a Quaker
mission school in Indiana. She went on to study for a time at
Earlham College in Indiana and the New England Conservatory of
Music in Boston. A considerable talent, Bonnin co-composed the
first American Indian grand opera, The Sun Dance in 1913. After
working as a teacher at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, she
began publishing short stories and autobiographical vignettes. Her
autobiographical writings were serialized in Atlantic Monthly and,
later, published in a collection called American Indian Stories in
1921. Her first book, Old Indian Legends (1901), is a collection of
folktales that she gathered during her visits home to the Yankton
Reservation. Her other works include Stories of Iktomi and Other
Legends of the Dakotas (1901) and Oklahoma's Poor Rich Indians
(1924).
A prowling wildcat finds a surprise in an old dried-up buffalo
skull. A group of mice are dancing the night away and not paying
attention to the dagers around them. Does the wildcat spell doom
for the mice, or will they escape to safety? Dance in a Buffalo
Skull is an American Indain tale of danger and survival on the
Great Plains.
Combining personal experience with traditional storytelling,
Zitkála-Sá reflects on her life as a young woman raised on the
Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota and educated at a Quaker
school in Indiana. Whether remembering her mother, reflecting on
the importance of legends, or recalling her first time making
coffee, Zitkála-Sá, in American Indian Stories, uses her voice to
elevate her people.
In the mythology of the Lakota and other Oceti Sakowin peoples,
Iktomi is a spider-trickster spirit and cultural hero. In the vast
wilderness of the American Midwest, Iktomi experiences a series of
humorous and instructive trials that illuminate humanity's
relationship with nature. In Old Indian Legends, Zitkála-Sá uses
her voice and expansive traditional knowledge to elevate the
stories of her people.
This accessible and affordable volume combines two essential
collections by Sioux author Zitkala-Sa. "American Indian Stories"
assembles short stories, autobiographical reflections, and
political essays that offer poignant reflections on the author's
sense of being stranded between the white and Native American
worlds. "Old Indian Legends" features tales from the oral tradition
-- legends passed down through the generations that form a genre
known as the "retold tale."
Born on South Dakota's Yankton Reservation in 1876, Zitkala-Sa felt
"as free as the wind that blew my hair, and no less spirited than a
bounding deer." At the age of eight, she traded her freedom for the
iron discipline of a Quaker boarding school. Disillusioned by
American society as well as her own tribe, Zitkala-Sa attended
college, became a teacher, and wrote about her experiences in a
variety of books and magazines. A prominent advocate for Native
American rights throughout her life, she was a key figure in the
legislation that granted Native Americans citizenship in
1924.
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
student at the Boston Conservatory and a teacher at the Carlisle
Indian School, as an activist in turn attacking the Carlisle
School, as an artist celebrating Native stories and myths, and as
an active member of the Society of American Indians in Washington
DC. All these currents of Zitkala-Sa's rich life come together in
this book, which presents her previously unpublished stories, rare
poems, and the libretto of "The Sun Dance Opera."
Early in the twentieth century, a Sioux woman named Zitkala-Sa
published these fourteen Native legends that she had learned during
her own childhood on the Yankton Reservation. Her writing talent,
developed during her education back east, was put to good use in
recording from oral tradition the exploits of Iktomi the trickster,
Eya the glutton, the Dragon Fly, and other magical and mysterious
figures, human and animal, known to the Sioux. Until her death in
1938, Zitkala-Sa stood between two cultures as preserver and
translator.
A groundbreaking Dakota author and activist chronicles her refusal to assimilate into nineteenth-century white society and her mission to preserve her culture--with an introduction by Layli Long Soldier, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for Whereas
Bright and carefree, Zitkála-Sá grows up on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota with her mother until Quaker missionaries arrive, offering the reservation's children a free education. The catch: They must leave their parents behind and travel to Indiana. Curious about the world beyond the reservation, Zitkála-Sá begs her mother to let her go--and her mother, aware of the advantages that an education offers, reluctantly agrees.
But the missionary school is not the adventure that Zitkála-Sá expected: The school is a strict one, her long hair is cut short, and only English is spoken. She encounters racism and ridicule. Slowly, Zitkála-Sá adapts to her environment--excelling at her studies, winning prizes for essay-writing and oration. But the price of success is estrangement from her cultural roots--and is it one she is willing to pay?
Combining Zitkála-Sá's childhood memories, her short stories, and her poetry, American Indian Stories is the origin story of an activist in the making, a remarkable woman whose extraordinary career deserves wider recognition.
The Modern Library Torchbearers series features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance.
|
You may like...
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
|