American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings

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.

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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.

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American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings - Zitkala-Sa Introduction and Notes by Cathy N. Davidson and Ada NorrisAcknowledgments Introduction Suggestions for Further Reading Chronology A Note on the Texts 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 Manstin, the Rabbit The Warlike SevenII. 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 (October-December 1916) The Red Man's America (January-March 1917) Chipeta, Widow of Chief Ouray (July-September 1917) 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 (Summer 1919) Address by the Secretary-Treasurer, Society of American Indians Annual Convention (Summer 1919) IV. Poetry, Pamphlets, Essays, and Speeches Side by Side (March 1896) A Ballad (January 1897) Iris of Life (November 1898) A Protest Against the Abolition of the Indian Dance (August 1902) The Menace of Peyote (ca. 1916) Americanize the First American (1921) Bureaucracy Versus Democracy (1921) A Dakota Ode to Washington (1922) California Indian Trails and Prayer Trees (1922) Lost Treaties of the California Indians (1922) The California Indians of Today (1922) Heart to Heart Talk (1922) Explanatory Notes