Other editions of book American Indian Stories

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scending hills. A footpath wound its way gently down the sloping land till it reached the broad river bottom; creeping through the long swamp grasses that bent over it on either side, it came out on the edge of the Missouri. Here, morning, noon, and evening, my mother came to draw water from the muddy stream for our household use. Always, when my mother started for the river, I stopped my play to run along with her. She was only of medium height. Often she was sad and silent, at which times her full arched lips were compressed into hard and bitter lines, and shadows fell under her black eyes. Then I clung to her hand and begged to know what made the tears fall. "Hush; my little daughter must never talk about my tears"; and smiling through them, she patted my head and said, "Now let me see how fast you can run today." Whereupon I tore away at my highest possible speed, with my long black hair blowing in the breeze.

A wigwam of weather-stained canvas stood at the base of some irregularly ascending hills. A footpath wound its way gently down the sloping land till it reached the broad river bottom; creeping through the long swamp grasses that bent over it on either side, it came out on the edge of the Missouri.Here, morning, noon, and evening, my mother came to draw water from the muddy stream for our household use. Always, when my mother started for the river, I stopped my play to run along with her. She was only of medium height. Often she was sad and silent, at which times her full arched lips were compressed into hard and bitter lines, and shadows fell under her black eyes. Then I clung to her hand and begged to know what made the tears fall."Hush; my little daughter must never talk about my tears"; and smiling through them, she patted my head and said, "Now let me see how fast you can run today." Whereupon I tore away at my highest possible speed, with my long black hair blowing in the breeze.I was a wild little girl of seven. Loosely clad in a slip of brown buckskin, and light-footed with a pair of soft moccasins on my feet, I was as free as the wind that blew my hair, and no less spirited than a bounding deer. These were my mother's pride,—my wild freedom and overflowing spirits. She taught me no fear save that of intruding myself upon others.Having gone many paces ahead I stopped, panting for breath, and laughing with glee as my mother watched my every movement. I was not wholly conscious of myself, but was more keenly alive to the fire within. It was as if I were the activity, and my hands and feet were only experiments for my spirit to work upon.Returning from the river, I tugged beside my mother, with my hand upon the bucket I believed I was carrying. One time, on such a return, I remember a bit of conversation we had. My grown-up cousin, Warca-Ziwin (Sunflower), who was then seventeen, always went to the river alone for water for her mother. Their wigwam was not far from ours; and I saw her daily going to and from the river. I admired my cousin greatly. So I said: "Mother, when I am tall as my cousin Warca-Ziwin, you shall not have to come for water. I will do it for you."With a strange tremor in her voice which I could not understand, she answered, "If the paleface does not take away from us the river we drink.""Mother, who is this bad paleface?" I asked.

Zitkala-Sa (1876–1938) (Dakota: pronounced zitkála-ša, which translates to "Red Bird"), also known by the missionary-given name Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a Sioux (Yankton Dakota) writer, editor, musician, teacher and political activist. She wrote several works chronicling her youthful struggles with identity and pulls between the majority culture and her Native American heritage. Her later books in English were among the first works to bring traditional Native American stories to a widespread white readership. Working with American William F. Hanson, Zitkala-Sa wrote the libretto and songs for The Sun Dance Opera, (1913), the first American Indian opera. (It was composed in romantic style based on Sioux and Ute themes.) She was a co-founder of the National Council of American Indians in 1926 to lobby for rights to United States citizenship and civil rights. Zitkala-Sa served as its president until her death in 1938. Zitkala-Sa was born on February 22, 1876 on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota. She was raised by her mother, Ellen Simmons, whose Dakota name was Taté Iyòhiwin (Every Wind or Reaches for the Wind). Her father was a European-American man named Felker, who abandoned the family while Zitkala-Sa was very young. For her first eight years, Zitkala-Sa lived on the reservation. She later described those days as ones of freedom and happiness, safe in the care of her mother's people and tribe. In 1884, when Zitkala-Sa was eight, missionaries came to the Yankton Reservation. They recruited several of the Yankton children, including Zitkala-Sa, taking them for education to the White's Manual Labor Institute, a boarding school in Wabash, Indiana. This training school was founded by Quaker Josiah White for the education of "poor children, white, colored, and Indian," with the goal of helping them advance in society. Zitkala-Sa attended the school for three years until 1887. She later wrote about this period in her work, The School Days of an Indian Girl." She described both the deep misery of having her heritage stripped away, when she was forced to pray as a Quaker and cut her traditionally long hair, and the contrasting joy of learning to read and write, and to play the violin. In 1887 Zitkala-Sa returned to the Yankton Reservation to live with her mother. She spent three years there. She was dismayed to realize that, while she still longed for the native Sioux traditions, she no longer fully belonged to them. In addition, she thought that many on the reservation were conforming to the dominant white culture. In 1891, wanting more education, Zitkala-Sa decided at age fifteen to return to White's Manual Labor Institute. She planned to gain more through education than becoming a house-keeper, as the school anticipated girls would do. She studied piano and violin, and started to teach music at White's when the teacher resigned. In 1895 Zitkala-Sa was awarded her first diploma. She gave a speech on women's inequality, which received high praise from the local paper.