Ceremony (For Further Study)

For Further Study

• Thomas Berger, Little Big Man, Fawcett, 1964.

  Written by a man known for his probing satire about America, the novel is the life story of Jack Crab — the only living survivor of Custer's Last Stand. The novel and the film (with Dustin Hoffman, 1970), were part of a general redress of the image of the Indian. Custer, in this version, is not the Hollywood hero but the more historically accurate eccentric who lost all his men and himself in a battle with the Lakota lead by Crazy Horse.

• Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West, Holt, 1970.

  History books were being rewritten both as a reaction to the rise in minority consciousness caused by the era of Civil Rights and as a further catalyst to political activism. This volume tells a story very different from the more patriotic story 'how the West was won.' For example, such battles as the 1890 Wounded Knee event, is revealed to be the massacre of Big Foot's band of 300 old men, women, and children.

• Arthur S. Flemming, Indian Tribes: A Continuing Quest for Survival, a Report by the US Commission on Civil Rights, 1981.

  Eight years after the siege at Wounded Knee, a long overdue report was issued by the US Commission on Civil Rights. It found that most violations of Native American rights are the direct result of public ignorance and misinformation (e.g. though "an entire volume of the US Code is devoted to Indian Law" it is a rare Law School that notices even the oversight). Furthermore, the report found that greed — not racism — accounts for the backlash which erupts whenever treaty rights are asserted or upheld in court.

• Tom Hohm, Strong Hearts, Wounded Souls: Native American Veterans of the Vietnam War, University of Texas Press, 1996.

  Some 43,000 Native Americans served in the Vietnam War but their contributions went undocumented until Tom Holm began his interviews. He reflects on those interviews to explore the role of war and warrior, how their tribal customs sustained them in war, and what happened to them when they returned. Fortunately, many Native American Vietnam Vets had different experiences from their white counterparts because many Tribes were ready with ceremonies to heal the trauma of the "white path of peace."

• Gertrude Simmons Bonin, "Impressions of an Indian Childhood," in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. II, 1989.

  The woman who could arguably have been the first Native American novelist, had not circumstances prevented her, was Gertrude Simmons Bonin (a.k.a. Zitkala-Sa, 1876-1938). Those circumstances were, quite simply, the needs of her people. She was a violinist, short story writer, progressive reformer, labor rights advocate, and secretary of the Society of American Indians (the first all-Indian run organization agitating for Indian rights). Her autobiographical pieces are a fascinating read.