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American Indian Stories

Zitkala-Sa

  • Stories
  • Book language: English
  • 105 pages

American Indian Stories is a collection of autobiographical sketches, traditional tales, and essays by Zitkala-Sa, a Dakota Sioux writer. It moves from a girlhood by the Missouri River to boarding-school years and reflections on Native life and assimilation. The pieces offer a personal view of Sioux experience and early twentieth-century America.

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Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.

Opening of the book

AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES

BY

ZITKALA-SA (Gertrude Bonnin)

Dakota Sioux Indian

Lecturer; Author of "Old Indian Legends," "Americanize The First

American," and other stories; Member of the Woman's National

Foundation,

League of American Pen-Women, and the Washington Salon

"There is no great; there is no small; in the mind that causeth all"

1921

CONTENTS

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 of Blue-Star Woman

America's Indian Problem

IMPRESSIONS OF AN INDIAN CHILDHOOD

I.

MY MOTHER.

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.

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Contents

  1. CONTENTS
  2. IMPRESSIONS OF AN INDIAN CHILDHOOD
  3. II.
  4. III.
  5. IV.
  6. V.
  7. VI.
  8. VII.
  9. THE SCHOOL DAYS OF AN INDIAN GIRL
  10. II.
  11. III.
  12. IV.
  13. V.
  14. VI.
  15. VII.
  16. AN INDIAN TEACHER AMONG INDIANS
  17. II.
  18. III.
  19. IV.
  20. THE GREAT SPIRIT
  21. THE SOFT-HEARTED SIOUX
  22. II.
  23. III.
  24. IV.
  25. V.
  26. THE TRIAL PATH
  27. A WARRIOR'S DAUGHTER
  28. A DREAM OF HER GRANDFATHER
  29. THE WIDESPREAD ENIGMA CONCERNING BLUE-STAR WOMAN
  30. THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE

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