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American Indian stories, legends, and other writings / Zitkala-Ša ; edited with an introduction and notes by Cathy N. Davidson and Ada Norris.

by Zitkala-Sa, 1876-1938.

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Penguin Books, 2003.

398.208997 Z82a

Zitkala-Sa, 1876-1938.

Indians of North America -- Folklore.

Indians of North America -- Social conditions.

Dakota Indians -- Folklore.

Legends -- United States

Speeches, addresses, etc., Indian -- United States.

Penguin classics.

9780142437094 (pbk.)

xlvi, 268 p. ; 20 cm.

Some copies may be permabound.

Includes bibliographical references

Old Indian legends -- American Indian stories -- Selections from American Indian magazine -- Poetry, pamphlets, essays, and speeches

A groundbreaking collection of stories, essays, poems, and speeches by a Sioux writer, teacher, and activist includes legends and tales from oral tradition, childhood stories, and allegorical fiction

"Zitkala-Sa (1876–1938) 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. 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. Her life has been recorded in the biography Red Bird, Red Power: The Life and Legacy of Zitkala-Sa (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016). American Indian Stories is a collection of childhood stories, allegorical fiction, and an essay, including several of Zitkala-Sa's articles that were originally published in Harper's Monthly and Atlantic Monthly. It was first published in 1921 and served as an account of the hardships which she and other Native Americans encountered when they were brought to missionary and manual labor schools designed to "civilize" them. The autobiographical writings described her early life on the Yankton Reservation, her years as a student at White's Manual Labor Institute and Earlham College, and the time she spent teaching at Carlisle Indian Industrial School."--From wikipedia.org website.

"Sioux writer and activist Zitkala-Sa (1876-1938) was born in the year of the infamous Battle of Little Big Horn--her people's last victory over the invasion forces that would soon force them onto reservations, on one of which she grew up under a regime of forced assimilation. Her writing career blossomed early, with stories published in the Atlantic Monthly when she was in her early twenties. She could have been a mere exotic, but she found a way to capture the interest of non-Indian readers, who preferred the romanticized noble savage to the often-sad reality of Indian life, and to give voice to her threatened culture. Her work, surprisingly, seems undated, perhaps because, unfortunately, the situation of Indian people has changed so little. This first comprehensive collection of her work, consisting of a significant sequence of mythic tales as well as memoirs and poetry, reveals Zitkala-Sa as a crusading, spiritually aware woman."-- Patricia Monaghan (From Booklist).

Davidson, Cathy N., 1949-

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