American Indian Stories and Old Indian Legends (Royal Collector's Edition) (Case Laminate Hardcover with Jacket)

by Zitkala-Sa

Overview

American Indian Stories details the hardships encountered by the Yankton Dakota writer Zitkala-Ša and other Native Americans in missionary and manual labour schools. The autobiographical details contrast her early life on the Yankton Indian Reservation and her time as a student at White's Manual Labour Institute and Earlham College. Old Indian Legends is a collection of fourteen Sioux stories that Zitkala-Ša learned as child and had gathered from various tribes. Zitkala-Ša intention was to preserve the traditional stories of her people.

American Indian Stories includes legends and stories from Sioux oral tradition, along with an essay titled America's Indian Problem, which advocates rights for Native Americans and calls for a greater understanding of Native American cultures. The work offers a unique view into a society that is often overlooked. Old Indian Legends is a collection of stories directed primarily at children. The collection was an attempt both to preserve Native American traditions and stories in print and to garner respect and recognition for those traditions from the dominant European-American culture.

This case laminate collector's edition includes a Victorian inspired dust-jacket.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781774761038
Publisher:	Royal Classics
Publication date:	01/17/2021
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Zitkála-Šá (1876-1938) (Lakota: Red Bird = Cardinal (bird)), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, her missionary-given and later married name, was a Yankton Dakota Sioux writer, editor, translator, musician, educator, and political activist. She was raised by her mother, Ellen Simmons, whose Dakota name was Thaté Iyóhiwiŋ (Every Wind or Reaches for the Wind). Her father was a German-American man named Felker, who abandoned the family while Zitkala-Ša was very young. She wrote several works chronicling her struggles with cultural identity and the pull between the majority culture she was educated within and her Dakota Sioux culture into which she was born and raised. Her later books were among the first works to bring traditional Native American stories to a widespread white English-speaking readership, and she has been noted as one of the most influential Native American activists of the 20th century. Working with American musician William F. Hanson, Zitkala-Ša wrote the libretto and songs for The Sun Dance Opera, (1913), the first American Indian opera. It was composed in romantic musical style, and based on Sioux and Ute cultural themes. She was co-founder of the National Council of American Indians in 1926, which was established to lobby for Native people's right to United States citizenship and other civil rights they had long been denied. Zitkala-Ša served as the council's president until her death in 1938.