Pretty-shield: Medicine Woman of the Crows - Softcover

Linderman, Frank B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803257910 ISBN 13: 9780803257917

Publisher: Bison Books, 1973

Synopsis

Originally published in 1932 as Red Mother, this book was perhaps the first record of the women’s side of Indian life, and it has become a classic work in its field.

Pretty-shield told her story to Frank Linderman through an interpreter and using the sign language. A medicine woman of the Crows, she was one of the few who remembered what it was like before the white man came and the buffalo went away. She tells about the simple games and dolls of an Indian childhood and the duties of the girls and women—setting up the lodges, dressing the skins, picking berries, digging roots, cooking. From her account we learn about courtship, marriage, childbirth and the care of babies, about medicine-dreams, the care of the sick, and the dangers and joys of womanhood among men whose lives were spent in hunting and fighting.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

The feminine equivalent of Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks."—The History Teacher.

Pretty-shield, the legendary medicine woman of the Crows, remembered what life was like on the Plains when the buffalo were still plentiful. A powerful healer who was forceful, astute, and compassionate, Pretty-shield experienced many changes as her formerly mobile people were forced to come to terms with reservation life in the late nineteenth century.

Pretty-shield told her story to Frank Linderman through an interpreter and using sign language. The lives, responsibilities, and aspirations of Crow women are vividly brought to life in these pages as Pretty-shield recounts her life on the Plains of long ago. She speaks of the simple games and dolls of an Indian childhood and the work of the girls and women—setting up the lodges, dressing the skins, picking berries, digging roots, and cooking. Through her eyes we come to understand courtship, marriage, childbirth and the care of babies, medicine-dreams, the care of the sick, and other facets of Crow womanhood. Alma Snell and Becky Matthews provide a new preface to this edition.

About the Author

Frank B. Linderman was born in Ohio in 1869 and in 1885 went to Montana. His early years there were spent as trapper, hunter, and cowboy. He was intimately associated with the Crows and other Indian tribes. Linderman’s Plenty-Coups: Chief of the Crows, is also a Bison Book.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bison Books
• Publication date: 1973
• ISBN 10: 0803257910
• ISBN 13: 9780803257917
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256