Old Indian Legends - Softcover

Zitkala-Sa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1605203785 ISBN 13: 9781605203782

Publisher: Cosimo Classics, 2008

Synopsis

"I beg of you make me into a bird with green and purple feathers like yours!" implored Iktomi, tired now of playing the brave in beaded buckskins. The peacock then spoke to Iktomi: "I have a magic power." My touch will change you in a moment into the most beautiful peacock if you can keep one condition." "Yes! yes!" shouted Iktomi, jumping up and down, patting his lips with his palm, which caused his voice to vibrate in a peculiar fashion. "Yes! yes! I could keep ten conditions if only you would change me into a bird with long, bright tail feathers. Oh, I am so ugly! I am so tired of being myself! Change me! Do!" -from "Iktomi and the Fawn" The Lakota writer Zitkala-Sa, or "Red Bird"-the pen name of Native American author, teacher, and activist GERTRUDE SIMMONS BONNIN (1876-1938)-is renowned for being among the first tellers of contemporary Native American history, culture, and experience in her own voice, unaltered by outside influences. Here, she gathers legends and stories she learned as a child on the Yankton Reservation. This replica of the first 1901 edition includes the tales of: · "Iktomi and the Ducks" · "Iktomi's Blanket" · "Iktomi and the Muskrat" · "The Badger and the Bear" · "Shooting of the Red Eagle" · "Dance in a Buffalo Shell" · "The Toad and the Boy" · "Iya, the Camp-Eater" · and more.

About this title

About the Author:

Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (February 22, 1876 - January 26, 1938), better known by her pen name, Zitkala-Sa, was a Native American writer, editor, musician, teacher and political activist. She was born and raised on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota by her mother, Ellen Simmons, whose Yankton-Nakota name was Tate Iyohiwin (Every Wind or Reaches for the Wind). Zitkala-Sa lived a traditional lifestyle until the age of eight when she left her reservation to attend Whites Manual Labor Institute, a Quaker mission school in Wabash, Indiana. She went on to study for a time at Earlham College in Indiana and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. A considerable talent, Bonnin co-composed the first American Indian grand opera, The Sun Dance (composed in romantic style based on Ute and Sioux themes), in 1913. After working as a teacher at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, she moved to Boston and began publishing short stories and autobiographical vignettes. Her autobiographical writings were serialized in Atlantic Monthly from January to March of 1900 and, later, published in a collection called American Indian Stories in 1921. Her first book, Old Indian Legends, is a collection of folktales that she gathered during her visits home to the Yankton Reservation. Much of early scholarship on her life comes from American Indian Stories and, more recently, from Doreen Rappaport's biography titled The Flight of Red Bird. For other reliable scholarship, see the work of P. Jane Hafen.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cosimo Classics
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1605203785
• ISBN 13: 9781605203782
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 204