American Indian Autobiography

Description

American Indian Autobiography is a kind of cultural kaleidoscope whose narratives come to us from a wide range of American Indians: warriors| farmers| Christian converts| rebels and assimilationists| peyotists| shamans| hunters| Sun Dancers| artists and Hollywood Indians| spiritualists| visionaries| mothers| fathers| and English professors. Many of these narratives are as-told-to autobiographies| and those who labored to set them down in writing are nearly as diverse as their subjects. Black Elk had a poet for his amanuensis; Maxidiwiac| a Hidatsa farmer who worked her fields with a bone-blade hoe| had an anthropologist. Two Leggings| the man who led the last Crow war party| speaks to us through a merchant from Bismarck| North Dakota. White Horse Eagle| an aged Osage| told his story to a Nazi historian. By discussing these remarkable narratives from a historical perspective| H. David Brumble III reveals how the various editors’ assumptions and methods influenced the autobiographies as well as the autobiographers. Brumble also-and perhaps most importantly-describes the various oral autobiographical traditions of the Indians themselves| including those of N. Scott Momaday and Leslie Marmon Silko. American Indian Autobiography includes an extensive bibliography; this Bison Books edition features a new introduction by the author. H. David Brumble III is a professor of English and religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh and is the author of several books| including| most recently| Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.