Resources and Services for Iowa Indigenous Peoples

Author Zitkala-S̈a is a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe/Ihanktonwan Nation.-- Zitkala-S̈a, also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was born on the Yankton Sioux reservation in 1876 and went on to become one of the most influential American Indian writer/activists of the twentieth century. "Help Indians Help Themselves": The Later Writings of Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala-S̈a) is a critical collection of primary documents written by Zitkala-S̈a who was principally known for the memoir of her boarding school experience, "Help Indians Help Themselves" expands the published work of Zitkala-S̈a, adding insight to a life of writing and political activism on behalf of American Indians in the early twentieth century. Edited by P. Jane Hafen, "Help Indians Help Themselves" documents Zitkala-S̈a's passion for justice in Indian America and outlines the broad scope of her life's work. In the American Indian Magazine, the publication of the Society of American Indians, and through her work for the National Council of American Indians, Zitkala-S̈a developed her emphasis, as Hafen writes, on "resistance, tribal nationalism, land rights and call for civil rights." "Help Indians Help Themselves" also brings to light Zitkala-S̈a's letters, speeches, and congressional testimony, which coincide with important developments of the relationship between American Indians and the U.S. federal government. Legislation such as the Citizenship Act of 1924, the Meriam Report of 1928, and the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 is reflected through the work collected in "Help Indians Help Themselves". In these writings, in newsletters, and in voluminous correspondence, most of which have never before been published Zitkala-S̈a advocates tirelessly for "the Indian Cause."

Author Zitkala-S̈a is a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe/Ihanktonwan Nation.-- Zitkala-Sa: Letters, Speeches, and Unpublished Writings, 1898-1929, edited by Tadeusz Lewandowski, offers a fascinating, intimate portrait of the Yankton Sioux writer and activist Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (1876-1938). Gertrude Bonnin, better known by her Lakota name, Zitkala-Sa, was one of the most prominent American Indians of the early 20th century. A talented writer, orator, and musician, she devoted much of her life to the protection of Native peoples. As such, Bonnin corresponded with many other distinguished persons within the early Native rights movement, including Carlos Montezuma, Richard Henry Pratt, and Arthur C. Parker, as well as Fathers Martin Kenel and William H. Ketcham of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions. This volume gathers together Bonnin's letters, lesser-known writings and speeches, illuminating her private and public struggles.

Author Zitkala-S̈a is a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe/Ihanktonwan Nation.-- Zitkala-Sa (Red Bird) (1876-1938), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was one of the best-known and most influential Native Americans of the twentieth century. Born on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, she remained true to her indigenous heritage as a student at the Boston Conservatory and a teacher at the Carlisle Indian School, as an activist in turn attacking the Carlisle School, as an artist celebrating Native stories and myths, and as an active member of the Society of American Indians in Washington DC. All these currents of Zitkala-Sa's rich life come together in this book, which presents her previously unpublished stories, rare poems, and the libretto of The Sun Dance Opera.

Author Zitkala-S̈a is a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe/Ihanktonwan Nation.-- Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin) was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition. Impressions of an Indian Childhood describes her first eight yeas on the Yankton Reservation, where she was born in 1876. Her schooling in Indiana revealed a gift for writing that led in 1901 to the publication of Old Indian Legends, also a Bison Book. For the rest of her rife, this Sioux was in the poignant but creative position of trying to bridge the gap between her own culture and the dominant white one, unable to return fully to the former or to enter fully into the latter. These pieces, largely autobiographical, were first collected and published in 1921. With their reissue, Zitkala-Sa takes her rightful place among such native interpreters of Sioux culture as Charles A. Eastman and Luther Standing Bear .

Maria Pearson, a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe/Ihanktonwan Nation, contributed "Give me back my people's bones: repatriation and reburial of American Indian skeletal remains in Iowa." -- Originally published in 1978, The Worlds between Two Rivers intentionally reflected a wide spectrum of views on Native Americans in Iowa: those of Native Americans themselves and of Euro-Americans, those of laypeople, and those of professional educators, social scientists, and humanists.  Now, more than twenty years later, this expanded edition reflects the far-reaching and complicated changes for American Indians in this region. Two new essays--one discussing the issues surrounding the reburial of disinterred American Indian skeletal remains and the repatriation of bones and cultural objects, the other dealing with the native people from whom the state of Iowa took its name--not only express the continuing American Indian presence in Iowa but also extend the bridge for non-Indian people to better understand those Iowans who represent the state's first nations.

Author Jacqueline Keeler is a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe/Ihanktonwan Nation. -- "A powerful, illuminating book." --LOUISE ERDRICH, author ofThe Night Watchman Native young people and elders pray in sweat lodges at the Océti Sakówin camp, the North Dakota landscape outside blanketed in snow. In Oregon, white men and women in army surplus and western gear, some draped in the American flag, gather in the buildings of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. The world witnessed two standoffs in 2016: the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's protest against an oil pipeline in North Dakota and the armed takeover of Oregon's Malheur Wildlife Refuge led by the Bundy family. These events unfolded in vastly different ways, from media coverage to the reactions of law enforcement. InStandoff, Jacqueline Keeler examines these episodes as two sides of the same story that created America and its deep-rooted cultural conflicts.

Author Ella C. Deloria is a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe/Ihanktonwan Nation. -- This novel of the Dakota Sioux written by Sioux ethnologist Deloria takes protagonist Waterlily through the everyday and the extraordinary events of a Sioux woman's life.

Author Ella C. Deloria is a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe/Ihanktonwan Nation. -- "Ella Deloria, the bilingual and bicultural Lakota ethnologist and linguist, wrote hundreds of traditional narratives, autobiographies, anecdotes, and reminiscences in both Lakota and English during the 1920s and 1930s. Iron Hawk represents the culmination of Deloria's colloquial style of synthesizing from memory rather than transcribing from tape or written notes. The story traces the development of a culture hero, from his early education by a grandfather, through a series of instructive adolescent mistakes, to the achievement of marriage and leadership in the tribe. But in refusing to romanticize camp circle life, Deloria also includes Iron Hawk's captivation by a seductive woman, and his return to the work of tribal continuance, when he is rescued by his son. A series of interpretive chapters follow the text to provide suggestions for literary criticism, as well as information on child-rearing and the symbolism of meadowlarks, fire, clothing, and eastward movement."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Author Ella C. Deloria is a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe/Ihanktonwan Nation. -- "The five narratives in this book, the third in Julian Rice's examination of the work of Ella Deloria, demonstrate Deloria's artistry in portraying the central values of Lakota (Sioux) culture. The introductory stories illustrate courage in three extraordinary women and Deloria's ability to subordinate her voice to that of different narrators. Another tale, "The Prairie Dogs," explains how the warriors' and chiefs' societies, the strongest forces for social cohesion, came into being." "The longest story, "The Buffalo People," concerns the origin of tribal identity based on such ideal qualities as the strength and generosity of the buffalo and the resiliency and grace of the corn. Following the noted storyteller Makula (Breast or Left Heron), Deloria improvises upon the poetic conventions of oral performance, from simple asides to traditional set speeches of the Buffalo Woman ceremony. Blending careful observation with creative skill, these stories offer new and often surprising perspectives on Lakota culture. They will entertain and instruct any reader with an interest in Native American societies of the past and present."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Author Ella C. Deloria is a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe/Ihanktonwan Nation. -- Ella Deloria (1889-1971), one of the first Native students of linguistics and ethnography in the United States, grew up on the Standing Rock Reservation on the northern Great Plains and was trained by Franz Boas at Columbia University. Dakota Texts presents a rich array of Sioux mythology and folklore in its original language and in translation. Originally published in 1932 by the American Ethnological Society, this work is a landmark contribution to the study of the Sioux tribes.

Author Ella C. Deloria is a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe/Ihanktonwan Nation. -- Originally published in 1944, this book is an important source of information about Dakota culture and a classic in its elegant clarity of insight. Beginning with a general discussion of American Indian origins, language families, and culture areas, Deloria then focuses on her own people, the Dakotas, and the intricate kinship system that governed all aspects of their life. She writes, “Exacting and unrelenting obedience to kinship demands made the Dakotas a most kind, unselfish people, always acutely aware of those about them and innately courteous.” Deloria goes on to show the painful transition to reservations and how the holdover of the kinship system worked against Indians trying to follow white notions of progress and success. Her ideas about what both races must do to participate fully in American life are as cogent now as when they were first written.