Sitting Bull Research Articles

The Pretend Indians: Images of Native Americans in the Movies ed. by Gretchen M. Bataille and Charles L. P. Silet, and: Images of the Mexican American in Fiction and Film by Arthur G. Pettit

Reviews 323 The Pretend Indians: Images of Native Americans in the Movies. Edited by Gretchen M. Bataille and Charles L. P. Silet. (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State Uni­ versity Press, 1980. 202 pages, $9.95.) Images of the Mexican American in Fiction and Film. By Arthur G. Pettit. Edited by Dennis E. Showalter. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1981. 282 pages, $19.50; $9.50 paper.) Ethnic stereotyping may be one of the primary reasons why popular western fiction and film often suffer from low critical esteem. Who can deny that Native Americans and Mexican Americans have been exploited for the purposes of formulaic entertainment? Whether this is a matter of prima facie injustice or, as Leslie Fiedler would view racial stereotyping these days, of giving the devil his necessary due, it is hardly something to be ignored. “Motion pictures,” Rita Keshena says in her contribution to The Pretend Indians, “are guilty of almost total distortion of American Indians and their culture, the presentation of which has contributed harm beyond calculation to the concepts, attitudes, and beliefs that Indian people have about them­ selves.” This sense of injustice runs throughout the anthology edited by Bataille and Silet. Many of the editor’s own comments are well-placed rhetorical licks against Hollywood. In the pieces they have collected, Bataille and Silet first offer general views of media stereotyping, then a section on Indians in early films, one on post-World War II films, and a final group of reviews on films from the late sixties and the seventies. Vine Deloria has contributed both a foreword, in which he castigates white images of Indians in general, and a later essay, in which he points more objectively to problems in both media and selfimages of Native Americans. Some selections, such as one that focuses mainly on Buffy Sainte-Marie as a media figure, present little information about film. One by Donald L. Kaufmann attacks white America with such ad hominem vengeance as to render it useful only as a sample of one point of view (com­ plete with factual errors, such as postponing Sitting Bull’s death until 1900). The selection from Slotkin’s Regeneration through Violence pulls passages together from two chapters — without ellipses — and thus over-simplifies his rather complicated view of American myth. Yet by bringing together such statements, along with reviews of specific films, the anthology should serve to raise important questions, especially among undergraduate and high school students, about a subject often taken for granted. The annotated biblio­ graphical information at the end of the anthology seems especially useful. There is one curious feature of the book which may illustrate the diffi­ culty involved in juggling the aesthetics of film, the nature of popular enter­ tainment, and the rights of real people to decent treatment by others. This feature is the anthology’s general appraisal of recent films about Indians. Although the editors themselves refer to Little Big Man as having “repeatedly done well with critics,” at least five separate critics represented in The Pre­ 324 Western American Literature tend, Indians cite serious deficiencies in Arthur Penn’s film. Only Philip French takes a genuinely favorable view. Much the same is true of Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, Soldier Blue, and A Man Called Horse; even though the films themselves are intended to show Indians in new ways, the critics who comment on them in the anthology often find serious flaws in their treatments of Native Americans. The real favorite, it appears, is Robert Aldrich’s Ulzana’s Raid — praised by Richard Schickel and Richard Combs, attacked by no one. There is some irony in this fact, especially in view of the generally critical tone of the anthology. As Schickel points out, Ulzana’s Raid features “an Apache of no redeeming social value by modern standards” and probably represents “the last movie in which the soldiery and the savages had at one another, with no liberal-minded questions asked.” The irony here may indicate the need for more attention to such matters, especially by critics and scholars with a broad knowledge of western American literature, both in print and film. In Images of the Mexican American in Fiction...

American Indian Leaders: Studies in Diversity

Throughout history, Indian leaders and their methods of leadership have both perplexed and fascinated other Americans. Because war chiefs played leading roles in the confrontations with whites, it is they who most often emerge from the pages of history. But there were many other leaders who sought security for their tribesmen in accommodation or friendship with the Anglo-Americans. Indeed, as the twelve subjects whose careers are examined in this collection illustrate, Indian political leadership has manifested itself in a wide variety of patterns. Spanning the period from colonial times to the present, the essays are devoted to Old Briton, Joseph Brant (or, Thayendenegea), Alexander McGillivray, Red Bird, John Ross, Satanta, Washakie, Sitting Bull, Quanah Parker, Dennis Bushyhead, Carlos Montezuma, and Peter MacDonald.

Robert Altman's Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull's History Lesson: A Self‐Portrait in Celluloid

Robert Altman's <i>Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull's History Lesson:</i> A Self‐Portrait in Celluloid

Sister to the Sioux: The Memoirs of Elaine Goodale Eastman, 1885-91

'A woman ahead of her time, the 'Little Sister' ...adds unique and fascinating chapter to the literature of the West' - Pacific Historian. 'We must be impressed by this talented woman who gave herself so completely to the people she chose to serve. Her story is fascinating, real contribution to the history of the period' - American Indian Quarterly. 'It is particularly refreshing to see Indian women viewed through the eyes of another woman' - Valerie Sherer Mathes, North Dakota History. 'It was held distinct adventure back in the demure 1880s for properly brought-up New England girl to open day school in primitive Sioux village,' Elaine Goodale Eastman recalled in later years.With boundless energy and dedication she had set out to teach the white man's ways to the Sioux. The Indian women called her little sister as she entered wholeheartedly into village activities. She watched the emergence of the Ghost Dance religion, visited with Sitting Bull shortly before his death, and was at Pine Ridge during the last month of 1890 - a time of grim suspense. There she met her future husband, Dr. Charles Eastman, the agency physician and mixed-blood Sioux. A short time later they shared in the heart-wrenching job of caring for the survivors of the Wounded Knee massacre. Kay Graber, editor emeritus at the University of Nebraska Press, is also editor of Standing Bear & the Ponca Chiefs (Nebraska 1995).

Arrest Sitting Bull by Douglas C. Jones

Arrest Sitting Bull by Douglas C. Jones

Sitting Bull: An Epic of the Plains

Journal Article Sitting Bull: An Epic of the Plains Get access Sitting Bull: An Epic of the Plains. By Adams Alexander B.. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1973. 446 p. Illustrations, photographs, bibliography, index. $9.95.) James C. Olson James C. Olson University of Missouri-Kansas City Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 6, Issue 4, October 1975, Pages 454–455, https://doi.org/10.2307/967796 Published: 01 October 1975

Sitting Bull Indian Without a Country

Inspector J. M. Walsh of the North-West Mounted Police, and the time was the summer of 188o. Although Walsh's description resembled an advertisement for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, with which the Sioux warrior was later associated, the Inspector was serious. x Sitting Bull was not circus Indian, but the key figure in an international dispute involving the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Since fleeing to Canada in the winter and spring of I876-7, the Sioux had defied the efforts of police authorities to effect their return and had repeatedly raided American territory. Neither Canada nor the United States wanted Sitting Bull; neither acknowledged responsibility for his behaviour, and each waited for its neighhour to solve the problem. Lord Dufferin, the Canadian governor-general, first predicted trouble in the spring of • 876 when three columns of American troops converged upon the Sioux from different directions in the valley of the Yellowstone River. Dufferin realized that it would be a most undesirable contingency if the Sioux were driven north across the Canadian border. An influx of armed, warlike, and exasperated Indians, he explained to Sir Edward Thornton, the British minister in Washington, will be anything but an agreeable addi• Walsh to Minister of the Interior, • • Sept. •88o, Records of the Department of Indian Affairs, vol. •3893 (Public Archives of Canada (e^c), Record Group •o). Hereafter cited as RoI o/• 3893 or other appropriate volume number.

General Custer and Sitting Bull

General Custer and Sitting Bull

General Custer and Sitting Bull

General Custer and Sitting Bull

General Custer and Sitting Bull

General Custer and Sitting Bull