American Indian Stories

“As I sat eating my dinner, and saw that no turnips were served, I whooped in my heart for having once asserted the rebellion within me.” 

Zitkála-Šá chooses to attend a mission school, but she quickly realizes that life there is not what she was promised it would be. She experiences the difficulties of forced assimilation but also seeks ways to rebel against the school’s strictness. When she is ordered to mash turnips for supper, she mashes them so forcefully that they turn to pulp and she breaks their container. Though she is still beholden to the school’s rules, she takes pride in her act of principled disobedience.

“Perhaps my Indian nature is the roaming wind which stirs them now for their present record.” 

Memories of Zitkála-Šá’s youth fill the first sections of “The School Days of an Indian Girl,” and she is particularly focused on reminiscences of the strict mission school, such as an American Indian girl who died at the school because of inadequate medical care. The memories fill her with sadness, but she cannot help but turn to them again and again. She wonders if her “Indian nature” or fundamental identity is strong enough to urge her to revisit painful memories of childhood, seek to understand them, and focus on where she and her culture might go in the future.

“The little taste of victory did not satisfy a hunger in my heart.”

Zitkála-Šá excelled academically in college. She won an oration contest, which was a point of pride for her. The victory is bittersweet, however, because Zitkála-Šá faced discrimination while at the contest. Ultimately, the experience bolsters her determination to fight discrimination and injustice against American Indians.

“My child, there is only one source of justice, and I have been praying steadfastly to the Great Spirit to avenge our wrongs.” 

After returning home for a visit while working as a teacher at an Indian school, Zitkála-Šá is shocked to learn of the injustices committed against the Sioux, including her own brother losing his job and being replaced by a White man. Her mother tells her she prays to the Great Spirit of the Sioux. For Zitkála-Šá, this reminder of her culture coupled with knowledge of the injustices committed against her people is an important stage in her rejection of assimilation.

“A whole tribe of broad-footed white beggars had rushed hither to make claims on those wild lands.” 

During a visit home, Zitkála-Šá learns of injustices committed against the Sioux. According to her mother, White settlers had encroached on the Sioux reservation, setting up camps in the hills surrounding the area. Though the settlers had not taken the reservation’s land, her mother still sees them as an unwelcome threat, which is emphasized when Zitkála-Šá characterizes the settlers as “beggars.”

“For the white man’s papers I had given up my faith in the Great Spirit. For these same papers I had forgotten the healing in trees and brooks. […] Like a slender tree, I had been uprooted from my mother, nature, and God.”

Returning to the Indian school after a visit back home, Zitkála-Šá reaches a turning point in her thinking. For a time, she tried to adapt to what she was taught in the mission school, in college, and in her career as a teacher. Seeing the deplorable conditions at home on the reservation, however, she rethinks her decisions. Zitkála-Šá reverses course and becomes closer to the ways of Sioux culture.

“But few there are who have paused to question whether real life or long-lasting death lies beneath this semblance of civilization.”

Zitkála-Šá resigns from her position as teacher at an Indian school after she returns from a visit to her family home on the Sioux reservation. She is disenchanted with the idea of assimilation and believes its promise of goodwill is a lie. She implies that forcing American Indians to adopt White cultural practices means “death” to their own identity and traditions.

“I fain would trace a subtle knowledge of the native fold which enabled them to recognize a kinship to any and all parts of this vast universe.” 

“The Great Spirit” opens with Zitkála-Šá contemplating the natural imagery of her homeland. She notes how closely Sioux cultural traditions are intertwined with the natural world. Zitkála-Šá sees a spiritual worldview in the Sioux conception of nature, one that emphasizes interconnectedness and interdependency.

“The racial lines, which once were bitterly real, now serve nothing more than marking out a living mosaic of human beings. And even here men of the same color are like the ivory keys of one instrument where each resembles the rest, yet varies from them in pitch and quality of voice.” 

Zitkála-Šá sees that the Sioux worldview emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things. In her mind, this interconnectedness extends to the relationships between people. She utilizes a simile that compares the differences between people to the distinctions between keys on a piano. All people are distinct, just as each key of a piano sounds a different note. At the same time, all people have a shared, fundamental being, just as all keys of a piano appear similar.

“A wee child toddling in a wonder world, I prefer to their dogma my excursions into natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers.” 

Zitkála-Šá strongly expresses her belief in the Sioux religion, which emphasizes finding spirituality in nature. This declaration in “The Great Spirit” represents a reversal of Zitkála-Šá’s earlier attempt to adopt the ways she learned at the mission school. “The Great Spirit” is also a manifesto rejecting the assumption that American Indians wanted to convert to Christianity.

“Wearing a foreigner’s dress, I walked, a stranger, into my father’s village.” 

The story of the narrator of “The Soft-Hearted Sioux” has some parallels to Zitkála-Šá’s story. He grows up among the Sioux but later goes to a mission school and adopts non-Sioux practices. Most significantly, the narrator converts to Christianity. As a result, when he returns to visit his family, he feels as though he does not fit in, much as Zitkála-Šá felt alienated when she visited her reservation.

“Will the loving Jesus grant me pardon and give my soul a soothing sleep? or will my warrior father greet me and receive me as his son? Will my spirit fly upward to a happy heaven? or shall I sink into the bottomless pit, an outcast from a God of infinite love?”

The narrator of “The Soft-Hearted Sioux” experiences a spiritual crisis when he is imprisoned for murdering a man during an attempt to steal food for his dying father. The influence of the Christian religion he adopted is clear in his questions about the fate of his soul. It is clear that he is tormented, and the story implies that Christianity ultimately failed to provide him all the answers and security he sought.

“Legend says the large bright stars are wise old warriors, and the small dim ones are handsome young braves.”

The grandmother of the narrator of “The Trial Path” tells her about the Dakota Sioux’s belief that the souls of warriors are placed among the stars upon deaths. The reference foreshadows the tale of the narrator’s grandfather, who was himself a famed warrior. At the same time, the metaphor of the warriors among the stars points to Zitkála-Šá’s emphasis on family, tradition, and spirituality among the Sioux.

“Let the father of the dead man choose the mode of torture or taking of life.” 

“The Trial Path” offers a contrast to the autobiographical sections of American Indian Stories by depicting life among the Sioux without explicitly mentioning the problems of assimilation or the encroachment of White settlers. The story tells one version of how justice worked among the Sioux, according to Zitkála-Šá, when the tribe’s chief agrees to let the dead man’s father choose the punishment of the narrator’s grandfather. American Indian Stories implies that US laws are abusive toward American Indians, while the principles of justice found among the Sioux are community-based.

“All-powerful Spirit, grant me my warrior-father’s heart, strong to slay a foe and mighty to save a friend!”

“A Warrior’s Daughter” expresses the strong feminist principles Zitkála-Šá explores throughout American Indian Stories. The narrator prays to the Great Spirit for a warrior’s heart, which was traditionally a male characteristic. The strong heart of this narrator is a direct contrast to the soft heart of the converted narrator of “The Soft-Hearted Sioux.”

“I am a Dakota woman!” 

The narrator of “A Warrior’s Daughter” takes the bold step of luring away and slaying the enemy warrior who captured her beloved. The enemy asks who she is, and the narrator steels herself before killing him by declaring her identity as a Dakota woman. In the context of her brave act, the declaration that she is a Dakota woman implies a great sense of pride, independence, and confidence.

“It was all so illusive a breath might have blown it away; yet there it was, real as life.” 

The narrator of “A Dream of Her Grandfather” has a surprising dream in which she glimpses a vision of American Indians displaying and practicing their culture with pride. The vision is hopeful, but Zitkála-Šá is fully aware of the injustices committed against American Indians and does not naively believe that correcting those injustices will be easy. “A Dream of Her Grandfather” suggests this by characterizing the narrator’s vision as both fragile and tangible.

“She caught the glad tidings and was thrilled with new hope for her people.” 

The narrator of “A Dream of Her Grandfather” has a vision expressing belief in a positive future for the Dakota Sioux. Despite the narrator’s hope in the future, the vision is dreamlike and illusive. Thus, the story implies that what she envisions is possible and hopeful, but this future will not necessarily be easy to attain or preserve.

“I am a being. I am Blue-Star Woman. A piece of earth is my birthright.” 

Zitkála-Šá uses the story of Blue-Star Woman to tell the very real mishandling of American Indian land allotments in a fictional form. Blue-Star expresses the sense that American Indians have rights to land simply because America was the land of their birth and culture. The story describes some of the ways US laws surrounding land rights systematically kept American Indians from attaining this birthright.

“He sent his message on the wings of fire and he believed she would get it. He yet trusted that help would come to his people before it was too late.” 

Chief High Flier journeys to a nearby post office to mail a letter from his community to a powerful American woman. The message conveys the community’s outrage that Blue-Star would be granted land despite her unknown heritage. At the last minute, the chief changes his mind, feeling that the tribe’s attempt to petition the government in protest is futile. Instead of mailing the letter, he burns it, transforming the tangible, bureaucratic act into something that instead conveys intangible spirit, faith, and trust.

“He was the voiceless man of America.”

Having lost faith in the US government’s ability to rectify injustices committed against American Indians, Chief High Flier experiences injustice firsthand. He is wrongly imprisoned for allegedly attempting to burn down government buildings, when all he did was burn a letter. Imprisoned without a clear recourse, Chief High Flier feels helpless and voiceless. The story implies that the chief’s individual crisis represents the larger crisis experienced by American Indians across the land.

“It was in this fashion that the old world snatched away the fee in the land of the new. It was in this fashion that America was divided between the powers of Europe and the aborigines were dispossessed of their country.” 

Zitkála-Šá notes some of the historical encounters between American Indians and European settlers, including Christopher Newport, who helped found the Jamestown, Virginia, settlement in 1607, and conquistador Hernando DeSoto, who made a major expedition into the United States between 1539 and 1541. She notes that these encounters were accompanied by gestures of peace. However, she implies that these gestures were not genuine and foreshadowed the recurrent injustices American Indians would later face.

“Now the time is at hand when the American Indian shall have his day in court through the help of the women of America.” 

Zitkála-Šá urges a path forward, in which American Indians pursue equality and the correction of injustices through legal means. At the time that Zitkála-Šá wrote “America’s Indian Problem,” American feminists and suffragists were lobbying for women’s right to vote and other issues. Zitkála-Šá sees a common bond between the groups and implies that the effort to secure American Indian rights will be supported by women of America, not just by American Indians.