American Indian Stories

“The Great Spirit” was originally published in the journal The Atlantic Monthly under the title “Why I Am a Pagan.” The original title shows that the essay is essentially a manifesto defending Zitkála-Šá’s support for her Sioux spirituality. Placed in American Indian Stories after three autobiographical pieces in which Zitkála-Šá grapples with assimilation and Christianized mission schools, “The Great Spirit” shows Zitkála-Šá taking a stand and sharing an entirely different position.

The opening passages strongly express a beautiful and peaceful spirituality connected to nature. The essay mentions a “great blue overhead,” “soft, sweet cadences of the river’s song,” and “the warmth of a genial summer day,” which “bespeak with eloquence the loving Mystery round about us” (57). Zitkála-Šá connects this sensibility to flowers, animals, and landforms around her.

Despite this peaceful mood, Zitkála-Šá shows that the challenges of the Sioux people are present. “The Great Spirit” describes how Zitkála-Šá is berated by a cousin who converted to Christianity and asks why she does not attend church. Thus, Zitkála-Šá shows that the pressure to convert and assimilate comes not only from outside of the tribe but also from within. She laments that even her own mother “is now a follower of this new superstition” (60). Zitkála-Šá’s independence is shown in her decision to maintain her belief in the Sioux Great Spirit despite these pressures.

The spiritual worldview that Zitkála-Šá explores in “The Great Spirit” emphasizes union with nature, as when she characterizes wildflowers as “living symbols of omnipotent thought” (58). This peaceful imagery appears in stark contrast to her cousin’s description of “sinful ones danc[ing] in torturing flames” according to his Christian beliefs (60). Zitkála-Šá’s spiritual vision is peaceful but also tolerant. It allows for diversity, as she expresses by comparing her tribe to a piano, where all keys look similar but sound different notes. Zitkála-Šá stresses that American Indians and American Indian culture deserve to be treated equally to their White counterparts. Yet she goes one step beyond this point by acknowledging and respecting diversity even among her own people. Ultimately, Zitkála-Šá’s spiritual worldview declares that “the pale-faced missionary and the hoodooed aborigine are both God’s creatures, though small indeed their own conceptions of Infinite Love” (61). “The Great Spirit” promotes an encompassing, open, diverse spirituality over a closed one.