Zitkala-Sa: Old Indian Legends

"I beg of you make me into a bird with green and purple feathers like yours!" implored Iktomi, tired now of playing the brave in beaded buckskins. The peacock then spoke to Iktomi: "I have a magic power." My touch will change you in a moment into the most beautiful peacock if you can keep one condition." "Yes! yes!" shouted Iktomi, jumping up and down, patting his lips with his palm, which caused his voice to vibrate in a peculiar fashion. "Yes! yes! I could keep ten conditions if only you would change me into a bird with long, bright tail feathers. Oh, I am so ugly! I am so tired of being myself! Change me! Do!" -from "Iktomi and the Fawn" The Lakota writer Zitkala-Sa, or "Red Bird"-the pen name of Native American author, teacher, and activist GERTRUDE SIMMONS BONNIN (1876-1938)-is renowned for being among the first tellers of contemporary Native American history, culture, and experience in her own voice, unaltered by outside influences. Here, she gathers legends and stories she learned as a child on the Yankton Reservation. This replica of the first 1901 edition includes the tales of: ¿ "Iktomi and the Ducks" ¿ "Iktomi's Blanket" ¿ "Iktomi and the Muskrat" ¿ "The Badger and the Bear" ¿ "Shooting of the Red Eagle" ¿ "Dance in a Buffalo Shell" ¿ "The Toad and the Boy" ¿ "Iya, the Camp-Eater" ¿ and more.

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Notă biografică

Zitkála-¿á (1876-1938) (Lakota: Red Bird = Cardinal (bird)), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, her missionary-given and later married name, was a Yankton Dakota Sioux writer, editor, translator, musician, educator, and political activist. She was raised by her mother, Ellen Simmons, whose Dakota name was Thaté Iyóhiwi¿ (Every Wind or Reaches for the Wind). Her father was a German-American man named Felker, who abandoned the family while Zitkala-¿a was very young. She wrote several works chronicling her struggles with cultural identity and the pull between the majority culture she was educated within and her Dakota Sioux culture into which she was born and raised. Her later books were among the first works to bring traditional Native American stories to a widespread white English-speaking readership, and she has been noted as one of the most influential Native American activists of the 20th century. Working with American musician William F. Hanson, Zitkala-¿a wrote the libretto and songs for The Sun Dance Opera, (1913), the first American Indian opera. It was composed in romantic musical style, and based on Sioux and Ute cultural themes. She was co-founder of the National Council of American Indians in 1926, which was established to lobby for Native people's right to United States citizenship and other civil rights they had long been denied. Zitkala-¿a served as the council's president until her death in 1938.