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BOOK REVIEW     HITCHCOCK

of each work. It is hoped that the reader might be prompted to pursue reading the books mentioned. 

The subject matter is well organized. Each chapter is introduced by the poetry of Amiri Baraka, Michael Harper, Etheridge Knight, Mari Evans, David Henderson, and Don L. Lee. Critical statements are systematically examined. Arguments and declarations are well substantiated. 
                                                                 Jo Hudson


A PRECURSOR TO "WOUNDED KNEE"

A PICTOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE OGLALA SIOUX. Drawings by Amos Bad Heart Bull. Text by Helen Blish. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. 504 pages. $12.95. 

American historiography is without doubt a highly questionable science. For the last two hundred years the mainstream of this "science" has been used basically to justify a myriad of causes and ideologies, leaving objective observation by the wayside. There have been exceptions, but anyone who doubts the basic tendency should collect a random sample of history written over the last one hundred years to see how wide the difference is. A history of the "Custer Massacre" written in the 1920's bears scant resemblance to that which is written in 1970. Little objective data have arisen to clarify the event in the past fifty years, yet we are given a totally different view of the event. It would be my suggestion that this difference can be understood mainly as society's need to see in its history what its ideology dictates is necessary for its continuation. By the same token, those things which would dispel the myths of the ideology are not to be found.

In this area of American history we can place the "forgotten" realms of Black, Chicano, Oriental, Labor, Feminist and Indian. A survey of the contemporary high school history texts will show the critical examiner a woeful lack of substantive treatment of these groups. What does this mean? The Tetons of the Sioux nation felt that a people without an understood history were a people with nowhere to go-"A people without a history is like the hunter with no bow."

A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux by Amos Bad Heart Bull is an excellent example of just how rich and fresh this forgotten
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