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FREEDOMWAYS FIRST QUARTER 1973 history is and can be. Bad Heart Bull was the historian (a highly honored position) for the Oglala Sioux during the last years of the nineteenth century. His historiographic method is in the classic tradition of that tribe, and the scholars who compiled this book consider him one of the finest practitioners of the form. To be found within this record are perhaps the most detailed accounts of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Teton customs and inter-tribal warfare yet to appear in American historiography. We learn that Custer's last stand was really a rout brought on by poor tactics. Disheartened soldiers ran for any place which would provide cover from the Indians. According to the Indian text, had the soldiers stood and fought in an organized fashion, it is unlikely all would have died. We see also the traditional bitterness which existed between the Oglala and the Crow over common hunting ground. Within this conflict we see that to steal an enemy's horse was the highest form of bravery because it robbed him of his livelihood-hunting. The method used is pictographic herein, but that was only half the original method. The Oglala historian was chosen for his capacity as an objective observer and his capacity as an artist. He would record in drawings the major events of the tribe and then create a verbal text to accompany the drawings. These would then be passed down through the generations unchanged. Due to the policy of the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the turn of the century, which was one of discouraging Indian culture, the Indian history began to disappear. The fragile nature of a partially oral history makes this easy to understand. The accounts that followed on the subject of Indian history would now be written by those who had brought genocide to the Indian nations, and they would undoubtedly fail to mention the genocide. It is for this reason we came to look to Bad Heart Bull's collection with some relief, for it offers an alternative view which we need very badly in order to arrive at the truth of our past. I cannot make any meaningful criticism of the artistic merit of the text though the scholars who compiled this book claim it is of the highest quality of this sort of history. Two features of interest were the similarity in style to what has been called the "American primitive" art form and the almost complete lack of perspective in the pictures. It was enough for this viewer that the pictures were attractive and well colored, given the tools he had to work with. The author/artist devotes himself to three main areas in the book. The first is the last of the Indian wars which the Oglala participated 80
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Reopened for Editing 2024-02-21 20:28:00