Review written by Marlon Sherman Humboldt State University Assistant Professor of Native American Studies.

I have read and reread The Teton Sioux, from an academic standpoint and also from my personal experience as an Oglala Lakota; because of its many inaccuracies and omissions I cannot recommend its use in any way.

First, Bonvillain sometimes uses erroneous information; sometimes she omits important facts.

Second, I have to wonder, “Who is the targeted readership?”  Often Bonvillain’s prose or vocabulary are either too simplistic or too complicated to be understandable or usable within a specific age or education level.  Sometimes she uses big words or complicated concepts that a younger reader might not understand or relate to; sometimes she uses simplistic language that might put off a more mature reader.

In addition, she sometimes uses terminology that masks the true history or the cultural imperatives of the people she is describing or explaining.

Rather than try to categorize her mistakes or omissions, I have gone through, page by page, and listed the most obvious ones.

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p. 2      She has all her national structure wrong.  We are all Lakota, or as the other dialect groups would say, we are all Dakota or we are all Nakota.  The Titonwan are the westernmost group of the L/D/Nakota Oyate (nation), as distinguished from the Iyanktonwan or Ishanti.  There are seven divisions of the Titonwan, called the Oceti Shakowin (the seven camps).  We of the Oceti Shakowin all speak the same dialect – Lakota (note the “L” as opposed to “D” or “N”).  The author calls my people “Tetons” all the way through the book, instead of just calling us what we call ourselves – Lakotas.

 p. 3      She assumes all Lakota came from Minnesota and the rice lakes.  Or creation stories tell us we originated in the Black Hills.  The issue here is whether you believe ethnographers or the people themselves.

             Question:  Can dialects change in just a few years, post-contact?  This is a fairly deep subject that needs some serious discussion.

 p. 5      If the author is going to talk about massive death due to disease, she should mention Lord Geoffrey Amherst here and the intentional use of smallpox-infected blankets as the first use of germ warfare.

 p. 10    These buffalo drives were necessary only before the horse came along.

             They didn’t frighten buffalo, but rather suggested or pressured them along the way.  There were no stampedes as mentioned on p. 11.

 p. 11    Is “ability to adapt” a good phrase?  Or is “prefer” a better one?  Maybe “live with?”  If you were talking about modern Americans driving 2-wheel versus all-wheel drives, or living in round houses versus geodesic domes, would you use the word “adapt?”  I think not.  The connotation in the author’s phrase is that the people had no choice, could not think for themselves.

 p. 12    The women set up the tipis, not the men.

 p. 13    They also made soup in stomachs suspended from tripods.

             “they liked??!!” wearing necklaces and armbands?  This is far too simplistic.

 p. 16    There is no mention of the importance of the giveaway, which is a part of so many ceremonies.

 p. 17    Our word for what she calls a vision quest is hanbleciya, which translates more accurately to crying for or waiting for a vision.  We don’t go questing for one, in the sense of Greek dramas.  If she is going to describe our ways of life, she should understand the basic concepts that underpin the actions.

             It’s not a “sweat bath” but rather just a sweat or inipi.

 p. 19    “weak” is a bad descriptor here, as is “unstable.”  They imply the form of governing was based on weakness, rather than on strength, courage, intelligence, wisdom and generosity.  She should say rather that it was flexible, depending upon whether the person under consideration possessed and demonstrated the above qualities.

 p. 20    The discussion on “warfare” is incomplete.  There was no such thing as all-out war in the European sense, complete with genocide, scorched earth and population removals.  The nature of intertribal conflict was much different and needs to be explained more fully.

 p. 22    Spirit healing and medical healing were two very different things.  A spirit healer might be called a wicasa waken, while a medicine person might be called a pejuta wicasa.  There was no one-size-fits-all medicine man.

 p. 23    To Lakotas, Earth is our Grandmother, not our mother.  Also, it is incorrect to call spirit beings “deities.”  They are not gods in the Greek or Hebrew sense, but rather just another form of being.

 p. 24    She doesn’t tell what the “armbands and anklets” in the sundance were made of.  They are sage woven with strips of red material.

 p. 25    The dancing doesn’t just pull skin away, but also muscle.

 p. 38 onward, she doesn’t even mention that the native nations won the war, and that the US had to come to the Lakota on their knees and ask for peace (1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie), as well as clear all of their troops out of the territory, after which the Indians burned down all of the forts.  Fort Laramie was actually a victory treaty.

 p. 43    She says that in the Battle of the Rosebud the Lakota merely “stopped a cavalry unit.”  That was a huge battle, the Lakota against a seasoned regiment of veteran troops.  It was much more significant than she makes it seem.

 p. 46    Indian lands were not “sold” to settlers.  They received the land free, in the process known as homesteading.

 p. 51    The Ghost Dance was not “popularized” by Wovoka.  It was his vision and he told people about it, as any prophet would.

 p. 57    Sitting Bull was assassinated along with his son, just as he was leaving his house.  He was not merely “killed” but was specifically targeted for murder, elimination because the Indian agent felt he was a threat.  Shots didn’t just “ring out.”  The Indian police drew their weapons and shot him point blank.

             Afterward, Big Foot wasn’t invited to the Pine Ridge Agency; he fled to a place he believed he would be safe under Red Cloud’s influence.

 p. 59    She makes it sound as if everybody from Pine Ridge fled in fear or terror.  This is not even close to being true.  After Wounded Knee, many of the people actually fought the soldiers stationed on the reservation.

             She refers to the “tragic events that occurred at Wounded Knee” as if it was an earthquake or a tsunami that just happened and there was no way to prevent the Lakota deaths.  Her use of an inactive verb in the phrase removes responsibility from the soldiers and agents in causing and carrying out such an atrocity.

 p. 67    She mentions the loss of land to the Oahe, but doesn’t mention the extent of the loss, and why it meant so much to the people, nor does she mention how much of the Missouri River bottomlands all of the river tribes used, and therefore how much of their culture and economy the government took away from them.  Nor does she mention the theft of the northern Pine Ridge Reservation for a bombing practice range during WWII.

             She fails to mention that the Relocation program was merely a part of a much larger initiative of Termination.

 p. 69    Russell Means didn’t found AIM; he joined it later.  It was founded by the Bellecourt brothers.

             She doesn’t mention that AIM originally was a sort of community protection, community service kind of organization, and didn’t morph into extreme political activism until later.

 p. 70B  The baby carrier is upside down on the page.

 p. 71    Again, Russell Means and Dennis Banks were not the primary AIM founders, but did become the most often-heard voices.

 p. 73    There were also Army troops and Air Force planes flying over.

 p. 74    The federal negotiators promised to begin a Congressional investigation into the nature of Indian treaties but reneged on the promise.

 p. 76    Only TWO FBI agents went onto Jumping Bull land and got themselves killed, not four.

             She went into such great detail about the Ghost Dance, but skips over the important details of Leonard Peltier’s fraudulently prosecuted imprisonment.

 p. 78    She makes is sound as if giveaways were only held as part of death ceremonies, which is not true.  They were a very important part of year-round life.

 p. 79    No mention of Sitting Bull College.  Also, Oglala Lakota College and Sinte Gleska are not just community colleges; they are four-year degree granting institutions.

 p. 81    Elsie Meeks didn’t found the Lakota Fund.  My brother Gerald did, working with the First Nations Fund, first as president of the founding board of directors, then as its first executive director.  He brought Elsie on as his assistant, and she took the position when he left.

 p. 84    Vine Deloria is not Oglala; his family is Hunkpapa, from Standing Rock.

 p. 88    Our median age is younger than the US not only because we have a higher fertility rate, but because, and especially because, we tend to die younger.  None of these nice little charts mentions the average age at death.

 Definitions

p. 104  There should be a mention of how inept the BIA is, and of the Cobell litigation against it.

 p. 105  The definition of “nomadic” fails to mention the structured nature of Lakotas’ movement through our territories, but instead makes it sound as if we wandered around aimlessly.

             She defines the anthropological term “tribe” but fails to define “nation” or “indigenous” or any other word that might be better used to describe the nature of the people.

 Primary and Secondary Sources: 

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Last modified: August 22, 2005