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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Richnorth who wrote (21581)	2/23/2003 2:51:13 AM
From: Richnorth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27766

A Review on the book, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" found at amazon.com ===================================================== A Negative Review of the book, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee". I completely agree with the negative reviews (of this book). Anyone who has had any contact with "Treaty" Indians in their lives or anyone with relatives who migrated west to settle the American frontier from the mid 1700's to late 1800's will immediately recognize this book as being full of false information. I think that this author is just feathering his nest by profiting from the spending habits of the ignorant types in our society who are suffering from an education provided by a lot of movies and TV specials, and by this type of book too. These people really do make easy prey for those who choose to produce books that connect to today's fad of racial self hate and personal self hate in some way or other. It so happens that my grandparents ventured out on the plains in a wagon and my mother was born in a little town that had the misfortune of being located right next to the three largest Indian reservations in the territory. What she experienced and saw while near these Plains tribes was nothing like the content of this book. There were no philosophers. There were no grand chiefs. There were no "noble redmen". Instead, there were very primitive and always violent types who loved an alcoholic stupor like nothing else on earth and who delighted in murdering one another when in a sober state. At that time they had barely been pacified and rounded up, and their behavior showed it in many ways. But if you read this book, you must conclude that their behavior at that time should be excused because it was a result of their way of life being taken from them. The problem is, this book doesn't mention a lot of things that were part of that way of life, like the torture of captives or the enslavement of enemies or the slaughter of enemy women and children in the tribe against tribe sense. Such things would give people nightmares today, but to wild Indians they were as natural as can be. Well, being a senior citizen for quite a while myself, I can truthfully say that I've seen quite a few things including a lot of Indians, and I can say that there are good ones and bad ones, nice personable ones and miserable ones, but as a whole they certainly don't match up with what is in this book and as a people who made up a number of tribes, they never did. Even elderly Indians who I know today have had a good laugh about all the movies and TV programs they've been seeing. They joke about the White Man's imaginary Redskins and they of all people should know. They also know their own tribal histories and are aware of inter tribal conflicts that were very brutal and savage, but they are the first to admit that the only Indians who match the descriptions like the ones you'll find in this book are the Indians in Hollywood movies and they aren't even pure Indians, but mere halfbreeds who play prewritten roles. No, there's history and then there is this sort of thing. One is worth looking into and the other is just humbug. Try and find other sources of information about Indians instead of this book. That is what I would recommend.