Land of the Spotted Eagle

Children's Literature - Judy Crowder

If nothing else, this book, first written in 1933 and now published by the University of Nebraska Press, should open readers' eyes about the stereotypical Native Americans—Indians—seen in old black and white TV westerns or today's abiding misconceptions. The mostly ethnographic book, told in Standing Bear's warm, meandering style, is a thoughtful, informative narrative about the Lakota people, commonly known as the Sioux. Note what the author wrote concerning the concept of "savages:" "We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams with tangled growth as ‘wild.' Only to the white man was nature ‘wilderness' and only to him was the land ‘infested' with ‘wild' animals and ‘savage' people…Not until the hairy man from the east came and with brutal frenzy heaped injustices upon us and the families we loved was it ‘wild' for us. When the very animals of the forest began fleeing from his approach, then it was when the ‘wild west' began." Luther Standing Bear discusses his infancy and boyhood, the niches men and women occupied within the Lakota community, the very civilized customs surrounding courtship and marriage, manners, morals, Indian wisdom concerning nature, religion, ceremony. The last chapters, "What the Indian Means to America," and "The Tragedy of the Souix," are just as compelling today as when they were first written. This book should make any teacher or parent who ever slapped a fringed paper bag, construction paper head band and single feather on a student, then taught them to cry, "woo-woo-woo" cringe with shame. Land of the Spotted Eagle should be a staple in every high school history class and library.