The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge : A Lakota Odyssey

A fine story of cultural survival and a history that should find a place alongside those of a Crazy Horse or a Sitting Bull-integral parts of the American experience. Booklist Joe Starita tells the triumphant and moving story of a Lakota-Northern Cheyenne family. In 1878, the renowned Chief Dull Knife, who fought alongside Crazy Horse, escaped from forced relocation in Indian Territory and led followers on a desperate six-hundred-mile freedom flight back to their homeland. His son, George Dull Knife survived the Wounded Knee Massacre and later toured in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. Guy Dull Knife Sr. fought in World War I and took part in the Siege of Wounded Knee in 1973. Guy Dull Knife Jr. fought in Vietnam and is now an accomplished artist. Starita updates the Dull Knife family history in his new afterword for this Bison Books edition.

Joe Starita tells the triumphant and moving story of a Lakota-Northern Cheyenne family. In 1878, the renowned Chief Dull Knife, who fought alongside Crazy Horse, escaped from forced relocation in Indian Territory and led followers on a desperate six-hundred-mile freedom flight back to their homeland. His son, George Dull Knife survived the Wounded Knee Massacre and later toured in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. Guy Dull Knife Sr. fought in World War I and took part in the Siege of Wounded Knee in 1973. Guy Dull Knife Jr. fought in Vietnam and is now an accomplished artist. Starita updates the Dull Knife family history in his new afterword for this Bison Books edition.

Publishers Weekly

Much of the proud and painful history of Native Americans involves Lakota chiefs like Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, and conflicts in both the distant and recent past at Wounded Knee. Former Miami Herald reporter Starita sensitively illuminates Lakota history through one remarkable family. Dominating the book is patriarch Guy Dull Knife Sr., born in 1899 and revered as the oldest living member of his people. Guy's forebears endured displacement, government deception and war; once enclosed on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, they endured the suppression of their language, culture and religion. Guy's relatives told him of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre; his father toured Europe with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, removed from his people's problems. Guy's own story begins about halfway through the book; it includes cultural resistance to assimilation, service in WWI, marriage to a staunch woman and politics at Pine Ridge. His son, Guy Dull Knife Jr., grew up with rock 'n' roll and endured Vietnam, returning to find himself involved in even more danger: the American Indian Movement's battle against corrupt leadership at the reservation. Now Guy Jr. sculpts statues that reflect his people's history and culture. A memorable American story. Photos. BOMC and History Book Club selections. (Apr.)

Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge is the true story of a century of Lakota Sioux life - an epic journey of cultural identity found, lost, and found again - told through the voices of a single family: the Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge, South Dakota.