Native American Stories Resilience And Heritage Summary

Native American Stories: Resilience and Heritage “I was not wholly conscious of myself, but was more keenly alive to the fire within.” (Zitkala-Sa 103) American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings by Zitkala-Sa, Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination by Leslie Marmon Silko, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown are three great resources to use when referencing Native American religion, legends, and history. Two of them are written by Indigenous women, Zitkala-Sa and Leslie Marmon Silko. Zitkala-Sa was born in 1876, while Silko was born in 1948, a full decade after Zitkala-Sa passed away. These two women, while emerging from a similar Native American background and both later becoming accomplished writers, still come

Believing in spirits and holding ceremonial rituals like the Sun Dance is a way for Indigenous people to find connection with their religion and spiritual world. In the very first section of American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings, Zitkala-Sa retells many of the legends she was told as a child. These legends were passed down verbally through the generations, it is possible Zitkala-Sa wanted to write them down to educate people on Native American legends, but also to finally document in writing so she could still pass down legends to others long after she was gone. The legends of Zitkala-Sa include major spiritual beings or forms of mythical creatures. What the text tells us about Native American legends is that they were used as a way to more deeply understand creation, but also to connect with others by verbally communicating the story. Zitkala-Sa does not only focus on legends and religion in American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings, she also brushes on the historical events that had a part in shaping the United States of America as we know it

These passed down legends do not just materialize themselves as a knowledge of spiritual wisdom, but also of moral lessons. Like in Zitkala-Sa’s legends she writes about, there is always a reason for every story, it is there to show or teach the reader, or listener in this case, a lesson. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, written by Dee Brown, is a historical description of the horrors the Indigenous people of this country had to endure all for the sake of “assimilation.” Brown interweaves quotes from Native Americans who actually lived through the atrocities described. Many of the quotes from pages 273 through 275 tell of the frustration and vexation the Indigenous people felt towards the encroaching white settlers. The stories told in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee show the reader through first hand accounts of the devastation the Native Americans went through while they were just trying to survive and hold onto as much of their cultural identity as they could. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee includes and explores the connection to spiritualism that the Native Americans have with the ancestral lands of their