Bead on an Anthill: A Lakota Childhood
by Delphine Red Shirt
"If I kept all the blue, yellow, white, and red beads, each color in its own separate container, it would be easier to find the different colors when I need them. I sometimes give in to the temptation, but then I remember my aunt patiently fishing out her colors, and I, with a strange abandon, throw all the separate colored beads together into one bowl. In the same way the ants were compelled to carry the useless beads home, I find myself compelled to follow in the footsteps of my ancestors" (Red Shirt 3).
—Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, author of Completing the Circle.
—School Library Journal
—Joseph Starita, author of The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge
SUMMARY:
Bead on an Anthill is a Lakota girl’s coming of age experiences in the plains of Nebraska in the 1960s and 1970s. The story is woven through a series of childhood memories as seen through the eyes of the impressionable young girl, too often left to hover between the old world of her tribe and the modern impositions of American culture. Her stories are told as she is an observer, and through her we come to learn about the players in her lives and their instruments. We understand the significance of her grandfather, adhering to the ways of his ancestors, insistent upon teaching the rituals of the old world to his granddaughter. In sorrow, we mourn for her sister, swept away on the unavoidable tides of the new world. The simplistic observations of this young girl acquaint readers with the internal struggles one experiences when being tugged between two cultures. As this young tomboy grows physically, she grows intellectually and spiritually, becoming increasingly more aware of the world around her. Delphine Red Shirt takes us inside tribal ceremonies, inside the Pine Ridge Reservation, and inside her childhood to teach us of her experiences as a Native American child, connected so strongly to the past and learning to connect to her future.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
ARTICLES:
Delphine Red Shirt, is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe from Pine Ridge, South Dakota. She is an author of two books: Her first book, a memoir titled: "Bead on an Anthill: A Lakota Childhood" has been translated in German. Her second book: "Turtle Lung Woman's Granddaughter" is an autobiographical story told by her mother in Ms. Red Shirt's native language, Lakota. Ms. Red Shirt is currently an adjunct professor in English at Connecticut College and linguistics this fall at Yale University. Ms. Red Shirt is a columnist for Indian Country Today, the nation's leading American Indian News Source. She is a voice for Lakota people. She served as the Chairperson of the NGO Committee on the World's Indigenous Peoples in 1995-96. She is currently President of a nonprofit organization seeking to establish a preparatory high school for Native American students, to be located near the Black Hills of South Dakota, where the school has repurchased 560 acres of land.
6 Online Autobiographical Articles by Delphine Red Shirt
2002/09/10 - From outside looking in during baseball season
2002/04/29 - Outside looking in when Sundance season is over
2002/03/23 - Outside Looking In: Lakota Words
2002/02/18 - College professor returns gift by teaching Native American Literature
2001/09/18 - Black Hawk of the Sauk may have had the last word, forced us to think
2001/08/13 - Outside, Looking In
TEACHING
RESOURCES:
ISU American History Department: http://lilt.ilstu.edu/ssiddal/his131/Syllabus.htm
Dialogue Between Nations (presentation by Delphine Red Shirt): http://www.dialoguebetweennations.com/N2N/PFII/English/DelphineRedShirt.htm
Oglala Lakota College: http://www.olc.edu/olc2002/hband_splash.htm
HISTORICAL
LINKS:
Tribute to the Oglala Lakota Sioux: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3976/Hawk.html
Travel to Lakota Tribe: http://www.travelsd.com/history/sioux/oglala.htm
Oglala Sioux Tribe Community Profile: http://www.mnisose.org/profiles/oglala.htm
