I believe that the government tried to extinguish all visible reminders that Indians once made their stand there. The feds bulldozed our bunkers as well as their own and only the spirits remain on the hill, roaming the night. ''The trading post is flattened out like a stomped-on tin can. ''The little white church on the hill burned down in a fire that has never been explained,'' says Mary Crow Dog, describing the way Wounded Knee looks today. Mary Crow Dog`s autobiography belongs to an older, less literary genre: the story of an ordinary person whose life has been so transformed by extraordinary events that her account of it takes on a special eloquence. She often resembles the heroines of Louise Erdrich`s novels-feisty and determined, warm and even funny, sometimes given to outbursts of rage or sorrow or enthusiasm, always unpretentious and straightforward.Īmerican Indians have produced a remarkable list of writers-among them, Erdrich, Michael Dorris, N. Mary Crow Dog`s personal story is what brings to life the historical events she reports. She makes it clear, however, that her love for her husband and her respect for his moral integrity have helped strengthen her pride in herself as a woman and an Indian. ''Confidentially, it can be hell on a woman to be married to such a holy one,'' she admits at one point, exhausted by housework.
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