Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Bison Books (2009), Edition: New, Paperback, 296 pages
Description
When Blue Bird and her grandmother leave their family's camp to gather beans for the long, threatening winter, they inadvertently avoid the horrible fate that befalls the rest of the family. Luckily, the two women are adopted by a nearby Dakota community and are eventually integrated into their kinship circles. Ella Cara Deloria's tale follows Blue Bird and her daughter, Waterlily, through the intricate kinship practices that created unity among her people. Waterlily, published after Deloria's death and generally viewed as the masterpiece of her career, offers a captivating glimpse into the daily life of the nineteenth-century Sioux. This new Bison Books edition features an introduction by Susan Gardner and an index.
User reviews
LibraryThing member LyndaInOregon
This is one of those books for which the background as important as the work itself. Author Ella Cara Deloria was born in 1889 on the Yankton Sioux Reservation and lived as a child on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota, where her father was a deacon of the Protestant Episcopalian church.
Drawing on all aspects of that background, Deloria produced ‘Waterlily’, a novel which chronicles the life of a Dakota Sioux woman, born probably around 1840 and coming to womanhood as the first tentacles of white culture began to invade the traditional lifestyle of the tribes. Don’t look for thrilling warpath tales here, however – ‘Waterlily’ keeps its focus strictly on the day-to-day life of a woman within this society, with particular emphasis on the relationship web that directed many of her interactions with others.
‘Waterlily’ is truly a unique work, but it is not without flaws, at least to the 21st century reader. Deloria writes adequately, but in a totally pedestrian manner. The characters are well-developed, and the everyday events she describes are a fascinating and informative look at a way of life which has long since vanished. But there is little in it to involve the emotions, even when the characters are faced with life-altering events.
It’s definitely worth a read, but don’t plan to shelve it in the “masterpiece” section.
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Educated at Columbia University, Deloria did her most important work as a research specialist in American Indian ethnology and linguistics. Her position as a member of a prominent family, their political awareness and valuation of scholarship (her brother, Vine Deloria Jr. wrote ‘Custer Died for Your Sins’ and was prominent in the American Indian Movement of the late 1960s), the fact that she was among a dwindling number of native speakers in the first quarter of the 20th century, and the happy accident that her professional lifespan overlapped with the last of the Sioux who had lived in a culture largely untouched by white men, placed her in a truly unique position.Drawing on all aspects of that background, Deloria produced ‘Waterlily’, a novel which chronicles the life of a Dakota Sioux woman, born probably around 1840 and coming to womanhood as the first tentacles of white culture began to invade the traditional lifestyle of the tribes. Don’t look for thrilling warpath tales here, however – ‘Waterlily’ keeps its focus strictly on the day-to-day life of a woman within this society, with particular emphasis on the relationship web that directed many of her interactions with others.
‘Waterlily’ is truly a unique work, but it is not without flaws, at least to the 21st century reader. Deloria writes adequately, but in a totally pedestrian manner. The characters are well-developed, and the everyday events she describes are a fascinating and informative look at a way of life which has long since vanished. But there is little in it to involve the emotions, even when the characters are faced with life-altering events.
It’s definitely worth a read, but don’t plan to shelve it in the “masterpiece” section.
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LibraryThing member EricaKline
The life of a young woman in the Dakota (Souix) tribe in the mid-19th century. Scholarly yet entertaining.
Subjects
Original publication date
1988
Physical description
296 p.; 5.2 inches
ISBN
0803219040 / 9780803219045