Bead on an Anthill: A Lakota Childhood
by Delphine Red Shirt
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Bead on an Anthill is the story of a Lakota girl's experiences growing up in Nebraska and on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the 1960s and 1970s. Raised in a home without books, Delphine Red Shirt relied on family and friends as her "books" and wove their stories into her own. Like her ancestors, she felt a powerful connection to the openness of the Plains. She participated in coming-of-age ceremonies and learned the special rules for stringing beads together and the messages conveyed by show more hairstyles. At the same time, Red Shirt became increasingly aware of the distance between her world and that of her ancestors. Ringing with insight and honesty, this memoir gives voice to an emerging generation of Lakota women who attempt to navigate the difficult paths of a bicultural world. show lessTags
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Biography of Delphine Red Shirt shows the increasing disconnect between the old ways and the new ones.
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Author Information
5+ Works 113 Members
Delphine Red Shirt is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and is an adjunct professor of American studies and English at Yale University. She is a columnist and correspondent for Indian Country Today and is the author of Bead on an Anthill: A Lakota Childhood (Nebraska 1997)
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1998
- Epigraph
- A man from the north gave me a cane
I told this girl so.
She will live to be old
Her tribe will live.
[A song from the "T'at'aka olowa pi", a ceremony performed for a young girl when she reaches womanhood. - Dedication
- This book is dedicated to Richard, to our wak'ayeza Justin, Megan, and Kirsten, and to Wiya Isnala, Ina mit'awa ki he e, naha, Pte Oyate, hena ki iyu ha.
- First words
- I remember how I once followed an ant home.
(Introduction) I wrote these stories primarily for the joy of remembering what was good in my life. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"Ho he," as Kah-kah used to say, and as Mom-mah says now: "THat pleases me. It is good."
- Blurbers
- Starita, Joseph; Sneve, Virginia Driving Hawk
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- Members
- 69
- Popularity
- 451,668
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.79)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 1
