University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 1996 RECASTING EPIC TRADITION THE DISPOSSESSED AS HERO IN SANDOZ'S CRAZY HORSE AND CHEYENNE AUTUMN Lisa R. Lindell South Dakota State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Lindell, Lisa R., "RECASTING EPIC TRADITION THE DISPOSSESSED AS HERO IN SANDOZ'S CRAZY HORSE AND CHEYENNE AUTUMN" (1996). Great Plains Quarterly. 1126. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1126 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. RECASTING EPIC TRADITION THE DISPOSSESSED AS HERO IN SANDOZ'S CRAZY HORSE AND CHEYENNE AUTUMN LISA R. LINDELL Although Mari Sandoz is perhaps best known IMAGES OF NATIVE AMERICANS for the biography of her Nebraska pioneer fa­ ther, Old Jules (1935), her two other biogra­ Sandoz's approach to the western settle­ phies, Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the ment experience diverged from the then pre­ Oglalas (1942) and Cheyenne Autumn (1953), vailing historical/literary convention of equally convey her distinctive historical vi­ viewing frontier expansion as predominantly sion of the American West. l In these two positive and progressive. At the time Sandoz works, Sandoz rewrites traditional epic for­ wrote her Native American biographies, the mula, taking the perspective of the dispos­ attitude toward minorities implicit in Frederick sessed Lakotas2 and Cheyennes and recounting Jackson Turner's frontier thesis still reigned. not the growth and expansion of a culture, but Depicting the frontier as "the meeting point its conquest. In spite of material defeat at the between savagery and civilization," Turner hands of dominant white society, her Native declared that "the existence of an area of free American leaders assume heroic stature, striv­ land, its continuous recession, and the advance ing against all odds to preserve their people of American settlement westward, explain and culture. American development." Embedded in Turner's understanding of western develop­ ment was a perception of the Indians as im­ pediments to be overcome.3 Lisa Lindell is a catalogue librarian and assistant To be sure, not every scholar and writer of professor at South Dakota State University. Much of the material in this article is based on her master's the time period subscribed to this theory. In thesis, "Visionaries of the American West: Mari Sandoz the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen­ and Her Four Plains Protagonists" (1993). turies, a small number of novelists, anthro­ pologists, and historians expressed sympathy with the plight of the indigenous peoples, [GPQ 16 (Winter 1996): 43-531 wrote respectfully of their varied cultures, and 43 44 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 1996 called for government reform. Two nine­ people." Working under Franz Boas, a leading teenth-century advocates of Indian policy re­ figure in anthropology in the first half of the form were Helen Hunt Jackson and Alice twentieth century, Deloria collected, trans­ Fletcher. In A Century of Dishonor (1881), lated, and edited hundreds of Lakota and Da­ Jackson strongly criticized government treat­ kota texts. From her inside perspective and as ment of Native Americans, deploring the bro­ a linguistic and ethnographic scholar, she ken treaties, forced removal and resettlement, played an invaluable role in preserving oral and general violation of individual and com­ narratives and conveying a sense of the dy­ munity integrity. Focusing on the govern­ namic culture of the Lakota peoples, though ment's mistreatment of seven Indian tribes, her own novel, Waterlily, was not published including the Sioux and Cheyennes, she called for more than forty years after it had been for justice and compensation for Native Ameri­ written, seventeen years after Deloria's death.7 can peoples.4 The views of writers committed to reform If Helen Hunt Jackson's rhetoric was the and cultural preservation did not represent reverse of Turner's, Alice Fletcher's was the the prevailing attitude toward indigenous obverse. An early ethnographer who worked peoples in the late nineteenth and early twen­ primarily with the Omaha, Winnebago, and tieth centuries. Not until the 1960s did the Nez Perce tribes, Fletcher portrayed Native general historical perspective begin to shift, American culture as complex and attractive resulting in widespread reassessment of but doomed. She believed the role of govern­ Turner's thesis as it related to minorities, par­ ment and scholars alike should be the preser­ ticularly to Native Americans. Prior to this vation of artifacts and the accounts of the interpretive shift, Mari Sandoz was one of the cultures in museums and libraries as well as few writers and historians who recognized and the rapid assimilation of the people themselves. deplored the cultural devastation inherent in Her career resulted in important publications, the process of westward expansion. Central to such as the Bureau of American Ethnology Crazy Horse and Cheyenne Autumn is condem­ study The Omaha Tribe that she wrote with nation of the exploitation of the vulnerable at Francis La Flesche, himself Omaha, but also the hands of the powerful. in the systematic removal of sacred objects of the Omaha people, which were placed in the CRAZY HORSE Peabody Museum in Boston and which the Omahas only succeeded in beginning to repa­ In tracing the life of Crazy Horse from a triate in 1989.1 pivotal experience of his youth through his A half century later, historian Angie Debo betrayal and death in 1877, Sandoz firmly chose, like Sandoz, to study and write about aligns her sympathies with the dispossessed the experiences of American Indians, notwith­ Plains Indians. At the heart of her biography standing the comparative lack of interest in is the conflict and loss suffered by the Lakotas serious studies on this subject in the 1930s. as the whites relentlessly dispossess the indig­ She shared with Sandoz a passion for histori­ enous peoples of their land and livelihood. cal accuracy and an instinct for supporting Torn between living in peace with the whites the underdog, despite the potential repercus­ or fighting the power of the U.S. government, sions and difficulties in getting published.6 the characters in Crazy Horse experience the Ella Deloria was an author and scholar who emotions and conflicts of a displaced people. faced even more obstacles than Debo or San­ Sandoz consciously set out to chronicle this doz in getting her work published during her period of cultural disruption on the Plains from lifetime. Deloria, a Yankton Sioux, saw her what she reconstructed as the perspective of mission as "[making] the Dakota people un­ the Native American. A great admirer of the derstandable, as human beings, to the white customs and lifestyle of the Lakota people, she THE DISPOSSESSED AS HERO 45 hoped to convey something of the vibrancy him her favorite historical character. II She and richness of the culture threatened by white creates a protagonist possessing both univer­ encroachmen t. sal, timeless qualities and attributes in the full­ Upon its publication, Crazy Horse received est sense representative of the particularity of mixed reviews. Reviewers focused almost ex­ his Lakota world. clusively on the extent of Sandoz's research Sandoz presents Crazy Horse's heroic quali­ and use of detail, her style and point of view, ties and her vision of the grand themes of Great and her inclusion of invented dialogue. Opin­ Plains history by borrowing and adapting ele­ ions differed concerning the importance and ments of epic tradition, which she had discov­ interest of the b09k'S protagonist and themes. ered in the classical literature she read during Touching upon several of these issues, Clifton her years of study at the University of Ne­ Fadiman, book editor for the New Yorker, braska.II Crazy Horse abounds in parallels be­ charged Sandoz with "carrying on a fervent tween the typical characteristics of the classical historico-literary affair with a dead Indian, the hero and the qualities exhibited by Crazy consequence of which is a curious, half-inter­ Horse. Like traditional epic, Sandoz's work esting, uneven book."8 centers on a figure of fundamental importance Some western historians and writers were to his people who interacts with supernatural inclined to respond more favorably to Crazy forces, endures great trials, is a superb leader, Horse. Fellow Nebraska author John G. and demonstrates prowess in battle. Neihardt, avoiding the rhetoric of Frederick In a letter to Helen Blish, a friend who Jackson Turner and his followers, regarded the shared her interest in Lakota history and cul­ book as "a glorious hero tale told with beauty ture, Sandoz described the story of Crazy Horse and power." He commended Sandoz's exhaus­ as "tremendous, with all the cumulative in­ tive research and commented on her "rich evitability of Greek tragedy."u Sandoz's join­ background of sympathetic insight and under­ ing of epic and tragic elements reflects standing." Neihardt praised Sandoz's writing, Aristotle's own definitions in Poetics. Tragedy observing that her "skillful use of characteris­ is "a representation of an action which is seri­ tic figure and idiom creates the illusion that ous, complete, and of a certain magnitude ... the tale is growing directly out of an Indian and through the arousal of pity and fear effecdsl consciousness."9 the katharsis of such emotions." Aristotle com­ Despite current critical interest in Native pares and distinguishes between tragedy and American topics, there is little recent treat­ epic, ultimately choosing tragedy as the higher ment of Crazy Horse. Helen Stauffer, one con­ form, provided that it is unified and contains temporary scholar who has studied the book, epic elements.