Indian Wars, Wounded Knee Massacre, & Berger's Little Big Man

From Saturday's BBC article "To whom does Wounded Knee belong?:"

Part of the historical site at Wounded Knee is up for sale. Should it be developed as a landmark or left in peace out of respect for the Sioux people who died there?

Almost as soon as the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee was over, the battle to define what happened on that bleak December day began... [A]s many as 300 unarmed men, women and children were killed. And official reports from some in government criticizing the massacre were simply buried.

For the Sioux descendants still living in the Pine Ridge reservation, who remember first-hand accounts of the atrocity, the news that a key part of that painful history could be sold outside the tribe has come as a shock.

A 40-acre parcel of land that's part of the massacre site is up for sale, and its owner has given the tribe until 1 May to come up with the $3.9m (£2.5m) asking price. If they don't, land owner James Czywczynski says he will be forced to accept one of several offers he has already secured from commercial buyers, who may attempt to capitalize on the land as a tourist attraction.

For a novel about the Indian Wars (including massacres like Wounded Knee), try Thomas Berger's Little Big Man:

'I am a white man and never forget it, but I was brought up by the Cheyenne Indians from the age of ten.' So starts the story of Jack Crabb, the 111-year old narrator of Thomas Berger's masterpiece of American fiction. As a "human being", as the Cheyenne called their own, he won the name Little Big Man. He dressed in skins, feasted on dog, loved four wives and saw his people butchered by the horse soldiers of General Custer, the man he had sworn to kill.

As a white man, Crabb hunted buffalo, tangled with Wyatt Earp, cheated Wild Bill Hickok and survived the Battle of Little Bighorn. Part-farcical, part-historical, the picaresque adventures of this witty, wily mythomaniac claimed the Wild West as the stuff of serious literature.

You also might like Dances with Wolves by Michael Blake:

Ordered to hold an abandoned army post, John Dunbar found himself alone, beyond the edge of civilization. Thievery and survival soon forced him into the Indian camp, where he began a dangerous adventure that changed his life forever.

New Zealand's Legalization of Gay Marriage & Hulme's The Bone People

From yesterday’s BBC article “New Zealand legalises same-sex marriage:”

New Zealand's parliament has legalised same-sex marriage, the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to do so.

Lawmakers approved the bill, amending the 1955 marriage act, despite opposition from Christian lobby groups. The bill was passed with a wide majority, with 77 votes in favour and 44 against.

For a novel set in New Zealand, try The Bone People by Keri Hulme:

In a tower on the New Zealand sea lives Kerewin Holmes, part Maori, part European, an artist estranged from her art, a woman in exile from her family.

One night her solitude is disrupted by a visitor—a speechless, mercurial boy named Simon, who tries to steal from her and then repays her with his most precious possession. As Kerewin succumbs to Simon's feral charm, she also falls under the spell of his Maori foster father Joe, who rescued the boy from a shipwreck and now treats him with an unsettling mixture of tenderness and brutality.

Out of this unorthodox trinity Keri Hulme has created what is at once a mystery, a love story, and an ambitious exploration of the zone where Maori and European New Zealand meet, clash, and sometimes merge.

Botswana & Morse's White Dog Fell from the Sky

From the March 23rd Huffington Post article "Kalahari Bushmen Tribe To Challenge Botswana Government In Court Again Over Land Dispute:"

The Kalahari Bushmen tribe is taking Botswana's government to court to reaffirm a previous ruling that granted the tribe legal rights to its ancestral land. According to international advocacy group Survival International, Botswana's government has been denying the Bushmen the right to return to their land despite a landmark decision in 2006 that reversed the eviction of around 1,000 tribesmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). Botswana is arguing that the verdict only applies to the 186 individuals named in the original case, requiring others to obtain permits that grant access to the territory for up to one month.

For a novel set in Botswana, try White Dog Fell from the Sky by Eleanor Morse:

In apartheid South Africa in 1976, medical student Isaac Muthethe is forced to flee his country after witnessing a friend murdered by white members of the South African Defense Force. He is smuggled into Botswana, where he is hired as a gardener by a young American woman, Alice Mendelssohn, who has abandoned her Ph.D. studies to follow her husband to Africa. When Isaac goes missing and Alice goes searching for him, what she finds will change her life and inextricably bind her to this sunburned, beautiful land.

If you prefer mysteries, try The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith:

Wayward daughters. Missing Husbands. Philandering partners. Curious conmen. If you've got a problem, and no one else can help you, then pay a visit to Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's only - and finest - female private detective. Her methods may not be conventional, and her manner not exactly Miss Marple, but she's got warmth, wit and canny intuition on her side, not to mention Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, the charming proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. And Precious is going to need them all as she sets out on the trail of a missing child, a case that tumbles our heroine into a hotbed of strange situations and more than a little danger...

Indigenous Australians & Pilkington's Follow The Rabbit-Proof Fence

I’ve posted about Native American tribes in the US. Now let’s take a look at the experience of indigenous Australians.

Here's Monday’s BBC article “Living Black: Australia's trail-blazing indigenous show:”

Australia's trailblazing indigenous TV programme "Living Black" is celebrating a decade of bringing stories of triumph, resilience and tragedy to a national audience. The country's longest-running indigenous news and current affairs show has survived tight budgets and management changes to become a beacon of broadcasting in a country where indigenous life can be ignored by the mainstream media. 

"It is a unique programme that is filling a void," said Karla Grant, presenter and executive producer at the Living Black studio in Sydney. "No one else is doing the stories that we do." "We are closer to the issue because we may have faced it within our own families. Our programme gives indigenous people a voice right across the country," she said. 

The programme's small production crew is responsible for 26 episodes each year that aim to give in-depth coverage of social justice, employment, health, and housing issues. All are areas of crisis that make Australia's first peoples its most disadvantaged.

For a novel about Aboriginal Australians, try Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington:

The remarkable true story of three young girls who cross the harsh Australian desert on foot to return to their home. 

Following an Australian government edict in 1931, black aboriginal children and children of mixed marriages were gathered up by whites and taken to settlements to be assimilated. In Rabbit-Proof Fence, award-winning author Doris Pilkington traces the captivating story of her mother, Molly, one of three young girls uprooted from her community in Southwestern Australia and taken to the Moore River Native Settlement. At the settlement, Milly and her relatives Gracie and Daisy were forbidden to speak their native language, forced to abandon their aboriginal heritage, and taught to be culturally white. 

After regular stays in solitary confinement, the three girls scared and homesick planned and executed a daring escape from the grim camp, with its harsh life of padlocks, barred windows, and hard cold beds. The girls headed for the nearby rabbit-proof fence that stretched over 1,000 miles through the desert toward their home. Their journey lasted over a month, and the survived on everything from emus to feral cats, while narrowly avoiding the police, professional trackers, and hostile white settlers. Their story is a truly moving tale of defiance and resilience.