New York Review of Books blog - Thomas Powers
The Little Bighorn wins a place in McLaughlin’s title by accident, because the drawings were found near the battlefield in a funerary lodge a few days after the fight. The details of the discovery are interesting enough, but it is the drawings themselves--what they represent and who made them--that give us a rich and startling view of life on the Northern Plains in the last years before the Indians who thought they owned them were confined to reservations…What’s interesting about McLaughlin’s book, in the way that only an exhaustive inquiry can be truly interesting, is the quantity of fundamental information she manages to wring from these drawings--when they were made, who made them, and what they depicted. McLaughlin makes no broad claims for what she is up to, but A Lakota War Book ought to be in the collection of any serious student of the Northern Plains or the Little Bighorn.
A Lakota War Book from the Little Bighorn: The Pictographic ''Autobiography of Half Moon''
by Castle McLaughlinA ledger book of drawings by Lakota Sioux warriors found in 1876 on the Little Bighorn battlefield offers a rare first-person Native American record of events that likely occurred in 1866–1868 during Red Cloud’s War. This color facsimile edition uncovers the origins, ownership, and cultural and historical significance of this unique artifact.See more details below
Overview
A ledger book of drawings by Lakota Sioux warriors found in 1876 on the Little Bighorn battlefield offers a rare first-person Native American record of events that likely occurred in 1866–1868 during Red Cloud’s War. This color facsimile edition uncovers the origins, ownership, and cultural and historical significance of this unique artifact.
Editorial Reviews
Candace Greene
McLaughlin’s brilliant contribution to the history, material culture, and art of the Plains provides a transformative understanding of Plains Indian ledger art.Product Details
- ISBN-13:
- 9780981885865
- Publisher:
- Harvard
- Publication date:
- 12/23/2013
- Series:
- Houghton Library Publications, #50
- Pages:
- 368
- Sales rank:
- 886,483
- Product dimensions:
- 7.00(w) x 9.90(h) x 1.20(d)
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