A Warriors Daughter By Zitkala Sha

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Recommended: Oppression of native Americans

Mary Jane Fazekas

Prof. D. Mraovic-O’Hare
LIT315 – 20th Century American Literature
22 August 2017
7-2 Final Research Paper
The Life and Writings of Zitkala Sha
Zitkala Sha was one of the first Native American women writers to accurately depict and describe life on the American Indian reservation, with in-depth descriptions of the landscape, and a strong stance on mistreatment of the Native American heritage. Zitkala-Sha (Red Bird in Lakota aka Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) was a talented and gifted writer and was born in South Dakota in 1876 to a Yankton Sioux mother and a white European American father. After being recruited by missionaries, she attended a boarding school run by the Quakers and went on to graduate from Earlham College in …show more content…

The same can be said in “A Warriors Daughter” which also starts with a very telling sentence: “In the afternoon shadow of a large tepee, with red-painted smoke lapels, sat a warrior father with crossed shins. His head was so poised that his eye swept easily the vast level land to the eastern horizon line.” Here, again, she not only introduces us to a character but a sense of the rich culture and history of the Native American …show more content…

For as much good as the spreading of a new culture intended, the Native American culture suffered immeasurably. Her authentic writing is very much focused around the joining of practical and symbolic objects in Native American culture. Many Native Americans were uneducated and poor and placed more value in intrinsic qualities. She tells stories of struggle and triumph, but through the eyes of a Native American which more completely value symbolic and spiritual goals. As she personally witnessed what the whites has done to the Dakota people, she wrote in reflection, “few there are who have paused to question whether real life or long-lasting death lies beneath this semblance of civilization.” Zitkala Sha made it one of her life goals to educate others about this imbalance between the two cultures sharing a common land. For too long prior, many of the images and stories of Native Americans were written by white men, lacking an unauthentic view into true Native American daily life and oftentimes written with disregard of Native American

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