American Indian Stories: Zitkala-Sa- Introduction

The biographical information about the Native American author, Gertrude Simmons Bonnin or known by the Sioux culture she grew up in as Zitkala-Sa. She is responsible for bringing to light the harsh oppressive constructs of the extermination of Native American culture across the country, her life shows the harsh realities of being native in the Untied States during the American Indian Wars. She is born during the year of the Battle of Little Big Horn and dies the same year the opera The Sun Dance is performed, which displays the traditional dance and movement of Native religion forbidden before the year of her death in 1938. The original performance of this opera shows the progression from almost the end of Native American culture.

I think understanding the context of The Sun Dance, will help put into perspective the amount of humanitarian work Zitkala-Sa put into her own culture and recognized throughout her life what was important about her culture that has been oppressed or undervalued.

"In 1913 Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala Sa, 1876-1938) collaborated with local Duchesne, Utah, music teacher William F. Hanson to produce and stage a spectacle that combined the musical style of operetta, a melodramatic love triangle, and traditional Plains Indian ritual. In regional performances, The Sun Dance Opera provided a stage for Bonnin and other Native American singers and dancers to participate in rituals whose practice was forbidden by the United States government. Twenty-five years later, just months after Bonnin's death in 1938, the opera was selected and presented by the New York Opera Guild as opera of the year." This opera shows the Native Americans taking back their culture from American society that crippled it. important to note that when gold was found in the plains of North Dakota, Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming the Sioux had over 60 million square acres of reservation, shortly after constricted down to 15 million square acres. Overall the introduction goes out of it's way to show the humanitarian and the life learning experiences that take place in order for her to become a Native American hero.

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3027&context=greatplainsquarterly (QUOTE ABOVE)