While the book is a novel, it’s based on extensive research using source materials, archival documents and interviews that tell the harrowing story of that journey during the winter of 1878-1879. As Mari Sandoz writes in the preface of her novel, “Of all heroic attempts to preserve their people from starvation and disease, none outshines the 1,500-mile flight of the Northern Cheyennes from Indian Territory back to the Yellowstone country, through settled regions netted with telegraph, across three railroads, and straight through the United States Army,” Government’s brutal treatment of Native Americans who were desperately attempting to preserve their way of life. This was a difficult novel to read because it documents another shameful chapter in the U.S. Without having given much previous thought, I believe her style succeeds. She may not have intended the book to be easy, I don't know. The confusion described by some reviewers strikes me as being analogous to what a person living through such an event might experience. Something about that criticism fascinates me quite a bit. I will give more thought concerning the prose. Any attempt at rereading a passage to get events or characters straight is likely to force a reader to relive a traumatic event. I felt the structure of her writing was intended to slow a reader down closer to a walking pace. I believe that previous reading very much allowed me to appreciate the clarity and quality of the prose. I have read other books concerning the life of the Cheyenne and other tribes of the plains. Cheyenne Autumn, is rather dense I suppose. The Cheyenne are nearly always on the run. If I don't find a book to be worthwhile, I rarely bother to review it. I most certainly found the book worth the time and effort. I couldn't help but think of some of the mass shootings of recent years. Black Coyote turns his violence towards his own people. He is a bone thin man, a young warrior who seems to recognize he needs to burry his ego's needs in the earth for the benefit of his people. Little Finger Nail finds himself wailing in supplication for the gift of a new way of life. The emergence of Little Finger Nail a young warrior and the shattering of Black Coyote's spirit and mind struck me deeply. The way these people responded to their diaspora and eventual forced starvation speaks well enough of their character. The Cheyenne are soft spoken people according to this account. I noticed a fair amount of criticism concerning readability. I think this is supposed to be non-fiction but it reads like a novel. When we go around the world lecturing people about human rights, we seem to forget our own dismal history in this regard. It is told from the point of view of the Cheyenne, and while there is always another side to the story, nothing excuses the atrocities that were inflicted on them. These Native Americans made their way, almost unarmed, through literally thousands of federal troops and marauding civilians while enduring the worst weather that that part of the country can offer. Cheyenne Autumn is the story of an epic journey by 270 Northern Cheyenne from their imprisonment in the Indian Territories of Oklahoma to the Yellowstone River in Montana. This is a real loss since I have discovered that many of her books are becoming very difficult to find. Having said that, I am trying to figure out why it took be so many years to read Mari Sandoz. I was raised in Montana, not far from the Custer Battlefield, and have always had a real interest in the history of the American west.
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