Zitkala-Sa was a prominent Yankton Sioux Tribe member from South Dakota. Born in 1876, she was not only a writer and musician but also an activist devoted to preserving the indigenous history and culture of her people. Unfortunately, she was subjected to the brutal force of the Civilization Fund Act of 1819, which forced her at age eight to attend White's Indiana Manual Labor Institute, a missionary boarding school. There, her hair was cut without her consent, and she was prohibited from speaking her Lakota language while being forced to practice a religion that was not part of her beliefs.

Gertrude Bonnin, as Zitkala-Sa was initially known, grew up in poverty, surrounded by the affection of her mother's culture. She enrolled at Earlham College on a scholarship after giving a speech on gender inequality upon graduating high school in June of 1895. Despite feeling hesitant and isolated because of the absence of native peers, she demonstrated her exceptional oratory skills in a speech titled "Side by Side."

Around this time, she began collecting traditional stories of native tribes, translating them into Latin and English for children to read. Zitkala-Sa was keen on storytelling and shared legends of her people while also sharing her personal struggles of searching for her authentic identity. Her autobiography made her the first American Indian woman to write without an editor, interpreter, or ethnographer's assistance. In 1997, the National Women's History Project named her the Honorary Month of Women's History in recognition of her activism, which brought crucial changes to education, healthcare, legal standing of Native Americans, and the preservation of Indian culture.

The conflict between European settlers and expanding pioneers to the west and the local native tribes led to one of the most significant genocides in history. The red part, which signifies the Native Americans, according to the first estimates (1864), had its victims reach 45 thousand, while the white part, starting from the 18th century, was 19 thousand. However, more recent research, which considered the entire continent's colonization period starting from 1494, put the number at anywhere from 50 to 100 million. There are even higher figures that speak of a "real American holocaust," with 18 million people dead in North America alone, as per Thornton Russell. Some authors postulate the figure at 114 million deaths in 500 years. These data do not take into account internal conflicts, epidemics, or famines.

Many tribes, such as the Sioux, Cheyenne, Apache, and Comanche, opposed the expansionist aims of the new Americans. Often, the violence was triggered by various legislative acts stipulated by the U.S. parliament without taking into account the natives' needs or disregarded the Indians' rights.

It is vital to bear in mind the severity of the issue regarding the American Indian heritage. The problem emerged at the beginning of the formation of American culture and state when the indigenous population of North America was viewed as a political enemy of European settlers. The disagreement over land ownership resulted in violent approaches, including genocide, which also affected aesthetic values (Rorintulus).

As European explorers discovered the continent and interacted with Indian tribes, Indian folklore unraveled gradually. However, for an extended period, several essential elements remained unknown until the last quarter of the 19th century (Fattoum).

Certain genres of Native American folklore were more readily accepted by Anglo-Americans since it drew analogies to European cultural experience. For a long time, the most crucial subject of study in American science was the myth in an array of stadial variations, ethnic and genre diversities (Fattoum).

To this day, myth retains significance as a priority study subject in American anthropology. Despite the renewed interest in myth due to historical events in the second half of the 20th century, it lost its multi-dimensional nature due to being subjected to different formalist schools. Scholars, as well as popularizers like J. Rotenberg, view the myth as a formally organized text system. Mainly, scholars are interested in interpreting the text. French structuralism further influenced the study of mythology from a more overall pattern perspective, defining it as a type of formal "structure" (Fattoum).

Despite the vast material that has been accumulated on the song poetry of various tribes, attempting to make theoretical generalizations based on the collected data is more modest than in the field of mythology. Scholars have begun to show an interest in Indian folk poetry due to the development of modern Indian literary creativity and folklore search, yet researchers still look to accumulate, publish new materials, and revise old records instead of considering the theoretical aspects of the issue (Fattoum).

Oratorical prose is a specific category of Indian folklore in North America with a unique fate. The fathers of American statehood, Franklin and Jefferson, often cited it, allowing it to enter the American settlers' consciousness before other oral folklore phenomena of the native people. Although it was prevalent in the 19th century, the second half of the 20th century saw its recognition as a specific area of ​​scientific study, with the first monograph on Indian rhetoric in 1965 being an attempt to generalize previous knowledge rather than a thorough investigation into its essence. Consequently, its position in the Indian folklore system and its relationship with other genres are unknown due to the rich and diverse traditions of oratorical prose that remain unexplored (Amirouche).

Works Cited

Amirouche, Nassima. "Zitkala SA's American Indian Stories, a Native American Women Voice." (2018).

Fattoum, S. A. D. A. L. L. A. H., and A. O. U. G. U. I. Rahma. Claiming a Native Identity in Zitkala Sa's American Indian Stories. Diss. 2018.

Lukens, Margaret A. "The American Indian Story of Zitkala-Sa." In Her Own Voice. Routledge, 2019. 141-155.

Rorintulus, Olga Anneke. "Gender Equality And Women's Power In American Indian Traditional Culture In Zitkala-Sa's Short Stories." Humanus 17.2 (2018): 138-149.