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Summary
Summary
With My Own Eyes tells the history of the nineteenth-century Lakotas. Susan Bordeaux Bettelyoun (1857-1945), the daughter of a French-American fur trader and a Brule Lakota woman, was raised near Fort Laramie and experienced firsthand the often devastating changes forced on the Lakotas.
As Bettelyoun grew older, she became increasingly dissatisfied with the way Lakota history was being written by non-Natives. Combining an oral narrative style with written sources, With My Own Eyes represents Bettelyoun's attempt to correct misconceptions about Lakota history. Her narrative was recorded during the 1930s by another Lakota historian, Josephine Waggoner. The collaboration of the two women produced a detailed, insightful account of the dispossession of their people. Although long regarded as a valuable source by historians, this unique work was never previously published.
Scrupulously and meticulously edited by scholar Emily Levine, With My Own Eyes has been restored to its original text and annotated. It now takes its rightful place alongside other histories of the Lakotas.
Reviews (2)
Choice Review
Bettelyoun's book will appeal to both general and specialized readers. Bettelyoun was born at Ft. Laramie, Wyoming, in 1857 to a Brule Lakota Sioux mother and a French American father. In 1933 she met Josephine Waggoner, also a mixed-blood Lakota; the two collaborated in writing down Bettelyoun's stories of Indian life and of Indian/white interactions in the Wyoming/Nebraska/South Dakota territory. Historians have long recognized the manuscript's importance for telling Native American history and used it extensively, but it is published here for the first time. As editor Levine explains in her careful introduction, Bettelyoun's stories raise important questions about other cultures and particularly oral cultures: whose voice is heard, whose truth counts, and what is true and false about the history of the American West. Levine has restored a heavily edited manuscript to its original text; her extensive footnotes will be helpful for the historian and the general reader. Bettelyoun's stories allow readers to hear the voice of a person moving back and forth between several cultures and truths. An important addition to history, women's and ethnic studies, and personal narratives. All levels. S. S. Arpad; California State University, Fresno
Library Journal Review
Born in 1859 to James Bordeaux, a trader at Fort Laramie, and Hunjtkalutawin or Red Cormorant Woman, who was prominent in the Brul Lakota community, Bettelyoun here recollects 19th-century Sioux life. In the 1930s, she worked with Waggoner, a younger coresident of the Old Soldiers' Home in South Dakota and another mixed-race Sioux, who recorded Bettelyoun's reminiscences on paper. The manuscript, although used by several scholars, remained unpublished until Levine, a freelance researcher and University of Nebraska employee, became interested in it. This book is quite unusual in being a firsthand account of 19th-century Sioux life by a woman. It is also a very readable and fascinating account of a key period in Plains Indian life. It will fit nicely into two areas of current popular and academic interest, women's studies and American Indian history, and is highly recommended for collections in those areas. (Pictures and index not seen.)ÄCharles V. Cowling, Drake Memorial Lib., Brockport, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | p. xi |
| Introduction | p. xv |
| Works Cited | p. xxxvi |
| Editorial Policy | p. xxxix |
| Part 1 Autobiographies of the Authors | p. 1 |
| Chapter 1 Susan Bordeaux Bettelyoun | p. 3 |
| Chapter 2 Josephine Waggoner | p. 12 |
| Chapter 3 Chief Lone Dog | p. 15 |
| Part 2 with My Own Eyes | p. 15 |
| Chapter 4 My Mother, Huŋtkalutawiŋ | p. 20 |
| Chapter 5 Bordeaux | p. 24 |
| Chapter 6 At Laramie | p. 34 |
| Chapter 7 Crow Butte | p. 49 |
| Chapter 8 Three Stories of the Battle of the Blue Water | p. 53 |
| Chapter 9 Conditions from 1854 Till 1868 | p. 68 |
| Chapter 10 Two Stories of Horse Creek | p. 82 |
| Chapter 11 My Early Days | p. 102 |
| Chapter 12 Crazy Horse, Tasuŋka Witco | p. 104 |
| Chapter 13 On the Reservation | p. 112 |
| Appendix 1 Lakota Pronunciation and Phonological Key | p. 117 |
| Appendix 2 Lakota Social Organization | p. 118 |
| Appendix 3 Movement of the Brulé and Oglala Agencies | p. 120 |
| Appendix 4 Susan Bordeaux Bettelyoun Family Tree | p. 122 |
| Appendix 5 Chronology | p. 124 |
| Notes | p. 127 |
| Index | p. 179 |
