Waterlily
Ella Cara Deloria author Susan Gardner editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Nebraska Press
Published:1st Apr '09
Should be back in stock very soon
The story of Blue Bird and her daughter, Waterlily, and their daily lives as Sioux Indians during the late nineteenth century
When Blue Bird and her grandmother leave their family's camp to gather beans for the long, threatening winter, they inadvertently avoid the horrible fate that befalls the rest of the family. Luckily, the two women are adopted by a nearby Dakota community and are eventually integrated into their kinship circles.
“Exquisite evocation, in novelistic form, of the life of a female Dakota (Sioux) in the mid-nineteenth century, before whites settled the plains. . . . An unself-conscious and never precious or quaint pairing of scholarship and fiction.”—Kirkus
When Blue Bird and her grandmother leave their family’s camp to gather beans for the long, threatening winter, they inadvertently avoid the horrible fate that befalls the rest of the family. Luckily, the two women are adopted by a nearby Dakota community and are eventually integrated into their kinship circles. Ella Cara Deloria’s tale follows Blue Bird and her daughter, Waterlily, through the intricate kinship practices that created unity among her people.
Waterlily, published after Deloria’s death and generally viewed as the masterpiece of her career, offers a captivating glimpse into the daily life of the nineteenth-century Sioux.
This new Bison Books edition features an introduction by Susan Gardner and an index.
“Exquisite evocation, in novelistic form, of the life of a female Dakota (Sioux) in the mid-nineteenth century, before whites settled the plains. . . . An unself-conscious and never precious or quaint pairing of scholarship and fiction.”—Kirkus
“[Deloria’s] novel is a distinguished work of literature at the same time that it is an important exercise in historical reconstruction, based on her wide and deep study of Dakota texts.”—World Literature Today
“Waterlily is by one who knows the culture from within, and in its instruction about Dakota ethnography the book strikes me . . . as wonderfully fine. Day to day life of the traditional Dakota is rendered in sympathetic detail.”—Arnold Krupat, The Nation
"Deloria tells universal truths cast in an authentic framework of early nineteenth-century Plains Indian society. . . . The feminine point of view is genius."—Journal of the West
“Ella Deloria was an original, creative, esteemed Native scholar, and a novelist. Waterlily is a singular, spirited family story of the Dakota. The cultural scenes in this novel are as beautiful as the water lilies.”—Gerald Vizenor, author of Bear Island: The War at Sugar Point
“No one is better qualified than Deloria to draw together a series of Sioux female characters such as the ones central to this novel. . . . Deloria was bilingual as well as bicultural. Through her work we see the value of the insider’s perspective as a bridge of understanding for those outside the culture.”—Ines Talamantez, Los Angeles Times
ISBN: 9780803219045
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 340g
296 pages
New Edition