Mourning Dove: A Salishan Autobiography

by Mourning Dove, Jay Miller (Editor)

Overview

"An exciting story that transports the reader to another time and place. . . . Anyone interested in American Indian history, culture, religion, and literature should read this informative volume that was produced at such great cost. Mourning Dove literally gave her life to do this work, and Jay Miller has painstakingly edited it to share the words and wisdom of Humishuma with the non-Salish world."—American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803284081
Publisher:	UNP - Nebraska
Publication date:	09/01/2014
Series:	American Indian Lives
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	267
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Mourning Dove was the pen name of Christine Quintasket, a member of the Colville Federated Tribes of eastern Washington State. She was the author of Cogewea, The Half-Blood (one of the first novels to be published by a Native American woman) and Coyote Stories, both reprinted as Bison Books. Jay Miller, formerly assistant director and editor at the D’Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian, Newberry Library, Chicago, now is an independent scholar and writer in Seattle. He is the compiler of Earthmaker: Tribal Stories from Native North America.

Editorial Reviews

Mourning Dove (Christine Quintasket) spent her adult years justifying the ways of Native Americans to whites. Born into Colville Confederated Tribes in 1885 or 1888, she became an ethnographer, orator, pamphleteer, teacher, and novelist, believing that her description and analysis of Native American ways would ensure better treatment for her people. In the scholarly introduction to her unfinished autobiography, editor Miller describes his work with the Colvilles and his acquisition of Mourning Dove's manuscripts and notes, which he arranges according to important customs and cyclical/seasonal activities. Mourning Dove's evocation of the complexities of tribal life is irresistible, full of acutely remembered conversations, ceremonies, and events. ``What kept us going,'' she says, ``was the knowledge that everything on earth has its purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. That is the Indian theory of existence.'' Notes, references, and photographs provide additional perspectives. Recommended for academic libraries and Native American collections.-- Rhoda Carroll, Vermont Coll., Montpelier

Library Journal

"An exciting story that transports the reader to another time and place. . . . Anyone interested in American Indian history, culture, religion, and literature should read this informative volume that was produced at such great cost. Mourning Dove literally gave her life to do this work, and Jay Miller has painstakingly edited it to share the words and wisdom of Humishuma with the non-Salish world."—American Indian Culture and Research Journal

American Indian Culture and Research Journal

"Mourning Dove’s evocation of the complexities of tribal life is irresistible, full of acutely remembered conversations, ceremonies, and events."—Library Journal. "The accounts of guardian spirit quest, of seeking medicinal power, of winter dancing, seancind rite, and the sweatlodge unite cultural knowledge and personal experience in a compelling way. The perspective on history through the experience of her family is immensely valuable as well."—Dell Hymes, Canadian Journal of Native Studies

— Dell Hymes

Canadian Journal of Native Studies

"[This] autobiography artfully weaves tribal history, Salishan traditions, and a wealth of information of the female life cycle with the story of [Christine] Quintasket’s own childhood and coming of age on the Colville Reservation in Washington. Mourning Dove is a rare and important study of the Interior Salish people during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Miller, by providing thoughtful editing and constructive footnotes, have given new life to Mourning Dove’s narrative."—Western Historical Quarterly

Western Historical Quarterly

"Mourning Dove’s evocation of the complexities of tribal life is irresistible, full of acutely remembered conversations, ceremonies, and events."—Library Journal. "The accounts of guardian spirit quest, of seeking medicinal power, of winter dancing, seancind rite, and the sweatlodge unite cultural knowledge and personal experience in a compelling way. The perspective on history through the experience of her family is immensely valuable as well."—Dell Hymes, Canadian Journal of Native Studies

Canadian Journal of Native Studies - Dell Hymes