Dahcotah: Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling

Eastman, Mary H. (Mary Henderson), 1818-1887Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2
Word count
424K words
Chapters
43

Tags

English Originals Folk Literature Anthropological StudyFolktales19th CenturyNative American CultureOral TraditionEthnic MemoryFolk CustomsSioux LegendsCross-Cultural ViewFrontier Life

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Dahcotah: Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling by Mary H. EastmanAuthor: Eastman, Mary H. (Mary Henderson), 1818-1887,Language: English, Class: E011: History: America: America, Release Date: Jan 1, 2004

Editor's review

Written by Mary H. Eastman, this book records the life and legends of the Dakota (Sioux) people around Fort Snelling, Minnesota. It is classified under American history (E) and was digitized as a public-domain e-book by Project Gutenberg. Its value lies in its mid-19th-century date, offering an ethnographic-style record from the perspective of a white observer of the time: it describes daily life and customs and also collects orally transmitted stories and legends, making it useful for understanding Dakota culture and the historical context of westward expansion in the American Midwest. Read it with a critical eye—the author's account carries the limitations of her era and position, and the legends were transcribed and may not equal native oral tradition; readers should treat it as a historical source rather than authoritative ethnography. The language is 19th-century English; narrative chapters are fairly accessible, while the legend sections involve proper names and place names that may feel unfamiliar. Suitable for history enthusiasts, readers interested in Native American culture, and researchers needing period primary sources for background reading.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the introductory chapters first to understand the book's background, then move to the legends for a clearer thread.
  2. Jot down the author's evaluative statements as you read, then reflect on her era's stance afterward.
  3. Read the legends as transcriptions of oral literature and compare them with works by contemporary Dakota authors.
  4. Look up place names and tribal names on maps and in background materials first; this noticeably lowers the barrier to understanding.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43

FAQ

Is the author of this book Dakota? No. The author, Mary H. Eastman, was a white woman living near Fort Snelling in the 19th century; her account comes from observation and hearsay of the time. The book therefore presents an outside perspective marked by the ideas of her era, and it should be distinguished from Dakota people's own accounts.
Can the legends in the book be taken directly as original oral tradition? Not directly. The legends were recorded, transcribed, and edited by the author, a process inevitably involving selection and rewriting, and the language was shifted from Dakota to English. It can be used as a mid-19th-century transcription of oral material, but research should consult other records and contemporary Dakota tellings.
How difficult is the English, and what foundation is needed? Overall it is 19th-century English narrative prose; everyday descriptive passages are fairly accessible, while the legend chapters are harder due to proper names, place names, and shifts in sentence structure. College-level English reading ability suffices for reading through; checking background on unfamiliar proper names is more effective than looking up every word.
Does the e-book include notes or an introduction? The book is a free e-book from Project Gutenberg based on a public-domain text, with the main text following the original. Whether notes or an introduction are included varies by edition, and the material does not say. If scholarly notes are needed, consider a modern edition with an introduction for comparison.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Eastman, Mary H. (Mary Henderson), 1818-1887 Author · American · 1818–1887

Mary H. Eastman (1818–1887) was an American writer whose life and background are poorly documented in publicly available sources. Two of her works are held in the collection, and their subjects are notably far apart, reflecting her sustained attention to social life in different regions of the United States. Dahcotah: Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling records and organizes the daily life and oral legends of the Sioux, with an ethnographic quality that makes it a reference text for understanding nineteenth-century Native American culture in the American Midwest. Aunt Phillis's Cabin Or, Southern Life As It Is takes Southern life as its subject and addresses the social issues of the day, and it is often discussed in dialogue with Uncle Tom's Cabin. Her writing is marked by documentary observation and the depiction of local life.