Zitkala-Sa
Encyclopedia
Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (1876—1938), better known by her pen name, Zitkala-Sa (Dakota
: pronounced zitkála-ša, which translates to "Red Bird"), was a Yankton Dakota writer, editor, musician, teacher and political activist. She published in national magazines. With William F. Hanson, Bonnin co-composed the first American Indian opera
, The Sun Dance (composed in romantic style based on Ute and Sioux themes), which premiered in 1913. She founded the National Council of American Indians in 1926, which she served as president until her death.
in South Dakota
. She was raised there by her mother, Ellen Simmons, whose Yankton Dakota name was Taté Iyòhiwin (Every Wind or Reaches for the Wind). Her father was a European-American man named Felker, about whom little was known. Zitkala-Sa lived a traditional lifestyle until the age of eight, when she left her reservation to attend Whites Manual Labor Institute, a Quaker
mission school in Wabash, Indiana
. She went on to study for a time at Earlham College
in Indiana and the New England Conservatory of Music
in Boston
.
After working as a teacher at Carlisle Indian Industrial School
, she moved to Boston and began publishing short stories and autobiographical vignettes. Her autobiographical writings were serialized in Atlantic Monthly from January to March 1900 and later published in a collection called American Indian Stories in 1921. Her first book, Old Indian Legends, is a collection of folktales which she gathered during visits home to the Yankton Reservation. Much of the early scholarship on her life is based on the American Indian Stories and, more recently, Doreen Rappaport’s biography The Flight of Red Bird.
(BIA). They had one son whom she named Ohiya.
Bonnin's BIA assignment to Utah led to Zitkala-Sa's meeting composer William F. Hanson, who taught at Brigham Young University. Together in 1910 they started their collaboration on the music for The Sun Dance, an opera for which Zitkala-Sa wrote the libretto and songs. The opera was produced in Utah in 1913.
The second period was from 1916 to 1924; this period was almost exclusively made up of political writings. In this period, Zitkala-Sa moved to Washington, D.C. and published some of her most influential writings, including: American Indian Stories. She co-authored Oklahoma’s Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Legalized Robbery (1923), an influential pamphlet, with Charles H. Fabens of the American Indian Defense Association
and Matthew K. Sniffen of the Indian Rights Association
. She was then working as a research agent for the Indian Welfare Committee and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs.
Her "Atlantic Monthly" articles were published from 1900 to 1902. They included, "An Indian Teacher Among Indians" published in Volume 85 in 1900. Included in the same issue were "Impressions of an Indian Childhood" and "School Days of an Indian Girl." They are discussed in more detail below.
Zitkala-Sa's other articles ran in Harper's Monthly. Two appeared in the October 1901 issue, Volume 103. They were titled, "Soft Hearted Sioux" and "The Trial Path." She also wrote "A Warrior's Daughter".
In 1902, she published another article in Atlantic Monthly called, "Why I Am a Pagan." It is about her beliefs and counters the trend of showing Indian writers conforming to traditional Christianity. She talks of her connection to the nature around her and of her cousin's coming to talk with her, to implore her to avoid the pit fires of hell. She comments on the interwoveness of all mankind, regardless of who they are or what race they show. There is even mention of her mother's choice of "superstition".
Her work and life received more attention since the so-called "canon wars." New scholarship by and about ethnic groups who had been largely excluded from the traditional American literary canon has brought attention to writers telling different American stories.
, whose famous slogan offers the philosophy of the manual labor educational program in a nutshell: “Kill the Indian and save the man!”.
Her autobiography contrasted the charm of her early life on the reservation with the “iron routine” which she found in the assimilation schools off the reservation. Zitkala-Sa wrote: “Perhaps my Indian nature is the moaning wind which stirs them [schoolteachers] now for their present record. But, however tempestuous this is within me, it comes out as the low voice of a curiously colored seashell, which is only for those ears that are bent with compassion to hear it."
while she gazed out into the open universe above her. She was surrounded with people she could trust.
In American Indian Stories she said, "It was next to impossible to leave the iron routine after the civilizing machine had once begun its day’s buzzing; and as it was inbred in me to suffer in silence rather than to appeal to the ears of one whose open eyes could not see my pain, I have many times trudged in the day’s harness heavy-footed, like a dumb sick brute."(66) As one example of this disconnect, she described a scene in the chapter titled "The Cutting of My Long Hair." During the breakfast of her first day at the Quaker school, her friend Judewin told her that their hair was to be cut by the teachers that day. Zitkala-Sa wrote, “when Judewin said, ‘we have to submit, because they are strong,’ I rebelled. ‘No, I will not submit’ I will struggle first!” She then snuck upstairs and found a place to hide under a bed so that they could not find her and “shingle” her hair. They found her. Zitkala-Sa wrote, “I remember being dragged out, though I resisted by kicking and scratching wildly. In spite of myself, I was carried downstairs and tied fast in a chair.” (55) In the Native American culture that she came from, cutting or shingling one’s hair was symbolic for shame or mourning.
In 1887, after three years of schooling at White’s Manual Labor Institute, Gertrude was allowed to return home to see her family. She stayed home for four years. During this time, she felt increasingly alienated from her tribal heritage. In American Indian Stories she said, “[D]uring this time I seemed to hang in the heart of chaos, beyond the touch or voice of human aid.” She felt alienated within Euro-American culture due to her heritage, but she began to feel alienated within Native American culture due to her education. In 1891, after her "four strange summers", she returned to her education in the Euro-American culture, received her high school diploma and went on to college at Earlham College
in 1895.
While attending Earlham, she entered an oratorical contest at the college and won first place. Then, in 1896, she entered the Indiana State Oratorical Contest as the representative from her college. She won 2nd place in the statewide competition. People not only made racist comments to her, but some members of the audience also waved a flag ridiculing her and her college with the picture of a “forlorn” Indian and the word “squaw” on the flag. She felt a sense of victory and accomplishment in the face of an American audience when the flag was lowered at the announcement of her award. Her speech, “Side By Side”, was published in The Earlhamite on March 16, 1896. She was considered an alien because her tribe was not yet accepted as citizens of the United States.
in Pennsylvania
to teach. During her first summer at Carlisle, she returned to the Yankton Reservation to recruit students for the next school year, saying, “I am going to turn you loose to pasture!” (85). After returning home, seeing her mother, and the encroaching settlements of Euro-Americans, Zitkala-Sa decided that she should not continue teaching at Carlisle. When she stayed with her mother, at night, the nearby hills around Taté Iyòhiwin’s reservation home were peppered with the “twinkling lights” of the settlers. Her mother had become resentful of the Euro-American settlers as they encroached upon the reservation. During her stay, Gertrude found out that her brother had lost his job as a government clerk on the reservation.
. She wrote the libretto and songs. She played Sioux melodies on the violin. Together they collaborated to transcribe them and create variations and harmonies with Western musical notation. On February 1913, the premiere performance of The Sun Dance Opera was presented at Orpheus Hall in Vernal, Utah
, a town in the northeast. The production featured members of the Ute Nation living on the nearby Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation
.
In 1938 the New York Light Opera Guild premiered The Sun Dance Opera at the Broadway Theatre. Publicity mentioned only William F. Hanson as composer.
She has been recognized by the naming of a Venusian crater "Bonnin" in her honor. In 1997 she was designated a Women's History Month
Honoree by the National Women's History Project
.
For a more comprehensive listing of all her writings see the American Native Press Archives maintained by the Sequoyah Research Center
at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock.
Dakota language
Dakota is a Siouan language spoken by the Dakota people of the Sioux tribes. Dakota is closely related to and mutually intelligible with the Lakota language.-Dialects:...
: pronounced zitkála-ša, which translates to "Red Bird"), was a Yankton Dakota writer, editor, musician, teacher and political activist. She published in national magazines. With William F. Hanson, Bonnin co-composed the first American Indian opera
American Indian opera
American Indian opera is a sub-genre of American music. It began with composer Gertrude Bonnin , also known as Zitkala-Sa . Bonnin's own Yankton Sioux heritage informed both her libretto and music for her opera The Sun Dance, a grand opera composed with Mormon musician William F...
, The Sun Dance (composed in romantic style based on Ute and Sioux themes), which premiered in 1913. She founded the National Council of American Indians in 1926, which she served as president until her death.
Early life and education
Zitkala-Sa was born on February 22, 1876 on the Yankton Indian ReservationYankton Indian Reservation
The Yankton Indian Reservation is the homeland of the Yankton subgroup of the Sioux tribe of Native Americans.The reservation occupies the southeasternmost 60 percent of Charles Mix County in southeastern South Dakota, United States...
in South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
. She was raised there by her mother, Ellen Simmons, whose Yankton Dakota name was Taté Iyòhiwin (Every Wind or Reaches for the Wind). Her father was a European-American man named Felker, about whom little was known. Zitkala-Sa lived a traditional lifestyle until the age of eight, when she left her reservation to attend Whites Manual Labor Institute, a Quaker
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
mission school in Wabash, Indiana
Wabash, Indiana
Wabash is a city in Noble Township, Wabash County, Indiana, United States. The population was 10,666 at the 2010 census. The city is the county seat of Wabash County....
. She went on to study for a time at Earlham College
Earlham College
Earlham College is a liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana. It was founded in 1847 by Quakers and has approximately 1,200 students.The president is John David Dawson...
in Indiana and the New England Conservatory of Music
New England Conservatory of Music
The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, is the oldest independent school of music in the United States.The conservatory is home each year to 750 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies along with 1400 more in its Preparatory School as well as the School of...
in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
.
After working as a teacher at Carlisle Indian Industrial School
Carlisle Indian Industrial School
Carlisle Indian Industrial School was an Indian boarding school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1879 at Carlisle, Pennsylvania by Captain Richard Henry Pratt, the school was the first off-reservation boarding school, and it became a model for Indian boarding schools in other locations...
, she moved to Boston and began publishing short stories and autobiographical vignettes. Her autobiographical writings were serialized in Atlantic Monthly from January to March 1900 and later published in a collection called American Indian Stories in 1921. Her first book, Old Indian Legends, is a collection of folktales which she gathered during visits home to the Yankton Reservation. Much of the early scholarship on her life is based on the American Indian Stories and, more recently, Doreen Rappaport’s biography The Flight of Red Bird.
Marriage and family
In 1902 during a period when Zitkala-Sa had returned to her reservation, she met and married Captain Raymond Bonnin, who was also mixed-race Nakota. An Army captain, he worked with the Bureau of Indian AffairsBureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...
(BIA). They had one son whom she named Ohiya.
Bonnin's BIA assignment to Utah led to Zitkala-Sa's meeting composer William F. Hanson, who taught at Brigham Young University. Together in 1910 they started their collaboration on the music for The Sun Dance, an opera for which Zitkala-Sa wrote the libretto and songs. The opera was produced in Utah in 1913.
Writing career
Zitkala-Sa had a fruitful writing career, throughout her life, that can be seen as chronologically separated into two publishing periods. The first period, which began at the turn of the century, was from 1900 to 1904. She wrote mainly legends and autobiographical narratives. She continued to write during the following years, but she did not publish. These unpublished writings, along with others including the libretto of the Sun Dance Opera, have been collected and published in Dreams and Thunder by P. Jane Hafen.The second period was from 1916 to 1924; this period was almost exclusively made up of political writings. In this period, Zitkala-Sa moved to Washington, D.C. and published some of her most influential writings, including: American Indian Stories. She co-authored Oklahoma’s Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Legalized Robbery (1923), an influential pamphlet, with Charles H. Fabens of the American Indian Defense Association
American Indian Defense Association
The American Indian Defense Association was an organization founded in 1923 by social worker John Collier, that fought to protect religious freedom and tribal property for Native Americans in the United States.-History of the AIDA:...
and Matthew K. Sniffen of the Indian Rights Association
Indian Rights Association
The Indian Rights Association was an American social activist group dedicated to the well being and acculturation of Native Americans...
. She was then working as a research agent for the Indian Welfare Committee and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs.
Her "Atlantic Monthly" articles were published from 1900 to 1902. They included, "An Indian Teacher Among Indians" published in Volume 85 in 1900. Included in the same issue were "Impressions of an Indian Childhood" and "School Days of an Indian Girl." They are discussed in more detail below.
Zitkala-Sa's other articles ran in Harper's Monthly. Two appeared in the October 1901 issue, Volume 103. They were titled, "Soft Hearted Sioux" and "The Trial Path." She also wrote "A Warrior's Daughter".
In 1902, she published another article in Atlantic Monthly called, "Why I Am a Pagan." It is about her beliefs and counters the trend of showing Indian writers conforming to traditional Christianity. She talks of her connection to the nature around her and of her cousin's coming to talk with her, to implore her to avoid the pit fires of hell. She comments on the interwoveness of all mankind, regardless of who they are or what race they show. There is even mention of her mother's choice of "superstition".
Her work and life received more attention since the so-called "canon wars." New scholarship by and about ethnic groups who had been largely excluded from the traditional American literary canon has brought attention to writers telling different American stories.
American Indian Stories
American Indian Stories offered an account of the hardships which she and other Native Americans encountered when they were sent to boarding schools designed to “civilize” the Indian children. The autobiographical writings described her early life on the Yankton Reservation, her years as a student at boarding schools, and the time she spent teaching at Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Carlisle Indian Industrial School was the first and most well-known of boarding schools for Native Americans. It was founded by Richard Henry PrattRichard Henry Pratt
Richard Henry Pratt is best known as the founder and longtime superintendent of the influential Carlisle Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.-Military career:...
, whose famous slogan offers the philosophy of the manual labor educational program in a nutshell: “Kill the Indian and save the man!”.
Her autobiography contrasted the charm of her early life on the reservation with the “iron routine” which she found in the assimilation schools off the reservation. Zitkala-Sa wrote: “Perhaps my Indian nature is the moaning wind which stirs them [schoolteachers] now for their present record. But, however tempestuous this is within me, it comes out as the low voice of a curiously colored seashell, which is only for those ears that are bent with compassion to hear it."
Impressions of an Indian Childhood
Zitkala-Sa described herself as a free and innocent young girl. All of the older Yanktons treated her with love and respect. Even when she mistakenly "made coffee" on the ashes of a dead fire, for a visitor while her mother was away from their dwelling, she was not scolded or even given the notion that she had done anything wrong. When she was with her friends, they were free to run after their shadows and the shadows of the clouds. In the evening, she listened to the stories of the eldersAmerican Indian elder
In American Indian education, within each tribe elders, "are repositories of cultural and philosophical knowledge and are the transmitters of such information," including, "basic beliefs and teachings, encouraging...faith in the Great Spirit, the Creator"...
while she gazed out into the open universe above her. She was surrounded with people she could trust.
School days of an Indian girl
When Gertrude Simmons was eight years old, Quaker missionaries were visiting her reservation. Young eight-year-old Gertrude was strongly lured by their promises of apple orchards. Having never been deceived, she trusted them despite her mother’s warnings. The young child’s innocence led her to desire the apple orchards and to choose to be educated by the missionaries. Taté Iyòhiwin finally gave in. She knew that it would be a hard transition for her child from innocence to experience, but she also believed that her child would need the education when there were more Euro-Americans than Native Americans.In American Indian Stories she said, "It was next to impossible to leave the iron routine after the civilizing machine had once begun its day’s buzzing; and as it was inbred in me to suffer in silence rather than to appeal to the ears of one whose open eyes could not see my pain, I have many times trudged in the day’s harness heavy-footed, like a dumb sick brute."(66) As one example of this disconnect, she described a scene in the chapter titled "The Cutting of My Long Hair." During the breakfast of her first day at the Quaker school, her friend Judewin told her that their hair was to be cut by the teachers that day. Zitkala-Sa wrote, “when Judewin said, ‘we have to submit, because they are strong,’ I rebelled. ‘No, I will not submit’ I will struggle first!” She then snuck upstairs and found a place to hide under a bed so that they could not find her and “shingle” her hair. They found her. Zitkala-Sa wrote, “I remember being dragged out, though I resisted by kicking and scratching wildly. In spite of myself, I was carried downstairs and tied fast in a chair.” (55) In the Native American culture that she came from, cutting or shingling one’s hair was symbolic for shame or mourning.
In 1887, after three years of schooling at White’s Manual Labor Institute, Gertrude was allowed to return home to see her family. She stayed home for four years. During this time, she felt increasingly alienated from her tribal heritage. In American Indian Stories she said, “[D]uring this time I seemed to hang in the heart of chaos, beyond the touch or voice of human aid.” She felt alienated within Euro-American culture due to her heritage, but she began to feel alienated within Native American culture due to her education. In 1891, after her "four strange summers", she returned to her education in the Euro-American culture, received her high school diploma and went on to college at Earlham College
Earlham College
Earlham College is a liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana. It was founded in 1847 by Quakers and has approximately 1,200 students.The president is John David Dawson...
in 1895.
While attending Earlham, she entered an oratorical contest at the college and won first place. Then, in 1896, she entered the Indiana State Oratorical Contest as the representative from her college. She won 2nd place in the statewide competition. People not only made racist comments to her, but some members of the audience also waved a flag ridiculing her and her college with the picture of a “forlorn” Indian and the word “squaw” on the flag. She felt a sense of victory and accomplishment in the face of an American audience when the flag was lowered at the announcement of her award. Her speech, “Side By Side”, was published in The Earlhamite on March 16, 1896. She was considered an alien because her tribe was not yet accepted as citizens of the United States.
An Indian teacher among Indians
In 1897 Zitkala-Sa went to Carlisle Indian Industrial SchoolCarlisle Indian Industrial School
Carlisle Indian Industrial School was an Indian boarding school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1879 at Carlisle, Pennsylvania by Captain Richard Henry Pratt, the school was the first off-reservation boarding school, and it became a model for Indian boarding schools in other locations...
in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
to teach. During her first summer at Carlisle, she returned to the Yankton Reservation to recruit students for the next school year, saying, “I am going to turn you loose to pasture!” (85). After returning home, seeing her mother, and the encroaching settlements of Euro-Americans, Zitkala-Sa decided that she should not continue teaching at Carlisle. When she stayed with her mother, at night, the nearby hills around Taté Iyòhiwin’s reservation home were peppered with the “twinkling lights” of the settlers. Her mother had become resentful of the Euro-American settlers as they encroached upon the reservation. During her stay, Gertrude found out that her brother had lost his job as a government clerk on the reservation.
Making of an opera
In 1910 Bonnin began collaborating with composer William F. Hanson, who taught at Brigham Young UniversityBrigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
. She wrote the libretto and songs. She played Sioux melodies on the violin. Together they collaborated to transcribe them and create variations and harmonies with Western musical notation. On February 1913, the premiere performance of The Sun Dance Opera was presented at Orpheus Hall in Vernal, Utah
Vernal, Utah
Vernal, Uintah County's largest city, is located in eastern Utah near the Colorado State Line, and 175 miles east of Salt Lake City. It is bordered on the north by the Uinta Mountains, one of the few mountains ranges in the world which lie in an east-west rather than the usual north to south...
, a town in the northeast. The production featured members of the Ute Nation living on the nearby Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation
Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation
The Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Utah, USA. It is the homeland of the Northern Ute Tribe, and is the largest of three Indian reservations inhabited by members of the Ute Tribe of Native Americans. It lies in parts of seven counties; in descending order of land area...
.
In 1938 the New York Light Opera Guild premiered The Sun Dance Opera at the Broadway Theatre. Publicity mentioned only William F. Hanson as composer.
Death and legacy
She died on January 26, 1938 in Washington, DC.She has been recognized by the naming of a Venusian crater "Bonnin" in her honor. In 1997 she was designated a Women's History Month
Women's History Month
Women's History Month is an annual declared month worldwide that highlights contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. March has been set aside as this month in the United Kingdom and in the United States...
Honoree by the National Women's History Project
National Women's History Project
The National Women's History Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to honoring and preserving women's history. Based out of Santa Rosa, California since 1980, it was started by women's history activists Molly Murphy MacGregor, Mary Ruthsdotter, Maria Cuevas, Paula Hammett and Bette...
.
Writings by Zitkala-Sa
- Old Indian Legends. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985
- American Indian Stories. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985.
- Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin). "Why I Am a Pagan." The Online Archive of Nineteenth-Century U.S. Women's Writings, Ed. Glynis Carr. Winter 1999.
- Zitkala-Ša, Fabens, Charles H. and Matthew K. Sniffen. Oklahoma’s Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Legalized Robbery. Philadelphia: Office of the Indian Rights Association, 1924.
- Zitkala-Sa. Dreams and Thunder: Stories, Poems, and The Sun Dance Opera. Edited by P. Jane Hafen. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. ISBN 0803249187.
For a more comprehensive listing of all her writings see the American Native Press Archives maintained by the Sequoyah Research Center
Sequoyah Research Center
The Seqouyah National Research Center , located in Little Rock, Arkansas, is home of the American Native Press Archives . ANPA is one of the largest repositories of Native American publications in the world. The Center is also home to the J.W...
at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock.
Scores
- Hanson, William F., and Zitkala-Sa. The Sun Dance Opera (romantic American Indian opera, 1913, 1938). Photocopy of the original piano-vocal score, from microfilm (227 pp.). Library of Brigham Young UniversityBrigham Young UniversityBrigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
, Provo, UtahProvo, UtahProvo is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Utah, located about south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front. Provo is the county seat of Utah County and lies between the cities of Orem to the north and Springville to the south...
.