"Originally published in 1967, this remarkable pictographic history consists of more than four hundred drawings and script notations by Amos Bad Heart Bull, an Oglala Lakota man from the Pine Ridge Reservation, made between 1890 and the time of his death in 1913. The text, resulting from nearly a decade of research by Helen H. Blish and originally presented as a three-volume report to the Carnegie Institution, provides ethnological and historical background and interpretation of the content. This 50th anniversary edition provides a fresh perspective on Bad Heart Bull's drawings through digital scans of the original photographic plates created when Blish was doing her research. Lost for nearly half a century--and unavailable when the 1967 edition was being assembled--the recently discovered plates are now housed at the Smithsonian's National Anthropological Archives. Readers of the volume will encounter new introductions by Emily Levine and Candace S. Greene, crisp images and notations, and additional material that previously appeared only in a limited number of copies of the original edition." -- Publisher's website.

In 1953 young surgeon Robert H. Ruby began work as the chief medical officer at the hospital on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He began writing almost daily to his sister, describing the Oglala Lakota people he served, his Bureau of Indian Affairs colleagues, and day-to-day life on the reservation. Ruby and his wife were active in the social life of the non-white community, which allowed Ruby, also a self-trained ethnographer, to write in detail about the Oglala Lakota people and their culture, covering topics such as religion, art, traditions, and values. His frank and personal depiction of conditions he encountered on the reservation examines poverty, alcoholism, the educational system, and employment conditions and opportunities. Ruby also wrote critically of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, describing the bureaucracy that made it difficult for him to do his job and kept his hospital permanently understaffed and undersupplied. These engaging letters provide a compelling memoir of life at Pine Ridge in the mid-1950s.

Based on interviews and life histories collected over more than twenty-five years of study on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, Marla N. Powers conveys what it means to be an Oglala woman. Despite the myth of the Euramerican that sees Oglala women as inferior to men, and the Lakota myth that seems them as superior, in reality, Powers argues, the roles of male and female emerge as complementary. In fact, she claims, Oglala women have been better able to adapt to the dominant white culture and provide much of the stability and continuity of modern tribal life. This rich ethnographic portrait considers the complete context of Oglala life—religion, economics, medicine, politics, old age—and is enhanced by numerous modern and historical photographs. "It is a happy event when a fine scholarly work is rendered accessible to the general reader, especially so when none of the complexity of the subject matter is sacrificed. Oglala Women is a long overdue revisionary ethnography of Native American culture."—Penny Skillman, San Francisco Chronicle Review "Marla N. Powers's fine study introduced me to Oglala women 'portrayed from the perspectives of Indians,' to women who did not pity themselves and want no pity from others. . . . A brave, thorough, and stimulating book."—Melody Graulich, Women's Review of Books "Powers's new book is an intricate weaving . . . and her synthesis brings all of these pieces into a well-integrated and insightful whole, one which sheds new light on the importance of women and how they have adapted to the circumstances of the last century."—Elizabeth S. Grobsmith, Nebraska History

As agency physician on the Pine Ridge Reservation from 1896 to 1914, Dr. James R. Walker recorded a wealth of information on the traditional lifeways of the Oglala Sioux.

Surveys past and present religious beliefs and practices of the Oglala Sioux, relating them to Oglala social and cultural identity and the preservation of that identity

Popular culture largely perceives the tragedy at Wounded Knee in 1890 as the end of Native American resistance in the West, and for many years historians viewed this event as the end of Indian history altogether. The Dawes Act of 1887 and the reservation system dramatically changed daily life and political dynamics, particularly for the Oglala Lakotas. As Akim D. Reinhardt demonstrates in this volume, however, the twentieth century continued to be politically dynamic. Even today, as life continues for the Oglalas on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota, politics remain an integral component of the Lakota past and future. Reinhardt charts the political history of the Oglala Lakota people from the fifteenth century to the present with this edited collection of primary documents, a historical narrative, and a contemporary bibliographic essay. Throughout the twentieth century, residents on Pine Ridge and other reservations confronted, resisted, and adapted to the continuing effects of U.S. colonialism. During the modern reservation era, reservation councils, grassroots and national political movements, courtroom victories and losses, and cultural battles have shaped indigenous populations. Both a documentary reader and a Lakota history, Welcome to the Oglala Nation is an indispensable volume on Lakota politics.