I is for Indian.
The pony was very near now, and Laura's heart beat faster and faster. She looked at the Indian's beaded moccasin, she looked up along the fringed legging that clung to the pony's bare side. A bright-colored blanket was wrapped around the Indian. One bare brown-red arm carried rifle lightly across the pony's naked shoulders. The Laura looked up at the Indian's fierce, still, brown face.
It was a proud, still face. No matter what happened, it would always be like that. Nothing would change it. Only the eyes were alive in that face, and they gazed steadily far away to the west. They did not move. Nothing moved or changed, except the eagle feathers standing straight up from the scalplock on the shaved head. The long feathers swayed and dipped, waving and spinning in the wind as the tall Indian on the black pony passed on into the distance.
-Little House on the Prairie, Chapter 24: Indians Ride Away
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
I wrote a post on Beyond Little House a couple of years ago on this sometimes controversial subject. If you'd like to read it go here. Don't want to sound like I'm copping out on the I-post, but there's no sense re-writing my feelings...
**Join me and many other Laura fans at LauraPalooza 2012 (the second-ever Laura Ingalls Wilder Conference), which will be held July 12-14, 2012, in Mankato, Minnesota. For more information visit Beyond Little House and look for the heading "LauraPalooza 2012". The pull down menu will have all of the information that you are looking for!**
Beautiful passage...
ReplyDeleteI *love* your theme! I haven't read the Little House books since I was in grade school but I cherished them very much then.. I hope to read them aloud to my kids at some point :)
ReplyDeleteHappy A-Z'ing!
~AJ @ frodofrog.blogspot.com
I don't have time to read all the responses to your original post, but I agree with you. I always want to remind those who argue for censorship based on the depiction of Indians that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
ReplyDeleteBanning the Little House, what a nonsense!
ReplyDeleteEvery work of art reflects the times it was created in, we can't enforce our mentalities to works of previous centuries, even if their views bother us. They are historical heritage, for crying out loud!
That said, I used to get really mad at Ma, whenever she expressed those anti-Indian feelings of hers.