Customer Reviews

Cheyenne Autumn

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Sandoz captures both the big pictures and subtle nuances of the atmosphere in which these unbelieveable, but unfortunately real, events take place. She thoroughly reconstructs the characters and so completely immerses herself and the reader in events that reading Cheyenne Autumn is better than any movie or play could ever be -- you see and hear and feel as though you are part of the journey, rooting the Cheyenne on and on, and (even if you know going in know how things turn out) hoping against hope that the US government and the military will just leave the poor people alone. However sad the story is at its base (and it is tragic), the dignity and resourcefulness and love among the Cheyenne is overwhelming. Truly, they were the "civilized" people, and Sandoz conveys this without every stepping a foot on a soapbox. It's a must read for anyone who has an interest in Native American history or culture. It's also a must read for anyone who doesn't have such interests, because their ignorance will be washed away completely.

I have tried to analyze how it is that Sandoz manages to take a story, the mere facts of which I have read many times, and make it so powerfully moving that you find it haunting you long after the book is finished. Besides her expert ability to write in the language of her subjects, she develops all characters to their fullest. We follow them through their every day lives, through their hopes and fears, and most of all through their relationships to each other, until we feel we have become a part of it all. When lives end, usually tragically, we not only feel the loss ourselves, but we grieve for the pain of those left behind. When I read Sandoz's biography of Crazy Horse, I felt each loss he felt, from the death of his brother, to the agony of the decision to bring his followers into the agency. In this book, when the Cheyenne died in their last stand, I felt as their survivors must have felt, both grieved at the loss, but proud that they had died fighting in the tradition of their people, Also, once again as with Crazy Horse, I felt, as no simple telling of the facts could get across, what a great mistake it was not to let these cultures survive, and how foolish and arrogant the whites were to spend lives, money and ammunition to keep a few hundred impoverished people from returning to their homeland.

Mari Sandoz, one of the greatest American writers, amazed me once again in Cheyenne Autumn. A heartbreaking story of injustice and cruelty, Sandoz brings out the heart of the people through vivid imagery and insights that will make you feel you are on the trail with the Cheyenne.

Sandoz sees through the heart, and in this remarkable book takes the reader back in time. The book does not simply recount a tragic story, but rather reveals a people's life and their struggle to regain it. I highly recommend this book to anyone concerned with the human condition.

I began reading this book expecting to plod through it but it was so compelling that I stayed up until dawn to get to the end. It is a sensitive, thought-provoking portrayal of the Cheyennes as they doggedly tried to resume their way of life after being carted of to a reservation in the Oklahoma territory. The book recounts how a group of them trekked 1,600 MILES to get back to their homeland in the northern plains. It is an exciting, intelligent and heart-breaking read. Looking at historical maps after reading this will never be the same. Forget Westerns and read this instead!

Documents the flight of the Cheyenne from the Indian Territory in Oklahoma back to their home in the north. The Cheyenne were promised that they could leave and then chased like escaped prisoners when they did leave. Time after time they survived seemingly insurmountable odds, but not without loss. I believe that the Cheyenne who lived this story -- Little Wolf and others -- would be happy to know that they were remembered with this book.

The carefully crafted prose of Mari Sandoz brings the rhythms and images of the Cheyenne language and Cheyenne storytelling to a non-Indian audience. To read is to absorb the rhythms and images, to feel an illusion of becoming more Indian as chapter follows chapter, to understand with an Indian mind the genocidal subjugation and impoverishment of a tribe that hoped for peace.

This is a story of chiefs, warriors, women and children. It is a story of tragic misunderstandings, murders, fights, flights, and survival. Written in 1953, long before political correctness, and based on solid research and a childhood spent in the company of Cheyenne who survived the wars, the narrative does not indulge in cheap moral judgements - the stories of the Indian men and women who lived and struggled and died cut straight into the reader's heart in a way that is beyond judgement.

Sandoz does in this book what a hundred modern authors bound by Political Correctness could never accomplish. She puts forth a well written and never-flinching story about the terrible final moments of the Northern Cheyenne. Excellent book. See also: Crazy Horse: Strange One of the Oglallas, another feat.

One cannot recommend this book too highly which has been written with a true feeling for the Cheyenne Nation. As I read the book I felt that I was part of those unfortunate people, whose only crime was that they wanted to live their own way on their own land. Any student of Native American History must add this to their library.

Ever since I saw the film Little Big Man as a child, I have wanted to read more about the Cheyenne. It was for this reason, with very high expectations, that I bought this book, now as an adult fascinated by history. It was completely satisfying, with clues about their culture, their fate, their system of values, and their behavior. The best part is: I feel very hungry for more.

The story begins a few years after the battle of the Little Bighorn, when the Cheyenne have been taken to a reservation far to the south. They are starving, dying of malaria in a foreign climate, and bitterly disillusioned. On the strength of a promise that they could always leave - which was explicitly denied them when they tried to claim the right - they set out secretly to return to their homeland. The result is a brutal journey that essentially marks the end of their way of life, though some survived to live on reservations. As vengeance, they kill on their way, taking what they need, waging war in accordance with their codes, and suffering mightily in their vain search for freedom and their past way. It is what it is, the final clash with the white man's culture and not sugar-coated or romanticized in the slightest.

This is a very difficult book, in large part because the language is masterfully crafted to reflect the rhythm and manner of Cheyenne speech. It must be read slowly and carefully, almost out loud and perhaps multiple times, like the best Nabokov novel, for narrative texture and aesthetic. There are also very many characters who appear, disappear, and then reappear, which is hard to keep straight. But they are brilliantly drawn, subtle yet consistent, and representatives of pieces of a vanishing culture.

According to the introduction, Sandoz was scrupulous in her desire for accuracy, though many of the supporting documents - some the only copies in existence - were destroyed in fire. It is horribly bleak.

Mari Sandoz writes with feeling about issues and people important to her. When she wrote this history of the last gasp, so to speak, of the Northern Cheyenne, she clearly felt deeply the injustice and tragedy of the way the West was settled by displacing and eliminating its indigenous people. Quite a remarkable feat at the time.