Customer Reviews

Hanta Yo: An American Saga

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Gotta love those `70s covers that make every novel look like trash. On the cover of my copy of "Hanta Yo," there's a handsome Native American man holding out a pipe, and over his shoulder stands an upright, proud, and cute woman. On the back cover, the book blurb highlights war and "sexual initiation rites," like it's some kind of North American "Clan of the Cave Bear."

Good news. "Hanta Yo" is not "Clan of the Cave Bears."

Instead, it's like some sort of Native American "Pilgrim's Progress": a book that defines a culture's values by embodying those values in a fictitious character by the name of Ahbleza, a Shirtwearer and symbolic embodiment of Lakota tradition and values. "Hanta Yo" is the story of his life and his band, the Mahto, and his nation's demise in a whiskey rampage at a whiteman's tradingpost.

The book feels like a very authentic depiction of Lakota life in the early 1800s. The level of detail is amazing, showing all aspects of life, from hunting, child-rearing, domestic chores, to correct social graces. But all told from the perspective of Lakota viewpoint, using Lakota expressions and judgement.

What seems most authentic about the book is that, while it obviously is trying to venerate the culture, it doesn't hide the negative aspects of Lakota life. Characters are violent, stubborn, vain, greedy, and full of hatred. Women are severely oppressed, sometimes passed from husband to husband, and have little or no say in tribal matters. Children and animals are roughly treated.

The final scenes of the beginning of the end of the traditional Lakota nation were especially wrenching. As the Lakota drank themselves into a frenzy at a tradingpost, they began to turn crazy, acting like fools and fighting among themselves, raping their own women, and murdering the traders. It was as if they threw away all of their traditions in one orgiastic moment of self-destruction. But more importantly, the book held the Lakota responsible for their own behavior, and, in the end, for their own downfall.

Since none of the other reviews I've read have pointed this out, I thought I would because I think it's fascinating...

According to the foreword, Ms. Beebe Hill learned the Lakotah language and translated the entire book into Lakotah and back again to ensure the conceptual and linguistic integrity of readers' impressions of the Lakotah culture. To me, the initially awkward-sounding phrasing eventually became an important part of both the story and my understanding of the characters and their actions.

I was thoroughly impressed with this book. It's not history, but it is an impressive (and I believe honest) attempt to make accessible a culture about which many of us have admittedly shallow or misinformed understandings.

There is no ambiguity with this book. It either touches you at the core of your Being or not. The Spirit-That-Moves-Through-All-Things weaves itself through every page and permeates your heart and soul. You are drawn into an experience of the most profound depths; a rendition of a way of life where a person's connection to the Earth and Creator permeated every aspect of life. Where Truth, Honesty & Generosity were held as the highest values. This was my third reading and I found myself slowing down to prolong the experience. When I read this, I am immersed totally in the experience. This is story-telling at its finest, in a way that is mostly lost to us today. The use of idiom and syntax is stunning in its effect. It is also an honest depiction without glamorizing the characters in a Rousseau "Noble Savage" way. There are an abundance of spiritual teachings in this text to totally transform the reader who has the pre-conditions to identify, understand then live them. "Hanta Yo"- "Clear The Way!" "In a proud manner I live!"

This book was based on an actual "Lakota Historical Document", it might be a novel but various historical events can be verified. The review post on 10 July 1998 said we cannot accept it as history because the Lakota of today are not like the Lakota of 1815. That is like saying we cannot accept historical Rome because the Italians are not the same now as they were in ancient times. If you have not read this book do so, it will open your mind.

I came across this book when my mother took a cultural anthropology course, and brought it home as required reading. She had a tough time getting into it, and since I am an avid reader, she gave it to me so I could give her an idea of what it was about. Because the text was translated into the Lakota/Dakota language, and then translated back into English, the organization of the sentences seems awkward at first. However, once you get used to it, you realize that you are entering into a world few have seen or experienced. I became completely engrossed in the story of these people. It is deeply involving, and both sad and uplifing in the most epic of ways. I highly recommend this book to anyone with more than a passing interest in native american culture, and also anyone seeking insight into human nature in general. An amazing document which represents decades of research and involvement in plains indian culture, as well as a rip roaring story that rivals any soap or drama you care to mention. Well worth the effort!

Forget the carping reviews about purism or betrayal levelled at this fiction. In every respect, it is a marvellously full accounting of life,and a remarkable feat of storytelling by author, Bebe Hill. Unprecedently, I wrote & told her so, plus a few questions, after I finished it. Her correspondence was suitably humble and honest. This book was recommended to me in 1979 by a Lakotah man who claimed it the best literature available about his people. I can't verify that & have no need to. I carried it, reading it to myself and aloud to my fellow travellers as we drove the vast passage from Ohio to San Franciso, in the Fall of 79, imagining the scents inhaled by the book's characters. The book is invigorating, respectful, ethical, realistic and confronting in each of these matters.

This book seems to be a masterpiece in scholarship and imagination. It helped me visualize what a holistic culture must have been like and it helped me appreciate how much wisdom we all lost when "progress" intervened.

I have read this book several times and find something new each time. The critics of Hanta Yo that center in on the supposed "accepted homosexuality" are not in tune with the intent of the action. Two whole sentences about the forced copulation with the male captives - in a book with thousands and thousands of sentences - that is not the focus. The writer does not say it was accepted practice.

I find this book to be well written, well researched, and detailed. Yes, it is historical fiction - the author was not there in 1815 and there is no way every word spoken can be accounted for, but I look at this, not as the literal but the spiritual.

When I read this book, I felt as if I never wanted to read another book. There was nothing else that could ever match the level of Hanta Yo. As I try to purchase this book for my daughter, I find it unbelievable that this book is out of print. It is and should be a classic.

"Admit ,assume, because, believe, could, doubt, end, expect, faith, forget, forgive, guilt, how, it, mercy, pest, promise, should, sorry, storm, them, us, waste, we, weed -- neither these words nor the conceptions for which they stand appear in this book; they are the whiteman's import to the New World." So states Ruth Beebe Hill in the intro to her beautiful book Hanta Yo. It is more than a great story, a fast and magnetic read -- it is a revelation. This is a paean to the North American Indian, an ancient race for whom the life of the spirit was all. Ms. Hill, with the painstaking help of one of the last of the full-blooded Dakotah, has pieced together a brilliantly rich tapestry, a work that has distant and strange echoes in many great works; from the sacred texts of the Baghavad Gita to the Bible, of Russell Hoban's courageous futureman Riddley Walker to Tolkien's Ring Trilogy-- indeed, the construction of an entire, vibrant world complete with a language of its own has its similarities to Tolkien, but the difference here is that Hanta Yo is the true past of this land on which we now work, love, breathe, and die. I know I wax rhapsodic, but this book will do that to you. Anthropology, poetry, history, action, sex, romance, and more. What more could you ask for in a book? The kicker is that it's based on an Indian document that was discovered in 1865, relating to life before the whitemen. Please read this. It sings.