Customer Reviews

Hundred in the Hand (Lakota Westerns)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
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Long before the Little Bighorn and George Armstrong Custer's ignominious end at hands of Chief Crazy Horse there was the Fetterman Massacre of 1866 (known to the Lakota as the Battle of the Hundred in Hand). In this novel of the 19th century American West, author Joseph M. Marshall III, himself a Lakota Sioux, tells the tale of an intrepid band of Lakota's bent on closing the Bozeman Trail to all white men.

While many of the events that pepper the novel are true and some of the characters portrayed are actual historical figures, like Crazy Horse, most of the other participants in this story are creations of the authors' fertile imagination. The story is told from the Indian perspective and offers lessons in the Indian culture, their history, and the geography of the area before the "civilized world" began its steady and inevitable march West.

Marshall has a definite talent for searching out the truth beneath the myths, and deftly leading us to examine each situation and character for ourselves. His passion for his subject matter is evident in his writing. His style is easy and natural, the vocabulary simple. His Lakota characters are an assortment of individuals ranging from loving family men, to aggressive warriors, to ambitious would-be leaders, all desperately trying to agree on a solution to their problem in an attempt to hold on to their values and their land. (The faces may have changed but the moral to this tale is that, in reality, not much else has changed over the past two centuries).

Marshall has taken the Western novel to the next level by eliminating the stereotypical Indian characters that usually make their appearance in these offerings and giving us real people with real problems and real emotions. You like these folks, you can picture their battle in your mind and you discover that your happy with the outcome of "The Battle of the Hundred in the Hand".

Many years ago I went through my "westerns" phase reading several different westerns about how America was settled. I always wondered about the Native American perspective, and I was very eager to read this book. As far as I know, this is the first historical fiction novel about the west as told from the Native American perspective.

The story is told through a fictitious Lakota Indian named Cloud. The story is about the Fetterman Massacre, a battle that took place on Dec. 21, 1866, also known as Hundred in the Hand by the Lakota. For the most part, I began to relate to the Lakota's since the story is told from their viewpoint, but occassionally the author throws in a perspective from the white side for balance.

It was refreshing to see the Lakota as everyday people like you and me, rather than then savages portrayed by western film and literature I am familiar with. It was also very interesting to me that the cover art work displays the white man as blue silhouettes but the Lakota are in full color. The author definately knew what he was doing, had a goal in mind when writing this book, and ultimately accomplished his goal.

One thing I really liked about this book is the included glossary, calendar, and maps. So often historical fiction novels leave these important features out.

The publisher says this is a first in a series of novels, and I expect them to do very well, and I look forward to reading more by this author.

"With swift but unhurried motions" the Lakota turned the pages of history as they triumphed in the battle of the Hundred in the Hand, also known as the Fetterman Massacre of 1866. Told in the oral tradition through the eyes of Cloud, a brave young Lakota warrior who fought alongside the famed Crazy Horse, this dramatic western tale brings the reader into the midst of the Old West and Native American life.

The Lakota have long lived as brothers and sisters with nature and Mother Earth. Now, their lifestyles and homes are being threatened by the insurgence of Long Knives who are intruding upon their homeland, killing huge numbers of game and changing the landscape with the construction of forts and towns. As the Lakota elders come to the realization that these intruders are here to stay, warriors from several tribes band together to reclaim their territory and protect the land that they love.

Fighting not only for his people and culture but also for his young red-haired bride, Cloud finds himself caught in battles that are both physical and emotional. Unable to know whether he will safely return to see the birth of his first child, he struggles to focus on the battle at hand while his thoughts wander continually back to his wife and lodge in the village.

A heartwarming story of loyalty and faith, combined with adventure and a touch of romance, Hundred in the Hand brings a new and fresh perspective to the history of the American west.

Author Joseph M. Marshall III was born and raised on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, with Lakota being his first language. Growing up in a traditional Native American household, he learned the art of sharing history through oral storytelling. Joseph has creatively combined that art with his own talents and continues to express the oral tradition in his written works.

Armchair Interviews says: Wonderfully told story from our nation's history.

It is often said that Black people have always had a pretty good understanding of how White people think; but that Whites generally have no idea what Blacks are thinking. Based on the evidence provided by Joseph Marshall's Hundred in the Hand, the same is true for Native Americans.

This is simply a good novel. Using the traditional Western as his framework, Marshall develops a whole series of characters with real depth--people we understand and care about. We know from the first few pages how it ends, but no idea how we are going to get there. I kept turning the pages, wanting to know what happens to all of these people. This alone would make this one of the best westerns written in the last several decades--on a par with the best of Elmore Leonard.

What makes this a uniquely powerful western is that Marshall flips the traditional story. In the traditional western (think John Wayne), the Native Americans are mostly off-screen savages, with no particular identity, background, or appreciable motivation. Marshall puts them center stage, and gives them depth.

However, he does not commit the reverse sin of presenting completely flat Whites. By taking occasional breaks from his focus on the Native American central characters, Marshall is able to provide insight into what motivated the Army and civilians who were engaged in a running battle with the Native Americans.

Unfortunately (for history, but not for the novel), the two worlds simply did not intersect. They had completely different world views, and simply could not understand each other. Both sides repeatedly ask themselves whether the other is "really" human at all--as they are so different.

While the "good guys" win, this is a tragedy in the classic sense of everyone involved being caught in forces of history over which they have no control, and which they do not understand.

Highly recommended.

As an avid reader of Western history and the early West, I looked forward to reading "Hundred in the Hand". As it turned out, Joseph Marshall's account of the Lakota Indians and their encounters with the westward moving soldiers, pioneers and gold seekers was disappointing. A good story line seems to be missing and the writer does not grip the reader and take him into the minds and ambitions of his characters. I was not really sure what point he was trying to make as he detailed the various encounters between the Lakota warriors and the Long Knife soldiers. It seems like a story told many times before with really nothing new added. Sorry, but I would not recommend this book.

This book had extra poignancy for me in that it is (Minnesota's) my home state's 150-anniversary this year, and the Dakota War was a major event that deeply impacted its history.

This book, while not hitting on those events, brings the era to life, and does a good job of portraying both sides of the struggle. Those looking for a traditional western might be taken aback, but then again so will those looking for a purely "Indian" perspective. It has a great sense of place and time, with more of a realistic feel than many other popular westerns.

Perhaps one criticism, the characters are a little unevenly developed--the "whites" who make up a significant chunck of the story are not as vividly brought to life--but this book should earn a place of honor with people who want to experience the real, complex interactions on the prairie frontier so long ago....

"Hundred in the Hand" is a compelling story of the Fetterman Massacre of 1886, relaying events from the Indian perspective with insight and care. Unlike other books and novels that include Indian characters and protagonists, Joseph M. Marshall III does more than just present believable characters, he gives them intelligent voices. When the characters speak, their words are "translated" into a vocabulary that you would expect from intelligent men and women. Other authors in the past would have Indians speak as if their vocabulary had no more depth than a 10-year-old's, but Marshall's characters speak like the intelligent and thoughtful adults that they are.

When the Northern Cheyenne White Elk shares his thoughts about the whites and the soldiers the Indians refer to as the Long Knives, the reader knows White Elk can both think logically and intuitively: "Things have changed, but it was not the firearm that brought the change, as some might think. The change was brought because the Long Knives are not warriors; they are killers. They do not fight for honor, as we did when we were young. They fight to consume everything in their way. If they do not like something, they kill it."

This book joins a long list of others that have been telling the other side of the story regarding the white man's movement west. The one narrative flaw I found is that while the novel's voice ostensibly is that of the character Cloud, there are portions of the story that Cloud would have no knowledge of, such as the times when the young warrior Rabbit goes off on his own, or what the soldiers are saying and doing. Cloud wasn't there during these moments, so how does that material become part of the story? That's the structure of an omniscient narrative voice, and Marshall starts this story as Cloud's account as he experienced it.

Nonetheless, Marshall's story is enthralling and draws the reader in from start to finish.

"Hundred in the Hand" tells the story of a group of Lakota villages as settlers move into their territory from a fresh point of view. As the book progresses, the Lakota take an increasing aggressive stance against the invaders, leading up to a furious battle as the book's finale.

The Lakotas we meet are in transition: they're living in skin huts, but cooking in iron pots; they're wearing buckskin clothing but carrying muzzle-loading guns. Most tellingly, their arrows have iron points,. The village elders are concerned that the young Lakota warriors have never learned to make stone arrowheads.

While the "long knives" building forts, making roads, and cutting trees are clearly the villians, the Lakota are not politically-correct stereotypes. They are human, and not without flaw. We see internal power struggles, heroism, jealousy, and self-doubt. In short, Marshall brings the Lakota to life. While some of the white characters are equally well developed, the Lakota are the stars.

The book is atmospheric and engrossing. Although its content is historical and the reader will learn a thing or two, this is a book to read for entertainment, and a successful one at that.

John Richard Cloud lives in the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation. In 1920 he, his two daughters and his grandson traveled to visit the battle site of the Fetterman Massacre of 1866. This battle is known to the Lakota people as the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand. As they stand at the memorial his grandson Justin and daughters ask him to share with them his recollections.

From Cloud we learn the riveting story of what life for the Lakota was like at that time on their lands and the intrusion of the whites. Their daily lives in the village and of hunting. The insight into the life of the Lakota people and their point of view is enlightening. The energy of this historical fiction can be felt through the bravery and honor of Cloud. As well as the perspective of anger and racism shared by both the young Lakota warrior Rabbit and the Blacksmith Hornsby. Hornsby came to the Lakota lands from east of the Hudson River.

The clash of the two cultures as it builds up to the aforementioned battle is well told. The tension starts too build as their enemy goes about invading their land even while pretending to ask permission to build forts. The Lakota start to scout and defend their land that leads up to the climatic battle. The sections that deal with Cloud telling us his story read as if we are there and listening to this wonderful tale. This was an enjoyable read and would have been perfect if told only from the Lakota perspective. I look forward to reading more books from the Lakota Western series.

To be honest, I don't know if this has been done before, at least via fiction, but for me it was nice to see the usual "Western" image of the conquest of the West shown from the opposing viewpoint of those who were conquered. The focus of the book is what has come down through history (told as always by the victors) as the Fetterman Massacre, known to the Lakota as the Hundred in the Hand battle between the Lakota and the "Long Knives" (U.S. Cavalry).
The story employs a frame technique, beginning with a visit 44 years after the battle by John Richard Cloud (one of the Lakota warriors) to the newly-dedicated battle site memorial. Questioned by his two daughters and grandson about the fight and the events leading up to it, Cloud basically tells them to "sit right down and hear a a tale . . .". The opening frame scene serves to introduce us to the changed point of view (we know we'll be getting the Lakota version of events, not the Cavalry's from the moment Cloud wonders why the memorial says "there were no survivors" when he knows many of the Lakota survived) as well as a few other themes that will play out in the novel: the importance of family, of memory, of respect for elders, the fear that the Lakota life will be forgotten. The closing frame scene almost 400 pages later returns us to Cloud and his family, but here it is much more clumsy, hammering home ideas rather than introducing them and turning unnecessarily maudlin, as well as far too clumsily pointing us toward the next book in the series. Luckily , though, the whole frame--start and end--take up less than a dozen pages, so it's a minor flaw.
After the opening frame, the book shifts back to a time well before the battle as we watch Cloud, his friend Rabbit, and a few other Lakota scouting a party of whites. Rabbit impetuously rides up to the whites (disobeying the more cautious Cloud) and loses his arm to the ensuing gunfight, setting in motion his transformation into the bitter, white-hating warrior he remains for the rest of the book. Cloud carries the wounded Rabbit back to his village where he reunites with his wife, Sweetwater, a white woman adopted by the Lakota when she was just a little girl, and the rest of his village warriors.
Those opening pages set the stage for the rest of the book, which is a slow build-up to the inevitable battles to come as the whites continually ignore treaties and press farther and farther into Lakota lands, taking the land and either killing all the game or driving it farther away. We enter just before the tipping point, as the Lakota are still unsure whether they can peacefully coexist with the whites but are becoming more and more certain (especially the younger warriors) that they cannot.
Two secondary stories broaden the story beyond the focus on military matters. One is Sweetwater's newly-awakened desire to find out just who she is, who her white parents were. The other storyline focuses on Max, a white man living in the Long Knives' fort who has become obsessed with the "white woman" (Sweetwater) he spied among the "savages" and has decided he must "rescue" her at all costs.
To be honest, the Sweetwater story, while it has potential, seems underdeveloped. The Max story requires the novel to begin shifting its point of view from Cloud and the Lakota to a back-and-forth narration, showing us the white point of view as well. Unfortunately, these segments of the book don't match the quality of the Lakota sections. The prose falters more in those sections and the characters seem less fully developed. Personally, I would have preferred sticking just with Cloud. Though I can appreciate Marshall's attempt to "balance" the story.
In the end, Hundred is a good if not great read. One wishes at times for a bit more poetry in the land descriptions as well as in the relationship between the land and the Lakota--this way the reader could be equally invested. And some side characters could be more fully drawn. A little more humor would have helped as well. But it's still, as mentioned, a good read for its plot and characters. And the ever-present shroud of inevitable defeat that hangs over the Lakota as we read about their attempts to just live their lives lends a depth and power to much of what gets said and done. After all, we all know how this story eventually ends.
So again, a good if not great read, but still, I'd say, an important one. Luckily, it's better than just "important" (read: dull). Recommended.