Lost Bird of Wounded Knee: Spirit of the Lakota [Hardcover]

Renee sansom Flood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 14, 1995

December 29, 1890, beneath a white flag of truce, a band of Lakota Indians was massacred by the United States Seventh Cavalry at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Four days later, after a blizzard had swept over the area, a burial detail heard the cries of an infant. Beneath the slain body of a woman who had frozen to the ground in her own blood, they found a baby girl, frostbitten yet miraculously alive, tightly wrapped, and wearing a small buckskin cap, beaded on both sides with American flags. Disobeying military orders, Brigadier General Leonard W. Colby adopted the small living "curio" of the massacre. He later became assistant attorney general of the United States and used his adopted daughter to convince prominent Native American tribes to hire him as their lawyer. As an adolescent, Lost Bird was sexually abused by the general, and her adopted mother, Clara Colby, divorced him. A suffragist and newspaper editor, Clara Colby spoke up against the exploitation of Indian culture and defied her close associates Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to raise the girl alone. After an unceasing but futile search for her roots and employment in the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show and in silent films, Lost Bird resorted to the streets of the Barbary Coast to survive. Her tragic life ended on Valentine's Day, 1920, at the age of twenty-nine, and she was buried in a remote cemetery far from her native land. In 1991, more than one hundred years after the Wounded Knee tragedy, descendants of victims of the massacre searched for Lost Bird's grave, repatriated her remains, and reburied her at the Wounded Knee Memorial alongside the mass grave of her relatives.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In July 1991, the Pine Ridge Wounded Knee Survivors Association returned the remains of Zintkala Nuni (Lost Bird) from an unmarked grave in California to her South Dakota homeland. Former social worker Flood, who was instrumental in the relocation, has written a well-documented, powerful and chilling story of Lost Bird's brief life. One of the few survivors of the massacre, the infant was taken by Gen. Leonard Colby to be raised as a white child. Colby, a Nebraska lawyer, hoped to represent Indian claims; his wife, Clara, was an active suffragette who spent half of every year in Washington. Lost Bird was a lonely child confused by her identity?a nonwhite physically, a non-Indian socially. She was sexually abused by Colby, had two disastrous marriages, contracting syphilis in one, and was ultimately rejected by her tribe. Lost Bird spent some time with Wild West shows, drifted into prostitution and died an outcast at the age of 30. Flood's narrative grippingly illustrates the clash between Indian and white cultures. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

A heartrending biography of one of the few Native American survivors of the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. Discovered amid a field of corpses, sheltered by the lifeless body of her slain mother, Lost Bird, an infant Lakota, emerged from the shameful slaughter miraculously unscathed. Adopted by General Leonard Wright Colby, a corrupt and unscrupulous army officer and attorney, and his wife, prominent suffrage leader, Clara B. Colby, Lost Bird was financially exploited and sexually abused by the general and patronized by the well-meaning but misguided Mrs. Colby. Rejected by and alienated from two cultures and traumatized by the nightmarish quality of her rootless childhood, Lost Bird went on to face one devastating misfortune after another during her brief and bitter adulthood. Utilizing a host of Lakota sources, Flood, a noted Native American historian, provides a haunting account of an authentic American tragedy. Margaret Flanagan

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1St Edition edition (June 14, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684195127
• ISBN-13: 978-0684195124
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #231,935 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Zintkala Nuni, the Lost Bird, April 3, 2002

By 

Terrie (Little Chute, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lost Bird Of Wounded Knee: Spirit Of The Lakota (Paperback)

In December 1890 the United States of America massacred an unarmed band of Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Most of them were starving and many of them were very ill. They were cut down like prey in the bitter snows of the Badlands and it was a sad day for Human Beings, one of many days I can never get out of my heart. There was a tiny miracle that day. A little baby girl survived unharmed, protected were she fell, by the body of her murdered mother. She was taken in by other Lakota people but Brigadier General and future Assistant District Attorney of the United States, Leonard W. Colby kidnapped and then adopted the baby as a "living curio." This murderous, inhumane and corrupt man wanted a little souvenir so he stole a human being, a helpless infant, and ripped her away from her people and her culture. He exploited her to attract prominent tribes as clients of his law practice. His wife, Clara B. Colby, who later divorced him was a prominent suffragist and newspaper editor. She tried to give this little Lost Bird a stable home and she meant well but she could never replace the Lakota ways or help Lost Bird to fit in to an alien and inhumane world. Lost Bird, whose real name was Zintkala Nuni only lived to be 29 years old and her short life was filled with pain and degradation and tragedy. She suffered sexual abuse, violence, prostitution and rejection. She was a being caught between two worlds and accepted in neither. The author of this book has done a wonderful job of bringing this poignant story to light. She illustrates the atmosphere of the times and offers rich insight into the insidious racism of the America of that time. This is a story of not only the cruelty that was done to the Native peoples of this land but of the misogynous, unscrupulous and socially unjust attitudes and actions of the leaders and people of this country. It is a testiment to endurance, a chronicle of tragedy. In 1991 Zintkala Nuni was returned from her burial place in California to Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the Badlands of South Dakota. She was buried with respect and ceremony among her people. Last summer I drove past the crowded impoverished homes to pay my respects to the people who died that day at Wounded Knee. I saw the harsh reality of the ancient gray hills of the Badlands with their ghostly beauty. I saw the offerings and prayer bundles in the burial grounds. I talked with two men selling souvenirs, trying to make a few dollars in a place where work is so hard to find. The arrogance and greed that murdered so many people, that stole a little girl from her people, that sought to cripple and defeat a powerful People is still alive and walking in the land but it has not succeeded. This book may help people to feel the injustice in their heart of hearts. It may illuminate our past and open our eyes to the injustice we still condone, many of us, with our silence. It is a powerful and moving story, well told.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Moving Piece of Lakota History, July 12, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Lost Bird Of Wounded Knee: Spirit Of The Lakota (Paperback)

The Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 is a shameful piece of our history. This book is a description of what happened to one infant survivor of that horrible day and the woman, Clara Colby, who tried to raise that child, Lost Bird. Readers will shudder at what happened to Lost Bird, including the fact that she had been taken in by a loving Lakota family after the massacre, only to be ripped from familiar arms by General Colby to take home as a prize. One will be torn between what might have been best for the girl and what the well-meaning and kind Mrs. Colby did for her, given the circumstances. Renee Flood tackles the two ideas that it is wrong to raise a child of Native American heritage as a white because of inherent natures and because raising a child of dark skin produces racist tendencies in those of lighter skin who come in contact with the child. For example, Lost Bird did not get along with white children her own age partly because she was so sheltered, but mostly because the children teased her about being Indian. She was not allowed to be with the African Americans either, although this was her choice, because they were "beneath her." This only led her to believe that dark-skinned people, Native Americans included, were "bad." Another facet of this book is that it describes much of the Woman's Suffragist movement and goes into great detail about Clara Colby's role, as well as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Renee Flood has great sympathy for her subject and was instrumental in getting Lost Bird's remains brought from Califonia and reburied at Wounded Knee with a magnificent granite tombstone, where she joins the others buried in a mass grave dating back to 1890. Flood is an excellent and accurate historian who humanizes a sad story.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars FAIR, December 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Lost Bird Of Wounded Knee: Spirit Of The Lakota (Paperback)

i gave this book a fair rating because i wanted to learn more about native americans, wounded knee, and lost bird. what i read was more about womens sufferage, the personal life of the colby's, and very little about lost bird. really only the last two chapters went into any detail about lost bird.