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Title: The Cheyenne way during the last Indian wars.
Review: The carefully crafted prose of Mari Sandoz brings therhythms and images of the Cheyenne language and Cheyennestorytelling to a non-Indian audience. To read is to absorbthe rhythms and images, to feel an illusion of becomingmore Indian as chapter follows chapter, to understand withan Indian mind the genocidal subjugation and impoverishmentof a tribe that hoped for peace.This is a story of chiefs, warriors, women and children. Itis a story of tragic misunderstandings, murders, fights,flights, and survival. Written in 1953, long beforepolitical correctness, and based on solid research and achildhood spent in the company of Cheyenne who survived thewars, the narrative does not indulge in cheap moraljudgements - the stories of the Indian men and women wholived and struggled and died cut straight into the reader'sheart in a way that is beyond judgement.
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