Author | Mari Sandoz |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Young adult historical novel |
Publisher | Westminster Press |
Publication date | 1957 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | |
Pages | 192 pp |
ISBN | 9780803291607 |
The Horsecatcher is a 1957 adolescent historical novel by American author Mari Sandoz. The Horsecatcher was a Newbery Medal Honor Book in 1958. [1] [2] The book is "dedicated to the two great Cheyennes named Elk River, both council chiefs and peace men, one Keeper of the Sacred Arrows of the Cheyenne Indians, the other the greatest horsecatcher of all the High Plains". [3]
The novel is set in the 1830s. Elk, a Southern Cheyenne adolescent, dresses plainly, does not care for ceremonials, has no interest in warfare and coup-counting and little more in hunting. He has undergone his fast, but nobody is quite able to figure out what his dream meant. He knows he is a disappointment to his father, Elk River, to his uncle Owl Friend, who founded a warrior society, and to his older brother Two Wolves. But he cannot help what is in his heart. He wants to be a tamer of wild horses.
When we first meet Elk, he has slipped away from his village on a lone horse-hunt, hoping to catch Bear Colt. But despite hardship and deprivation and even almost getting accidentally killed by some of his own tribesmen, he succeeds, and that is worth the shaming he gets from his kin. Over the next two years Elk learns his chosen profession, along with the misunderstandings that come with it. Even when he bravely warns his village of approaching Kiowa raiders and kills one with his rabbit bow, he fails to see his accomplishment. Furthermore, after his brother is killed, along with his entire war party, he helps to save the tribe's great talismans. He then penetrates deep into Kiowa country, alone and afraid, to recover and bury the remains. For a culture that places great value on horses, it is surprising that no one seems ready to recognize what a real contribution he could make to his tribe.
This book was originally published in 1957 by The Westminster Press, [4] and was republished in 1986 by The University of Nebraska Press. [5] The book was also republished in German. [6]
As of 2016 [update] , the film adaptation of The Horsecatcher is in development. [7]
Many critics found The Horsecatcher to be a moving novel. The New York Times, asserted that "What gives this book stature ... is Elk's quiet courage in defying tradition and finding his own place in his tribe and in life". The Christian Science Monitor, emphasized that "Mari Sandoz has written a beautiful story that is bright with warmth, humor, and love of life. It will provide rich and rewarding reading not only for older teens and young adults but also for grownups with a taste for uncomplicated goodness". The New York Herald Tribune Book Review, avowed that "This is a moving novel. ... There is a fine sense of place, the wide plains, the canyons, the brushy gullies; a deep insight into the life of the Cheyennes and their firm and understanding way with their young people". [5] Kirkus Reviews found "Though simply carried out, the story thread is strengthened by its very quietude, its thoughtful examination of an Indian mind and the interweaving of Cheyenne customs with the lives of other tribes: Comanche, Ute and Kiowa." [8]
The Cheyenne are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. The Cheyenne comprise two Native American tribes, the Só'taeo'o or Só'taétaneo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese ; the tribes merged in the early 19th century. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma, and the Northern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana. The Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family.
The Sand Creek massacre was a massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho people by the U.S. Army in the American Indian Wars that occurred on November 29, 1864, when a 675-man force of the Third Colorado Cavalry under the command of U.S. Volunteers Colonel John Chivington attacked and destroyed a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho people in southeastern Colorado Territory, killing and mutilating an estimated 70 to over 600 Native American people. Chivington claimed 500 to 600 warriors were killed. However, most sources estimate around 150 people were killed, about two-thirds of whom were women and children. The location has been designated the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site and is administered by the National Park Service. The massacre is considered part of a series of events known as the Colorado Wars.
Kiowa or CáuigúIPA:[kɔ́j-gʷú]) people are a Native American tribe and an Indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries, and eventually into the Southern Plains by the early 19th century. In 1867, the Kiowa were moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma.
The Medicine Lodge Treaty is the overall name for three treaties signed near Medicine Lodge, Kansas, between the Federal government of the United States and southern Plains Indian tribes in October 1867, intended to bring peace to the area by relocating the Native Americans to reservations in Indian Territory and away from European-American settlement. The treaty was negotiated after investigation by the Indian Peace Commission, which in its final report in 1868 concluded that the wars had been preventable. They determined that the United States government and its representatives, including the United States Congress, had contributed to the warfare on the Great Plains by failing to fulfill their legal obligations and to treat the Native Americans with honesty.
The Dog Soldiers or Dog Men are historically one of six Cheyenne military societies. Beginning in the late 1830s, this society evolved into a separate, militaristic band that played a dominant role in Cheyenne resistance to the westward expansion of the United States in the area of present-day Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming, where the Cheyenne had settled in the early nineteenth century.
Crazy Horse was a Lakota war leader of the Oglala band in the 19th century. He took up arms against the United States federal government to fight against encroachment by White American settlers on Native American territory and to preserve the traditional way of life of the Lakota people. His participation in several famous battles of the Black Hills War on the northern Great Plains, among them the Fetterman Fight in 1866, in which he acted as a decoy, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, in which he led a war party to victory, earned him great respect from both his enemies and his own people.
Little Wolf was a Northern Só'taeo'o Chief and Sweet Medicine Chief of the Northern Cheyenne. He was known as a great military tactician and led a dramatic escape from confinement in Oklahoma back to the Northern Cheyenne homeland in 1878, known as the Northern Cheyenne Exodus.
Morning Star was a great chief of the Northern Cheyenne people and headchief of the Notameohmésêhese band on the northern Great Plains during the 19th century. He was noted for his active resistance to westward expansion and the United States federal government. It is due to the courage and determination of Morning Star and other leaders that the Northern Cheyenne still possess a homeland in their traditional country in present-day Montana.
William Wells Bent was a frontier trader and rancher in the American West, with forts in Colorado. He also acted as a mediator among the Cheyenne Nation, other Native American tribes and the expanding United States. With his brothers, Bent established a trade business along the Santa Fe Trail. In the early 1830s Bent built an adobe fort, called Bent's Fort, along the Arkansas River in present-day Colorado. Furs, horses and other goods were traded for food and other household goods by travelers along the Santa Fe trail, fur-trappers, and local Mexican and Native American people. Bent negotiated a peace among the many Plains tribes north and south of the Arkansas River, as well as between the Native American and the United States government.
Misty of Chincoteague is a children's novel written by pony book author Marguerite Henry, illustrated by Wesley Dennis, and published by Rand McNally in 1947. Set in the island town of Chincoteague, Virginia, the book was inspired by the real-life story of the Beebe family and their efforts to raise a Chincoteague Pony filly born to a wild horse, who would later become known as Misty of Chincoteague. It was one of the runners-up for the annual Newbery Medal, now called Newbery Honor Books. The 1961 film Misty was based on the book.
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle is a historical novel by the American author Avi published in 1990. The book is marketed towards children at a reading level of grades 5–8. The book chronicles the evolution of the title character as she is pushed outside her naive existence and learns about life aboard a ship crossing from England to America in 1832. The novel was well received and won several awards, including being named as a Newbery Honor book in 1991.
Lean Bear, alternatively translated as Starving Bear, was a Cheyenne peace chief. He was a member of the Council of Forty-four, a tribal governance devoted to maintaining peace with encroaching United States settlers. Lean Bear's most notable peace deals include the Treaty of Fort Wise and a meeting with US President Abraham Lincoln. His work towards peace between his people and the American settlers in the Southern Plains was cut short when he was killed by the 1st Colorado Cavalry Regiment and violent retaliations ensued.
Mari Susette Sandoz was a Nebraska novelist, biographer, lecturer, and teacher. She became one of the West's foremost writers, and wrote extensively about pioneer life and the Plains Indians.
On the Banks of Plum Creek is an autobiographical children's novel written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and published in 1937, the fourth of nine books in her Little House series. It is based on a few years of her childhood when the Ingalls family lived at Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, during the 1870s. The original dust jacket proclaimed, "The true story of an American pioneer family by the author of Little House in the Big Woods".
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Guipago or Lone Wolf the Elder was the last Principal Chief of the Kiowa tribe. He was a member of the Koitsenko, the Kiowa warrior elite, and was a signer of the Little Arkansas Treaty in 1865.
Owl Woman was a Cheyenne woman., a daughter of White Thunder, a well-respected medicine man of the Cheyenne tribe. She was married to an Anglo-American trader named William Bent, with whom she had four children. Owl Woman was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame for her role in managing relations between Native American tribes and the Anglo-American men.
Three Times Lucky is a 2013 New York Times Best Seller adolescent novel by author Sheila Turnage. Three Times Lucky was a Newbery Medal Honor Book in 2013.
The Loner is a 1963 adolescent novel by author Ester Wier. The Loner was a recipient of the Newbery Honor award in 1964.
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