Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve | |
---|---|
Born | Virginia Driving Hawk February 21, 1933 South Dakota, United States |
Education | St. Mary's School for Indian Girls (Springfield, South Dakota) South Dakota State University |
Genres | Historical, children's literature |
Spouse | Vance M. Sneve |
Children | 3 |
Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve (born February 21, 1933) is a Native American author, with a focus on children's books about Native Americans.
The daughter of James Driving Hawk, an Episcopalian priest, and Rose Driving Hawk (née Ross), Virginia was raised on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. She graduated from St. Mary's School for Indian Girls in Springfield, South Dakota and received her bachelor's and master's degrees from South Dakota State University (Brookings) where she met her husband. She has published over twenty books on South Dakota history, aboriginal American history, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction works for children, as well as one about her female ancestors, "Completing the Circle". [1]
Virginia is a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe (Sicangu Lakota). She studied journalism at the South Dakota State University. She is the mother of three, grandmother of five, and great-grandmother of two.
It is because of her children that she realized the need for children's books about aboriginal Americans in a contemporary context rather than a "savage" myth of the past. Her husband is from a Norwegian family, so she wrote The Trickster and the Troll to bring together the two cultures of her children, for them and for her grandchildren. The story follows the Lakota trickster Iktomi and a Norwegian house troll across the plains as they search for the troll's lost family.
Sneve was an English language teacher and counselor in several public schools, editor at the Brevet Press in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and she has been a member of several organizations. She and her husband also ran an antiques business before retiring. She still writes today; her latest book is "The Christmas Coat: Memories of My Sioux Childhood", published in 2011 and named in the Smithsonian magazine's Best Children's Books of 2011. [2] She still resides in South Dakota with her husband.
The Lakota are a Native American people. Also known as the Teton Sioux, they are one of the three prominent subcultures of the Sioux people, with the Eastern Dakota (Santee) and Western Dakota (Wičhíyena). Their current lands are in North and South Dakota. They speak Lakȟótiyapi—the Lakota language, the westernmost of three closely related languages that belong to the Siouan language family.
The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples. Collectively, they are the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, or "Seven Council Fires". The term "Sioux", an exonym from a French transcription of the Ojibwe term Nadowessi, can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or to any of the nation's many language dialects.
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, also called Pine Ridge Agency, is an Oglala Lakota Indian reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota, with a small portion of it extending into Nebraska. Originally included within the territory of the Great Sioux Reservation, Pine Ridge was created by the Act of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888. in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border. It consists of 3,468.85 sq mi (8,984 km2) of land area and is one of the largest reservations in the United States.
Lakota, also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. Lakota is mutually intelligible with the two dialects of the Dakota language, especially Western Dakota, and is one of the three major varieties of the Sioux language.
Ella Cara Deloria, also called Aŋpétu Wašté Wiŋ, was a Yankton Dakota (Sioux) educator, anthropologist, ethnographer, linguist, and novelist. She recorded Native American oral history and contributed to the study of Native American languages. According to Cotera (2008), Deloria was "a pre-eminent expert on Dakota/Lakota/Nakota cultural religious, and linguistic practices." In the 1940s, Deloria wrote the novel Waterlily, which was published in 1988 and republished in 2009.
The Sicangu are one of the seven oyates, nations or council fires, of Lakota people, an Indigenous people of the Northern Plains. Today, many Sicangu people are enrolled citizens of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of the Rosebud Indian Reservation and Lower Brule Sioux Tribe of the Lower Brule Reservation in South Dakota.
The Great Sioux Reservation is an Indian reservation created by the United States through treaty with the Sioux, principally the Lakota, who dominated the territory before its establishment. In the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the reservation included lands west of the Missouri River in South Dakota and Nebraska, including all of present-day western South Dakota. The treaty also provided rights to roam and hunt in contiguous areas of North Dakota, Montana Wyoming, and northwest Colorado.
The Rosebud Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation in South Dakota, United States. It is the home of the federally recognized Rosebud Sioux Tribe, who are Sicangu, a band of Lakota people. The Lakota name Sicangu Oyate translates as the "Burnt Thigh Nation", also known by the French term, the Brulé Sioux.
Mary Brave Bird, also known as Mary Brave Woman Olguin and Mary Crow Dog was a Sicangu Lakota writer and activist who was a member of the American Indian Movement during the 1970s and participated in some of their most publicized events, including the Wounded Knee Incident when she was 18 years old.
Joseph M. Marshall III son of Joseph Nelson Marshall Sr. and Hazel Lorraine Two Hawk-Marshall, is a historian, writer, teacher, craftsman, administrator, actor, and public speaker. He was a founding board member in 1971 of Sinte Gleska University, the tribal college at the Rosebud Indian Reservation.
Iron Shell was a Brulé Sioux chief. He initially became prominent after an 1843 raid on the Pawnee, and became sub-chief of the Brulé under Little Thunder. He became chief of the Brulé Orphan Band during the Powder River War of 1866-1868.
Oren R. Lyons Jr. is a Haudenosaunee Faithkeeper of the Wolf Clan of both the Onondaga Nation and the Seneca Nation of the Six Nations of the Grand River. For more than 14 years he has been a member of the Indigenous Peoples of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations and has had other leadership roles.
Native Americans have been featured in numerous works of children's literature. Some have been authored by non-Indigenous writers, while others have been written or contributed to by Indigenous authors.
Eugene Buechel was born on October 20, 1874, in Schleida, now Schleid, in the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Germany, and died October 27, 1954, in O'Neill, Nebraska, United States. Buechel was a Jesuit priest and missionary, linguist and anthropologist among the Brulé or Sicangu Lakota or Sioux on the Rosebud Indian Reservation and the related Oglala Lakota or Sioux on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Rosebud Yellow Robe (Lacotawin) was a Native American folklorist, educator and writer of half Lakota Sioux birth. Rosebud was influenced by her father Chauncey Yellow Robe, and used storytelling, performance and books to introduce generations of children to Native American folklore and culture.
Jancita Eagle Deer was a Brulé Lakota who lived on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. She was notable for accusing William Janklow of having raped her in January 1967 when he was a poverty lawyer and Director of the Rosebud Sioux Legal Services program on the reservation. She had worked as his babysitter. At the time the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did not prosecute the case.
Lorelei DeCora Means is a Native American nurse and civil rights activist. She is best known for her role in the second siege in the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. She was also a co-founder of the American Indian organization, Women of All Red Nations.
Belva Cottier was an American Rosebud Sioux activist and social worker. She proposed the idea of occupying Alcatraz Island in 1964 and was one of the activists who led the protest for return of the island to Native Americans. She planned the first Occupation of Alcatraz, and the suit to claim the property for the Sioux. Concerned for the health of urban Indians, she conducted a study for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which resulted in her becoming the executive director of the first American Indian Health Center in the Bay area in 1972.
Chief Chauncey Yellow Robe was a Sičhą́ǧú educator, lecturer, actor, and Native American activist. His given name, Canowicakte, means "kill in woods," and he was nicknamed "Timber" in his youth.
Nellie Zelda Star Boy Menard was an American quiltmaker and educator. In 1995, she received a National Heritage Fellowship.