University of Montana Books

Spirit World: The Assiniboines believed that the spirits of the dead journeyed toward the east. Jame Larpenteur Long tells the account of his grandfather's journey: "In the lodge where my grandfather lay ill with the disease, two other members of the family were dead and their bodies were left where they died. Many families fled to other parts of the country. Grandfather was so near death that the surrounds did not matter a great deal. He said, `I was very ill, but I noticed that a person looked in and perhaps thought the three of us dead. He secured the doorway, piled objects against it, and closed up the smoke hole.' `Some time after that, I seemed to fall asleep, and the next thing I knew, I was outside, walking toward where the sun rises. I traveled along a narrow path that seemed to be on an upgrade. After going in that direction for some time, I cam to where a man sat with his back to me. When he turned around, I recognized him as a person who had died some time before.' The man said, `Perhaps you want to know where your folks live. I will tell you. There is a large encampment over the hill, and the lodge painted blue belongs to your parents.' When I entered the lodge, I saw my father and mother there. My father was busy with some wood he was shaving. My mother, too, was busy at some task.' With a smile, I said to them: `I had no trouble to find your lodge.' My mother did not seem to hear me, but my father looked up and stared at me without any sign that he recognized me. I became uneasy, and hesitated to take my usual place in their lodge. After a time I went out and looked around from some attempted to talk to them, but each time I was not answered. I finally retraced my steps and knew I was on the right path, because I came back to the place where the man sat. He spoke: `You did not stay long, my friend; perhaps someone has come to take you back.' I do not remember if I made any answer. I hurried back along the trail and arrive at our lodge. The entrance was barred and I said to myself, `How can I go in through the smoke hole, the poles are too close together there.' Then a voice awakened me, it was my sister's. She said: `My brother, you are alive, your eyes are open. She told me how they decided to flee to some other part, as did others, and she had said to them: `For the last time I want to see the body of my brother.' `That was how she found me, and through her I recovered.'

Buffalo Legend: A very large herd of buffaloes crossed the Missouri River at the mouth of the Little Porcupine Creek and were moving north up that creek. The leaders were already so far ahead that they looked about the size of dogs. Across the river the rear ones could not be seen, so many were there in the herd. If the ones in sight had been counted, the number would easily have reached one thousand. The buffaloes had separated into small groups of ten to fourteen, and when I go to them, hunters were already amongst the herd and a chase was on here and there.

A small group of cows and bulls ran out of a coulee and I took after them. Right away I knew the horse was a trained buffalo runner. His ears were continually moving about and watched the group ahead.

In a short time I caught up to them, but I hadn't taken my gun out. I stck the gun under my belt and was carrying it crossways with the stock at my right.

Without warning a bull jump right in front of my horse and the horse being experienced, was out of the way in a flash, but I was pitched of and landed across the hump and behind the horns of the bull. He gave a snort and reared up in the air which threw me, and I landed on my back several steps away. The fall knocked the wind out of me. While I spun about trying to get my breath, a hunter rode up and said, `I saw your misfortune and was afraid the bull would attack you. Here, I have caught your horse.' Sometimes horses were better buffalo hunters than their riders.

Food preparation told by Bad Hawk: `My grandfather told how the men cooked buffalo ribs when they were out on trips. A hole about two feet square and a foot or more in depth was dug. Into that was laid a piece of ribs wrapped in buffalo hide. This was then covered with dirt and fire built over it.

The cooking was timed this way: When the first fire had died down to embers, a fresh pile of fuel was laid on, and when the last fuel was all burned, the meat was considered done. They called this method, `ribs covered and cooked with two fires.'

Lodges: Lodges were made from the tanned hides of mature buffalo cows. Twenty hides made an extra large lodge. Poles are setup and the coverings tied to the pole to be raised. It takes three women to set the covering in place. Men do not help. A tripod establishes the basic structure and additional pines were added. The bottom of the lodge was secured by wood pegs. Assiniboine lodges always face to the South. Ventilation was regulated by tow large flaps on each side of the smoke hole. In the lodge several back rests were kept for special guests. The lodges were decorated with objects made by the women. The edges of the smoke flaps were usually fringed with tassels covered with porcupine quills. Lodges of warriors were painted with pictures that showed the war record of their owners.

David M. Emmons, in The Butte Irish, examines the development of Butte, Montana, as an Irish town, tracing the story from the Potato Famine to about 1925. He focuses on two major questions: (a) What made Butte such a popular destination for Irish immigrants, both directly from Ireland and from other Irish areas of the US? and, (b) How did the development of an Irish enclave in Butte affect the development of the city? He goes on to examine the evolution of class relations within the Irish in Butte. Emmons describes Butte as a unique location in America for the study of an ethnic community. He argues that the town developed in such a way and at such a time that it was one of the only towns in the country to have a strong working-class, immigrant community in a position of major influence and power. There were several keys that made this path of city evolution possible. The first was the switch from silver and gold mining to copper production in the 1870's. This is key for Butte's "Irishness" on several levels. First, because of the large capital investment required for copper mining, Butte was forced to industrialize to a much greater extent than other major gold and silver mining camps of the West. Thus, Butte was the only one of these mining camps to become a major city. Immigrants from many of these camps came to Butte in large numbers. The timing of the beginning of Butte's copper era is a second major factor. The Irish Potato Famine of the 1840's caused huge numbers of Irish to immigrate to America. In the years immediately following the famine, the Irish were nearly forty percent of those immigrating to the United States. Large numbers of Irish continued to immigrate in the next thirty years, supplying the US with many unskilled workers. Many of these Irish went to the mining camps of the west, the coal mines of Pennsylvania, or the copper mines of Michigan, because mining was one of the only industries they were familiar with. As many of the western mining camps became "played out," or ran out of viable ore, in the late nineteenth century, the Irish looked to the developing Butte. Because Butte was becoming an established city only when the Irish started going there, it did not have a previously existing community of entrenched middle class Americans, nor did it have a prior political structure. This is another key difference between Butte and other towns with sizable Irish populations such as Boston or San Francisco. In pre-existing towns and cities, the middle class often looked down on those of the working class, or at least had control of the political and social structure of the area. It is a well-known fact that Marcus Daly was one of the main reasons so many Irish came to Butte. Daly was the owner of the Anaconda Mining Company, and a strong Irish nationalist. His hiring policies were famous throughout the West, and even in Ireland, as being very generous to the Irish. Emmons lays out these reasons, detailing them extensively. His research was thorough, utilizing "two full carloads" of primary materials including records of Butte churches and Irish social organizations, letters, newspapers. Also cited in Emmons' bibliography are extensive interviews and secondary sources. Emmons is just as thorough in his treatment of the second question. He considers the miners of Butte on many levels. One of the more interesting themes of the book is the discussion of conflicting loyalties within the Irish enclave of the Mining City. The author frames this as the question of whether the people considered themselves "working Irish-Americans" or "Irish-American workers." He examines the politics of the struggling Ireland and its relationship with England, the structure of the Butte social organizations and the way their roles and importances, both absolute and relative to one another, changed and grew during this period, and changing demographics within the Irish and the rest of Butte-Silver Bow. The only complaint to be lodged against The Butte Irish is the author's occasional use of difficult sentence structure. I can't find the quote I was going to use here, but there were a few to choose from. The Butte Irish is a well-written and well-executed account of the development of a town and community, offering many insights into working class ethnography, labor relations, Montana history, and Irish history, among others. Emmons has managed to cover aspects of all these areas, even while maintaining a strong focus and cohesiveness throughout the book.

Funny stories along with the serious war accounts. Fascinating reading

I couldn't put this book down. Anyone who has longed for an object of desire -- whether it's another person, a hand-carved guitar or a wilderness that is pure and uncomplicated -- will love this book. Soderlind manages to turn upside down all our preconceived notions about love, the wild west (there were bankers there?), the counterculture that has been asleep for the last 30 years and even the virtuous newsroom. Chasing Montana is funny (I never knew an elbow could wreak such panic) while looking deeply into our shared but excruciating aloneness. A great read.

Excellent. In-depth discussion on history of Saint-Julien. Loaded with fine photos, many of Chateau. Descriptions, ratings, production, land area, owners, and grapes grown of Cru Classe and cru bourgeois. A thorough and informative, 190 page book.

This is a good Flora, if you want to do some serious botanizing in Glacier Park and the surrounding area this is a must have. I highly reccomend it to botanists, botany students, those with a very deep interest in botany and especially to native plant gardeners in Montana. I have found a few errors in the three years I have used this book, but it is the best book to have if you are in Glacier. You might supplement with Flora of the Pacific Northwest.

A find of several arrowheads on our land in western NY sparked my interest in reading Full Court Quest: The Girls from Fort Shaw Indian School: Basketball Champions of the World by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith. Once the authors introduced me to the players on the basketball team named world champions at the 1904 World's Fair, I found myself immersed in the players' lives as they transitioned from life on reservations and farms with their families to their coming of age at a boarding school, separated from their own cultures.

Because different tribes had been settled in one location at the Fort Shaw Indian School, there existed the potential for conflict, but instead these girls supported one another while negotiating the illnesses that plagued them from time to time, as well as surviving the deaths of parents, siblings, and friends. Starting with a soccer ball and a basket nailed to the wall, they progressed through and over many obstacles to become the "champions of the St. Louis world's fair." Not only did they play two twenty-minute, full-court basketball halves, several times a week and sometimes twice in a day, they also performed pantomime, played musical instruments, and recited poetry as part of their "demonstration" of how Indian girls could become "civilized." They raced up and down the court and through the Northwest exhibiting their talents, recruiting new students, accepting challenges from whites who could barely score against them, showing grace and modesty each time they won.

Even though they were exploited to gain money for their school budgets, these diligent young women put all their efforts into perfecting their performances and heroically presenting a positive view of Native Americans at a time when the whites who lived on their native lands ridiculed, criticized, and denigrated them.

Through newspaper and magazine articles, BIA reports, letters, and oral history from their descendents, the Fort Shaw Girls' Basketball team emerges from the pages as a group of unique individuals, each with her own distinct personality. Numerous photos of the girls and extensive notes add to the details of their lives.

The 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, originally intended to celebrate the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, became the showcase for Native American crafts and lifestyles that were quickly disappearing. The Fort Shaw girls represented the future with their recitations, dance, and exhibition basketball games just as the exhibits represented the past. Their biographers and descendents deserve our praise. Recommended for women's, multicultural, and regional history collections.

by Susan Andrus
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

This is a fantastic children's book illustrated beautifully! It's a must buy for all ages.

Custer was a great military strategist, WA Clark was an honest man, The buffalo were not killed off by the white man, The Indians were murdering godless savages, Henry Plummer was a ringleader of desperadoes that killed 101 people in a year---------NOT! So much for the Hollywood style myths perpetuated by less than thorough historians. This book brilliantly debunks the Henry Plummer myth through careful reasearch, and demonstrates that the Vigilantes killed numerous innocent people (along with a few crooks) with nothing more than a desire to eliminate whoever got in their way. This is a well documented read that for the first time demonstrates that the truth indeed is more fascinating than the myth covering up the mob mentality of the Vigilantes. I grew up in Montana and looked at these Vigilantes as heroes. But after reading this brilliant delivery of the facts.....I find myself somewhat feeling burned by the history writers who self-servingly smeared everyone they hung (after they hung them).......including a verifiable honest hardworkding hispanic in Bannack that the Vigilantes referred to as the "Greaser". Of course there is author bias contained in the book, but behind the style and content of the authors are hard undeniable facts........facts that tell perhaps one of the most fascinating stories in the history of the west--a story untold until these two authors presented it. Read this book if you can get your hands on it. I did, and I am glad I did!! Was Henry Plummer a victim? Well if Custer was a Brillilant military strategist, then he was not. But only you can answer that question.

Dorothy Johnson created what are perhaps the greatest short stories of the American West ever to be written. Her work has been compared by Time magazine to Mark Twain and Bret Harte. Her brilliant, spare style compares favorably to the best of Hemingway's short fiction. Three of her short stories were made into successful movies, one of which (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) is a Western classic. Yet instead of standing high in the pantheon of American writers she is all but forgotten, with much of her best work out of print and unavailable, as is the fate of this outstanding collection of tales, `Indian Country'.
Johnson had many virtues as a writer. She researched her topic and got the details right. She had a spare style that used an economy of words to say exactly and only what needed to be said. While she avoided sentimentality, she cut straight and deep to the heart of the matter, always revealing the humanity in all of her characters and never treating them as clichés. All of these virtues are prominently on display in this volume.
The eleven tales in `Indian Country' represent some of Johnson's very best work. Two of these stories (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and A Man Called Horse) were made into movie. All of them deal with the people and the reality behind the clichés and the legends of the West. Five of these stories, (Flames on the Frontier, The Unbeliever, War Shirt, Journey to the Fort, and A Man Called Horse) deal with a subject that Dorothy Johnson may have captured better than any other writer - whites living among the Indians, either from choice, or as captives, and the effect this had on them, the Natives they lived with, and the families that they left behind. In The Prairie Kid and Beyond the Frontier, Johnson shows how incidents that might be spun into legend evolved from the simple toughness that was required for survival among frontier settlers. Scars of Honor and Laugh in the Face of Danger are tales of aged people who time has passed by but who still cherish secret memories from their Wild West youth. Warrior's Exile is built around a theme that is often prominent in Johnson's stories - the importance of an Indian's visions and medicine to his life and status within the tribe. And The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is the ultimate tale of the less than noble truth that could often lie behind the heroic legends that grew out of the West.
Each of the eleven tales in `Indian Country' is brilliantly crafted, and several of them are simply unforgettable. This is a collection that you will come back to and read again many times. I consider this collection to be more valuable than are many histories of the American West for the information it contains on frontier and native cultures, and give it my very highest of recommendations; not only for those with an interest in the American West, but for all who appreciate beautifully written short stories.

Theo Logos