Reviews

Pretty-shield: Medicine Woman of the Crows by Alma Hogan Snell, Becky Matthews, Frank Bird Linderman

katherinesreadingalot's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective slow-paced

3.0

had to read for history class

dhernandez's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

A wonderful book about Pretty-shield.
Little known, but immensely important history about Native people, especially Native women.

books_plan_create's review against another edition

4.0

Such a small yet powerful book

em_ham's review

5.0

I'd never have come across this book if my aunt hadn’t asked me to find an oral history book for her birthday, and I’m really glad she did. Pretty-Shield is the story of a 74-year-old Crow Indian woman, as told to white American writer Frank B. Linderman, via an interpreter, in 1931. Aside from being educational to read the life story of somebody from a culture and time very different from my own, Pretty-Shield describes a lost way of life, and what it was like to lose it. I’d only really seen stereotypes of historical American Indians in popular culture, which are all about men fighting, so it was interesting to read a woman’s perspective and one approved by Pretty Shield herself with a thumb-print reproduced in the book, and by her granddaughter Alma Snell who co-writes the preface in this edition. The interaction between Pretty Shield and Frank B. Linderman in itself was ripe for analysing, and I’m sure it has been. More simply though, Pretty Shield was a great storyteller, and the tales of her relationships with her family and community, and with the landscape and its animals, are vivid and beautifully relayed. I just found it an extraordinary insight into one individual’s experience of life and what she learnt from it, and what could be learnt from her.

jstor's review

adventurous challenging reflective slow-paced

3.25

rremer's review

4.0

I really enjoyed this book. Pretty shield's tales of life during the time of buffalo were vivid and brought her stories to life. The counterpoint of Linderman's observations of her life as it presently was made clear how horribly white men have treated native Americans. I loved how she told sides of stories she knew men wouldn't. Particularly when she informed linderman of the two woman who fought with the Crows at little big horn(?) with Custer. And that one of those women had been born a man. Also noted that life back in the day was dangerous as fuck. Childhood was a struggle to survive and adulthood not much safer.