journey to the short grass, and ghosts - and then back to the east

I went on a journey this autumn, through a real landscape, a metaphorical one, and a literary one. 

 

These four books (below) were parts of the third component. The physical landscape was shortgrass prairie in northeastern Colorado, southeastern Wyoming, southwestern South Dakota, and northwestern Nebraska. There are a lot of missing pieces: one can cover many miles without encountering native people, or bison - and some native bird species are also less common and widespread than formerly. Parts of the landscape are altered in a very thorough sense. In other places, except for the lack of bison and native people, one can get at least a "feel" of the land.

Sandoz wrote Crazy Horse many years ago. But through her words, we can remember how things were. Nerburn's books - especially the trilogy below, bring us closer to present time, but with a hard look at how we have affected generations of native people in cruel and merciless ways.

And yet we're not done, it seems.  Nerburn's books will possibly make you uncomfortable if you're white - and most of us are sorely unaware of many of the things happening in "Indian country" over the past 80-90 years. If you're curious about these facts and the stories where they are embedded, please read one or two or more of them.

Then travel east to Maine, for the PBS production "Dawnland" - for an eye-opening hour:
 http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/videos/dawnland/