Starita, Joe. The dull knifes of Pine Ridge; a Lakota odyssey.

Univ. of Nebraska, Bison Books. 392p. maps. bibliog. notes. index. c1995, 0-8032-9294-5. $17.95. SA

When Starita went to visit with Guy Dull Knife, Sr. at tire Silica Vista Nursing Home in Loveland. Colorado, he found a strong, alert 95-year-old with bright eyes and a hearty appetite. Born February 17, 1899, Dull Knife had witnessed almost a century of change for his people, the Lakota (also referred to as Oglala) Sioux of the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota. A journalist and associate professor of journalism at the University of Nebraska, Starita depicts the history of the Plains Indians from the end of the Civil War to the present day. He does this in a most attractive manner, weaving into Sis account the story of four generations o an Indian family: Chief Dull Knife, who lee his people in futile attempts to escape the relentless U.S. armies who pursued then in the years following the Civil War; George Dull Knife, who performed at age 17 in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show in the U.S. and Europe, beginning in 1892 and for some 15 years thereafter; Guy Dull Knife, Sr., who served in the foxholes of Europe in WW I; and Guy Dull Knife, Jr., who walked point on search and destroy missions for almost a year in Vietnam and lived to tell about it, though he was wounded

The book ranges widely. Starita tells of a document dated December 3, 1833 in which President Andrew Jackson made clear his vision of the reservation system. Indians would be removed to remote, barren sites and, with the help of churches, missionaries, and boarding schools, "take the inferior red man, isolate him from the general population, and make him over in the white man's image." The reservation system began in earnest on the plains by 1880. The Dull Knifes witnessed great cultural change in such areas as the laws governing Indians, tribal vs. individual ownership of land, religion, education, availability of food, the loss of language, and the ability to express themselves culturally. The persons interviewed in the book recall family stories of the disappearance of the buffalo, the Wild West shows, the Sun Dance, the Ghost Dance religion, the two battles of Wounded Knee, changes in women's lives, and what it meant to serve in the military. Congress granted citizenship to women and American Indians in 1024. General Pershing proved the value of code talkers when he assigned two Choctaws to different stations.

Starita is sensitive to how Indians have been marked by their experiences and how their involvement in shows and wars have shaped how white Americans and the larger world perceive them. The lack of an introduction in which the author tells of his project and how it was carried out was frustrating to this reviewer, but Starita's manner of working unfolds in the book. It is an excellent, readable account, and Starita's choice of the Dull Knife family to embody the process of change was especially fortuitous. Edna M. Boardman, Bismark, ND