Old Indian Legends

Old Indian Legends is a classic collection of Native American folklore stories by the Native American author and activist, Zitkala-Sa. This fine book is a tremendous repository of Native American culture and Native American mythology. Zitkála-Sá, also known by her missionary and married names Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a Yankton Dakota writer, editor, translator, musician, educator, and political activist. She wrote several works chronicling her struggles with cultural identity, and the pull between the majority culture in which she was educated, and the Dakota culture into which she was born and raised. Her later books were among the first works to bring traditional Native American stories to a widespread white English-speaking readership. Zitkála-Sá has been noted as one of the most influential Native American activists of the 20th century.