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Title: Deathsongs from Wounded Knee Author: Gail Carroll Publisher: Gail Carroll Books Form: 8 x 10 Paperback Illustrated: --- Number of Pages: 289 ISBN: --- Price: $20.00 + $3.85 (Shipping) = $23.85 Click Order Form to Order

Review 

This Saga is a story about four generations of a fictional Lakota family spanning the years from 1890, when the death of Sitting Bull and the Wounded Knee Massacre occurred, until the take-over of Wounded Knee by members of The American Indian Movement or AIM. The plight of these Native Americans is seen, heard and felt through the senses of a Hunkpapa family beginning with Looks Alone and his wife Woman Waiting, its progenitors.

In Book One of the Saga, Deathsongs From Wounded Knee, through the eyes of Looks Alone, we watch the horrifying murder of Sitting Bull at the hands of the Metal Breasts, native policemen in the employ of the Reservation Agent, Captain McLaughlin. We experience the frantic flight of Sitting Bull’s people to find safety with Chief Big Foot who takes them into his camp. Certain they are all being pursued by the bluecoats, the Hunkpapas and Big Foot’s Minneconjous rush towards Pine Ridge where they hope Red Cloud will use his influence to protect them.

On the way, Big Foot’s health fails when he falls prey to pneumonia. The contest becomes which will kill the old chief first; the bluecoats or the illness? Big Foot appoints Looks Alone to lead The People on after he hemorrhages and collapses.

The Indian wars Wounded Knee Massacre is reported in heart-rending detail as the Indians are mowed down by Hotchkiss cannon and The Seventh Cavalry of the U.S. Army, wrecking revenge on the Lakota for Custer’s fiasco at Little Big Horn.

Much of this story is told from a woman’s point of view, adding both depth and breadth to the work and revealing new insight on Indian wars..

The research for this book was gathered from diaries, military records, fieldwork interviews as well as the usual American Indian history books that focus on Indian wars. With such a variety, the reader will discover little-known facts and events from this period of American Indian history. Where there were holes in the historical accounts, using her imagination and intuition, Carroll filled the gaps; e.g. no physical description of Colonel Sumner was found in the literature so Dr. Carroll drew him as he “appeared” to her.

What has resulted is an exciting and rich story that compels the reader to begin to understand how the policies of our government created the wretched state of affairs that still plague the First Americans.

About the Writer and the Writing:

 The genesis of this Saga flowed from Dr. Carroll’s 1985 dissertation, completed at the United States International University at San Diego. Writing about Native Americans while taking her degree in Psychology posed a problem for her. Surely anthropology or ethnology would have been more appropriate, but she wanted the degree in Psychology so she could treat disturbed children and she wanted to write about Native Americans. Luckily, her advisor found the loophole in value theory, which belongs under the Psychology umbrella.

When the research, writing and degree were finished, the next question was, what would she do with this treasure of information? On a sunny day in May, 1987, while parked in the parking lot of Loma Linda University Hospital, waiting for a doctor’s appointment, the idea came full-blown into her mind: use the research to write a novel. And so the process, which was to take 12 years to complete, began.

Many things interfered with Dr. Carroll’s progress. Two bouts with tongue cancer held her up for months on end. Working in her private practice in Crestline, California as a child therapist also distracted her, but losing that practice because of her declining ability to speak clearly took care of that distraction. In 1990, Gail packed up her computer and fled to Baja, California where only one distraction remained: How to make a living while she finished the damn book. She started a mail service for the gringos of Punta Banda, a community of expats just south of Ensenada, and that took care of financial worries.

Not satisfied with the work she had done so far, about 800 manuscript pages, Gail tossed the whole thing into the fireplace one night and started again. She wrote consistently until in 1995 a house fire destroyed everything she had except for the pair of shorts and T-shirt she had worn to her yoga class that day.

Her research books, notes, photographs, the fieldwork interviews she had gotten at Pine Ridge ... all were gone. Some of the book, however, was recovered from a friend to whom she had sent part of the manuscript. Two‑thirds remained to re­write. And so she did – with the help of thousands of bits of half‑burnt paper pulled out of the ashes.

Today Dr. Carroll lives near La Bufadora in Baja in a Fifth‑Wheel RV without electricity or running water. She prefers it. The view of the cliffs and tidal pools and the silent solitude make up for the deficits. For company there are two dogs and a cat who, she says, “run the joint”. Presently she is finishing Book 2 of the saga, Red Man/White Man, which records the horrors of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ policy of assimilation.

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