Stanley Clark
April 24, 2015
Women’s History -Carol White

Lakota Woman tells the life story of Mary Crow Dog. Her story illustrates the Sioux Nations struggle with the United States of America and its cultural influence. Mary is a half-blood Indian, having a father of mixed heritage and an Indian mother. Her mother believes in conforming to American society and somewhat accepts the fact that it has degraded the Sioux and their culture. Watching her mother and others assimilate to a society that doesn’t accept her ancestor’s traditional way of life leads Mary to rebel. Mary reaches out to her older family as well and other rebellious natives her age. In doing so she learns more about her heritage while indulging in drugs and vagrancy. Embracing the “white man's” ways and maintaining her ancestor’s traditions are conflicts that inevitably guide Mary into participating in the American Indian Movement. Throughout the book Mary allows the reader to experience her life on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Indian reservations. Mary and the majority of the Sioux are discriminated against and treated unfairly by society and the United States …show more content…
The Tracks of the Little Deer states that Mexican Indian observer Fray Bernardino de Sahagun believes that Chichimeca and Toltec indian tribes began using the plant 1890 years prior to the arrival of European settlers (Schultes). According to the article Carl Lumholtz, a Danish ethnologist researcher of the Indians of Chihuahua, suggested that the Peyote cult is much older than what Sahagun lists according (Schultes). According Lumholtz, a symbol in the Tarahumara Indian Peyote ceremony appeared in ancient ritual carvings preserved in Mesoamerican lava rocks (Schultes).The article goes on to report that “archaeological discoveries in caves and rock shelters in Texas” have found that ceremonial of the peyote can date back it over three thousand