The life and works of Mourning Dove (Humishuma) point to an extraordinary, although almost unremarked, period in the history of European American settlement, the end of open military conflict with indigenous peoples. The massacre of Sioux people who had gathered for a Ghost Dance at Wounded Knee on 29 December 1890 ended open hostilities. But the need to eradicate Native American peoples remained strong, and extensive federal policies were put into place to ensure "assimilation" of Indians into the dominant culture during the twentieth century. It was assumed by common folk as well as local, state, and federal officials that no Indian tribes would survive into the twenty-first century.

Mourning Dove was born and grew up during that assimilation period--from the 1880s to the 1930s. Both her life story and her literary works reveal the pressures on an individual and a Native culture to deconstruct their lives. Her life and...