The blood of the eagle

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The blood of the eagle is an Indian - Roman - pentalogy of Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich .

background

The books are the continuation of the hexalogy The Sons of the Great Bear and describe the life of the descendants of chief Tokei-ihto and his tribesmen in the reservation . According to Thomas Kramer, they play in a “dreary Indian present” of the 1960s and 1970s, around 100 years after the story of The Sons of the Great Bear .

The novels were written between 1966 and 1979 after Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich visited Canada and the United States several times between 1963 and 1974 . On her travels in Wood Mountain, Canada, she met the Lakota John Okute Sica , on whom the character of Harry Okute from Wood Hill in the novel Night over the Prairie is based. The last novel in pentalogy, The Bright Face , is based in part on Sica's story Ite-ska-wi , which this Welskopf-Henrich gave.

As the plot clearly shows, the novels are primarily set in the Pine Ridge Reservation , although the name is never mentioned. The art school in Santa Fe visited by Queenie King is authentic, the author has visited this school herself. With the figure Queenie King, she probably portrayed an Indian artist from Oklahoma who she personally knows.

The Indian brotherhood, which Joe King joins in the third volume, which is not mentioned by name, is without a doubt the American Indian Movement (AIM). Several well-known AIM members are portrayed by the author in the volumes. The Hugh Mahan appearing in volumes 4 and 5, for example, bears the traits of the well-known Indian leader Russell Means . The Indian civil rights activist Pedro Bissonette , who appears as a minor figure in Volume 5 , actually lived and was one of the victims of the civil war mentioned.

On February 27, 1973, 300 members of the AIM occupied Wounded Knee . They protested against the conditions in the reservation and the situation of the Indians. This place was chosen as a symbol because around 200 Indians were killed here by the US cavalry in 1890. The occupation lasted until May 9, 1973. The government promised talks about the situation in the country. After that, there was some kind of civil war in the Pine Ridge Reservation. This civil war in the Pine Ridge Reservation, described by the author in Volume 5, between AIM members and a criminal gang led by the tribal chief and supported by the FBI is authentic. The character of the killer chief , opponent of Hanska Bighorn and Hugh Mahan, refers to Dick Wilson . At the time, 250 murders were committed out of a total population of 8,000. Only in a very few cases was the police even investigated.

Names

The Lakota have a civil name and their tribal name, which is usually mentioned in addition. Lakotanamen have a special meaning, which mostly relates to events and experiences in the life of their wearer. These names can change in the course of life, a Lakotamann used to take the name as an adult, which was revealed to him in the course of the initiation ritual. Joe King is called Inya-he-Yukan in Lakota , which means something like "stone has horns" in German. This name refers to a shell that his ancestor Harry Inya-he-Yukan Okute received during the Indian Wars and which became his totem . Joe King's mother, a relative of Okute's, gave her son this name after surviving beatings from his drunken grandfather as a child. He got to know Okute later.

Welskopf-Henrich treats the forms of names very differently. The Indian names of the protagonists are used and explained more often, those of the antagonists hardly mentioned or only in their anglicised form (Jimmy "White Horse"). The Indian names of young children are rarely used, and Wakyia-knaskia's sister, Red Eagle Girl, is not called by her English first name. After the death of the red eagle girl, Queenie King gives her daughter the name of the deceased child. Her twin brother Harry receives the English first name of their ancestor Inya he-Yukan .

  • Joe King ( Inya-he-Yukan , "Stone has horns")
  • Queenie King ( Tashina )
  • Harry King ( Kte Ohitaka , "The Brave Heart")
  • Mary King ( Wable-luta-win , "red eagle girl")
  • Harry Okute ( Inya-he-yukan , "Stone has horns", as a young man also Tokei-ihto )
  • Harold Booth
  • Mary Booth
  • Byron Bighorn ( Wakiya-knaskiya , " Thunder of Secrets")
  • Hanska Bighorn
  • Joan Bighorn ( Wable-luta-win , "red eagle girl")
  • Sidney Bighorn
  • Patricia Bighorn ( Tishunka-wasit-win , "Beautiful Horse Girl")
  • Jimmy White Horse
  • Hugh Mahan ( Wasescha )
  • Mara Okute ( Ite-ska-wih , "The bright face")
  • Ray Okute

content

Night over the prairie

In the first volume, Night over the Prairie , which takes place around 1965, Joe King (Inya-he-yukan) returns to his tribe's reservation . He is treated very negatively by the white administration, but even more so by many of his tribesmen, because he is considered a troublemaker, rebellious, violent and uneducated, but also dangerous and well armed. He stayed at school several times, which was partly due to the fact that he (intentionally) never correctly recited the US flag vow and that General Custer was a criminal and Sitting Bull a hero for him and not the other way around, as the white teachers tried to him to set up. Joe King is not averse to a brawl, he almost always wins, even against older students like Harold Booth. As a child he was falsely accused of theft and thrown in jail due to an intrigue of his classmate Harold Booth; there a gang boss recruited him for his gang and after his release he left the reservation to join the gang. The gang boss recognized King's talents and had him trained to be his bodyguard and further improve his martial arts. When Inya-he-Yukan has looked deep enough into the world of the gangs, he tries to part with them. For this the gang boss punishes him by having him convicted again for an act that he did not commit. In prison he finds an Indian secretary who trains him in Indian wisdom and customs, but also in Indian body control. Inya-he-Yukan has finally sworn off the gangs, returns to the reservation and his father takes him back to the ranch . He marries his childhood friend Queenie (Tashina), who is now a talented painter and is studying at art school. As a former gangster, Joe does not receive any support from the administration or tribal council. His alcoholic father is accidentally shot in a drunken brawl. Joe is armed several times and has to defend himself against former cronies who want to kill him as a traitor.

After most of the gangsters die, he is arrested; the federal police want information from him about the broken gangs. Since he refuses to cooperate with the authorities, the officers forcibly drug him, but this does not achieve his goal. In order not to leave him alone in his self-withdrawal, Queenie suspends her art studies for a year. Joe wins a rodeo and can pay down a valuable rodeo stallion that no one else can ride. His old enemy Harold Booth is envious of his success and steals the horse together with two cronies. Joe pursues and catches the horse thieves, shooting two of them in self-defense; Booth shoots Joe's horse, who falls deep into a ravine and Booth escapes with the stolen horse. Joe pulls himself up and goes to New City, which is outside the reservation. Here he wants to do some research, but ends up in a bar fight between tribesmen and a whipped up white mob. Since he is only out on probation, he must now serve his sentence and go back to prison. The police officers show him respect for the first time because he takes everything on himself, including the assaults of others, and also refrains from giving evidence against the police officers who acted with more than unreasonable severity against him and the others.

Once released from prison, he manages to track down his stolen horse. White people from New City who show themselves to be true friends also help him.

Joe's ancestor Harry Okute (Inya-he-yukan Der Alte or Tokei-ihto ) brings the stolen horse back from Canada, where Harold Booth had sold it through intermediaries. Joe is happy about the return of his horse, but can hardly afford the finder's fee and the transport costs. But when Okute offers to let him have the horse just like that if he can live with him for a few months, Joe literally collapses. Okute, who as a warrior had to endure great pain and loss without complaint, knows about Joe's condition and begins to look after the victim in the old tipi he has brought with him. He enjoyed Joe's hospitality for a few months, as the now over centenarian wanted to die in his homeland, from which he had to flee at Joe's age (The Sons of the Great Bear, "Across the Missouri") in order to be able to lead a free life in Canada.

Joe manages to resume the old process in which he was convicted of theft as a student. The trial also becomes a trial against the old court president. He understands his original misjudgment with which he labeled Joe King a criminal and thus drove him into the arms of the gangs. Booth's lies are exposed, Joe is acquitted of proven innocence, and Harold is now threatened with perjury and horse theft trial . Drunk he tries to rape Queenie, whom he always wanted but could never win. She has to shoot him in self-defense. Booth's parents, who had previously rejected their son, leave the reservation and hand the ranch over to their daughter Mary, who secretly loves Joe, was not involved in Harold's intrigues and now works with the King Ranch.

Joe finds two missing tourists in a cave in Pa Sapa (Black Hills), who are rewarded with high rewards. With the reward he builds a well on his ranch and buys a small herd of buffalo. The arrival of the buffalo in the reservation is celebrated at the folk festival and Joe as a hero.

Light over white rocks

The second volume, Light Over White Rocks, begins with a longer flashback. Various events, which were described in the first volume from the perspective of Joe and Queenie, are described again from the perspective of Byron Bighorn (Wakiya-knaskiya). Wakiya is a gifted child. He suffers from severe epilepsy and has therefore only been able to attend school at irregular intervals. He is a half-orphan and lives with his mother and two siblings in a remote hut. Joe takes him to his ranch so he doesn't have to repeat 4th grade. Wakiya experiences how Harry Okute dies at the age of 112 and, as he wishes, is buried at the foot of the white rocks between which the grave of Tashunka-witko lies somewhere . When his mother surrenders to the drink, first in prison and then in a psychiatric clinic, Wakiya, his younger brother Hanska and her little sister Rotadlermädchen are adopted by the Kings as foster children. Queenie King continues her art studies.

Joe King is meanwhile put under pressure by the tribal council. He wants to lease part of the tribal land cheaply to a wealthy white rancher, in order to then divide the lease money among the tribesmen. Joe King and Mary Booth, on the other hand, want to set up a school ranch in the country to give unemployed young people an education and a future. The fronts harden and Joe King is tried and convicted of manslaughter of the two horse thieves in tribal court. The driving force behind the prosecution is the white innkeeper Esmeralda. She hates Joe because they both belonged to rival gangs and one of the dead horse thieves was her father. She also has a relationship with the rancher who wants to lease the King's land. Sidney Bighorn, a distant relative of Wakiyas, is a tribal court prosecutor and becomes Esmeralda's tool in putting Joe King behind bars.

However, Wakiya succeeds in obtaining a retrial and an acquittal for Joe through new evidence. Esmeralda is convicted of drug trafficking and expelled from the United States as an undesirable foreigner. Sidney Bighorn is forced to step down from tribal court and now mortally hates the King family. This is bitter for Wakiya because he has fallen in love with his classmate Patricia, who is Sidney's younger sister. Red eagle girl dies of heart failure during a hurricane. Queenie King has finished her art studies and has returned to the reservation. With their twins Harry and Mary, as well as Wakiya and Hanska, four children now live on the King Ranch.

Stone with horns

In volume three, Stone with Horns , Joe King has to fight off a gang of gangsters again. His enemy Esmeralda is killed, the gang boss Leonard Lee and two cronies manage to escape. Joe suffers a serious spinal injury while fighting, which can only be cured in a specialist clinic. Sidney Bighorn, who has since made a career in reservation management, prevents the health service from contributing to the costs. Although Queenie King sells several pictures, she cannot afford to pay for the treatment in the long run, especially since she is expecting her third child. Since Joe is no longer available, Mary Booth can no longer cope with the buffalo herd alone. She applies to the administration to be allowed to shoot the buffalo bull, which has become vicious. Sidney Bighorn delayed the processing of the application until the bull killed Mary Booth. When Queenie also falls ill, Sidney dissolves the school ranch on the pretext that care for the young people is not guaranteed. When Joe leaves the clinic against medical advice, however, he can prevent this.

There is another clash between Joe and the gang boss Leonhard Lee, the latter dies. In the upcoming election of the tribal council, Joe is running against the previous chief, Chief Jimmy White Horse, a drinker and relative of Sidney Bighorn. He just loses, but the new tribal council now consists almost entirely of partisans of Joe King. When the re-elected White Horse drives to a meeting of tribal chiefs, he takes Joe with him. Joe succeeds there in getting White Horse with whiskey to sign a protest resolution. In addition, at this meeting Joe gets to know the leaders of an Indian brotherhood, who win him over to work.

Back on the reservation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs appoints a new superintendent to clean up the grievances of the old administration. This proves Sidney Bighorn's official misconduct and dismisses him from the administrative service. Sidney cannot cope with the end of his career and commits suicide while drunk. After her brother's death, Patricia Bighorn convinces her father to end the family feud and a reconciliation with the Kings ensues. King's successes, however, are not permanent. Superintendent, tribal judge and school director are relieved of excessive indulgence towards the tribe, the tribal council disempowered and the tribal police subordinate to the FBI . Two of Joe's cowboys are called up for military service, the third flees to Canada to avoid fighting in the Vietnam War . Joe and his newfound brothers know they are facing an uphill battle now.

The seven-tiered mountain

The seven-tiered mountain is an Indian symbol that, among other things, symbolizes the ups and downs of life. The symbol can be described as an endless staircase with seven steps leading down and up again. Welskopf-Henrich addresses this by having one of the protagonists say that the Indians are now on the lowest level, while the whites are at the top and the Indians are now beginning to climb the seven-level mountain (which implies that the descent the whites started).

In the fourth volume, The Seven Steps Mountain , the new Superintendent Chester Carr is introduced: a southerner and racist who hates everything that does not correspond to the white American way of life. As a hippie, his son Clyde rebels against his father's values ​​and shows solidarity with the Indians at times. Chester Carr closes the school ranch and leases the former booth ranch to a white farmer, as the administration had long planned. Joe King then drives the buffalo over the reservation line to a rancher friend of his, so that they are not taken from him.

Hugh Mahan (Wasescha), a distant relative of the Kings, comes back to the reservation after graduating from college and applies for administrative service. Carr declines the application and instead hires him as a teacher on a trial basis. Mahan witnesses a wave of suicide among Indian students who revolt against their unbearable existence. He cannot prevent the suicide of Patricia Bighorn, who throws herself in front of a car. While the school management portrays death as an accident, Mahan addresses suicide. The students then call him The Man Who Speaks the Truth . After the end of his probationary period, he is released.

The conflict with the white rancher escalates: his son shoots an apprentice from the King Ranch who enters the neighboring ranch unarmed to ask for an escaped horse to be returned. Joe King's foster son Wakiya immediately follows him to demonstrate that unarmed youths are being shot, and accepts his own death in the process. To prevent him from being killed too, Joe King shoots the rancher. In the subsequent racist trial, King faces the death penalty, but is acquitted thanks to the courage of a single juror. The white rancher family then clears the land. The resistance of the Indians continues, with the ranch Joe Kings developing into the headquarters of the illegal tribal council. Finally they have a partial success: Chester Carr is recalled and they get their Indian school principal back. It is decided that Hugh Mahan will run for the election of the new Chief President. The book ends with a preview of the imminent occupation of the US government's abandoned prison island of Alcatraz by Indian civil rights activists.

The light face

In the last volume, The Bright Face , the fourteen-year-old Indian Mara Ite-ska-wih (The Bright Face) experienced the murder of Joe King in the slums of Chicago . He was on a trip with his foster son Hanska to promote participation in the cast of Wounded Knee. Queenie King has also been abducted and murdered, and her children, the twins, have been taken to boarding schools and tortured there. The assassin, a racist, is killed by Ite-ska-wih's brother Ray immediately after the crime. Since the family is now in mortal danger, the siblings and their grandmother accompany Hanska on the return journey. On the way they bury Joe King's body in the cave in the Black Mountains (known from The Sons of the Great Bear ). Ite-ska-wih and Hanska fall in love. Together with Ray they go to Wounded Knee to the insurgents, where they also meet Hugh Mahan and other friends of the Kings.

After the end of the cast of Wounded Knee, a series of murders shakes the reservation. The former insurgents and everyone who sympathizes with them are threatened by the gang of the killer chief . There is now a white tenant at the King Ranch. Hanska works as a cowboy with him; later he succeeds in regaining part of the King's land. With the help of his brother Wakiya, who is now training as a lawyer, he brings the twins Harry and Mary King back to the reservation. If the killers attack several times, Hanska can successfully defend herself. Queenie King's killer is shot dead in self-defense by Hugh Mahan. Nonetheless, Mahan is charged with murder. Ite-ska-wih can move a member of the killer gang who has dropped out to testify in court, which leads to an acquittal.

After another murder of a prominent Indian leader, a large protest demonstration takes place despite the police ban. It is decided that in the next election for Chief President Hugh Mahan will run again and replace the killer chief. Hanska and Harry King bring the buffalo herd back to the reservation. Hanska and Ite-ska-wih become parents. The book ends with a glimmer of hope that the conditions in the reservations will improve.

reception

The novel cycle developed into a sales success in the GDR , was repeatedly out of print in bookstores and saw numerous reprints. According to the publisher, the total circulation of the five novels is over a million copies. Nevertheless, according to Thomas Kramer, the cycle did not achieve the cult status of The Sons of the Great Bear .

Gina Weinkauff judged: "Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich undoubtedly deserves the credit of being the first German author to address living conditions in an American Indian reservation in a realistic contemporary novel."

expenditure

Editions of the Mitteldeutscher Verlag :

  1. Night over the prairie . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle 1966. (13th edition 1995, ISBN 3-354-00802-4 )
  2. Light over white rocks . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle 1967. (13th edition 1995, ISBN 3-354-00803-2 )
  3. Stone with horns . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle 1968. (11th edition 1994, ISBN 3-354-00804-0 )
  4. The seven-tiered mountain . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle 1972. (11th edition 1994, ISBN 3-354-00805-9 )
  5. The light face . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle 1980. (11th edition 1994, ISBN 3-354-00806-7 )

Beltz & Gelberg editions :

  1. Night over the prairie . Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 1998, ISBN 3-407-78816-9 .
  2. Light over white rocks . Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 2000, ISBN 3-407-78830-4 .
  3. Stone with horns . Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 2000, ISBN 3-407-78845-2 .
  4. The seven-tiered mountain . Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 2001, ISBN 3-407-78852-5 .
  5. The light face . Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 2001, ISBN 3-407-78860-6 .

Editions of the Palisander Verlag:

  1. Night over the prairie . Palisander Verlag, Chemnitz 2013, ISBN 978-3-938305-52-2 .
  2. Light over white rocks . Palisander Verlag, Chemnitz 2013, ISBN 978-3-938305-53-9 .
  3. Stone with horns . Palisander Verlag, Chemnitz 2013, ISBN 978-3-938305-54-6 .
  4. The seven-tiered mountain . Palisander Verlag, Chemnitz 2013, ISBN 978-3-938305-55-3 .
  5. The light face . Palisander Verlag, Chemnitz 2013, ISBN 978-3-938305-56-0 .
  6. The blood of the eagle. Pentalogy, Volumes 1 to 5 . Palisander Verlag, Chemnitz 2013, ISBN 978-3-938305-57-7 .

The edition of the Palisander-Verlag is characterized by many interesting systems. Erik Lorenz wrote the epilogue to Volume 1. About the “man who was Harry Okute”, writes Frank Elstner in volume 2, followed by a text by Liselotte-Welskopf-Henrich: “With the Dakota in the Wood Mountains”. Volume 3 contains excerpts from Frances Densmore's book "The Songs of Old Lakota", a book that was also published by the publisher. Volume 4 contains excerpts from "Red Bird Tells" by Zitkala-Sa. The book will hit the book market at the end of November 2015. Volume 5 consequently contains a story about Ite-ska-wih, which John Okute Sica tells in “The Miracle of Little Bighorn”. Okute Sica is "The Man Who Harry Okute Was".

literature

  • Erik Lorenz : Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich and the Indians. A biography . Palisander-Verlag, Chemnitz 2009, ISBN 978-3-938305-14-0 , sections on the content and background of Das Blut des Adlers : pp. 178–263.
  • Elsa Christina Muller: A Cultural Study of the Sioux Novels of Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich . University of Maryland, College Park 1995. (Dissertation, microfiche edition published by University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan)
  • John Okute Sica : The Miracle of the Little Bighorn . Palisander Verlag, Chemnitz 2009, ISBN 978-3-938305-10-2 .
  • Frances Densmore : The Songs of the Ancient Lakota - Life and Culture of the Teton-Sioux . Palisander Verlag, Chemnitz 2012, ISBN 978-3-938305-20-1 .
  • Zitkala-Ša: Red Bird tells . Rosewood - Verlag, Chemnitz 2015, ISBN 978-3-938305-70-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Thomas Kramer : "The Sons of the Great Bear" and "The Blood of the Eagle". Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich's Indian books 1951–1980. In: Isolde Stark (ed.): Elisabeth Charlotte Welskopf and the old history in the GDR . Contributions to the conference from November 21 to 23, 2002 in Halle / Saale. Franz Steiner Verlag , Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-515-08457-6 , p. 214.
  2. ^ Entry on John Okute Sica on Erik Lorenz's page.
  3. ↑ Erik Lorenz “Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich and the Indians”, page 220
  4. ↑ Erik Lorenz “Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich and the Indians”, page 224f
  5. ↑ Erik Lorenz “Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich and the Indians”, page 223
  6. ^ Bertelsmann - Lexikothek - Our Century in Words, Picture and Sound - The Seventies, Bertelsmann Lexikothek Verlag, Gütersloh 2000, pages 53 and 55
  7. ↑ Erik Lorenz “Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich and the Indians”, page 249
  8. ↑ Erik Lorenz “Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich and the Indians”, page 268
  9. ↑ Gina Weinkauff: Ent-Fernungen: Foreign perception and cultural transfer in German-language children's and youth literature since 1945 , Volume 1. Study, Munich 2006, p. 199.
  10. ↑ The Blood of the Eagle. (No longer available online.) In: palisander-verlag.de. Palisander Verlag, formerly in the original ; Retrieved October 29, 2015 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.palisander-verlag.de