Wolf and the Winds by Frank Bird Linderman (review)

Reviews 265 people “in the Pueblos” who counted most with historian Lummis. He does show them in portrait studies (such as that on the cover), but chiefly in their daily activities, for which we can be grateful. The photographic process must have demanded posing, but we often forget this as we share the photographer’s interest and concentration. ARTHUR FRIETZSCHE San Luis Obispo Wolf and the Winds. By Frank Bird Linderman, Introduction by Hugh Demp­ sey. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986. 215 pages, $16.95.) Frank Bird Linderman, a Montanan from the age of sixteen, began writ­ ing in 1915 about the Indians among whom he had lived. During his lifetime he published many books and stories. This novel, however, written in 1938, was never published until now, due to an apparent shift in popular literary taste of the times. Wolf, a young Gros Ventre, seeks and receives a vision. His mother, Small-Voice, dreams at Wolf’s birth, but due to custom keeps the essence of the dream to herself. Wolf sees what other visionaries among Native Ameri­ cans saw in those troubling years, the destruction of the Buffalo and the decline of his people. Wolf and his medicineman ally, Black-Tongue, interpret the vision/dream as a warning. They decide that to save themselves they must cease trading with white men. Few of their contemporaries heed their warn­ ings, however, although Wolf and his wife, Breath-Feather, remain true to the vision until Wolf’s death by starvation as an old man at Fort Belknap. The main characters in Wolf and the Winds who chose to believe in Wolf’s vision also chose to interpret it as a warning. Wolf seemed to believe that having had a vision, the solution to present or future problems was within his grasp. History, however, seems to speak against this possibility. Neither St. John of the Bible’s REVELATION, nor the Paiute Wovoka who inspired the Ghost Dance, nor Wolf, nor even Jerry Falwell have had the power to stave off evil or command paradise before its time. Perhaps rather than warn­ ings, visions and dreams are merely clues to the mystery beyond ourselves, a comfort, a strength-giving force that enables a people to endure. Wolf and the Winds is written in an easy style and skillfully holds the attention of the reader. Teen readers as well as adults should enjoy it. In a simple way it voices clues to the rhythm of the lives of the original peoples of this western land in which thousands of white men are now struggling as second through seventh generation natives as well. PENELOPE REEDY Fairfield, Idaho ...