A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 50th Anniversary Edition
A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 50th Anniversary Edition
Drawings by Amos Bad Heart Bull
Text by Helen H. Blish
Introduction by Mari Sandoz
Introductions to the new edition by Emily Levine and Candace Greene
648 pages
458 b&w illustrations, 32 color illustrations, 8 photographs, index
Hardcover
December 2017
Originally published in 1967, this remarkable pictographic history consists of more than four hundred drawings and script notations by Amos Bad Heart Bull, an Oglala Lakota man from the Pine Ridge Reservation, made between 1890 and the time of his death in 1913. The text, resulting from nearly a decade of research by Helen H. Blish and originally presented as a three-volume report to the Carnegie Institution, provides ethnological and historical background and interpretation of the content.
This 50th anniversary edition provides a fresh perspective on Bad Heart Bull’s drawings through digital scans of the original photographic plates created when Blish was doing her research. Lost for nearly half a century—and unavailable when the 1967 edition was being assembled—the recently discovered plates are now housed at the Smithsonian’s National Anthropological Archives. Readers of the volume will encounter new introductions by Emily Levine and Candace S. Greene, crisp images and notations, and additional material that previously appeared only in a limited number of copies of the original edition.
PILA identified the original glass-plate negatives, purchased them, donated them to the Smithsonian and facilitated the digitization work done there!
