Hanta Yo : An American Saga

by Ruth Beebe Hill

Book Overview

This is the story of an original people, a multigenerational saga which reveals for the first time an American Indian culture from the inside. Based on a document recorded on tanned hide by a member... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446962988
• ISBN13: 9780446962988
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: Warner Books
• Length: 1109 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Wonderful and enlightening!

One of the greatest Native American studies ever written! Read the Smithsonian Book Review about this amazing work, there is nothing I can say that will out-do it! Buy it, read it, and be thunder struck!

Language use

Since none of the other reviews I've read have pointed this out, I thought I would because I think it's fascinating... According to the foreword, Ms. Beebe Hill learned the Lakotah language and translated the entire book into Lakotah and back again to ensure the conceptual and linguistic integrity of readers' impressions of the Lakotah culture. To me, the initially awkward-sounding phrasing eventually became an important part of both the story and my understanding of the characters and their actions. I was thoroughly impressed with this book. It's not history, but it is an impressive (and I believe honest) attempt to make accessible a culture about which many of us have admittedly shallow or misinformed understandings.

A Mind, Heart, Soul Experience

There is no ambiguity with this book. It either touches you at the core of your Being or not. The Spirit-That-Moves-Through-All-Things weaves itself through every page and permeates your heart and soul. You are drawn into an experience of the most profound depths; a rendition of a way of life where a person's connection to the Earth and Creator permeated every aspect of life. Where Truth, Honesty & Generosity were held as the highest values. This was my third reading and I found myself slowing down to prolong the experience. When I read this, I am immersed totally in the experience. This is story-telling at its finest, in a way that is mostly lost to us today. The use of idiom and syntax is stunning in its effect. It is also an honest depiction without glamorizing the characters in a Rousseau "Noble Savage" way. There are an abundance of spiritual teachings in this text to totally transform the reader who has the pre-conditions to identify, understand then live them. "Hanta Yo"- "Clear The Way!" "In a proud manner I live!"

The Earth owns two good days...

I have read this book several times and find something new each time. The critics of Hanta Yo that center in on the supposed "accepted homosexuality" are not in tune with the intent of the action. Two whole sentences about the forced copulation with the male captives - in a book with thousands and thousands of sentences - that is not the focus. The writer does not say it was accepted practice. I find this book to be well written, well researched, and detailed. Yes, it is historical fiction - the author was not there in 1815 and there is no way every word spoken can be accounted for, but I look at this, not as the literal but the spiritual.

I read this book twenty years ago and still can't forget it.

This book seems to be a masterpiece in scholarship and imagination. It helped me visualize what a holistic culture must have been like and it helped me appreciate how much wisdom we all lost when "progress" intervened.