Description
Book SynopsisHow authors rendered Dakhóta philosophy by literary means to encode ethical and political connectedness and sovereign life within a settler surveillance stateTranslated Nation examines literary works and oral histories by Dakhóta intellectuals from the aftermath of the 1862 U.S.Dakota War to the present day, highlighting creative Dakhóta responses to violences of the settler colonial state. Christopher Pexa argues that the assimilation era of federal U.S. law and policy was far from an idle one for the Dakhóta people, but rather involved remaking the Oyáte (the Océti Šakówi? Oyáte or People of the Seven Council Fires) through the encrypting of Dakhóta political and relational norms in plain view of settler audiences. From Nicholas Black Elk to Charles Alexander Eastman to Ella Cara Deloria, Pexa analyzes well-known writers from a tribally centered perspective that highlights their contributions to Dakhóta/Lakhóta philosophy and politics. He explores how these authors, as well as oral
