Raymond Abbott Selected Works

A collection of contemporary American Indian stories and essays by author Raymond Abbott, including pieces published previously in magazines such as the North American Review and Creative Non Fiction. Also collected is the novella "The Axing of Leo White Hat," originally published in 1979 by Applewood Books as part of Death Dances: Two Novellas on North American Indians.

Over the body of a reservation Indian thrown into a snow bank by a careening car, a coyote stands guard. The eerieness of the desolate scene is never forgotten by the Indian, Black Horse, a man whose peace lies in his painting—a way for him to escape the sordidness of reservation life by putting on canvas the beauty of the place. But this ambition is thwarted almost from the beginning by the prejudice and fears of the whites around him, by the self-defeating attitudes the Indians themselves are prey to—their ignorance and poverty leading them to alcoholism, bitterness, frequent run-ins with the law, and even more frequent stays in the local and state jails. In a novel told dispassionately but deeply felt, the reader shares at once the course of Black Horse's ultimate destiny.

For Generations the Sioux have regarded the Black Hills (Paha Sapa) as a shrine to the lightning and thunder of the gods, and journey there to get their lodge poles and medicines. To the white man, however, the Black Hills were a source of wealth, first in minerals, later tourism. Black Hills Summer is the story of a contemporary Indian movement to regain rights to the Hills.