Deer women and elk men

by Julian Rice

While Ella Deloria is known as a linguist and ethnologist and as author of the novel Waterlily, many readers may not know that she also wrote extensively in several Dakota dialects. Trained under Franz Boas, Deloria collected stories, autobiographies, and extensive descriptions of all aspects of Lakota life in the 1920s and 1930s, when the memories of her informants extended well back into camp circle days. She wrote the interviews from memory--first in Lakota, then in English, creating a literary extension of the oral tradition. In this first extended critical study of Deloria's work, Rice claims her as a major American writer. In discussing Deloria's Dakota Texts, Rice selects the theme of sexuality because it presents social and spiritual problems that are resolved in the narratives. In addition, a comparison of such issues in Lakota narratives and in familiar Shakespeare plays highlights Lakota values and serves to contextualize Deloria's work. English translations of the thirteen