Books: Diane Wilson explores 'soul wounds' after Dakota wars

Monday, August 29, 2011  

"In "Spirit Car," which won the 2006 Minnesota Book Award for memoir, Diane Wilson explored her Native American ancestors who survived the Dakota War of 1862. She traced how her family had been devastated by generations of cultural extermination, leaving behind a multi-generational "soul wound." How to move forward against the trauma of her family's history? Wilson began a long process of remembering what was lost, while seeking to understand her family, her Dakota history and the Dakota way of life.

In "Beloved Child," Wilson moves powerfully into wider focus, exploring the "soul wounds" suffered by members of the Dakota tribe. The psychological and physical wreckage she describes, traceable to longstanding U.S. policies intended to eliminate the Dakota and their culture, have ravaged these mostly-Minnesota families with alcoholism, substance abuse, violence, incarceration, absurdly high suicide rates and a subconscious self-hatred. What Wilson does is both profoundly radical and deeply moving: she brings readers inside the lives of several contemporary Dakota who have changed their lives by holistically embracing their Native American culture. These Dakota have found that the way to heal is not to forget the past and "move forward," but to remember and return to their traditions.

Wilson and the Dakota she profiles are swimming against the stream of western history. "By rediscovering our relationship with the earth, with ceremony, [and] storytelling," writes Wilson, "we reestablish an indigenous worldview." Harley and Sue Eagle, for example, home-school their children, rejecting the "dominant" view of American history that asserts that Columbus "discovered" America and that whites were pre-ordained to conquer and "civilize" Native Americans."

Get the Story:
Remembering what was lost (The Minneapolis Star Tribune 8/28)