Becoming Little Shell
A Landless Indian’s Journey Home
-
- 13,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
“Nothing less than the history of a people in the form of an absorbing and emotionally searing memoir.”—David Treuer, author of The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee
“I’m committed to uncovering the culture of my people. I’m committed to learning as much of the language as I can. I’ve always loved this land, and I’ve always loved Indian people. The more I dig into it, the more I interact with my Indian relatives, the more it blooms in my heart. The more it blooms in my spirit.”
Growing up in Montana, Chris La Tray always identified as Indian. Despite the fact that his father fiercely denied any connection, he found Indigenous people alluring, often recalling his grandmother’s consistent mention of their Chippewa heritage.
When La Tray attended his grandfather’s funeral as a young man, he finally found himself surrounded by relatives who obviously were Indigenous. “Who were they?” he wondered, and “Why was I never allowed to know them?” Combining diligent research and compelling conversations with authors, activists, elders, and historians, La Tray embarks on a journey into his family’s past, discovering along the way a larger story of the complicated history of Indigenous communities—as well as the devastating effects of colonialism that continue to ripple through surviving generations. And as he comes to embrace his full identity, he eventually seeks enrollment with the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, joining their 158-year-long struggle for federal recognition.
Both personal and historical, Becoming Little Shell is a testament to the power of storytelling, to family and legacy, and to finding home. Infused with candor, heart, wisdom, and an abiding love for a place and a people, Chris La Tray’s remarkable journey is both revelatory and redemptive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Montana poet laureate La Tray (One-Sentence Journal) combines personal reflection and cultural history in his gripping debut memoir. La Tray grew up near Missoula in the 1970s and '80s with "vague knowledge my father's side of the family was Indian." He loved imagining himself as Tonto from The Lone Ranger, but both La Tray's father and his grandfather often denied their Indigenous heritage. After both men died, La Tray's curiosity about his roots deepened, leading him to dig into his family history. Eventually, he learned that he was descended from Montana's Métis people. In 2017, he enrolled in the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians with the intention of becoming "someone people come to with questions about where they come from." As he outlines that process, La Tray constructs an engrossing history of the Little Shell Tribe, including their pioneering use of wheeled carts for transport at the turn of the 19th century, their label as "landless Indians" after white settlers divided their traditional lands into separate countries as the U.S. began enforcing its border with Canada in the 1870s, and their designation, in 2020, as a federally recognized tribe. La Tray's crystalline prose and palpable passion for spreading Indigenous history bolster his account. Readers will be fascinated.
