Zintka!: Lost Bird of Wounded Knee – Zintkála Nuni

The massacre at Wounded Knee is one of the darkest chapters in American history. Soon after Ghost Dance leaders, including Sitting Bull, were arrested and killed, more than two hundred and fifty Lakota were captured. The men were stripped of their arms and murdered, then all the women and children were also killed. An army unit was sent to bury the dead, but a winter storm prevented them from doing so for four days. It was then a baby is discovered alive, kept warm by her dying mother. The child was claimed as a trophy in an auction by an ambitious officer in the Nebraska National Guard, General Leonard Wright Colby. The child was given a name that means “Lost Bird” by a Native American woman before Colby took the child east to his wife, Clara Bewick Colby, a writer and women’s rights advocate.

Life was not easy for Zintka. She found herself caught between two cultures, never being accepted by whites. Her parents split, and Zintka went back and forth between their two homes. She attended a string of boarding schools, often being expelled. She ran off and returned to the reservation during her teens, spending a year there trying to discover who her parents were, to no avail. Unaccepted by either the Lakota or whites, Zintka’s life continued to be extremely difficult. As an adult, she had multiple marriages, one of her children died as an infant, and she worked in show business, the circus, and even prostitution. She lived only to age thirty.

This book seems to have been written in support of a short film about the life of Zintka, but it is truly a piece of art on its own. It opens with a very brief introduction of Zintka that is followed by a poem, which is really the lyrics of a song. Many pages of extraordinary art accompany the stanzas of the poem. Some of the art is in Native American style painted on documentary records and newspapers from the time of the Wounded Knee massacre. Some are collage art with photographs from that time, including photos of Zintka. Some of the art is very childlike, but all of it is very powerful. The colors are rich and saturated. The images are evocative.

Zintka’s story is told in quite a bit of detail in the second section of the book, and that is followed by an extensive timeline of her life with quite a number of photos from her life. A very complete history of Zintka’s name is included as well as how the story of her life was discovered and how the film came to be made. This is not a picture book for young children, although older, more sophisticated children might enjoy it. Adults who have an interest in Native American culture will find this fascinating.