Review of Where the Tall Grass Grows: Becoming Indigenous and the Mythological Legacy of the American West by Bobby Bridger

Authors

John H. Monnett, Metropolitan State College of Denver

Date of this Version

Fall 2012

Document Type

Article

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly 32:4 (Fall 2012).

Comments

Copyright © 2012 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.

Abstract

Musician, writer, and entertainer Bobby Bridger, a descendant of the well-known western trapper and scout Jim Bridger, has written a book attempting to link the past to the present by connecting historical eras of the American western movement with how Native Americans have been viewed, not only at the time, but in modern writing, especially fiction, stage productions, and, most importantly, motion pictures. His thesis is apparently based on a sentiment expressed by Indigenous author Joseph Marshall III at a Western Writers of America Conference to the effect that, although Indians have walked in the white world, whites have not walked in the Native world. His inspiration is also drawn from John Neihardt's classic Black Elk Speaks, Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, as well as the works of Vine and Philip Deloria.