Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1987
Abstract
Warren Hanna h ere gives us a splendid, complete biography of James Willard Schultz (1 859-1947), a not-so-well -known but excellent writer on the America n West. In 1877, at seventeen, Schultz arrived in Montana Territory and "began to live intimately the life of an Indian [among the Blackfeet] almost from the day he arrived in the West. He ate their food, slept in their lodges , and began to learn the difficult Blackfoot language; he eventually was able not only to speak it well but to think as the Indians did. He began to see the world through the eyes o( the Blackfeet. Though his skin was obviously white, his soul h ad become that of a red man" (p. 282). He fell in love with the country as well, was given n Blackfeet name (Apikuni), married a Blackfeet woman who bore him a son, and spent the rest of his life in his beloved West. During his first six Blackfeet years he often hunted and went on the warpath with his tribal brothers. He witnessed and participated in the near-extinction of the buffalo .
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 7:2 (Spring 1987). Copyright © 1987 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.