"A Warrior's Daughter": Unsettling Conceptions of Childhood
*all images come from the public domain from the following: Zitkala-Ša, American Indian Stories. [Internet Archive] Brigham Young University, Washington: Hayworth Publishing House, 1921.*
In Bonnin’s “Warrior’s Daughter,” a young warrior (Tusee) who rescues her captured lover opens up our discussion by emphasizing Indigenous women’s ties to the political wellbeing of their nations.[1] Bonnin’s “Warrior’s Daughter” sets the stage, then, by demonstrating that Indigenous women are intimately tied to reproductions of their nations’ sovereignties while also refusing to codify womanhood into any one strict definition. As the main character, Tusee also demonstrates the role of the child within the Yankton Dakota community and her success as she grows into a young woman is directly tied to the support and guidance she receives as a child as well as her willingness to reproduce such values in her growing adulthood. I turn now to key moments in the story which help redefine childhood as well as situate its political significance in carrying out Dakota sovereignties.
[1] Maile Arvin, Eve Tuck, and Angie Morrill’s “Decolonizing Feminism.”