Early Indigenous Literatures

Planted and striking, the Dakota woman announces her allegiances.

Upon sneaking into the enemy camp, Tusee attacks the warrior taunting her betrothed "like a panther for its prey" (Bonnin 86). Tusee is both markedly “the woman” and also a warrior-panther with a “husky voice”; channeling the inheritances of her warrior heart, the warrior’s daughter refutes the colonial gender binary by emphasizing these ranged variations (Bonnin 86, emphasis mine). The range of her gender expression as well as her “firmly planted” heels are explicitly connected to her call that she is not simply a woman, but emphatically “a Dakota woman!”, demonstrating that her transformation directly reproduces distinctly Dakota Yankton national values.

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