These Were the Sioux

• First Published - 1961
• “The Sioux Indians came into my life before I had any preconceived notions about them," writes Mari Sandoz about the visitors to her family homestead in the Sandhills of Nebraska when she was a child. These Were the Sioux, written in her last decade, takes the reader far inside a world of rituals surrounding puberty, courtship, and marriage, as well as the hunt and the battle. These Were the Sioux is one of her easiest books to read. The narrative reads more as explanation and her intimate understanding of the Oglala makes the knowledge and insights she shares with readers understandable.