Kiowa

Most of us are easily attracted to the old West of George Armstrong Custer, Zane Gray, and John Wayne."Dances with Wolves" caught the public's fancy and gave particular resonance to books like "Black Eagle Speaks" and Dee Brown's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee". These works took thoughtful Americans beyond the sophomoric days of the Saturday afternoom western. However, it has been left to a little known writer, Elgin Groseclose, to lay bare the mind and heart of an American Indian during the period of the Civil War.In "The Kiowa" Elgin Groseclose describes an Indian raid into Mexico to obtain horses and women. He vividly depicts the lurking savage threatening the sleeping village. The tumult of close combat follows.Sanjak, the Kiowa chief, acquires a Mexican woman whose silver crucifix fascinates him. His new woman's presence leads him to search for the meaning of the faith most white men hold but few practice. The resulting spiritual confusion slowly overwhelms his life.Groseclose penetrates the mind and heart of the warrior, who is also husband, father and intelligent human being. No other writer has accomplished this. There is no sentimental portrayal of the persecuted native American.It is astonishing to notice that John Dunbar in "Dances With Wolves" finds a mythic counterpart in the Kiowa warrior. Sanjak lives among whites as Dunbar lives among Indians. His life is a surreal mirror image of Dunbar's. His tragic ending, like Dunbar's, is an inevitable comment on the white man's myopic ineptness.This is an absorbing tale. The reader is surprised with an unexpected view of the American past.