A Note on “The Soft-Hearted Sioux” in *American Indian Stories*

From the second I turned the page to start the chapter titled “The
Soft-Hearted Sioux,” I knew that something was different. At first I
wondered why the segmentation of the chapter was accomplished
with Roman numerals as opposed to summarizing headlines.  After
reading the first paragraph, I thought it was kind of strange that the
author all of a sudden has a father in her life, and soon after, it
appeared that the author had changed sexes. This obviously was
not the case, but it definitely caught me by surprise that the author
would start talking about someone else in the first person point of view
in the midst of her autobiographical novel. Does anyone know the purpose
of doing so?
    However, while reading this chapter, I was immediately able to draw
connections to Zitkala-Sa’s life. This boy who she speaks of also spent
his early years of life as a customary Indian, but left home to go to a
white missionary school against the will of his parents. As he was
getting educated, the boy found himself becoming more and more
accustomed to the white man’s ways while further distancing himself
from his Native Indian culture. The skills and knowledge he was obtaining
was valued in the eyes of the pale faces but worthless in the eyes of his
family.
    Upon his return home, the boy was met with the unfortunate news that
his father was dying. His purpose was to spread the Christian faith to his
old tribe and initially he had an optimistic view of the outcome.
However, he soon came to the bitter realization that after all his
schooling, he had nothing to show to his parents. He impressed no one.
Even his own father at his deathbed said to him on repeated occasions:
“My son, your soft heart has unfitted you for everything!” “Your soft
heart will let me starve before you bring me meat!” Sure enough, that is
exactly what happened. The boy was initially content in his decision to
leave his family and go to school, but in the end, (as his parents
foreshadowed) it failed him completely. Although this story was a sort of
digression from the rest of the autobiography, I feel that Zitkala-Sa
inserted this piece in order to convey that she may have made the same
mistake. After she was unable to finish college due to sickness, she was
scared to tell her mother because she would have blamed her misfortunes
on the white man’s “papers.” She further states that “such a rebuke from
my mother would have been unbearable, and as I felt then it would be far
too true to be comfortable.”

~A.A.