American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The Literary Offences of Ruth Beebe Hill Allan R. Taylor Hanta Yo: An American Saga. By Ruth Beebe Hill. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1979. 834 pp. $14.95. As a young person I was an enthusiastic reader of all kinds of works on North American Indians, both fictional and non-fictional. Fairly early in my life I read the romantic works on Indians of James Fenimore Cooper, which of course captivated me, for I was yet a child. Later on, in more mature years, I came upon the splendid essay which Mark Twain wrote on Cooper's Indian tales.' The essay was anything but friendly, but delightfully witty, and it certainly gave Cooper what he had coming to him. Cooper's principal failing, in Twain's opinion, was that he was careless with fact (not to say ignorant), but Twain also took him to task for his trite, repetitious style and his dull, uninspired plots. Mark Twain is unfortunately no longer with us, so we will not be able to benefit from his wit and insight as we attempt to deal with this late 20th century equivalent of the Leatherstocking. Although I find Mrs. Hill guilty of many of the same eighteen offences for which Cooper was castigated by the incomparable Mr. Clemens, I nevertheless approach the presentation of the case with great temerity. Mark Twain is a hard act to follow. Nevertheless, the attempt must be made. Hanta yo is a phony and pretentious book which I find offensive on several levels. It is offensive to a scientist of language because of the naivete (if not ignorance) about language in general which it displays. It is offensive to anyone who knows the Dakota language because of the inaccuracies in use and translations which appear throughout the book.