The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters (Volume 60)

by John Joseph Mathews

Perhaps once in a generation a great book appears on the life of a people—less than a nation, more than a tribe—that reflects in a clear light the epic strivings of men and women everywhere, since the beginnings of time. The Children of the Middle Waters is such a book. Drawing from the oral history of his people before the coming of Europeans, the recorded history since, and his own lifetime among them, John Joseph Mathews created a truly epic history.

This account of the Osages, a Siouan tribe once centered in the area now occupied by St. Louis, later on small streams in southwestern Missouri and southeastern Kansas, then in northeastern Oklahoma, is a spiritual one. Their quest in the centuries-long record was for the meaning of Wah’Kon-Tah, the Great Mysteries. In war, in peace, in camps and villages, in their land of the Middle Waters, the Osages met all of the changes and hardships people are likely to meet anywhere.

Mathews tells the Osages’ story with rare poetical feeling, in rhythms of language and with dramatic insights that surpass even his first book, Wah’ The Osage and the White Man’s Road , which was selected by a major book club when published in 1932. Mathews managed his vast canvas with consummate skill, marking him as one of the major interpreters of American Indian life and history.

Genres: Native American, Nonfiction, Indigenous

848 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1981

Reviews

[treva · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a long time to work through this, but it's worth it. Mathews was an Osage himself, and took great care and effort to listen to the stories of the elders about themselves and transcribe the oral histories accurately. I gained a better understanding of the initial allotment & enrollment, and of the evolutions of the In-Lonschka and of our ancient government into our current democratic process.

I also felt this was a much more nuanced and complex take on the European relations than I usually see. Not that there's any kind of excusing or minimizing of white behavior or policy, but there was a hint of empathy for their own kind of racial memory over several centuries that put their actions into more context.

Very thorough and very well-written, often in an informal, personal style that's very approachable.

[Paolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interessante libro relativo alla storia di un grande popolo del nord America. Dagli inizi della loro civiltà fino all'inevitabile declino dovuto ovviamente alla violenza e all'ingordigia degli invasori europei. Purtroppo una storia come quella di tanti altri popoli dei nativi americani. Non si può restare indifferenti di fronte a tali vicende.