Madonna Swan: A Lakota Woman's Story

by Mark St. Pierre

In Madonna Swan: A Lakota Woman's Story, Mark St. Pierre skillfully weaves together his interviews with Madonna Swan-Abdulla to capture the indomitable spirit of a Lakota woman as she celebrates the joys and endures the sufferings of her remarkable life on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.

Born in 1928, Madonna Swan was winona — the first-born daughter-of Lucy High Pine and James Swan. She held a special place in an extended family of grandparents, parents, and ten brothers and sisters.

For the Swans, as for other Lakota Sioux, life on the reservation in the first half of the twentieth century was appallingly difficult. In her narrative, Madonna details her life-her earliest childhood memories, the Lakota traditions taught by her grandparents, the daily struggle against poverty and prejudice, and her education at Stephan Mission, South Dakota.

Stricken with dreaded tuberculosis at age sixteen, she survived nearly seven years in Sioux Sanitorium, a place where most other Sioux victims of TB quickly expired. Madonna's strength of spirit and determination to live carried her through the chanhu sica bad lungs–and into a new life, free of disease. She survived to marry, have a family, go to college, and teach in the reservation's Head Start program.

A symbol of courage for all women, Indian and non-Indian alike, Madonna Swan-Abdulla was named North American Indian Woman of the Year in 1983. She still lives on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, where her Lakota people honor her as matriarch.

Genres: Nonfiction, Native American, Indigenous, Biography, Memoir, History, Race

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Transition to reservation living meant, in a host of tangible ways, something very different for the women of the Lakota communities than it did for men, and Madonna Swan captures those memories in this collection of remembrances told to Mark St. Pierre. Where Madonna Swan's grandfather, father, and husband struggled to conceptualize their role within their families and communities under radically new circmstances, her grandmother and mother continued to care for and educate children, take responsibility for the work that occurred in the home, and sustained their culture through instruction to others, storytelling, and religious devotion. Madonna's life story weaves through this - her understanding of what it is to be a Lakota woman shaped by the actions and guidance of elder women in her community - while simultaneously offering a glimpse into the challenges of being born in the early twentieth century in a state that treated American Indians as worse than second-class. While at boarding school Madonna contracted tuberculosis, and the middle section of the book records the woefully inadequate treatment she received at "Sioux San," a hospital that had no particular goal of helping patients survive. It's only after WWII, with her father storming the Governor of South Dakota's office and demanding better healthcare for his daughter in the name of his veteran sons, that Madonna was transferred to Sanator, a white hospital where she was eventually cured. The complex picture of race relations, citizen rights, and cultural persistence caught up in that story is a vital one, far too often ignored in history curriculums across the U.S.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Madonna Swan was a strong woman, who survived tuberculosis under appalling conditions and overcame countless disadvantages imposed on her people to become a contributing member of society and inspiration to others. She was named Native American Woman of the Year in 1983. I found her story illuminating, since I knew next to nothing about Lakota life and culture. But the mode of presentation was disappointing. It read like an unedited transcript of an oral history as told to author Mark St. Pierre. Obviously steeped in his subject, the author inserted well-written background information in copious (135) endnotes. But the reference numbers in the were so unobtrusive that I missed the vast majority of them — which I would not have, had they pointed to footnotes at the bottom of the page. I tried to read the notes later, but by then I could no longer tell which incidents they referred to. Nevertheless, I felt this book was well worth reading.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another book from my Native American class. Let me just say I was pleasantly suprised by this book. After reading some of the other books for this class that seemed to drag on in places, I was expecting this book to be no different. Instead it was a great page-turner and a great autobiography of the title character Madonna Swan. Whether you're interested in Native American culture or not you should read this book just because it's such a great read.

[Gale · Rating 2 out of 5]

The background information was interesting, but the writing was not particularly compelling.

[SouthWestZippy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book. Well written for a easy read.