Zintka!
Lost Bird of Wounded Knee — Zintkála Nuni
by Brad Colerick & Scott Feldmann
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Pub Date Sep 27 2024 | Archive Date Jan 15 2025
Description
48 pages include: illustrated lyrics as ledger art, short bio of Zintka, historic timeline, song lyrics and lead sheet plus a brief description of ledger art genre. QR Code links to short film online.
A true story of "found & lost". . . and found again. Zintka tells the troubled tale of a Native American girl caught between two worlds, accepted by neither. A Lakota (Sioux) baby and her mother who were fleeing for safety became victims in the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. The baby was found four days after a South Dakota blizzard, alive by the warmth of her mother's dead body. She was adopted by a prominent soldier and his famous suffragette wife to be raised in their white, high-society circles. Zintka was not accepted there because of racial prejudices in the era of forced assimilation. Neither was she was accepted by her own people when she sought out her roots, partly because she did not speak their language.
Named "Lost Bird," (Zintkála Nuni in Lakota,) at the moment she was separated from her Lakota caregivers, she was chronicled in newspapers from her discovery to her death. Zintka attempted to succeed in show business, joining Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, San Francisco's vaudeville circuit, and as an extra in Hollywood silent films. Zintka died in the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1920 and was buried in a pauper's grave in Hanford, California. Finally, in 1991 her story was discovered through efforts of her biographer Renée Sansom Flood. Lakota leadership from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota ceremoniously reburied her at the Wounded Knee Monument, near the mass grave of the disaster, which included her birth mother.
The name "Lost Bird" came to describe Native American children adopted off the reservation by non-Indians after the publication of her biography, "Lost Bird: Spirit of the Lakota" (Scribner, 1995).
A Note From the Publisher
Advance Praise
A BookLife Review Editor’s Pick for outstanding quality called out as a: “Stunning artistic recreation of Zintkála Nuni’s story.”
“I love the book… it tells such an important story with empathy and precision.”
— Mary Pipher, Ph.D., author of "Reviving Ophelia", "Women Rowing North", and other books including 4 New York Times bestsellers
“Zintka mashes together Brad Colerick’s haunting, thought-stimulating song with Scott Feldmann’s dancing, juxtaposed visual imagery into a compelling portrayal.”
— Steve Fjeldsted, Director of Library, Arts, and Culture, South Pasadena Public Library 2006 - 2019; previously County Library Director in Central, and Northern California
“You have an amazing way of presenting history, and that needs to be shared broadly!”
— Chris Hochstetler, Executive Director - Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer
“WELL, WELL, WELL!! This is one of the best and artistic films on the subject of forgotten American Indians that I have ever seen. Congratulations on this excellent film.”
- Marc Wanamaker, Founder of Bison Archives; renown historian, archivist, and expert in film history.
Marketing Plan
Book launches at various film festivals as "Lost Bird (Zintkála Nuni)" is selected and screened. Winner at Sedona and Grand Mesa. Official Selection at Pasadena, Omaha, Black Hills and South Dakota festivals. More are yet to be announced.
To be showcased at the Stuhr Museum, Grand Island, NE. Already screened at The Ross at University of Nebraska, (as prelude to War Pony by Riley Keough and Gina Gammell) ,The Fountain Theatre in Messilla, NM and the Mary D. Fisher Theatre in Sedona, AZ.
Screenings and book signings always invite Native American speakers from the locality.
Available Editions
EDITION | Hardcover |
ISBN | 9798218439644 |
PRICE | $29.99 (USD) |
PAGES | 48 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
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The Ghost Dance was a Native American dance of renewal. It was a prayer for both dead relatives and the buffalo to return, a prayer for the restoration of Indian culture and their way of life. The combination of sensational newspaper headlines and memories of Custer’s Last Stand, created fear among the settlers. The US government called for the arrest of Ghost Dance leaders including Sitting Bull who was quickly assassinated at Standing Rock Reservation on December 15, 1890. The massacre at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota would soon follow.
At Wounded Knee, Indian braves were disarmed and killed, women and children slaughtered. A detail was sent to bury the dead, however, an icy blizzard and sub zero temperatures delayed the burial by four days. A weak cry…a baby discovered…the body of her dead mother had kept her warm. Named Zintkala Nuni (Lost Bird) by the Lakota, the infant was taken by Brigadier General Colby as a trophy of war. He had used trickery and barter, then adopted the baby by forging his wife’s signature. Clara Colby, was a devoted mother to Zinta despite being away six months a year working with suffragists in Washington, DC. She was an associate of Susan B. Anthony and Elizbeth Cady Stanton.
Zinta was always on display at numerous receptions, a curiosity to most in attendance. Set apart from other children, she grew to question her identity. She liked to frequently examine her baby moccasins and bracelet. Running away from home, she traveled to Standing Rock Reservation in search of her birth family. Having been snatched from the Lakota people as an infant, she did not understand the language, traditions and spirituality of Native American culture. She was unable to communicate.
Seventy years after being buried in a pauper’s grave on February 14, 1920, Zintkala Nuni was repatriated. Observing proper tradition, she was reburied, honored and mourned at Wounded Knee on July 11,1991.She had come home.
The story of “The Waif of Wounded Knee”, lost between two worlds came to life through the award winning “Best Mixed Media Short” called “Lost Bird” screened at the Sedona International Film Festival in February, 2024. The seven minute animated film presents a multifaceted view of the cost of forced assimilation on the identity and emotional well being of native children adopted away from the reservation.
Zintka! is described as a hybrid format book. An emotionally descriptive song written by singer/songwriter Brad Colerick, the book’s co-author, tells Zinta’s story. Co-author Scott Feldmann creates an animontage, illustrations in an animation style. Ledger Art in primitive drawings follow the Indian tradition of drawing their history. Winter counts show pictographic calendars of historical events. The Ledger Art is superimposed on a background of newspaper articles, historical photographs and handwritten military reports of casualties. Feldman supplies biological information as well as a timeline of Zinta’s life. The sheet music and words for “Little Bird-Lost Bird of Wounded Knee” are included.
Zintka! by Brad Colerick and Scott Feldmann presents “the troubled tale of a Native American girl caught between two worlds, accepted by neither during her lifetime.” A magnificent, highly recommended read.
Thank you Deep Magic Song & Drawing Co. and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.