James Willard Schultz (1859–1947)

In the Great Apache Forest, The story of a Lone Boy Scout by James Willard Schultz
Story starts with intro to the main hero: George Crosby and he always wanted to be a boy scout but growing up he was never even near close enough to the boy scout troops. He applied to become one and they agreed he could and then as the war went on and his uncle was off to fight in France, he wanted to do his part in the US.
His tribe lives in AZ and he was able to get a job guarding for fires in the Apache National Forest.
I was so happy to learn of this and that there was even a forest dedicated to the Apache. Love all the super descriptive details of the area and how he had help getting his items to the cabin up the mountain.
He finds many things out of place one day when he returns to his cabin, food missing. There is also trouble in the area, some firebugs are setting fires near the sawmill. They are able to get help from other tribes and police in the area but are never able to find them.
George also watches a trail of blue smoke each morning and puts it all together and he knows who the culprit is.
An Indian from Hopi tribe appears and they become friends and they are there to summon rain gods as their crops in the desert need rain, badly.
So does the Apache forest. What a lot of excitement and mystery and clues over the course of this book, so cool. Animals are throughout the book also.
Author made it so real for me as if I was there to experience it all first hand. Love the caves and things found and the sacred lands.… (mehr)

James Willard Schultz left his family, traveled to Montana, and lived among the Blackfeet, marrying the Blackfeet woman Natahki. That much is fairly well documented. For the rest of Schultz’s book My Life as an Indian it isn’t clear what’s fully factual. I see just a little of the “white savior” meme in the narrative but perhaps I’m too suspicious. The book was published in 1907; I suppose that after killing or dispossessing all the Native Americans, whites were ready to see them as Noble Savages again. And Schultz’s Blackfeet usually fall into the Noble Savage category; the young men are brave warriors, the young women are beauties, and the elderly are wise. (There are a few exceptions, but Schultz stresses that they are exceptions). Although there are a lot of anecdotes about Blackfeet life, Schultz doesn’t provide anything that can be pinned down – places, dates and names tend to be vague or perhaps deliberately disguised. To be fair Schultz isn’t claiming to be an ethnologist – he’s writing a biographical account, not an academic paper. That being said, I found Schultz quite readable; his stories are interesting and his characters plausible. No maps, which is something of a handicap since geography plays a role in a lot of the stories. Photographs in the text but they seem to be generic Indians rather than particular people Schultz is talking about. He went on to write 30+ books, I may try some of the other ones.… (mehr)

This is one of the many books that have been written about Sacajawea, Indian woman who led the Lewis and Clark expedition west up the "BigRiver" and down the "BigRiver of the WestSide" to the "everywhere salt water." It is a second level account, told through oral tradition during the late 19th century and printed during the first part of the 20th century. It appears genuine from that stand point. I can't judge it's authenticity and truth; I'm not an expert. But, it sounded good and tells all the right stories. Those stories, by the way, were a bit difficult to choke down because of the translation from a book published a century ago and recently republished on Kindle. The reader has to wonder if the publisher put any time at all into the translation? Tsa-ka-ka-wia is lost is lost to history between the end of the expedition and when she reappears in her 90s--then tells the story of her trip west with the first long knives. Subsequently, she is honored by Wyoming, the first state to grant universal suffrage, and one of the states that claim her final resting place.… (mehr)