My Life as an Indian Audiobook By James Willard Schultz cover art

My Life as an Indian

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My Life as an Indian

By: James Willard Schultz
Narrated by: Brian V. Hunt
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Beautiful, tender, haunting, and full of excitement, this is the memoir of famed author, explorer, Glacier Park guide, trader, and historian of the Blackfoot Indians, James Willard Schultz. With the Blackfoot woman, whom he deeply loved, from 1880 to 1903, Schultz lived the life of a Blackfoot Indian with Nat-ah-ki and her people. During this time, he began writing for magazines, at times running a trading post, and working as a guide in the West.

He met historian, writer, and naturalist George Bird Grinnell, who encouraged him to write this heartfelt and important memoir. As an ethnography of a people and a time it is invaluable.

Though he would marry again, Schultz eventually went back to live near the Native peoples he'd come to love and is buried in the traditional ground of Nat-ah-ki's people. You won't read another memoir like it.

Every memoir of the American West provides us with another view of the migration that changed the country forever.

Public Domain (P)2017 Big Byte Books Americas Indigenous Creators United States Heartfelt American Indian Life
Captivating Story • Insightful Historical Account • Beautiful Authentic Narrative • Detailed Life Depictions
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Loved this look into the life of probably someone not too uncommon of the time.

Amazing

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Very interesting and well written and I enjoyed the narration. I would recommend this book

Great book

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It took a few chapters to get into the rhythm of the narrator’s voice. It seemed too detached and impassioned. As the story progressed, the voice delivering the story made sense. Somehow, this story needs to get into the school curriculum. Parts of it can start in the elementary school and finish in high school. I will be recommending this book to everyone wondering “why weren’t we taught this at school?” I especially love the chapters that quotes popular writings of the times and then dismantles them piece by piece. This is what history is about. It is built from real stories or real people. This is why rewriting and whitewashing history never holds up to the test of times.

High school requirement

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Gets more into the family life side of things. Tells their story towards the end of Indian territory.

Not action packed.

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I can not believe that I have not heard of this story before, it is amazing to have this historical perspective preserved by a great book

one of the best I've listened to

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This is an amazing story. I assume 90% of it is true and unembellished and that self-aggrandizement is minimal. The author admits he is not proud of all of his actions so I am sure there is some editing on his part that omits some things. That being said it’s now one of my favorites of all time.

Along with 9 Years Among the Indians and Empire of the Summer Moon and 6 years as a Texas Ranger it stands out as a classic of the American frontier. Like “9 years” it completes a narrative with pathos and emotional intelligence. But unlike the former, it completes the narrative of a full life time.

The author is talented and at various points poetic and touching without being maudlin. He escorts you into the Montana and NW Canadian wilderness through the plains and mountains. He lets you ride, hunt, and fight with him. He lets you experience his fears and sadness as much as his bravery.

It’s a wonderful story.

However, If you listen to it speed up narration to 1.1 or 1.2 speed. I think there is a flaw in the recording or it was recorded before audiobooks were digital. It’s a little slow. Once sped up a little the narrator sounds a lot better.

Sometimes a story captivates you

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This is a phenomenal read, a must read if you are trying to understand what real life was like for the American Indian and the Blackfoot culture both before and during the white man invasion.

A real life look into the Blackfoot culture

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Great historical in-depth book about life love friendships family among the Blackfeet & their traders adoptees etc.
Best book of this kind of many

Outstanding

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Such an enjoyable story and so much great history. It left me wanting to hear more about that whole other world.

A most excellent read!

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My father pushed me to read this book when I was a kid in the 1960s. He read it as a boy and apparently it affected him. I borrowed the same old beat-up library copy he read but never even glanced through it. Years later I listened to it with increasing guilt. This is an excellent book of its sort, as my father tried to tell me. It is full of details of the Pegan Blackfeet and their neighbors the Crows, of course, but more importantly its characters act in flawed human ways, giving things the ring of truth. Schultz makes no excuses for the various tribes' constant wars with one another. Like the ancient Greeks, warfare is what they expected to happen each year. He participates in killing enemies but doesn't seem to have scalped them--but then who knows?. A few years later Schultz abandons his tearful Indian wife and moves back to New England to live like a white man. He goes so far as to tell his closest friend that after he is gone his wife should marry again. But he can't stand New England anymore and returns to her and the Great Plains for good. She waited for him and the pair become a true love match. Several times he states he is an atheist and no believer in an afterlife--not Pegan beliefs, not Christian ones. When his wife dies near the book's end he writes that he will never see her again, despite her believing that they will meet, and will just have to accept the finality of it. She is totally gone, as likewise the style of life the two of them lead for many years among extended families and friends in Indian camps. This is well worth listening to for 13 hours. If 19th century Indian life interests you, you are foolish if you don't buy this one.

Surprisingly Human and Honest

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