When the Legends Die

When the Legends Die (Borland, 1963) describes the struggle of Tom Black Bull, a Ute Indian born shortly before 1910, to find his place in the world. Because his father is a fugitive, Tom's childhood is spent in the mountains of Colorado with only his parents, living as Indians had lived for generations, hunting and gathering, in harmony with the land and with animals. During his boyhood, Tom's father and then his mother die, but Tom continues to live in the mountains with a bear cub he calls his brother.

When Tom is eleven, Blue Elk, paid by the Indian agent, brings Tom to the reservation school where he and his bear cub are held captive. When Tom escapes, he discovers that Blue Elk has stolen his belongings and burned his lodge. With no home remaining, Tom returns to the reservation school where he dresses like a white and does as he is told, but is withdrawn and alone. When the bear comes to find him, Tom sends him away for his own good, thus saying good-bye to everything that he knew and loved.

After three years at the reservation school learning English and performing manual labor, Tom leaves the reservation with Red Dillon, an over-the-hill, drunken bronc rider who teaches Tom to ride rodeo bucking horses. Red and Tom travel the country, making money by hustling bets at small rodeos. Red often compels Tom to lose rounds that he could win, so that betting on later rounds, when he wins, will be higher. Tom resents losing rides that he could

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only were the people at the reservation not interested in hearing or remembering the songs and stories he was bringing, but they were determined that Tom would forget the songs and stories. The reservation culture wanted nothing from the Indian culture--the "old ways". The story also shows that the reservation was run for the benefit of the white culture, not for the Indians' benefit. The goal of the school was to produce people who would be useful to the white culture. The school was designed to teach the Indians to be farmers or laborers. The skills taught the Indians were menial skills, such as milking cows, plowing fields, or herding sheep, so that the Indians could contribute low-cost manual labor to white society. Also, any benefit deriving from the Indians' labor was considered to belong to the reservation, not to the Indians who provided the labor. Tom discovered that the bridles he was making in class were being sold in the local store without any compensation to him for his labor. I thought the picture of Indian culture provided by this book was much different from the picture of Indian culture more commonly seen. The portrayal of Indian culture most currently disseminated throughout our society through books

Category: History - W