Our Hearts Fell To The Ground Summary

In the book, Our Hearts Fell to the Ground, author Colin G. Calloway noted that Native American were reluctant to discuss their lives once they had been relocated to the reservation. This reluctance to write or speak about life on the reservation became the mentality of many Native Americans due to varies factors. However, this reluctance can be explain if one was to examine the catastrophic damage that was cause to the Plains Indians culture and traditions. The expansion to the west stole not only land for the Native Americans but as its identity as a people. Many shared the feeling that there was no story to be told on the reservation. These feelings are understandable when life before the reservation and life after are compare. Before the encroachment of whites into the plains, Plains Indians were in the golden age of their society. There were no drawn borders, Plains Indians traveled and hunted as they pleased. As horses and guns were introduced to Native Americans by Europeans, the qualities and …show more content…
Their culture and traditional way of life has been pillaged and destroy by the whites. All that remain is a fragment its original self. Life on the reservation is the complete opposite of a nomadic life following buffalos on the open plains. With the buffalo gone, it seems as if half the culture disappear along with it. The “Buffalo road” is now closed to the Native Americans. The reservation was not a happy place for most Native Americans. It is understandable that many Native Americans did not consider life on the reservation a story worth retelling because the Indian way of life did literally end as they enter the reservations. Everything was traded in upon entering the reservation. Native American identity were strip. From the hair to the wardrobe to the language and even the name. All was then replace by American name, language, wardrobe, and hair. The traditional Plains Indians story