One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd
by Jim Fergus
24 popular highlights from this book
Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd:
“Don't you know that I laugh because it is my last defense against tears?”
“...how odd to think of one's life not as chapters in a book but as complete volumes, separate and distinct.”
“that's exactly the good thing about the Injun life--you don't have to stop and think about whether or not you're 'happy'--which in my opinion is a highly overrated human condition invented by white folks”
“and firm and forthright, to show neither fear nor uncertainty—no matter how fearful and uncertain I may be inside; I see no other way to survive this ordeal.”
“can’t help but think once again what a foolish, loutish creature is man. Is there another on earth that kills for the pure joy of it?”
“A peace is of the nature of a conquest;For then both parties nobly are subdu’d,And neither party loser.” (William Shakespeare,Henry IV, Part Two, Act IV, Scene 2,from the journals of May Dodd)”
“My definition of LUNATIC ASYLUM: A place where lunatics are created.”
“in which all children born belong to their mother’s tribe, this seemed to the Cheyennes to be the perfect means of assimilation into the white man’s world—a terrifying new world that even as early as 1854, the Native Americans clearly recognized held no place for them. Needless to say, the Cheyennes’ request was not well received by the white authorities—the peace conference collapsed, the Cheyennes went home, and, of course, the white women did not come. In this novel they do.”
“when I die the wind will still blow and the stars still shine, for the place I occupy on earth is no more permanent than the water I now make,”
“We curse the US government, we curse the Army, we curse the savagery of mankind, white and Indian alike. We curse God in his heaver. Do not underestimate the power of a mother's vengeance." (from the journals of Margaret Kelly)”
“I watch as long as I can and only then do I finally gain the courage to change seats, to give up my dark and troubled past and turn around to face an uncertain and terrifying future. And when I do so the breath catches in my throat at the immensity of earth that lies before us, the prairie unspeakable in its vast, lonely reaches. Dizzy and faint at the sight of it, I feel as if the air has been sucked from my lungs, as if I have fallen off the edge of the world, and am hurtling headlong through empty space. And perhaps I have … perhaps I am …”
“even if it meant early release of a few low-level felons or minor mental defectives”
“elicted”
“It was our understanding that we were to be instructing them in the ways of the civilized world, not being made beasts of burden, but, as Helen Flight has pointed out, of what use are table manners to those without tables.”
“Jim”
“Good-bye, Harry, wherever you may be … never has it been more clear to me that the part of my life which you occupied is over forever … I could not be further away from you if I were on the moon … how odd to think of one’s life not as chapters in a book but as complete volumes, separate and distinct.”
“I push him from my mind. This is no act of easy omission on my part; I do not consign him casually to a forgotten past. It is rather an act of will--a kind of self-performed surgery on my soul...the bloodiest of mutilations.”
“But others of us believed that the only true happiness our Sara had ever known in her short life on this earth had been among these people. And we wished for her soul to go to the place the Cheyennes called Seano – the place of the dead – which is reached by following the Hanging Road in the Sky, the Milky Way. Here the Cheyennes believe that all the People who have ever died live with their Creator, He’amaveho’e. In Seano they live in villages just as they did on earth – hunting, working, eating, playing, loving, and making war. And all go to the place of the dead, regardless of whether they were good or bad on earth, virtuous or evil, brave or cowardly – everyone – and eventually in Seano all are reunited with the souls of their loved ones.”
“Ah but Art never fails anyone, magic and medicine may certainly fail, but never Art.”
“As I squat to pee I look upward at the billions of stars and planets in the heavens and somehow my own insignificance no longer terrifies me as it once did, but comforts me, makes me feel a part, however tiny, of the whole complete and perfect universe. . . and when I die the wind will still blow and the stars still shine, for the place I occupy on earth is no more permanent than the water I now make, absorbed by the the sandy soil, dried instantly by the constant prairie wind . . .”
“Now we move out again, the horses slipping down off the knoll, following the People, who follow the buffalo, who follow the grass, which springs from the earth.”
“Franchement vu la façon dont j'ai été traitée par les gens dits "civilisés", il me tarde finalement d'aller vivre chez les sauvages.”
“I, personally, have resolved never to display weakness, to be always strong and firm and forthright, to show neither fear nor uncertainty-- no matter how fearful and uncertain I may be inside; I see no other way to survive this ordeal.”
“Your power as a woman, as a mother, is your medicine, and it saved you. Take your courage in that.”
