Lakota Woman: Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

Mary has already described the Crow Dogs as a Lakota tribe that resisted assimilation and continued to live a more traditional Lakota lifestyle. In this passage, she shows that the Crow Dogs still lived with the whole tiyospaye; evidently, their generational refusal to assimilate to white society paid off, in that they were able to keep alive Lakota cultural traditions.

Upon marrying Leonard, Mary struggled under the weight of all the work that he expected her to do. Because of her gender, Leonard expected her to carry out all domestic duties without his assistance, including caring for the children of his previous marriage. Her frustration speaks to the unfairness of his demands and the gender roles by which he operated.

The Crow Dogs’ cold reception of Mary shows another problem that assimilated Native Americans face: more traditional Native Americans sometimes reject them. Because Mary’s mother and grandmother raised Mary without many Lakota cultural traditions—such as the language and religion—Leonard’s family wasn’t welcoming to her. They didn’t consider her Lakota enough.

The tension between Mary’s and Leonard’s families illustrates how assimilation to white society divides Native Americans. Mary’s family and Leonard’s family both represent a group: those who assimilated and those who retained a traditional lifestyle. In this passage, Mary shows that each group was prejudiced against the other. For children like Mary who were forced to assimilate to white society yet wanted to live a more traditional Lakota lifestyle, this situation could be alienating, as neither her family nor her husband’s family was accepting of her.

Mary has previously touched on how the first Crow Dog, Kangi-Shunka, was a man of resistance, as he refused to culturally assimilate to white society or cooperate with the U.S. government. Here, Mary makes it clear that the first Crow Dog set a behavioral and ideological precedent for his people and their descendants, which speaks to how a person’s acts of resistance can inspire future generations.

This passage depicts two different tribes fighting against each other, with the Crow warriors aiding white soldiers in their attack against Kangi-Shunka and his people. Presumably, the Crow had something to gain by fighting with the U.S. government, but history shows that, in the end, their cooperation didn’t stop the U.S. government from stripping all indigenous tribes of their rights. The implication is that division between indigenous tribes—particularly when tribes would help the U.S. government in fighting other indigenous nations—only ended up hurting the Native American community as a whole, as the U.S. government sought to assume power over all tribes.

This anecdote encourages unity between different beings: without the help of the coyotes and the crow, Kangi-Shunka likely would have died.

Spotted Tail and the first Crow Dog represent the two options that marginalized people are often limited to: one can either assimilate to the oppressor’s system and accept that fate, or one can fight back. Spotted Tail chose the former while the first Crow Dog espoused the latter. Mary’s admiration for Crow Dog’s legacy and how his descendants have retained their Lakota culture suggests that, while Spotted Tail’s assimilation is understandable (she makes it clear that he didn’t feel like he had much choice), Crow Dog’s resistance is preferable.

The rivalry and Spotted Tail’s murder show how internal division harms indigenous communities. In this instance, the first Crow Dog’s and Spotted Tail’s differing political stances on how to deal with the threat of colonization resulted in the death of a tribal leader and Crow Dog’s guilt and potential legal punishment.

The legal victory speaks to the importance of taking action to change a situation. Although the book suggests that it was Crow Dog’s lawyer—and not Crow Dog himself, as he was prepared to die—who argued against Crow Dog’s execution, the legal battle resulted in a victory for indigenous people, whose tribes retained legal sovereignty on reservations.

Crow Dog’s punishment among the Lakota show how the Lakota already had their own systems of justice within their communities prior to white settlers’ arrival. In other words, white society’s legal system was just another form of forced assimilation for indigenous people.

Mary makes it clear that she greatly struggled at the beginning of her marriage. Not only was she rejected by the more traditional Crow Dog family, but she also suffered from all the work that was expected of her, as Leonard’s family believed in strict gender roles in which women had to complete all the domestic and child-rearing duties.

The diagnosis of Mary’s love sickness suggests that Mary felt underappreciated because Leonard and his family expected her to perform an enormous amount of work simply because she was a woman. Not only does it appear that she didn’t like the work asked of her, but she also struggled with the thanklessness of her chores—Leonard’s family acted as though men were entitled to avoid domestic work because they expected women to do it. While it doesn’t appear that Mary’s chores were lessened, Leonard’s family did start making an effort to welcome her and show their appreciation. After the ceremony, Mary felt comforted, which shows how participating in indigenous religious ceremonies helps her feel more in tune with her identity. In this case, the ceremony also prompted the Lakota who were excluding her to become more welcoming, which is another way in which the ceremony helped Mary’s sense of identity—her husband’s family stopped ostracizing her for her non-traditional upbringing.