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>> good afternoon and welcome to the historic trinity unite methodist church weapon feel so fortunate to be here in this beautiful space which has been made possible by the generosity of jack and mary romanos. i'm a volunteer for the satisfy plan book festival and so glad you're participating. it friended by georgia power, by david and nancy, the sheehan family foundation and mark and pat suen. and like to think our wonderful literatety members and sponsors and donors who make and continue to make saturday at the book festival a free event. 90% of the revenue for the savannah book festival comes from donors like you. so we're excited to have a savannah book festival app available tis year. so please look in your programs. if you want information on downloading that app to your telephone. before we get started a couple

of housekeeping notes. immediately following this presentation, our author, deanne stillman, will be signing festival prepared copies of her book owl in the square. if you intend to stay is in venue for the presentation that will follow this presentation, please move forward in the space so that we make room for people coming in through the big front doors. a couple of technology announcemented weapon ask you take just a minute right now double-check your cell phone is turned off or in silent mode so we won't have electronic interruptions during the talk the other is of you heal reins to and you want to take photographs please make sure you don't use a flash. and then finally, for the question and answer portion, i'm going to ask that you raise your hand. i will make eye contact with an i-er who will bring a microphone to you. please don't beginning your question until you have a microphone in your hand and in the interests of fairness to the

other attendees and our efforts to make as men questions as possible happen, please make shower that you limit yourself to one question and your question is actually a question rather than comment or story. deanne stillman is with us today. courtesy of dave and bobbier irwin. she is a'sly published critically acclaimed writer. he latest book is "blood brothers" the story of the strange friendship between sitting bull and buffalo bill and tells the story of annie oak ley who was a friend of both men. the book received a star review and was name by true west magazine and the millions as the best book of 2017. deanne stillman is also the author of desert reckoning, the winner of the spur award and the los angeles press club award for best nonfiction.

her book, mustang, an l.a. times best become after the year and whereas released in audio. she is also the author of 29 palms, los angeles times best book after the year, which hunter thompson called, quote, a strange and brilliant story by an important american writer. we have that important american writer with us todd so please gave warm savannah welcome to dean stillman. [applause] >> thank you so much, savannah. and savannah book festival, c-span, trinity united methodist church and my sponsors. really great to be here. so as you know i'm their talk about my latest book "blood brother" busy the strange

friendship win sitting bill and buffalo bill, corollary appearance from annie oakley and i'm going to read a few excerpts and talk about my journey through this story, and then take some questions from you afterwards. so first i want to talk about how i came to write this. it's very strange story about a strange friendship. sometime ago, while working on my book mustang, the saga of the wild horse and the american west, i learned about a strange and heartbreaking moment that had transpired outside sitting bull's cabin while he was being assassinated during an ambush.

a horse was tethered to a railing and at the sound of gunfire he started to dance. trained to do such a thing while he was in the wild west, buffalo bill's famous spectacle of which sitting bull was a part for four months during 1885. i couldn't shake the image and as i began to look into it, i learned that the horse was a gift to sitting bull from buffalo bill, presented to sitting bull when he left the show to go home, and home for him at that time was standing rock. the tact fact that buffalo bill hat given sitting bull a horse upon his departure was significant. this was the animal that transformed the west and was stripped from the tribes in order to vanquish them. it was a gift that sitting bull treasured along with a hat that cody gave him as well.

after sitting bull was killed, buffalo bill bought the horse back from sitting bull's widows and accord ago some accounts rode it in the parade and then the horse disappears from the record. it was the legend of the dancing horse that led me into the story of sitting bull and buffalo bill. for symbolized so much. is a thought about the steed outside sitting bull's dwelling as his killing wag underway, portal into something else opened up. strange voices coming through the portal. [baby crying] >> where was. i a portal. exactly where, portal opened. exactly what i was not sure of at the time. other than the fact that here

was my next story and it was calling and at some point i would head down its trail. later as i was well along the path i came across another image. it's now in the cover of this book and it, too captured my attention. it was taken for publicity purposes while sitting bull and buffalo bill were on tour in montreal and its caption was: foes in '76. friend inside '85678 i began no imagine the two men on read, sitting bull on the horse, crisscrossing the nation, visiting lands that once belonged to the lakota, in thoroughfares following ancient paths made by him and others who followed him. and william codey, re-enacting wartime see anywhere wyoming that -- scenarios that hat one outcome, the end of the redman

and victory of the white and the celebration of the wild west that became the national skim tour. what were the force that brought these two men together i wondered? and what was the nature of their alliance? were they each trapped in a persona that was somewhat true? and the projected idea, who were they in day-to-day life. theirs was an unlikely partnership but one thing was obvious, both had named that were forever linked with the buffalo. one man was credited offed with wipe thought species. that was hard hardly the case, and the was sustainedded bits its very life. they were in effect two sides of the same coin, foes and then friends, just as the photo caption on the publicity poster

said. so this image, too entered my consciousness. here were two american super stars, icons, not just officer their era and country, but for all time and around the world. what story was this picture telling and how its connected to the dancing horse outside sitting bull's cabin? okay. so, now a little bit about all of these questions. can't answer all of them. but a few thoughts. first of all, something i do in my book is i recount the stories of each men from cradle to the griff, lid rally, -- literally, and track their parallel histories. both grew up -- both men grew up on the frontier, both came from very rough circumstances, both were quite revered in their own

tribes, both became super stars, they were husbands, fathers, sons, warriors. they shared a bloody history. they were enemies for quite some time, until they hooked up in buffalo bill's wild west show. so here's a little bit about cody. in europe he was known as nature's nobleman. a frontier self-sufficient was a sophistication of western civilization. in america he was king of the old west, title he deserved. he was a hunter, scout, shooter, rider, warrior, tell are of tall tales and manned a -- man of adventure. his experience render him a weisman and presidents and generals sought hit as vice. his friends were frederick remington and mark twain and

pawnee chiefs, bronx us busters who could drink him under the table and ranch cooks who needed a job. he was open to all. he had no airs. what you saw what's you got, even if it was sometimes a mirage. he was the simplest of man was annie oakley would say, as comfortable with cowboys as with kings. before the term was forever linked to his name, william f. he cody grew up in the wild west. not named for the man he would killed be the thousands, others for the record killed more but just a employ who played with indians on the great plains, perhaps even members of sitting bull's extended tribe. who would pass through territory near his home in kansas as they followed the buffalo. so, too, by his own account did

he kill an indian in his youth. others later while he was employed as a wagon train hand but he was not aware the curtain would soon fall on their way of life and he would participate any last act as well as try to preserve what came before. once he was just a boy who helped this struggling family eek out a living on the frontier. so how he came to hook up with sitting bull is pretty amazing part of the story. after the battle of the little big horn during which custer was killed, as i hope you all know, sitting bull was blamed for killing custer, which was not true. he did not pull the trigger. but he was nearby and he was certain lay factor in the battle. in fact his medicine was all

over the battlefield as i recounted in my book. but because of this very humiliating defeat for the u.s. cavalry, and victory, great victory for the lakota and cheyenne, the native americans who were involved in that battle, fled northward into the arms of the gram, aka canada, because they were branded as hostiles, and had to leave their homeland. or be arrested. so sitting bull took his people to canada and they lived there in exile for a number of years, and then at some point were forced to leave by the canadian government, which was being pressured by american authorities and also buffalo there were vanishing as well. there was kind of sitting bull was caught in this squeeze play

and he returned to his -- to the dakota territory, his homeland and was quite well-known, they didn't have the term public enemy under one there, but iite in my book. he had become public enemy number we. the guy who killed custer, a great civil war hero and pretty notorious for his role in the indian wars. and so when he turned himself in at fort buford, with his children and young on and had his son surrender his rifle in a very poignant ceremony which i describe in my book, he makes a point of saying then that the ron he came back is he wanted to make sure his children could see how the white man was living and learn to endure, and assimilate into this new culture.

he was so famous that everybody would -- soldiers would surround him and want his autograph and just kind of soak up some of his mojo and he was a celebrity. a lot of people recording him for their wild west shows, there were a number of circuses traveling the country, including already which feature its cowboys and indians and animals. ... >> in these shows he was just not, you know, this was i one of the great americans of all time.

and he was known and still is revered around the world. he was not treated with respect in thesese shows until cody came along. and cody had been after him for a long time. he knew that sitting bull was like a, you know, a big score. [laughter] to use today's or parlance. he knew that having him in his show would bring in a lot of money, and by then cody himself was this huge superstar as well. after the little bighorn, he had avenged custer's death by scalping an indian and then returning to the stage in new york and elsewhere on the east coast and reenacting this scalping of yellow hand. and brandishing the scalp, to the dismayy of many. but cody was a showman, and he had been acting for some time,

and he just really, like, cranked it up at this point. so he was able to convince sitting bull to join his show because of his stature, he promised him, promised to pay him -- i think he was paid more than anybody else in the show. sitting bull was kind of, like, inf, baseball terms a free agen. he kind of wrote his own ticket at that time. he asked to be able to sell his own autographs, which other people in the show were doing, and a cody, you know, of course agreed to all this. he really wanted sitting bull in his show. but another reason that sitting bull agreed to travel with cody was the fact that annie of coursely was already in the -- annie oak toly was already in the show, and he had met her while travel dog st. paul, minnesota -- while traveling to

st. paul, minnesota, a couple of years before hooking up with cody. and he was impressed with her shooting skills and even sent her a note backstage, like he became a fan. and they struck up an immediate friendship, and he gave her the nickname little miss sureshot. which actually translates into something else -- [laughter] you'll have to read my book to find that out. [laughter] like a lot of things at that time, a lot of native american language, it was in mistranslation. but it doesn't much matter in terms of her career, because when you think about it, who would annie oakley have become without that nickname, little missis sureshot? you know, he really kind of branded her. so having found out that she had been hired by cody, he -- that was onene other thing that made him join up. and then there was, there were a couple of other things, but

perhaps the most important of which was the fact that he wanted to get to washington, d.c. to meet the grandfather, aka the president -- and ask him why the american government had betrayed his people. that was like really the overriding reason for him to join up with cody. and they did get to washington, d.c. as well as a number of other places, and he and some of the other native americans in codety's show -- cody's show did have a meeting with some state department officials. and i describe this really another strange scene in my book where they're inside a building, an office on capitol hill, and there's all this western art on the a walls, you know, like portraits of indians and paintings of buffalo and so on. and apparently some of the indians at this meeting started

to laugh, but sitting bull remained silent. so he apparently did not get to meetar the president, the grandfather, you know, to his disappointment. and, you know, that part of his desire to join up with cody was not fulfilled. but he did get to see what was going on with the white man, and he wanted to understand how this new civilization worked, and and heke admired all this great new technology, you know, like telephones and fire trucks and acknowledged the white man's superior firepower but wondered how come as he traveled he was meeting all these homeless children around the country. there were all these orphans. and he would often give them money. cody helped out a lot of people too. they both were very generous. and he couldn't understand how

this technologically advanced culture was failing its people. and ii think that, you know, quite interesting in terms of what's going on today. so at any rate, after the -- well, sitting bull traveled with cody for four months in 1885, and i just want to read you this short paragraph about what that might have been like for him. imagine being born into a world where your tribe was the most powerful in all the land, and within that being born at the climax of its power. imagine that in your high time you witnessed -- lifetime you witnessed a a thing that consumd nearly everything you loved and were nourished by and that nearly everyone you cherished or parlayed with was destroyed, altered, killed or locked up. imagine being a person who lived

through such a thing, sought to head it off directly and softly, was both celebrated and hated for doing so, and yet because of an alliance with the natural world and it with you, saw the whole thing coming -- even your own end. and then finally, imagine embracing life with all of your might and force, your generosity and joy trying to contain the wellspring of sorrow and blood that was flooding your world and drowning it, knowing that a river cannot be stopped, but there are many different ways to ride it. this was sitting bull's state and condition. so here he was, you know, joining up with buffalo bill for the reasons i mentioned. weirdly, their first meeting was in, of all places, buffalo. [laughter] and id wondered, i mean, when i found that out, i was completely stunnedded. another, like, breathtaking

moment asin i was working on my book. as i start -- i wondered what sitting bull thought when he was told he was going to buffalo. i mean, i'm sure it was translatedded, and he had to have, you know, known the irony of that, if that's what you could call it. and he certainly knew that cody's name was buffalo bill, cody's nickname. and then i started to think about jokes that sometimes -- reporters traveled him around -- followed him around as he traveled. he had an entourage of friends, and there were often reporters. and i started to wonder if reporters were making jokes about the, hey, chief, here we are in buffalo, what do you think about that. and i, it just seemed like he was in a very, again, strange and humiliating position. and i want to reiterate that leafing the reservation -- leaving the reservation for

native americans at that time and joining up with buffalo bill and these other shows was not, like, this fantastic thing that they could do. they were essentially prisoners of war, and this was a way off the reservation that was sanctioned. and they could continue loving a life that was banned within a limited frame, you know? they were allowed to ride horses, and they were reenacting moments in our history and theirs, although not from their point of view, certainly. but the cowboys, too, were engaged inen these reenactments which, weirdly enough, were almost -- had pretty much ended as cody's show was touring. the frontier was vanishing. so here were all these cast members, all these americans -- and by that, i'm including white and red men and some women -- here were all these people locked out of time but reenacting what has become the

national scripture. and the way i see it, that's where america lives, you know? we live inside the wild west, and out all comes right out of buffalo bill. i mean, again, think about not just annie oakley who wouldn't have a nickname, think about what stories we would tell ourselves about who we are as americans without buffalo bill and his wild west show. what dreams would this country have about itself. and, of course, there's a dark side, and i talk about and write about all of this in my book. here's a little bit about the two men together. some friendships form quickly and fade just as fast, others haas for a short period of time -- last for a short period of time, an hour, say, or a day, but even they may be as deep as the kind that lasts for a high time. and then there are those in which mysterious forces, a hand

of the creator, perhaps, necessity, desire brings two people together, even former enemies in an alliance that seems unlikely. and in the end, not at all. such was the join-up of sitting bull and would buffalo bill. each an icon to himself, together a powerhouse of mythology and might and sparks. the men had much in common. both were fathers, husbands, brothers, sons. both were celebrated, surrounded by admirers and those who embodied jealousy. both were known to everyone and no one. in the end, trapped in a persona worn down by their gifts, both were men of action, fearing not a rumble, nor a personal assault. they were warriors in service of

their people and their time, not unlike montezuma and or cortes in some ways. montezuma who carved out hearts and hate them and dreamed of the newcomers' arrival atop a horse. and cortez who performed the assigned dance blessing for spark beings in the ground and sending greyhounds to devour those in the way. but unlike montezuma and cortez, there was one thing that made them blood brothers, took them way beyond a show biz alliance, and that was the buffalo to which they both owed their lives and paid tribute with their names. so as. i said, they first came together in buffalo, of all places, and i recount the scene in which they first met. sitting bull was with his entourage, and they were all very gaily bedecked in war

regalia.a. and, again, this was -- there was a reporter. and sitting bull had paraded down an avenue in buffalo with all ofll these people on his way to the field where codety's show was -- cody's show was with underway. and when he got there, apparently he had to wait for some time for cody to acknowledge him and invite him onto the field. and then when it finally happened, buffalo bill's advance men -- arizona's john burke, very flamboyant character who looked a lot like cody but was nowhere really as charismatic, but did a lot of his, did a lot of the advance work -- he took, he guided sitting bull onto the

field where cody was waiting for him and announced, chief, i think we've got him. and according to the reporter, cody was a little bit humbled by the moment. you know, he was a big guy, very handsome, very powerful. and by that i mean, you know, a lott of -- if you've ever been n the circle of somebody who has nothing but charisma and then someme is, you know, it's very mesmerizing and, you know, can stop you in your tracks. apparently, cody was stopped in his tracks by sitting bull who had an equal, who had that kind of impact on people too. and cody even was over six feet, het, even appeared to, like, shrink down a little bit in

stature when sitting bull approached. and the two men kind of waited oror hesitated for a moment or two, and then cody extended his hand, and they shook hands. and then cody made this incredible speech to everybody describing sitting bull as the napoleon of his people and this great native american figure. and he was urging all of these spectators to give sitting bull his due. and it was an important speech, and it's not that everybody followed cody's commands, becauseas as they traveled aroud the country sitting bull would sometimes, was often booed, actually, in his appearances and sometimes spat on. other times he was w warmly welcomed, but, you know, he was still regarded by a lot of people as public enemy number one, the guy who killed custer. and it was a big deal for these two men to come together. i mean, people have excoriated

cody for, you know, having his show and exploiting native americans, and you could make that case, but he was also providing them with this way off the reservation and acknowledging their, just their humanity and their achievements in battle, which he respected. so at the end of this four month period in 1885, sitting bull was home sick for standing rock. and having not met the grandfather -- although gotten very close -- and having seen enough of the whiteen man's wor, he wanted to go home. and cody gave him the horse that he rode apparently in the show. and i want to point out that sitting bull did not participate inte any of the reenactments in the r show, he only rode around the arena once at the beginning of each production and then left

the ring. he was not hired to, like, to perform powwows or any of these other things. i mean, cody really treated him with respect. so at the end of this four month period, he gave him the horse that he rode in the show, and sitting bull went home from the, from his last performance that year in st. louis louis. -- st. louis. he had given cody a necklace which was also a great gift, kind of a warrior to warrior symbol of respect and power. so i want to get back to this dancing horse. sitting bull went home, as i said, he knew that his time was

near. he had many dreams which were prescient. he had animal guides in his life, and he paid attention to them. and at some point a meadowlark told him that he would be killed by his own people. he knew this was all coming. and five years later, in 1890 at the height of the ghost dance frenzy which was the religious apocalypse, apocalyptic movement that was sweeping through the tribes of the great plains calling for a return to the old ways, and the idea was that if you danced hard enough and with enough intention, the buffalo would return, and harmony would be restored, and all would be well in the world. so there was this ghost dance frenzy outside of sitting bull's cabin and on his reservation, and it frightened a lot of the

reservation authorities, and it was a hyped-up, there was hyped-up fear. the call went out to assassinate sitting bull. and one more thing he was blamed for, the ghost dancing. and it got crazier and crazier, and tribal police were hired to do the bidding of the government. and he was, they were sent to arrest sitting bull at dawn in december of 1890, shortly before christmas. and as they, as this arrest was underway, an altercation broke out, and sitting bull was killed. and as this killing was happening, the horse danced, as i mentioned. so i want to get back to that. a while ago i called chief looking horse to seek his insight into this matter.

he is a 19th generation keeper of the sacred white buffalo pipe for the lakota indians which was given to his people by the woman in black elk's vision. he has lived is ceremonies at standing rock, the united nations and elsewhere. i had met him several years earlier at a wild horse preservation event many las vegas. in las vegas. at its conclusion, everyone joined hum in a prayer circle in a ballroom at the south pointwith e hotel with garish chandeliers being the location of many such events because they are among the central gathering places of our time. what was the symbolism of the dancing horse outside sitting bull's cabin, i asked him in our phone conversation. was he responding to the sound of the gunfire as the story goes? there was a long silence and i

hesitated to break it. after a few moments, this is what he said: it was the horse or taking the bullets, he told me. that's what they did. not everyone believes that the horse danced, but i do. and that's how i came to write book. and perhaps after reading it, you'll have your own thoughts about what happened on a winter's dawn of 1890 and all of the matters and forces that preceded it. so thank you very much more coming. [applause] i'll take questions now. >> yeah. and, please, if you would remember to raise your hand and let an usher come to you before asking your question. right here in the blue shirt, there we go. there's an usher right beside you. >> here we are.

you did a great job on sitting bull. you also had a vignette in there about another great indian chief, tecumseh, whose background is just as interesting. >> yeah. >> i was wondering if you ever had any intention of getting out a new book on tecumseh. it's been a while. >> oh, thank you for your comments. i appreciate that suggestion. you know, a few people have asked me about that. i grew up in ohio, so i'm somewhat familiar with the story. it certainly deserves a current, you know, contemporary telling, and i'll keep it in mind. thank you very much. >> down here. >> was there -- oh, okay. >> waiting for the microphone. >> i don't need it, but i'll use it. [laughter] there's a poem and a song by somebody that i admire, it's

called "sitting bull in venice." did sitting bull ever actually cross the atlantic ocean with cody's wild west show? >> no. he left in i think it was september or october in 1885 before cody went to england and then beyond. so, no, he wasn't part of the wild west show in europe or the u.k. at all. but it was because of his time with cody that the show really took off, and then it really went into the stratosphere after it began, you know, touring overseas. so i think that that, the song, you know, comes out of myth. although there was another native american named sitting bull who toured later with cody, and that might -- could be the source of the mix-up too. >> rebecca? there's an usher coming for you right now. >> i'm just wondering how difficult it must be to write a

history that is authentic about native americans when all of that history has been written by white men. how do you get through the racism, the slant, all of that to the authentic story? >> yeah, it's a really good question. a lot of the accepted histories -- and some of them quite well written -- are, you know, have been written by white men. i relied on those, but i also relied very much on a book by earnest lapoint's grandson, i mean, sitting bull's grandson, ernest lapointe whose book is called -- i'm blanking on the title. it might be just called sitting bull, his story -- i have it in my bibliography, but i talk about discrepancies between his account9 and all these other books written by white writers.

and there are a couple of major ones. i will say that, in general, well, that's wrong. never mind. i just, i talk about all of this in my book. it's a really good question and an important one. and as you heard me read from my introduction, i did call chief looking horse to talk about this dancing horse, and he's a very respected spiritual leader internationally and, you know, among native americans. what he said really opened up the story for me in a big way. >> well, i have a question finish. >> oh, sure. >> i have to stand by the microphone to ask -- [laughter] i don't want to run you away at all. i think about this era, the 1880s, 1890s, as kind of the era of the lecture circuit and that kind of thing. so how would you characterize

this traveling show which was more entertainment oriented, perhaps, with the likes of oscar wilde and maybe other people who were visiting on the lecture circuit. >> wow, that's a really good question. that's a really good question. well, you know, in a way cody was such a huge factor in american theater. i mean, he was acting on stage in new york. and, in fact, it was in a bar in brooklyn after a show that he and a partner cooked up the idea for the wild west show. so he came out of this acting tradition, you know, of the frontier. and there were traveling shakespeare troupes as you mentioned, and theater was huge then. i think people were starved for culture and myth, and, you know, we as americans were just kind

of coming, cooking up our own identity, and that, you know, moved it along. there was still, we were still very much involved with british civilization so that when actors from england came here, it was a big deal. i mean, there were even -- some of you might be aware of this, there were the shakespeare riots in new york in the 1920 maybe involving there was some sort of feud over who performed hamlet better, an american actor or a famous british -- both very well known -- british actor. and there was rioting in the streets which led to death and, actually, an associate of cody's was part of that whole thing. so there was, like, tremendous fervor around theater then and

spectacle. i don't know if that exactly answers your question -- >> it does. >> there was just a real hunger for it. >> yes, sir. wait for the usher. she's coming right across the aisle. you'll see her in just a minute. >> i look forward to reading your book. >> thank you. >> i think a question to follow on an earlier is the question of cultural cleansing. the issue of never said or documented, but an administration who set out to exterminate, the opening of the west by whites. wonder if you could address that from your vantage point of knowing the native american. >> yeah. i get into that in great detail in my book. i think something important to keep in mind is that, first of all, buffalo bill and sitting

bull forged this strange commercially-driven alliance but crossed a vast, you know, chasm to do so. you know, they were -- here were these two superstars coming together. i'm not saying that was love fest, but symbolically it meant a lot and reverberates today. and i think it's interesting when you or consider what happened in standing rock in 2016 -- and i'm not just talking about the protests over the pipeline. remember, that's where sitting bull lived and died. so his spirit is all over that region. there were descendants of soldiers who served at the little bighorn, army veterans

themselves who came to standing rock to apologize to lakota elders for the role of their ancestors in the indian wars. and i discuss this in my book as well. to me, that's the most profound thing that came out of standing rock, and one of the most profound things that's happened in terms of, you know, the cause of the ongoing conflict between the red and white man in this country. and i think it opens the door on reconcile ising our meaning -- america's original sin which is the trawl of native americans. it happened at standing rock, i think that means a lot. that's where this story starts and ends. >> right over here. >> while you're near georgia, you might want to -- here in georgia, you might want to take

a look at the cherokee, they won a supreme court decision that said they could keep their land, and we took it all away from them. >> yeah, another really sad story. but i do think, again, back to thisser ceremony in standing ro, in 2016 i think the door is now open on healing this rift. you know, we are all blood brothers in terms of this shared bloody history that we have. and sisters too. >> i was kind of struck by the fact that once the native americans were put on the reservations, they were not allowed to really hunt -- >> right. >> -- and they had no food, and they were given very limited portions. i don't understand how anyone could expect them to survive and thrive. do you have any idea of what the rationale was for that, or were

they just trying to eliminate them? >> it was a slow elimination. >> yeah. >> that was another reason some native americans joined up in cody and other shows because, you know, they were getting, you know, they were well fed during these shows. at least in cody's. en i can't really speak for the other -- i don't know what was going on in the others, but cody made a point, made it a point that his indian cast members were treated exactly the same as his white cast members even though he, you know, some people came after him, and there were religious groups and others who came after him and wanted to try to shut down the shows. finish but that's not as simple as it sounds. some of the groups wanted to convert the indians to christianity and wipe out their own spiritual beliefs. >> yeah, about halfway down.

>> hi. do you see any parallels with what's happening now with, like, the immigration issue? more and more people want to try and control immigration and also the way the indians are treated right now, anything more the federal government can to help the indian people out more than they're doing now? >> honor the treaties. [laughter] i mean, there are people that have spent their lifetimes trying to get the u.s. government to honor native american treaties. i would say it starts there. but again, back to this ceremony at standing rock -- [audio difficulty] be an official apology. from the american government to the tribes for what happened to them. >> tell us a little bit more about that ceremony. i think not everybody knows -- >> yeah, i write about it in my book. it was really moving. there's some footage of it on

youtube. there were a number of veterans, many veterans who came to standing rock to support the tribes, you know, in their efforts to stop the pipeline. and that was a big deal because, you know, in the old days when the cavalry showed up, there was a lot of trouble for native americans. now this was a 180. they were there to support the tribes. so then there was this ceremony in which general wesley clark's son, i think it's wesley clark jr. or iii -- i have his name in my book -- led this prayer circle, i guess you could call it, or led this ceremony of apology to some lakota elders asking for forgiveness in the role of, you know, their -- his and other ancestors in these

wars. it was a very, very moving ceremony. the words are quite profound. oh, but i, i just want to follow up. one thing that the lakota elders whom they apologized to said at the end of the ceremony was land belongs to no one, no one owns the land. so i think that's something important, really important thing to keep in mind these days as this assault on land, sea and air cranks up. and to me, that's kind of the end game of the indian wars, this total war on the environment. it's all connected to what happened in this country during the 19th century. >> if i'm allowed, i've got one, maybe two more questions, and i don't mean to crowd you out. >> no, no, go ahead. >> have is you given your talk

since your book came out to any audiences that were entirely or predominantly native american, and if so, what was the response? >> i haven't. >> have there been any formal responses from any nations finish. >> no -- actually, there was. there was a nice review in one to have native american publications. >> so that was well received? >> well, i can't say everybody, that was one. >> right. i wonder if we could finish up by your telling a little bit about a book either you've written before what you have in mind next. >> thanks for asking, roger. i'm very superstitious, i never talk about works in progress, but i'll talk about some of my previous books, and c-span has covered other talks of mine, and you can see those online as well. my books are all related in a big way. i mean, they're all narrative nonfiction about the frontier and modern west and have to do with, you know, our wars against

each other, against other people, against the land, against animal, and i like to sort of take a look at how can we, how can this all be resolved. the land is a main character in a lot of my books, probably all of them. i see it as just being as essential a player in these stories as the people. so one of my -- my last book was called "desert reckoning," and it's based on a rolling stone piece of mine. it's about a hermit who lived in the desert outside of los angeles and killed a popular sheriff there in 2003, i think it was. and then he took off into the desert and kicked off this massive manhunt involving thousands of cops and six or seven federal and state and local agencies and so on. what i get into in the story is here were two men -- again,

blood brothers, two sides of the coin -- two men who loved the desert but were really enemies and never resolved their differences at all. but something, this theme of reconciliation and what can, how can these wounds be healed is something i look, i try to take a look at in all of my work. >> very good. let's say thank you to d [applause] >> thanks a lot for coming. thanks, roger. >> we're so happy that you joined us in savannah. please come back again. all of you, please enjoy the rest of your day. there's vessels, receptacle, buckets into which you can play put your dollars, please support the festivalav in that regard. thank you very much.h. >> thanks a lot. thank you so much. thankeg you. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> a look now at some of the current best selling nonfiction books according to amazon. topping the list, clinical psychologist jordan peterson's self-help book 12 roles for life. after that it's mark manson's advice on leading a happier life. followed by i've been thinking, a collection of inspirational quotes, prayers and reflections from maria shriver. next is hidden figures, margot lee shetterly's recount of the

black female mathematicians at nasa whose calculations helped propel the u.s. in the space race. and then the late michelle mcnamara's account of a serial herd you are during the 1970s and '80s. a look at some of the best selling books according to amazon continues with dr. mark hyman's dietary or advice if "food." that's followed by tara westover's recount of her childhood in the idaho mountain ands her first introduction to formal education at the age of 17. then experimental psychologist steven pinker explores the thought processes behind extremism while making the case that the country is in better shape than you might think. trevor noah's memoir of growing up in south africa, born a crime. and wrapping up our look at some of the books from amazon's nonfiction bestseller list is

dale carnegie's self-help book, how to win friends and influence people. many of these authors have appearedded on booktv, and you can watch them on our web site, booktv.org. >> he delivered, i think we're -- i think i know the stump speech you're referring to. it's a speech he deliver about originalism and why it's superior to what's called the living constitution approach to jurisprudence. >> right. >> and i heard him deliver that speech too in madison, wisconsin, in 2001. and it's one he delivered very often. it was his stump speech. i was looking forward to finding a written version of that because i loved that speech. i thought it was great. >> right. >> it included a wonderful passage where he compared the living constitution approach to a television commercial from the is the 80s -- 1980s, a prego commercial where somebody is making pasta, just heating up store-bought pasta sauce, and the husband says to his wife

what -- you're using this store-bought sauce? you're not doing it homemade? what about the oregano, it's in there, the garlic? it's in there. and my dad would say we've got that kind of a constitution now. you want, you want a right to an abortion? it's in there. you want a right to die? it's in there. anything that's good and true and beautiful, it's in there no matter what the text says. and i thought that was -- being a pop culture junkie myself and having watched that commercial with my father, i always loved that passage. so i was looking forward to finding it, but he never actually, apparently, wrote that speech down. so we have a version of it, a very different version of it in the collection, one he delivered in australia i think in the early '90s. but that particular version which he delivered very often he never wrote down. instead, he worked from a very

chipped series of notes that he -- clipped series of note that is he called the outline. and the outline was really just a set of props that he would riff off of. and if you didn't know the speech, you would look at this outline and think what could this possibly mean? there are only about 50 words on it, some of them are misspelled. and then he would photocopy the outline and write notes on it for any given occasion. so the people he should thank at the speech or new ideas that popped into his head. unfortunately, there's no reference to the prego television commercial on the outline, but -- so we were surprised that's how he did it. but he just knew, he knew what he wanted to say so clearly, it was easy for him to just riff off that basic outline. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> this sunday booktv will be live from the museum of the bible in washington, d.c. to

look at the bible's influence on literature and its impack on issues -- impact on issues ranging from government and legal systems to education, human rights and more. we'll take your calls, questionses and comments. that's live at 1 p.m. eastern time this sunday on booktv. [inaudible conversations] >> welcome to the graduate center. we're delighted to have you as our guests this afternoon, this evening and to listen to some words on this new book by our colleague, josh freeman. i am professor of anthropology and directer of the advanced research collaborative here at the grad center where josh spent, i