The Day the World Ended at Little Big Horn: A Lakota History
Written and Narrated By: Joseph M. Marshall III
Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
Mostly about a lost Way of Life
Tho’ author and historian of note Joseph M. Marshall III begins with the Battle at Little Big Horn, this audiobook is just as the title suggests: Even as the Lakota Sioux and their Cheyenne allies won the battle, this is about losing the war and losing their entire way of life.
Allow me to just comment here that, for whatever reason, readers seem to be vastly more generous in their reviews than listeners. Most readers thought it edifying, though sad. They seemed capable of seeing the tragedy of various cultures slipping away, the multiple resettlements, the broken promises, the wholesale slaughter and suffering. They had no difficulty in separating between liars and those lied to. The listeners, however?
YIKES!
Go on, I dare you to take a look at the Audible reviews which, at best, chastise Marshall for “having a chip” on his shoulder even tho’ it’s all “decades in the past”, or -egregious to me, at any rate- that indigenous people woulda Owned land and woulda “manipulated geography” had they been smart enough to get the technology. For that one, the reviewer acknowledges it’s an “assumption but safe to assume”…
I mean, whatthehey?!?
Okay, so there’s THAT, and I just have to address it because you know SOME folks: Twitchy about History that ain’t what we were taught in school. If you’re of that ilk, run, run like the wind away from The Day the World Ended at Little Big Horn because villains are named, and villainy is Called Out.
White Bashing?
Well, considering we’re all happily ensconced on land that belonged to numerous beYONd numerous tribes and cultures who were here for, according to Google cuz I rather am a lummox who needs to look this stuff up, 14,700 years ago and possibly longer. I’d say this audiobook isn’t White Bashing so much as it is a shoe that fits whether we care to admit it or not. Marshall follows each step of especially the Lakota Sioux on their journey from Lives Before all the way to Lives After.
It’s heartbreaking; it’s galling. It’s shameful.
Still, with Marshall narrating his own work, one feels as tho’ one is sitting by a fire, listening to an Elder about stories of courage, stories of life in the natural world. He has such warm tones that even tho’ his words could conceivably be taken as blame, with his storytelling abilities, they are simply honoring those from before who lived it, who had to adapt to such sudden and abrupt changes to livelihoods and culture. They are stories that need to be handed down as much as the other more spiritual ones. There is honor in his voice, pride, and dignity.
Tho’ the text does get a trifle repetitive at times, with what this or that person said/did stated verbatim in multiple places, for the most part this audiobook feels like an honor to listen to, sitting by that fire, hearing of such resilience and determination to survive. Yes, plenty of shame in our History, especially as History is always written and shaped by the victors.
With this warmly narrated work, some truths from others are added into the mixed bag that is Reality. And let’s not forget that such cultures, “primitive” as they were seen, would still be flourishing today as opposed to our modern technological age that is unsustainable as we are now finding out.
14,700 years ago and, sans interference, the possibility of 14,700 years to go…
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