Author visits Neligh

NELIGH, Neb. — Few things can compete with Nebraska football on a late summer Saturday afternoon.

But that’s what happened recently when Joe Starita —- an author and University of Nebraska College of Journalism professor — gave an impassioned presentation to a standing-room-only crowd at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.

The people gathered to hear about Starita’s book about Standing Bear, the Ponca Indian chief, and his quest to bury his 16-year-old son, Bear Shield.

The book, “I Am a Man,” came out in January. Many in the audience were descendants of the Neligh citizens who had helped the Ponca on their own “Trail of Tears” from the Running Water River to the Oklahoma Indian Territory.

Starita, a Lincoln native, was greatly impressed with the story of a Ponca baby who died at Neligh. Chief Standing Bear asked the local citizens to give White Buffalo Girl “a Christian burial and tend her grave.”

Ever since then, this grave has been cared for by the people of Neligh. Those who go to Laurel Hill cemetery can see the tombstone marking the grave of “White Buffalo Girl.” It will always be decorated.

Starita dedicated three years of his life to this story, inspired by the drama of 500 Poncas being suddenly told by an Indian agent — who showed up in their village on a cold, wet spring day — to “pick up, pack up and pull up” and march 600 miles.

The conclusion of the story, Standing Bear’s trial at Fort Omaha, represented the first time that American Indians were given rights as human beings.

Starita said Standing Bear held up a mirror to Americans and gave them the opportunity to accord American Indians the rights of any human beings.

Standing Bear asked all Americans, “Who is your God and what does He stand for?” Starita said.

The federal judge in the case, Elmore Dundy, wept from the bench. He declared that an Indian now has to be regarded as a person. He also declared that the Treaties of 1875 and 1878 were still valid and that the Ponca ancestral lands be restored to the tribe.

A portion of the sale of each book goes to a scholarship fund for American Indian higher education.