I’m proud that I was able to get a copy of The Wolf at Twilight to Leonard Peltier when the government was moving him around from prison to prison in a cruel and cynical shell game.
I’m even prouder that he enjoyed it and that it gave him, as he said, “a good book to read” during his long and lonely incarceration.
Perhaps his kind words will bring more awareness to this often forgotten middle child of the “Wolf nor Dog” trilogy — in many ways the most important of the three, because it tells the story of Dan’s search for his little sister who was lost in the brutal Indian boarding school system that America has tried to ignore.
Slowly we are coming to an awareness of what this boarding school system was and what it did to hundreds of thousands of children and, ultimately, to all of the Native people. These children, in their own ways, were as incarcerated as Leonard himself was. Perhaps that’s why the book resonated with him.
Thank you again, Leonard, for the good words. And, welcome home. May your days be filled with the love of family that you were so long denied.
Thank you Kent for this book, when I was teaching at Chemawa this was a great book to share with Native Youth on how it addresses each and everyone of us.
Looking forward to Lone Dog Road 💖🙏😊
“Neither wolf or dog” and “Wolf at twilight” are most enjoyable and still have them in my bookshelf. I look forward to ‘Long dog road”… Regards from S Africa 🇿🇦
I pray that he finds peace. He fought for his beliefs. In essence, he was a warrior.
I loved all three books, Kent, and can’t wait for your new one. I also loved the little book Small Graces! And celebrating Leonard Peltier’s long awaited return to his people.
I’m glad Mr. Peltier enjoyed your book as we have. We are overjoyed that he has finally been released from prison. It was a day long awaited and one we prayed for diligently.
Thank you Kent for words that make my heart sing in these so very dark days. I pray his last years are full of love. And peace. Finally.
I love Wolf at Twilight for so many reasons. One is that it’s just a flat-out great mystery. Dan challenges Kent to find out what happened to his sister 80 years earlier — what a challenge! You think at first it’s impossible….
Dear Dr. Nerburn,
I have read all of your very incitefull books. You and your writings have been a critical “mentor” to my becoming a recognized Native American scholar-educator. I wish to be in contact with you so you can review/comment on a historic paper that I have written and then recommend where it should be published in the Native American literature. Paper title: “Honoring Native American culture, heritage and spirituality as revealed by their cultural artifacts.”
Dr. Roger F. Block (727) 367-8381. rfblock@tampabay.rr.com.
It’s a brilliant difficult book. I’ll read it again. Man I can’t wait for your next bit of brilliance. Take care of yourself. We need you.
Steve
Omaha
When the news reported that Leonard Peltier had finally been released, I thought of you Kent, and all you’ve said, helping many of us, especially the rightful, native owners of this land.
Great Spirit shines in Leonard. But also you, Kent.
He has received the great honor of the Eagle Staff. He has kept and led in the ways of Great Spirit, the Spirit of Crazy Horse.
You have helped us to know, remember and honor the Lakota Sioux, as well as the Nez Perce and Ojibwe.
It has helped many of us to stand with them, which is crucial as their land, rights and way of life are still threatened and taken.
Philamayaye
Thank You
I had long advocated for Leonard Peltier’s release, so I was very happy to learn Biden followed through at the last minute so Peltier was allowed to go home to end his days with his family and people.
Good to meet you in person in Brrmidji on February 8, just as we both entered the Watermark Arts Center. I was amazed how much you resemble my late friend, Jerry Solom, of Wannaska, who had built a steel 38-foot Bruce Roberts-designed sailboat in his welding shop, sailed it to Norway in 2000, then as far as Portugal over the course of 8-years,sailed back in 2008, then wrote a book about it. https://www.amazon.com/Indian-Summer-Jerry-Marion-Solom/dp/150528869X
I enjoyed the interaction among other writers attending your workshop attendees; as well as and listening to your writing guidance that afternoon. Wished my friend Catherine and I could’ve taken in your presentation to follow that evening, but our 2 hour drive to get home afterward would’ve required driving home, through the forest, ‘way after dark. Maybe I can catch another of your presentations to do just that
Sadly, I’m not able to help you in this regard. I do not know much, if anything, about journals or other publications that address Native issues. I pretty much work with primary sources, both human and literary, and have precious little knowledge of secondary sources or outlets that publish scholarly articles. You would be better served by looking at sources like this and seeing which deal most closely with the issues your paper addresses: https://guides.library.harvard.edu/c.php?g=1196474&p=8750755#:~:text=This%20guide%20is%20a%20curated%20selection%20of%20databases%2C,journals%20relating%20to%20research%2C%20writing%2C%20law%2C%20and%20more.
I’ve followed Leonard’s nightmare as best I could. My outrage is still palpable.
See my email.
I love everything you write and I am glad that Mr Peltier is going to be able to finish out his life with his family and people. But I did want to add that one of my Lakota sisters still believes that Mr. Peltier had something to do with the death of Annie Mae Aquash. So there is another side to this story.
I, too, am aware that there are many good people who claim that Mr. Peltier was involved. I have no knowledge one way or another; that’s why I make no comment about the rightness or wrongness of his incarceration. My concern is the unfairness with which he was treated as a prisoner, when so many convicted of similar or even more heinous crimes are set free after so much shorter times in prison.
I love all the books looking to reading tho new book
Kent Nerburn’s stories are wonderful. They draw me in to want to become much closer to the natural world and Wakan Tanka, the great mystery. And it’s fascinating and enlightening to believe there is a sacred spirit in all things. It makes the world so much more meaningful to believe there are sacred spirits all around me. I feel I am therefore never truly alone. Everything is sacred and reaching out to me and anyone who will only listen.
I am surprised that no one so far has praised The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo, the deeply moving third book in the NWND series. I highly recommend it.
Thank You Everyone who has spoken here, especially you, Kent.
Many Blessings
Words can heal and strengthen our hearts, minds and souls to go on for the sake of justice and peace with the truth, as we can best determine beyond any reasonable doubt.
We will take our place with those gone before us, as Leonard Peltier will, who has led In The Spirit of Crazy Horse. (book by Peter Matthiessen)
Taking up arms in self-defense as the rightful owners of this land is justified, even against their own.
AIM was created to stop the brutality by Americanized Sioux leaders and rez police officers and return to traditional Lakota Sioux ways.
The Wounded Knee Occupation of February 27, 1973, by AIM, gained the support of other tribes across the US, many joining the occupation until terms for a truce were agreed upon.
The US government is to blame for the Americanized Sioux and all other tribes. Putting native children in boarding schools to destroy their heritage and way of life is direct evidence indoctrination.
aka: Divide and Conquer.
Still, it is not for us to judge anyone for any transgressions, even those who falsified evidence to convict Leonard of killing two FBI agents June 26, 1975.
Special Agents Ron Williams and Jack Coler were in separate, unmarked vehicles, pursuing a vehicle they believed contained a teen age suspect wanted for armed assault and theft.
The three occupants of that vehicle were actually AIM leaders, including Leonard. They stopped 250 yards away and opened fire, believing they were about to be attacked. AIM members nearby on their right flank in their camp also opened fire.
The Agents may have attempted to retreat but were unable to because of the heavy fire. Images of the driver’s side of their vehicles had 3 to 4 dozen bullet holes.
FBI ballistics tests had been falsified. The .223 shell casings presented at trial as coming from Leonard’s rifle were in fact government issue with markings indicating a rifle with a rough firing pin.
Leonard’s rifle had a smooth firing pin. Actual evidence had been destroyed.
There was no proof that Leonard fired any of the rifles that killed the two FBI agents. Two of his fellow AIM leaders had previously been acquitted.
Federal Judge Gerald Heaney and the prosecutor, US Attorney James Reynolds, and 32 of Judge Heaney’s law clerks have shown the FBI used improper tactics in the presentation of evidence.
Prosecution witnesses had also been paid as much as $42,000 to testify, which amounts to witness tampering.
This is what led President Biden to commute Leonard’s sentence.
Leonard has also maintained his innocence about the vicious kidnap, rape and murder of Annie Mae Pictou Aquash by AIM members in late December 1975.
Several AIM members were convicted in 2003 thru 2010, but no one implicated AIM leaders.
They said they’d acted out of fear and suspicion that she was an informant for the US government.
But it’s not clear who or what made them think she was.
Had the FBI planted a mole or informant to make false claims about Annie Mae being an informant? If so, who?
Still, it casts doubt on Leonard when members of AIM are responsible for her murder.
Had they acted independently or were they directed by Leonard?
Witnesses testified that after the murder of the FBI Agents, an FBI Agent had threatened Annie Mae to testify against Leonard, as others had also been.
Other witnesses had said that Leonard threatened her with a gun to her head, wanting to know if she was an informant.
It’s highly doubtful that she was.
Annie Mae was a beautiful young woman, 30 years of age, who had been an activist for AIM for two years prior to her murder.
She was also a mother with two young daughters, Debbie and Denise. They were from the Mi’kmaq tribe of Nova Scotia Canada.
Annie Mae had previously been an activist with First Nations in New England for several years before joining the Wounded Knee Occupation with AIM in 1973.
She was a tried and true activist.
First Nations withdrew its support for Leonard last July because of the doubt about his professed innocence.
If Leonard had ordered the killing of Annie Mae, why would the FBI be part of the cover up of her murder, as described In The Spirit of Crazy Horse?
Why would the FBI keep this book from being published for over 8 years?
Presumably, it was to prevent the evidence of their involvement and espionage from being made known, especially at the second autopsy of Annie Mae that they tried to prevent.
It took a court order for an independent forensic pathologist to show what she’d suffered.
Her body hadn’t been found until February 1976, over six weeks from when she was believed to have been murdered.
The medical examiner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs conducted the first autopsy and had ruled her death from exposure.
The FBI had pushed for immediate destruction of her remains.
There is clear evidence of FBI efforts to divide and conquer AIM, the same as the US government did to the Lakota Sioux and all the other tribes for their land and resources, same as now.
Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were murdered by their own people.
(book Killing Custer by the author and poet James Welch of the Blackfeet and A’aninin tribal people, and co-authored by the author and filmmaker Paul Stekler, who directed the PBS documentary Last Stand At The Little Bighorn)
(James Welch is also considered to be the founding father of Native American Renaissance.)
The murder of Annie Mae Pictou Aquash in late December 1975, coincided with the 85th anniversary of the murder of Sitting Bull and the massacre of Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee in 1890.
I stand with Leonard and always will, even if he had something to do with the death of Annie Mae.
The US government and Americanized Sioux are largely to blame.
But if Leonard is complicit, I pray he will speak publicly and truthfully for her Spirit to heal and no longer wander.
It will also help his Spirit to rest.
This is true for any of us who’ve been denied justice, but have also denied justice to those we’ve wronged.
We only have so much time.
Nothing Lasts Forever
Only the Sun and Moon, Earth and Sky, but especially the Stars and the One we come from.
Dreams don’t lie, and neither does Wm. Wordsworth in his Ode to Immortality.
Unless we’re forced to wander.
I’ve had my nightmares.
Many Blessings
Wolakhota
Peace