Most people would not consider north central Kansas’ Waconda Lake to be extraordinary. The lake, completed in 1969 by the federal Bureau of Reclamation for flood control, irrigation, and water supply purposes, sits amid a region known—when it is thought of at all—for agriculture and, perhaps to a few, as the home of "The World’s Largest Ball of Twine" (in nearby Cawker City). Yet, to the native people living in this region in the centuries before Anglo incursion, this was a place of great spiritual power and mystic significance. Waconda Spring, now beneath the waters of the lake, was held as sacred, a place where connection with the spirit world was possible. Nearby, a giant snake symbol carved into the earth by native peoples—likely the ancestors of today’s Wichitas—signified a similar place of reverence and totemic power. All that began to change on July 6, 1870, when Charles DeRudio, an officer in the 7th U.S. Cavalry who had served with George Armstrong Custer, purchased a tract on the north bank of the Solomon River—a tract that included Waconda Spring. DeRudio had little regard for the sacred properties of his acreage; instead, he viewed the mineral spring as a way to make money. In Holy Ground, Healing Water: Cultural Landscapes at Waconda Springs, Kansas, anthropologist Donald J. Blakeslee traces the usage and attendant meanings of this area, beginning with prehistoric sites dating between AD 1000 and 1250 and continuing to the present day. Addressing all the sites at Waconda Lake, regardless of age or cultural affiliation, Blakeslee tells a dramatic story that looks back from the humdrum present through the romantic haze of the nineteenth century to an older landscape, one that is more wonderful by far than what the modern imagination can conceive.

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press Earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, prairie fires, lightning, and droughts tested the mettle of both native and newcomer. This is the story of man’s encounters with Mother Nature on America’s prairies and plains during nineteenth-century westward expansion and settlement.

Compiles letters, essays, diaries, and excerpts about heaven, hell, sinners, and saints

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XLT7. CONCLUSION'. The plains Indian, while not so degraded as many other tribes and people of this and the older continent, is as thoroughly savage as any. His religion inculcates neither obligation nor duty either to God or man. His education teaches no morality. His social life is scarcely a remove from that of the beasts of the field. Ilis idea of right is the execution of his own will; of wrong, the enforcement of another will in opposition to his. But, however savage he may be, it is worth while to reflect that the ancestors of the most enlightened nations were at some time in the world's history as savage as he is now. Our growth has been the slow development of ages upon ages. It is hardly fair to expect him, even with superior advantages, to change his nature in two or three generations. He has, moreover, never had a fair chance. His advantages, knowledge of and contact with civilisation, are rather apparent than real. The fur trade of North America has founded and built up some of the most colossal fortunes in England, France, and America. The larger portion of this trade comes from the Indian. Its profits, even with the legitimate traffic, were and still are enormous; and, when advantage is taken of his passion for finery and fire water, these already enormous profits are so far increased that sharp and unscrupulous competition is not to be wondered at. The nature of the direct trade, the small capital required, and its position outside of the jurisdiction of the law, attract to it the very worst class of whites, who communicate to the Indian all the most glaring vices, and none of the good qualities, of civilisation. That the Indian at this day is the cruel, inhuman savage that he is, is partially the fault of the...