My Life as an Indian: The Story of a Red Woman and a White Man in the Lodges of the Blackfeet

“A rip-roaring yarn and a dazzling glimpse into a vanished past.” — The New York Times In the year 1880, James Willard Schultz left the comfort of his home in St. Louis, bound for adventure in the Far West. Fired by the writings of Lewis and Clark’s Journal, The Oregon Trail, Fremont’s expeditions, Schultz travelled across the breadth of the American continent to see some of the land and the tribes of which they told. As a young tenderfoot, Schultz quickly found his feet and before long he was under the tutelage of the experienced trapper, Berry, who introduced him to a tribe of Piegan Blackfeet. For the next few years, Schultz immersed himself in the ways of these Native Americans, assisting his friends in fighting rivals, hunting alongside them and even marrying Nat-ah’-ki, a Blackfoot woman. As George Bird Grinnell states, “It is an animated and vivid picture of Indian life. The scene is on the plains in the old days, in the picturesque period when the tribe lived in a primitive way, subsisting on the buffalo and at war with hostile neighbours.” My Life as an Indian is essential reading for anyone interested in Native American culture as it depicts vividly how they lived and survived at a moment in history when their way of life was severely under threat. “James Willard Schultz was a master of storytelling in the Indian manner.” —John C. Ewers, author of The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains “A sensation-creating volume.” — St. Petersburg Times James Willard Schultz was given the name Apikuni, meaning Spotted Robe, by the chief, Running Crane. He was an early settler in the Montana region and wrote widely on Blood, Cree and Blackfeet Indians during the latter half of the nineteenth century. He published this book at the age of forty eight in 1907 and died in 1947. Read more