About J. Stanion
Throughout my childhood, I heard stories of an Indian boy named Iron Horse. My grandmother's clearest memory of him was when he came knocking on the screen door of the family's back porch, black braids pulled forward over his shoulders, teeth chattering in the bone-chilling cold of a Connecticut blizzard. My great-grandfather had many memories, stories that inspired a contentious battle for the rights of the Indigenous people he worked with as a teacher and administrator in the Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian Education System.
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With a twinkle in his eye, my dad would describe his grandfather as a rascal, a troublemaker to the Washington politicians, a writer of complaints and whistleblower of wrong-doings who ended up taking an involuntary tour of the frontier because he was moved from reservation to reservation each time bureaucrats tired of his finger pointing. His stories inspired me to read everything about "Indians" I could find. They were the "Horse Nation", which suited me fine. Today, I live with my husband Neil, on our family farm with 9 horses, 4 dogs, and too many barn cats to count.
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​ "My Place Among Them" is the story of John Iron Horse and his teacher, Carter Heath. It is based on my great-grandfather's writings and work records. He dared not publish the story in his lifetime for fear of retribution from those higher up in the bureaucracy he served. His daughter, my grandmother, hid the manuscript in a red box in the bottom of her bureau where, at her passing, my father found it and took up his grandfather's challenge to share John's story with the world. Cancer took my dad from us before he could finish so J. Stanion, my pen name, honors my father whose first initial is J. and my great-grandfather whose last name was Stanion.
It is my first novel, a story of tragedy and triumph that took three generations to be told.
Today's artists continue to create beautiful works that address modern topics using traditional colors and symbols on ledger books secured from estate sales and auctions. All ledger pieces shown here were done by Oglala Sicangu artist Quinton Jack Whiting Maldonado, great-great grandson of Woptuha ("Horned Chips"), brother of Crazy Horse. Above is a tribute to veteran natives while the one to the right shows the cutting of a native child's long hair. This was done upon their arrival at the boarding schools where the children were denied all aspects of their native culture from access to their families for years at a time to their language, traditional clothing, and religious beliefs as well. The piece below appears to show a mother being forced to carry her children away to school. Families were often denied food and survival items if their children didn't attend school. The last work depicts the Indigenous peoples' fight against the Covid virus.
Prior to the white man's arrival, the Lakota people used art not only to express themselves, but also to record historic events. The paintings were traditionally done on animal hides such as antelope or buffalo. Historic records were known as winter counts as seen below. When white hunters decimated the wild herds, native artists had to find other materials to use as "canvases". Often, they resorted to discarded ledger books from white settlements, forts or businesses, painting directly over the outdated financial records. These unique pieces became known as "ledger art".
