Prairie Smoke

By Melvin Gilmore.  Early in the spring, when the snow has scarcely melted, the Northern Great Plains are covered with gray-blue flowers that look like smoke hovering over the prairie. These are the fuzzy pasque flowers- "very brave little flowers," say the Cree Indians, "that arrive while it is still so cold that they must come wearing their fur coats." This book, first published in 1929, takes its evocative title from that flower.  Prairie Smoke tells the traditional stories and describes the lifeways of some of the first peoples of the Plains: the Pawnee, Sioux, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Omaha Indians. Through these stories, we learn of the essential ties native peoples have to the land that give them life.

225 pages        Paperback $12.95