“Why lie down and die?” Fighting (for) the Lakota Way in David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s Winter Counts
“Why lie down and die?” Fighting (for) the Lakota Way in David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s Winter Counts

Summary/Abstract: The acclaimed Winter Counts (2020) is the debut novel of David Heska Wanbli Weiden, a Sicangu Lakota academic and writer. Listed among “The 100 Best Mystery & Thriller Books of All Time” by Time Magazine, winner of literary achievement awards, and amply praised by Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers, reviewers and book sellers, Winter Counts “hits the sweet spot between gritty thriller and social novel” (Carol Memmott, The Washington Post). Told in the first person by one character, a Lakota vigilante who delivers justice on the Rosebud Indian Reservation when federal authorities don’t bother to prosecute, the story combines crime narrative, trauma memoir, and social and political commentary. This article discusses the fictional storyteller’s journey to find a gang of drug-dealing villains and save his nephew as a journey of self/collective recovery, from the standpoint of Taiaiake Alfred’s articulation of Wasáse warrior ship, a theory of Indigenous action which resonates with what Lakota scholar Elizabeth Cook-Lynn called a contemporary continuation of the Indian Wars.

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