SONG OF WOVOKA

Set 20 years after Dances With Wolves (with which it aspires to be compared), this flatly written novel of the Lakota nation and the Ghost Dance religion has some documentary interest but little charm. Forced from their lands onto reservations denuded of game, slowly starving on government rations, the Sioux are torn between leaders like Sitting Bull, who hold to the old ways, and younger ``progressives,'' who advocate taking the white man's money for what's left of their land and adapting as best they can. Into the growing conflict comes Shining Horse—Sitting Bull's son, taken away as a child and raised among whites—and Father Thomas, the soon-to-be-renegade Catholic missionary. Both are taken with the lovely Fawn-That-Goes-Dancing, who has had visions of a frightening future. While Father Thomas's unbidden visions of wolves and bison make him ever holier in the eyes of the tribe, forcing him to reconcile the ways of Wankatanka with the ways of Jesus, Shining Horse and others grow more militant about the fate of their people. Then comes word from Nevada that Wovoka, a Messiah, has come to the Paiute people. Taking up his Ghost Dance, which is intended to rid the land of whites, the Sioux are threatened by the government troops, leading to the battle at Wounded Knee. Murray (Blue Savage, 1985, etc.—not reviewed) makes an admirable attempt to portray a mystical worldview and his genuine feeling for the Lakota—but faulty pacing, graceless prose, and a perversely happy ending dominate.