Seasons of Rita: Biography of a Sauk Woman

Seasons of Rita is the story of the cultural clash between American and Indian cultue in the life of one person, Rita, and the cost of that conflict to her personally and to her people, the Sauk. After Indian School and an exploitative marriage to a "White" man she returned to live in the Sauk community and was gradually reincorporated into the tribal religion and was one of the last to know the old ways. Rita was born in a traditional Sauk village, but the authorities took her as a child to an Indian boarding school. She was the first generation to experience forced assimilation in the English language and Christian missionary teaching. After years in the school her life and thought were a mixture of "White" and "Indian" ways. She spent the rest of her life resolving those conflicts. This is her story.