I  have always been fascinated with the American Indian. Ask any one of my kids or my sister. I drove them nuts with the stuff! Not the ones I saw on T.V., but a real interest in the culture and ways of their lives. So when I was given this book I was expecting more. As it is told from sides, the author (who discovers she is a relative of the Lenni-Lenape woman called Marion Strong Medicine) and the woman herself, Marion Strong Medicine, it can get a little tricky as to whose words you are reading.
Marion Strong Medicine writes (I am assuming) as she speaks, which at times is endearing, and at other times annoying. I was amazed that there is an Indian tribe in New Jersey, as I never knew, and the way Marion speaks, if I had not read her book I still would not know. They are a dying breed (how cliché!). How we are not given the true story of the American Indian. That all information or history given to us is lies told in the school books and on TV from the White people and the White government. How the whites have ruined this nation with their greed and lies. She definitely has some anger built up, and it comes across loud and clear in the pages.

Not too much new to read here. It’s all been written before. She talks of how the Indians want to be recognized, but then says they never wanted anyone to know they were Indians, but blacks, for fear of being rejected, or run off.How all her life she was happy with her small home, the same street she lived on , the same one she lives on today, and their meager existence. If she was given a million dollars how she would give it back to live her simple life, then goes on to say how much the Indians are denied.

The writer, speaking through Marion, contradicts herself, and it was at times hard to read. She mentions over and over the sale of Manhattan for $24.00 to the Dutch, and how to this day they are laughed at and considered dumb for doing that. She goes on and on about the White people back in the day, yet she has German blood in her. It makes me wonder how bad they are going to seem if they buy this book? She talks about how kids today are lazy and fat, and should do things the Indian way. Go out in nature and walk or just sit and listen to the birds. It says a lot of what we have heard time and time again.

I grew up (not of American Indian heritage) poor, raised by a single parent and there were six of us children, so I know what it was like to not have things, or to go to bed hungry, but let me tell you, I loved my family, but given the opportunity to have a million dollars I would have taken the money and made my Mom’s life a whole lot better and my sister’s and brother. In my opinion this book is about an old woman who happens to be a Lenni-Lenape Indian, who misses her youth and dislikes change. That’s what I came away feeling. I kind of makes me wonder with our new President, who can she blame now for their troubles?

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