Ke-ma-ha: The Omaha Stories of Francis La Flesche

Born on the Omaha Reservation in 1857, Francis La Flesche was raised in the years when federal policy encouraged Indians to assimilate. He learned English at a mission school, acquiring a fluency that prepared him for a career that moved between tribal and national concerns. Most of the stories in Ke-ma-ha have never before been published. Written to bring public attention to the Omahas, they tell us about that culture in ways that anthropological treatises cannot. Francis La Flesche collaborated with anthropologist Alice C. Fletcher on The Omaha Tribe and A Study of Omaha Indian Music. These titles, as well as La Flesche’s autobiographical The Middle Five: Indian Schoolboys of the Omaha Tribe, are available as Bison Books.