Leaving Everything Behind

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Bertha Little Coyote was a pistol. She was predictably outspoken and courageous, and her opinions were, to many people's chagrin, piercingly correct in most situations. In this memoir she shows herself also as a deeply tender-hearted, expressive musician who was fiercely committed to people-especially Cheyenne people. She triumphed over ninety years of a difficult life, and had full hopes for an exciting spiritual existence after she "leaves everything on earth behind." Here are Bertha Little Coyote's songs and memories of government school, old-time Cheyenne life, fighting white boys, singing around the drum, dancing with the war mothers, being baptized in the lake, and dreaming important dreams. Ethnomusicologist Virginia Giglio says of her teacher, "It was the depth of her personality, her power, her particular ability to speak and sing right to the quick of my heart that compelled me to write her life and record her songs." Bertha Little Coyote (1912-2003), although hesitant to put herself forward in the writing of this book, was an important Cheyenne traditional singer and was recognized by the Smithsonian Institution for her beadwork and her knowledge of Cheyenne artifacts. Virginia Giglio, who holds the Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma, is an accomplished web and curriculum designer and has served on the music faculties of universities in Oklahoma, Connecticut, and Florida. She is the author of Southern Cheyenne Women's Songs, also published by the University of Oklahoma Press.