American Indian Culture and Research Journal

One night my Father had a vision in his sleep, he saw an old man standing at a distance on the horizon of a low hill. . . . Then the old man spoke, saying, “I came to tell you of my life, I give it to you, you will live until you die of old age, but before that time you will pass away in order that you may demonstrate the power which I am giving you. The power to arise after you have passed away.” —Garter Snake, in Fred P. Gone’s “Bull Lodge’s Life” In 1980, on behalf of the Gros Ventre people, George P. Horse Capture published The Seven Visions of Bull Lodge, as Told by His Daughter, Garter Snake. The Seven Visions describes a lifetime of personal encounters with Powerful other-than-human Persons by the noted Gros Ventre warrior and ritual leader, Bull Lodge (ca. 1802–86). The life history recorded in Seven Visions is also distinguished by its provenance, for it has been almost exclusively mediated at various stages of its production by Gros Ventre people themselves: Bull Lodge recounted his life experiences to his daughter during the latter half of the nineteenth century, who then “gave” (that is, narrated so as to authorize reproduction of) her father’s “life story” to tribal member Fred Gone during her own old age. Gone then carefully translated and inscribed the narrative in written English just as the United States was entering World War II, and the text was later edited and published by tribal member Horse Capture during the Red Power movement. All told then, Bull Lodge’s words concerning his own life have been purposefully recontextualized and redeployed by his own people on multiple occasions since he gave voice to them more than a century ago.