FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 29, 2024

CONTACT: Kevin Larsen, Marketing Director, 605-773-6000; kevin.larsen@state.sd.us

PIERRE, S.D.—The South Dakota Historical Society Press will publish “A Phantom Storm: Sitting Bull, America, and the Ghost Dance” by Norman E. Matteoni next month.

In the fall of 1890, a new religion swept onto South Dakota reservations like a prairie fire. The Ghost Dance, as it was called, promised that if American Indians would dance and pray, a Messiah would deliver them from the misery of reservation life. The movement was soon trumpeted as a new Indian war in the making by those who refused to see it as the lament of a downtrodden people.

At the center of the controversy was Sitting Bull, the Hunkpapa Lakota chieftain and medicine man. In reservation life he had become a staunch opponent of federal Indian policy, and when he refused to forswear the movement, even if he did not openly embrace it, his enemies discredited him as a “crazed malcontent”.

A Phantom Storm deftly traces the smear campaign against Sitting Bull in the words and actions of public figures and the nation’s media. The resulting narrative reveals the previously unexplored manipulation of public perceptions by those seeking to gain from the demise of Sitting Bull and all that he represented.

Norman E. Matteoni is a lawyer, legal author, and lecturer on the law of eminent domain. He is the author of “Condemnation Practice in California”, the comprehensive book on that subject, as well as “Prairie Man: The Struggle between Sitting Bull and Indian Agent James McLaughlin”.

“A Phantom Storm” is currently available for preorder for $24.95, plus shipping and tax, at www.sdhspress.com/books. Booksellers may contact the press to place orders by emailing info@sdhspress.com or calling 605-773-6009.

About the South Dakota State Historical Society

The South Dakota State Historical Society is a division of the Department of Education. The State Historical Society, an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution since 2013, is headquartered in Pierre. For questions or memberships, call 605-773-3458 or visit https://history.sd.gov/ for more information. The society also has an archaeology office in Rapid City; call 605-394-1936 for more information.