Manstin the Rabbit is a character from a Sioux Lakota trickster tale written by Zitkala-Ša (Gertrude Bonnin). Zitkala-Ša (Lakota: “Red Bird”) was one of the most well-known Native American writers at the turn of the twentieth century. She published the story “Manstin the Rabbit” in 1901 as a part of her larger collection of folk tales for children titled Old Indian Legends.
Zitkala-Ša lived at the time of forced integration of Native Americans into American society. At the time the story was published, the population of Native Americans had reached its lowest point in U.S. history. Those who survived the removal from their lands, warfare, and disease were adapting to the changes in their lives. Zitkala-Ša used adventures of a traditional trickster figure—the Rabbit—to tell this story of the assimilation of her people, which also constituted a major part of her own life. Her main character, Manstin, whose name is adapted from the Lakota Mastiqca, is always on the move. His travels blur geographic, social, and animal-human boundaries. Manstin reveals both human and animal qualities and symbolizes for Zitkala-Ša the experiences of Native Americans struggling to retain their cultural identity.
The tale begins with Manstin leaving his grandmother’s home for a hunting trip. As soon as he leaves, he encounters a quest. He runs into Double-Face, a giant monster that is torturing an infant child. Manstin immediately kills the monster with a poisoned arrow. After he returns the baby to its parents, Manstin makes the little one grow into an adult almost identical to him. Manstin declares that they would both be “friends, to help each other,” and the new young man agrees.
Manstin continues his hunting trip and meets an old blind man living in a wigwam. The old man enjoys a comfortable life, with magical bags that never run out of good food. The man also has ropes leading to the river for water and to the forest for firewood. Manstin grows jealous of the old man’s seemingly easy lifestyle. When the old man offers to trade his lifestyle for Manstin’s eyes, Manstin agrees and gives his eyes to the old man. The old man, now with vision, leaves the blind Manstin. In his newfound excitement, Manstin does not use the ropes properly and breaks them, losing his ways to get water and firewood. He curses himself and desperately calls his friend for help. He puts his lips close to the earth and cries to the Earth Ear to reach the friend. His friend arrives with the same old man. The old man gives Manstin his eyes back, and Manstin understands the lesson the old man has taught him. The story concludes with Manstin continuing on his hunting trip.
The story of Manstin the Rabbit rests upon the traditional values and experiences of the Lakota people. Manstin, the protagonist, is a trickster or a character that in Indian oral lore is both a creator and a destroyer. Manstin both tricks others and gets fooled in return. He wishes nothing for himself yet remains at the mercy of his desires. He possesses no moral qualities but is responsible for the good and bad occurring around him. Manstin is also constantly on the move, crossing animal, human, and spiritual realms, which in part represents the Lakota traditional hunting lifestyles, which involved moving seasonally as the hunters followed the game, and partly refers to Indian removal experiences.
Zitkala-Ša contrasts Manstin to the giant monster Double-Face, a popular Lakota mythological figure that in her story represents the ugliness and cruelty of Native American assimilation. Some scholars believe Double-Face is a depiction of missionaries who tricked or forced Lakota parents into giving their children to boarding schools, one of which Zitkala-Ša herself attended as a young girl. By having Manstin bring the baby back to its family and then making him grow tall and strong, Zitkala-Ša celebrates the persistence and revival of Indian traditions. She, however, sees the revival result from the trickster’s activities. Zitkala-Ša tricks her audience by telling the story of the Native American struggle in a seemingly harmless children’s folktale.
The story also helps her teach American readers the traditional Lakota values of respect for the natural world by introducing Native American cultural practices commonly perceived at her time as superstitions. The powerful symbol of the Earth Ear, representing the traditional Lakota understanding of the Earth as a site of interaction of all living beings and a keeper of living memory, allows Zitkala-Ša to teach her readers the importance of the Native American spiritual connection to the land. She rejects the possession of the Native American land by the U.S. government, which at the turn of the century claimed most of the Native Americans’ ancestral territories. Zitkala-Ša presents the Earth as a living being that cannot be divided or owned, remaining a living home shared by all.
The story of Manstin the Rabbit remains a powerful description of Native American experiences at the turn of the twentieth century. It is also an entertaining traditional Lakota folktale. The story fascinates scholars to this day, with recent interpretations highlighting Manstin’s travels from a position of Indian nations’ struggle for cultural autonomy with a particular focus on environmental protection of Native American lands. The story also has educational value, teaching young readers to respect the wisdom of elders, to embrace mistakes as learning experiences, and to value friendship and family.
Ash DiCristofalo, Krystle DiCristofalo, Thomas Gosart, and Ulia Popova
See also Badger and the Bear; Dance in a Buffalo Skull; Shooting of the Red Eagle; Toad and the Boy; Tree-Bound, The; Warlike Seven
Further Reading
Capaldi, Gina. 2011. Red Bird Sings: The Story of Zitkala-Ša, Native American Author, Musician, and Activist. Minneapolis: Millbrook Press.
Hassrick, Royal. 1964. The Sioux: Life and Customs of a Warrior Society. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Myers, Jeffrey. 2005. Converging Stories: Race, Ecology, and Environmental Justice in American Literature. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Zitkala-Ša. 2003. American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings, edited by Cathy N. Davidson and Ada Norris. New York: Penguin Books.