Book Review: Lending Credibility to the Oral Tradition: In The Assassination of Hole in the Day, Dr. Anton Treuer explores far more than the history behind the murder of Ojibwe chief Bagone-giizhig, whose role in U.S. and Ojibwe history is compelling in its own right. With his bold, deft and rigorous documentation of oral and written sources, Treuer lends new credibility to indigenous oral history as a genuine and credible source of academic information.
On June 27, 1868, Chief Hole in the Day (Bagone-giizhig pronounced Bug-oh-nay-gee-zhig) left his home in Crow Wing, Minn., for Washington, D.C., to fight the planned U.S. removal of his people, the Mississippi Ojibwe, to a reservation in White Earth, Minn. Several miles from his home, he was accosted by at least 12 men from his own tribe and shot dead. The death of this self-styled chief of all the Ojibwe people was front-page national news at the time.
