by Paul DeMain

Any individual spending a couple of years writing a book about Indian Country has to have learned something, but a fish out of his bowl, is just that.

Suffice to say that I give Steve Hendrick’s new book, The Unquiet Grave, a C for average, some great updates, plenty of old smoke and mirrors, missed opportunities, and an inability to see beyond his own biases about the poor, manipulated Indians.

Us as Native people, don’t need non-Natives apologizing for our conduct. It is we, who need to hold our own accountable for being thieves, drug dealers, thugs and for committing murder. Blaming Christopher Columbus or the FBI for our problems is not taking responsibility for our own affairs.

Hendricks dismisses some of my thinking as “ludicrous” – my problem – but then lowers himself to the “snitch-jacketing” AIM mongering intended to inflict ethical and character damage. I did not, as Hendrick’s suggests, either record a conversation with Bernie Lafferty, where she, for the first time, admits that “Peltier bragged about shooting an FBI agent,” nor did I, as he suggested, give it to federal prosecutors.

Vetting facts is difficult in multiple murder cases. By not asking after I willingly provided him with many other background documents for his book, as he started it – Hendricks sets himself up to have other alleged, probable, and might have positions questioned more deeply. There is a lot more to be said, but I will leave it there, noting that the famous Peltier mouthpiece Bobby Robideau recently asked online if Hendrick’s might not be an agent “provocateur.”

But Robideau is mostly an uncredible, old story, filled with unplausible diversions, just like a good portion of The Unquiet Grave is.