American Indian Stories

“The Trial Path” continues the fiction section of American Indian Stories but introduces a new perspective. For the first time in Zitkála-Šá’s book, the selection does not explore the conflicts between Sioux culture and outsiders like missionaries and the US government. Instead, the story centers entirely on an aspect of Sioux culture.

The story opens with a granddaughter listening to stories of past tribal warriors told at night by her grandmother. The scene hearkens back to passages from the first selection in American Indian Stories, “Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” creating a link between the different chapters as well as between the granddaughter and Zitkála-Šá. The conflict is the story of the grandfather, who rashly murdered a Sioux man and was delivered to the tribe for justice. The punishment he faces—to ride a wild pony without falling off, or else face death—sheds light on Zitkála-Šá’s characterization of Sioux justice. Equally important is the fact that the deceased man’s father is the one who decides the punishment, because according to the chief, “he alone can judge” because he “has suffered livid pain” (74). The story implies that Sioux justice is context-dependent, not based on fixed, immutable laws.

“The Soft-Hearted Sioux” and “The Trial Path” are both stories about crimes and punishments, and the contrasts between them reveal Zitkála-Šá’s critique of US legal principles. The narrator of “The Soft-Hearted Sioux” is prosecuted and presumably put to death for murder by the US legal system, while the grandfather in “The Trial Path” is given the opportunity for redemption after he commits his crime. Indeed, the father of the very man he killed comes to accept him as his own, greeting him at the end of the wild pony trial, grasping him by the hand, and hailing him as “My son!” (76). By implication, the legal system of the Christian-influenced culture in “The Soft-Hearted Sioux” ultimately shuns that narrator, while the Sioux principles of justice are accommodating and forgiving of the grandfather in “The Trial Path.”

The legacy of the grandfather’s redemption is conveyed through the reverence with which the grandmother speaks of him and his pony, Ohiyesa, who became “a constant member of the family” and died on the same day as the grandfather (77). “The Trial Path” is a frame story, meaning the tale of the grandfather is embedded within the story of the grandmother talking with her granddaughter. This creates a connection between the past and the present, emphasizing the importance of traditions and legends that are handed down and of culture that is continually built upon them.