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“Stunning artistic recreation of Zintkála Nuni’s story."
— Booklife Review Editor's Pick
“I love the book… it tells such an important story with empathy and precision.”
— Mary Pipher, Ph.D., New York Times bestselling author
“Zintka mashes together Brad Colerick’s haunting, thought-stimulating song with Scott Feldmann’s dancing, juxtaposed visual imagery into a compelling portrayal.”
— Steve Fjeldsted, Former Director, South Pasadena Public Library
“You have an amazing way of presenting history, and that needs to be shared broadly!”
— Chris Hochstetler, Executive Director - Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer
“Zintka! Lost Bird of Wounded Knee — Zintkála Nuni” Awarded a BookLife Review Editor’s Pick.
The short film has been celebrated at film festivals. Now the book adaptation is getting high praise from publishing insiders, authors and historians. “Zintka! Lost Bird of Wounded Knee — Zintkála Nuni” (Deep Magic, 2024) is a 48-page book that features Native American ledger art and historic photographs accompanied by a timeline and biographical essay on the Lakota baby who survived the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. A true story of “found and lost”. . . and found again, Zintka! tells the troubled tale of a Native American girl caught between two worlds, accepted by neither during her lifetime.
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The short film “Lost Bird” (Zintkála Nuni) was showcased in the Sedona International Film Festival in February of 2024 and awarded “Best Mixed Media Short.” The film premiered in November 2023 in front of Riley Keough and Gina Gammell’s celebrated feature film “War Pony” at The Ross Theatre, on campus at the University of Nebraska. It has since screened in other indie film festivals in 2024, including Omaha, Nebraska and Pasadena, California and is in consideration at many more. The animated film is set to the latest release from singer-songwriter Brad Colerick, “Little Bird — Lost Bird of Wounded Knee.”
BookLife Reviews states: “This stunning YA debut transcends the confines of a single book, as the authors . . . employ song, ledger art, winter counts, and film with exquisite, emotionally charged images, ensuring that Zintka’s story will never be forgotten.”
As a Lakota (Sioux) baby and her mother were fleeing for safety, they became victims in the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. The infant was kept alive by the warmth of her mother as she lay dying, then taken away and adopted by a prominent soldier and his famous suffragette wife to be raised in their white, high-society circles. Named “Lost Bird” at the moment she was separated from her Lakota caregivers, Zintkála Nuni’s life was chronicled in newspapers from the time of her discovery to the day of her death. She joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, San Francisco’s vaudeville circuit, and became an extra in Hollywood silent movies.
Zintka died in 1920 and was buried in a pauper’s grave in Hanford, California. Seventy-five years later, her story was revealed by Renée Sansom Flood in the historical biography Lost Bird: Spirit of the Lakota (Scribner, 1995). Lakota leadership from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota ceremoniously reburied her on July 11, 1991, at the Wounded Knee Monument, near the mass grave of the disaster, which included her birth mother.
The 48-page book includes 24 illustrated pages created from the film. It goes further than the six-minute animated video by including a historical biography, a timeline for Zintka’s life, and an essay on how “lost bird” came to mean a Native American child adopted away from their Reservation, sometimes without awareness of their parentage. It also includes samples of Plains Indian ledger art and a lead sheet for musicians to learn the song. The book Zintka! Is being made available to retailers including indie bookstores, museum stores, and at colleges offering degrees in U.S. history and Indigenous cultures. It can be ordered direct from the publishers at deepmagic.fun/zintka, after September 27, 2024.
Early praise for Zintka! is rolling in. New York Times bestselling author of Women Rowing North and Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher, Ph.D., says, “I love the book… it tells such an important story with empathy and precision.” Steve Fjeldsted, Director of Library, Arts, and Culture, South Pasadena Public Library from 2006 – 2019, gave it two thumbs up and described it this way: “Zintka mashes together Brad Colerick’s haunting, thought-stimulating song with Scott Feldmann’s dancing, juxtaposed visual imagery into a compelling portrayal.” Additionally, Chris Hochstetler, Executive Director of the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, writes: “You have an amazing way of presenting history, and that needs to be shared broadly!”
Singer/songwriter Brad Colerick and animator/artist Scott Feldmann are partners in the Deep Magic Song & Drawing Co., based in South Pasadena CA. The two have collaborated on several short music videos. Zintka! Is their first foray into publishing.