Mar 18, 7 p.m"One Thousand White Women - The Journals of May Dodd" by Jim Fergus

The Author notes: "the seed that grew into this novel was sown in the author's imagination by an actual historical event: in 1854 at a peace conference at Ft. Laramie, a prominent Northern Cheyenne chief requested of the U.S. Army authorities the gift of one thousand white women as brides for his young warriors. Because theirs is a matrilineal society in which all children born belong to their mother's tribe, this seemed to the Cheyennes to be the perfect means of assimilation into the white man's world . . . Needless-to-say, the Cheyenne's request was not well-received by the white authorities"

Told through the fictional diaries of May Dodd, the book traces her life from an insane asylum which she was committed to by her "blue-blood family" for the crime of loving a man beneath her station. Seeing it as her only hope of freedom, May volunteers to join a secret government program whereby a group of women from the "civilized" world become brides of Cheyenne warriors.

The book offers tremendous insights into the political and religious issues of the time, with particular sensitivity and insight into the decline of the noble Cheyenne nation.