Light at the End of the Tunnel.

Interview by David Priestley.
Independent book review November 1984.
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

It’s a roundabout journey from Scotland to South Dakota via New Zealand and Australia and even more so from November 1984 back to the mid 1800’s. However author Andrew Hogarth has made it, through what originally was just an interest in the Teton Sioux which turned into a hobby and finally a book.

“Light at the End of the Tunnel” is a study of the Teton Sioux Indian of North America from the mid-nineteenth century to modern times.

The interest stemmed from Hogarth’s teens when he became fascinated with their culture. “Like many people I felt deeply about their plight and the total misinterpretation given to them by the American movie industry.”

Delving into the history book, particularly those covering the Sioux, Hogarth desperately wanted to visit South Dakota to see the areas made famous by a 300 year battle for survival.

In 1982, in his third trip to the United States, Andrew Hogarth realised his dream – South Dakota. While visiting Crazy Horse Mountain, in the famous Black Hills he met and became friends with the man who was to awaken the author in the Scotsman.

The man was full-blood Oglala-Brule-Lakota-Sioux Jack Little and his American wife Shirley. They contributed enormously to my understanding of the Sioux, both past and present.” Hogarth said.

Although associated with the publishing industry for many years, he has been working as a tradesman – Graphic Reproduction Camera Operator – and certainly not as a writer.

But after having three articles – “A Culture Died At Wounded Knee,” “In Search Of An Identity” and “The Little Bighorn 1876” – published in a specialist magazine, Hogarth decided it was time to write a book.

“I wanted to preserve the culture of the Teton Sioux by printing Jack Little’s story. 30 years from now the old full bloods will be long gone. Today life in the fast lane leaves many people without much spars time to read books.”

“I created ‘Light’ to simply bring to a wider range of readers a culture that respected the earth it lived on, loved and shared with its own kind, treated animal life with respect and where most probably the last true free people to live on this planet we call earth.”

Created is probably the right word, because over the next year in addition to writing he also designed the book’s layout, took the photographs, many of which are published for the first time, and published his first and what he is confident will be his last book.

Hogarth had developed an enormous respect for a race of people who fought bitterly to stop the white man’s civilisation. “They lived through 25 years of war against the white man, and at times defeated him and drove his armies out of commission in well fought battles.”

“When they finally came to the reservations, they lost, not merely their weapons and ponies, but their freedom and almost their precious way of life, that even the white man thought had much that was good.”

Hogarth believes that today’s 32,000 Sioux Indians still living in South Dakota still face battles that would be familiar to their ancestors. “Light at the End of the Tunnel” also documents the rise of the Sioux Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. They are now finally beginning to receive just acknowledgment of their achievements as leaders of their people.”

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Interview by David Dawson.
The Daily Mirror December 1984.
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Sydney author Andrew Hogarth got a shock when trying to sell his book “Light At The End Of The Tunnel,” to a Double Bay bookshop.

Former Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh overhead the conversation and bought five copies of Hogarth’s saga of the plight of the American Indian.

Hogarth who first saw Joe a decade ago with the Eagles: “Hotel California” tour in Glasgow, Scotland was ecstatic. “He was in the book store trying to sell them books,” Walsh recalled.

“I thought this guy’s got to be cool. Who in the world would do that. And lo and behold the book is on the American Indian – the Sioux nation. I get hung about what we did to the American Indian.”

“Everyone thinks Hitler was a bad person, but the desecration of the American Indian was the largest case of genocide in the history of mankind.”

Walsh, who is touring Australia with the Party Boys, got Hogarth to autograph his copies of the book.

“The book is about the lone survivors about 90 now, of the massacre called “Wounded Knee,” Walsh said.

Hogarth’s debut book will be launched at Four Winds Gallery, Double Bay, on Saturday.

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‘Light’ is short but complete

Interview by Dirk Moore.
The Custer County Chronicle May 1985.
Custer, Black Hills, South Dakota, United States of America.

In only 51 picture-filled pages “Light at the End of the Tunnel,” by Scottish author Andrew Hogarth, gives a history of the Teton Sioux Indian from the mid nineteenth century to the present.

How can such a brief book account for the eventful history of the Teton Sioux during that time? Hogarth admits that it cannot, and that is one reason why he wrote the book.

The history of the Sioux conflict with the white man is a long, fabulous story to be told. “Light at the End of the Tunnel” instead of telling this story completely, touches off a desire to read more about the Teton Sioux Indians’ struggle to keep their homeland secure from the white man.

“I created ‘Light’ to simply bring to a wider range of readers a culture that respected the earth it lived on, loved and shared with own kind, treated animal life with respect and were most probably the last true free people to live on this planet we call earth,” says Hogarth.

Hogarth , a native of Scotland, lives and works in Sydney, Australia. “Most people wonder why I would want to write a book about Indians,” he says. “but you do not have to be Indian or American to understand the conflict between the two cultures and to empathise with the Sioux who were ultimately defeated and placed on reservations.”

Hogarth’s book reveals that the author has obtained the background to write about the conflict between the white man and the Sioux as well as the authority to express an opinion on the subject. His research is thorough enough.

He keeps his facts straight about the past – the swift encroachment of the white man onto Indian land, the victories of the Sioux and their final defeat and cultural deterioration.

He gives space to the story of one full blood Oglala-Brule Sioux Indian, Jack Little, who contributed to Hogarth’s understanding of the Sioux, both past and present.

And his look into the future is more than commentary as he relies on a discussion of the efforts begun by one man, the late sculpter Korczak Ziolkowski, to bring attention to at least one Sioux, Chief Crazy Horse.

Hogarth ends his book with a thought for the readers. What the Sioux have suffered in the past cannot now be undone. But, he says in his book, the Sioux still suffer because of past acts of the white man.

“When they finally came to the reservations, they lost, not merely their weapons and ponies, but their freedom and almost their precious way of life, that even the white man thought had in it much that was good.”

And the white man of today remains responsible for past actions “as long as he continues to base his actions on the same principles as those of his ancestors.”

It is a short book for the “average reader” and takes a few hours to read. But that is enough to understand the history of struggle between the white man and the Sioux, and to know that reconciliation and acceptance have yet to be reached.

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Scotsman’s book tells story of Teton Sioux.

Interview by Debra Bossman.
The Rapid City Journal July 1985.
Rapid City, South Dakota, United States of America.

Andrew Hogarth author of “Light at the End of the Tunnel,” didn’t believe American Indians could be as they were portrayed in B-grade westerns. So he set out to find their true identity and write about them.

The native of Scotland, who is visiting in the Black Hills this summer, has travelled more than 16,500 miles researching and promoting his book about the Teton Sioux. “Light at the End of the Tunnel” has now sold more than 2,500 copies.

“Hollywood made them (American Indians) unbelievable,” Hogarth said in a distinct Scottish brogue. “There was always an endless supply of Indians coming over the horizon in the movies and John Wayne never ran out of bullets.”

Hogarth first became interested in the Sioux after reading several books he purchased while in New York. His interest ultimately brought him to South Dakota in 1982 on his third trip to the United States of America.

On that trip Hogarth visited Crazy Horse Mountain and met a man who would complete the focus of his book. “Jack and Shirley Little contributed enormously to my understanding of the Sioux, both past and present,” Hogarth says. “Jack really leaves an impression on you. He speaks for himself about how he is feeling.”

Before publishing his book, Hogarth wrote several articles – “A Culture Died at Wounded Knee,” “In Search of An Identity” and “The Little Bighorn 1876” – for an ethnic publication in Sydney, Australia.

He began work on the book in December 1984 during a Christmas holiday. Most of its contents is researched from other publications and then combined with Little’s story.

“I created the book to simply bring to a wider range of readers a culture that respected the earth it lived on, loved and shared with its own kind,” he says. “They treated animal life with respect and were probably the last true free people to live on this planet.”

Hogarth says when Indians were forced to the reservations they not only lost their ponies and weapons, but also their freedom and precious way of life. “I see a people (now) who have been stripped of their pride. They are angry and frustrated because of it,” Hogarth explained. ‘I have great respect for the Indian people.”

Hogarth was impressed by the individuality of American Indians. “You could tell right away what kind of person each warrior was by the markings on him and his horse. We were often led to believe they were always fighting, but in reality very few Indians were killed in battle.

Many of the American Indian ways of life parallel the struggles of their ancestors, according to Hogarth. “The book examines the trials endured by the Teton Sioux nation in their fight to halt the spread of the white man’s civilisation. It also documents the rise of Sioux Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, who are now finally beginning to receive just acknowledgment of leaders of their people.”

Hogarth notes that many Sioux have succeeded in white society, but the majority find integration difficult. “I didn’t see a lot of prejudice of Indians, but (some) white people see them as drunken Indians and not as a product of what society has done to them.”

Little, a full-blooded Oglala-Brule-Sioux, restored Hogarth’s faith in the strength and pride of the American Indian. It is Little’s face that graces the cover of “Light at the End of the Tunnel”

“I doubt very much if the Lakota will ever forgive being forced into the position of being in a minority in our own land,” Little explains in his section of the book, which explains aspects of Sioux religion and culture and relates his personal experiences as a Sioux in an alien culture.

‘The white society can force its education, its religion and its ways on us all they want to, but we will always be Lakota, and think and act Lakota,” writes Little. ‘Our very creation is in this land and the lessons learned by our ancient ancestors of how to live peacefully with this land have been born into us. If a man has any Indian blood at all, he has some thought and feelings that are alien to the white man’s world, but natural to this land.”

The 35-year-old Hogarth says this is his first – and last – book. He plans to revise portions of it for a second printing later this year and distribute the books in South Dakota and Australia.

He’s had some difficulty cutting through “bureaucratic red-tape” in marketing his book at national park locations, but says he will continue to promote his work in a quest to tell the Indians’ story.

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The Teton Sioux: Light at the End of the Tunnel.

Book review by Tom Pearson.
The Guardian February 1987.
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

The theft of Indian lands in what is now the United States of America is well-known through the film industry – Westerns which show brave settler families, individual white heroes and staunch cavalry fighting off “marauding savages.”

The reality of this bitter resistance to the invasion of their lands by the native peoples of America is far less familiar to Australians. However, it is an epic story which should be told – a story of proud and independent peoples fighting enormous odds to preserve their homelands and way of life from the ravages of colonisation, land theft, murder and discrimination which has many parallels with the 200-year long struggle for land rights and justice by the Aboriginal people.

One of a growing number of books which try to redress the balance and tell the true story of the native Americans’ fight is “The Teton Sioux: Light at the End of the Tunnel” by Andrew Hogarth.

“Light at the End of the Tunnel” chronicles the battles for their land waged by the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne from the middle of the nineteenth century to modern times. Hogarth writes. ‘After the formation of the United States of America in 1776 only the vast expanse of land known as the northern plains of the North West remained untouched. It was an area of incalculable mineral wealth and grazing lands. It was also the beloved homeland of the Teton Sioux and Northern Cheyenne Indians. The start of white expansion into the northern plains marked the beginning of half a century of warfare between the two cultures.

Hogarth tells the grim story of the years between 1851and 1890 during which broken treaties, theft of hunting lands, constant pressure from land and gold hungry settlers, massacres of Indian women and children and forcible incarceration in reserves without adequate food and other supplies forced the Indians to fight for survival.

Hogarth writes: “By the middle of the nineteenth century, the vast area of land occupied by the plains tribes, the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho and a few smaller tribes, had been completely surrounded by land hungry white Europeans.”

“In response to the cry for more land the United States government launched itself into an intensive period of treaty making. Between the years 1853 and 1856 more than 52 treaties were signed.”

“By 1856 the indigenous peoples of America had lost over 174 million acres… Prior to the arrival of Columbus the native peoples were sole owners of 3,026,789 square miles of land. By 1890 Indian holdings were reduced to only a nineteenth of their original homeland – 162,993 square miles.”

Faced with this intolerable position, the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne, like other Indian tribes, had no choice except to fight.

Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa-Sioux, who with Crazy Horse of the Oglala-Sioux defeated Custer at the Little Bighorn in 1876, said: “What treaty that the white man ever made with us have they kept? Not one.”

“When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world. The sun rose and set on their land. They sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who own them? What white man can say I ever stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say I am a thief.”

“What white woman, however lonely, was a captive or insulted by me? Yet they said I am a bad Indian. What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and unfed? Who has ever seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Or because I am Sioux? Or because I was born where my father lived? I would die for my people and my country.”

The Indians were finally defeated and dispossessed. Like the Aboriginal people, they were forced onto reserves, discriminated against and impoverished, over-administered by insensitive and sometimes dishonest bureaucrats, pressured by monopolies hungry for their remaining land. Nevertheless they survived, maintained at least some of their culture and today have a militant movement for their rights.

“Light at the End of the Tunnel” contains an account of the Sioux today, including the development of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the decision of the Pine Ridge Sioux to bring their plight to the attention of the American people which led to the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973.

A fascinating contribution to the book by Jack Little, a Oglala-Brule-Sioux born in 1920 on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, deals with Sioux religion and culture and his personal experiences over 65 years.

Some of jack Little’s statements illustrate the similarities between native American and Aboriginal attitudes to land. He says: “we lived in harmony with not only the land but everything around us for centuries. Everything was a relative and as a relative was treated with love and respect…

“The assumption that this land can be owned is made only by the white man in his greed. Indian people have always felt that the land cannot be owned. We are not the only peoples on this land and when it is sold, the rights of the four-legged and winged people, the rivers, trees and even the mountains are taken away. We don’t have the right to do that. The land is our Mother. We belong to the land, it does not belong to us.”

Andrew Hogarth’s book is highly recommended. “Light at the End of the Tunnel” is partisan, informative, highly readable and well illustrated with many of Hogarth’s own photographs as well as historical pictures.

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