author
Marie L. McLaughlin
b. 1842
Raised in the Dakota community of Minnesota and later living for decades on reservation land, this writer preserved Sioux stories in a form that reached a wide English-reading audience. Her best-known work, Myths and Legends of the Sioux, remains a notable early collection of Dakota tradition and folklore.
1 Audiobook
Myths and Legends of the Sioux
by Marie L. McLaughlin
About the author
Born on December 8, 1842, at Wabasha in what was then Minnesota Territory, Marie L. McLaughlin described herself as being of one-quarter Sioux ancestry and said she was raised in the Indian community. Sources about her life consistently connect her with long familiarity with Sioux language, oral tradition, and daily life.
She began publishing late in life. The work most closely associated with her is Myths and Legends of the Sioux (1916), a collection drawn from stories she said she had learned through years of living among the Sioux. Because of that background, her writing has often been valued as an early printed record of traditional tales told within Dakota communities.
Some catalog and library sources disagree about her death year, listing either 1924 or 1936, so that detail is best treated with caution. What is clear is that her name endures mainly through Myths and Legends of the Sioux, which introduced many readers to Sioux storytelling and remains the center of her legacy.