The Middle Five

Francis La Flesche drew on his own boyhood for this 1900 memoir of life at a Presbyterian mission school among the Omaha people. He and a small band of friends, the group of the title, learn to navigate the strange rules of a white-run classroom while holding onto the games, loyalties, and tribal traditions of home. La Flesche writes without bitterness or easy sentiment, recording the humor and grief of childhood: the pranks, the friendships, the harsh discipline, and the loss of a beloved companion. As the first Native American to work as a professional ethnologist, he offers an insider’s view of a world usually described from outside. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available.