This ledger compiled by George Sword (Miwakan Yuhala) is a site of Lakota memory, a rich collection of autobiographical reminiscence, traditional stories, and ethnographic observations written in alphabetic Dakota by a man who lived through what were perhaps the hardest years for the Oglala Lakota people during the 19^th century.

In September of 1896, Sword narrated part of his life story to Bruce Means, who translated it into English. In this interview, Sword describes his many social responsibilities before the reservation system was imposed on his community. “I was wičaša wakan (Holy Man),” he told Means, having “conducted the Sun Dance.” He also bore “scars on his body” showing he had been a dancer. But Sword became disillusioned with some the old ways when the Lakota began losing battles to the Americans. That was why he adopted the surname Sword,“because the leaders of the white people wore swords.” He then took on a new role—Captain of the Pine Ridge police force.

Though he did not speak English, he learned “to write Lakota . . . [like] the old Lakota talked in the formal manner.” Just as Black Elk understood his collaboration with John Neihardt as a way to “publish” the fulfillment of his Thunder Beings vision, Sword may have believed that his voluminous writings in Lakota proffered a return of power to the Lakota Oyate [Nation]. He focused on traditional speech patterns as his model of written composition: “I write the Lakota words as I speak them.” In Sword’s view, the printed word had fostered an unhealthy debasement of the younger generation’s vernacular: “The printing and the writing of the white man has changed the language . . . When the old men of the Lakota die the right Lakota language will be forgotten.” Sword made his ledger so that would not happen.