Death, murder, and mayhem stories of violence and healing on the plains

Susan Naramore Maher, University of Nebraska, Omaha, discusses the narratives, depicting murder, mayhem, and death from the Plains of Nebraska, which received attention of scholars at the 34th Interdisciplinary Symposium of the Center for Great Plains Studies, Omaha, Nebraska. The Great Plains of North America have offered a preparatory platform for stories both tragic and mythic focused on the power and the horror of violence. Since the 19th century, the tragic history of the Indian Wars and their repercussions played out mainly on the Plains and was then re-written and recycled repeatedly in Hollywood westerns to the current age. Geographer Christina Dando, a long-time Plains dweller, examines numerous contemporary newspaper accounts of the Great Plains, noting narratives that focus on topics such as drought, bison and depopulation. A.B. Emrys argues that the bloody history of Plains work in creative exchange with the conventions of horror.