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Winner of the 2025 John M. Carroll Literary Award for "Best Book on Custer and his Times," presented by the Little Big Horn Associates
Finalist for the 2025 Will Rogers Medallion Award for Western Nonfiction
*Final rankings will be announced Nov. 1 at the annual WRMA Banquet and Award Ceremony
In the fall of 1890, a new religion swept onto the Sioux reservations like a prairie fire. The Ghost Dance, as it was called, promised that if American Indians would dance and pray, a Messiah would deliver them from the misery of reservation life. The movement was soon trumpeted as a new Indian war in the making by those who refused to see it as the lament of a downtrodden people.
At the center of the controversy was Sitting Bull, the Hunkpapa Lakota chieftain and medicine man who was relentlessly villainized as “Custer’s assassin.” In reservation life he had become a staunch opponent of federal Indian policy, and when he refused to forswear the movement, even if he did not openly embrace it, his enemies tarred him as a crazed malcontent. Ambitious generals, self-righteous Indian Agents, reservation rivals, unscrupulous reporters, and self-serving politicians were determined to suppress the Ghost Dance and arrest Sitting Bull as the new religion’s alleged ringleader—resulting in a double tragedy for the Lakotas.
In A Phantom Storm, Norman Matteoni deftly traces the smear campaign against Sitting Bull in the words and actions of public figures and the nation’s media. The resulting narrative reveals the previously unexplored manipulation of public perceptions by those seeking to gain from the demise of Sitting Bull and all that he represented.
Reviews
To read a review by C. Lee Noyes (Wild West History Association Journal & Little Big Horn Associates Newsletter copy editor, and LBHA John M. Carroll Award committee member), click this link (published in the Little Big Horn Associates' June 2025 Newsletter).
“A Phantom Storm: Sitting Bull, America, and the Ghost Dance provides the most comprehensive analysis of Sitting Bull's life and legacy since Robert Utley's acclaimed biography. Thorough legal analyses of multiple treaty violations and illegal confiscations of land and horses by the U.S. government are carefully and fully documented with an exhaustive bibliography of letters, interviews, and government records. Above all, the author captures the essence of tribal spirituality by a fascinating discussion regarding the Ghost Dancers, whom the settlers of European descent considered threatening. The dancing undoubtedly was an expression of grief and sorrow regarding the loss of their ancestral homeland and the deaths of tribal members due to starvation, lack of shelter, inadequate clothing, and disease. Stunning photographs augment this gem, which will serve as a valuable Native American resource.” — Tom Keener, Allen (TX) Public Library
“The conflict between perception and reality [of the Ghost Dance] drove military authorities and agents of the government to reactive decisions that culminated in the attempted arrest and resultant murder of Sitting Bull, perhaps the best-known Native American of the time. Norman E. Matteoni's account is chronological, building effectively to its climax, and the subsequent massacre at Wounded Knee on December 29. Based on contemporary accounts (James McLaughlin and others), governmental and journalistic reports, as well as solid secondary sources (James Mooney, Stanley Vestal, Robert M. Utley, Jerome A. Greene, etc.), A Phantom Storm is a fine recounting of tragic hysteria, both spiritual and journalistic.” — Robert Clark (Feb. 2025 issue of Roundup Magazine)
“Norm Matteoni’s A Phantom Storm is a riveting book about our government’s and citizenry’s complete misunderstanding of the spiritual intentions of the Ghost Dance, the last hope of a desperate and vanquished people, leading to a massacre and the murder of one of the Lakota people’s greatest warriors and holy men. It is the record of a stain of dishonor that cannot be erased from our nation’s history, and should give us all pause to reexamine our certainties about those we define as ‘other.’” — Peter Coyote, American writer, actor, film narrator, and transmitted Zen Buddhist teacher
“Author Norman Matteoni has created a clear, well-written narrative on the last days of the Lakota leader Sitting Bull that should retain the attention and interest of the novice reader as well as the subject matter expert. It represents an excellent endeavor to bridge the gap between popular and academic history based on credible, well-researched sources. What the author clearly conveys are the immediate events (and perceptions) before the tragic death of the famous chief during the Ghost Dance Movement that had spread to Standing Rock Agency in North Dakota. . . . The author comprehensively illustrates and documents the critical impact of the press (and others) in creating and fostering the “threat” of a Lakota uprising that played a role in [Sitting Bull's] demise and subsequent tragic events in December 1890.” — C. Lee Noyes, past editor of the Custer Battlefield Historical & Museum Association Battlefield Dispatch newsletter
“An original, seminal, and groundbreaking historical study, A Phantom Storm: Sitting Bull, America, and the Ghost Dance opens with a poem by Sitting Bull, features an informative Introduction and Epilogue, a nineteen page section of B/W historical photographs, a ten page Appendices, sixty pages of Notes, a two page bibliography listing Further Readings, and an eleven page Index. This paperback edition of A Phantom Storm . . . is a simply outstanding and highly commended contribution to personal, community, college, and university library Native American History/Biography collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.” – Midwest Book Review
- Listen to History 605 (Season 4, Ep. 13) at this link. Dr. Ben Jones, South Dakota State Historian, and Norm Matteoni discuss the series of events covered in A Phantom Storm.
- Learn more about A Phantom Storm in this author interview in the Black Hills Pioneer.