malaeska

–
in wilde wêrelde
was daar weinig kans
dat jagters ‘n vrou kon kry
wêreld verwyder van mekaar
het hul soms uit dié wat daar was
‘n maat gekies en mee saam geleef
so was maeleska, die indiaanse vrou
van die wit jagter gewees
trotse afkoms in eie reg
geskiedenis gemaak
saam met haar man
eie ontdekkers geskiedenis
manne wat die weste van amerika
vir geslagte lank verken en oopgebeur het
wie sou kon dink dat haar storie die eerste
was wat in ‘n “dime novel” sou verskyn
reg of verkeerd – dit was so
–
©Teárlach
(Ann Sophia Stephens (1813-1886), who also wrote under the pseudonym Jonathan Slick, was an American novelist. Born in Derby, Connecticut, she was an author of dime novels and is credited as the progenitor of that genre. The term ;dime novel; originated with Stephens’s Malaeska: The Indian Wife of the White Hunter, printed in the first book in Beadle & Adams Beadle’s Dime Novels series, dated June 9, 1860. Later, the Grolier Club listed Malaeska as the most influential book of 1860.)