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The Life and Death of Anna Mae Aquash, Johanna Brand. 2nd ed. Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 1993. 172 pp. $14.95.
Eighteen years after the fact, why Anna Mae Aquash was murdered, and by whom, remain mysteries. These days homicides rarely receive much public attention, especially when the victims are Natives and the crimes are committed on remote reserves. Aquash was Native, a Micmac from Nova Scotia, her violent death one among dozens occurring on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation in the mid seventies. But she was also a ranking member of the American Indian Movement, an activistwarrior with ties to the organization's top leadership. And, as too - often goes with such territory, she became a target for surveillance and harassment by police forces on both sides of the border that deem AIM a threat to state security. What seems clear enough is that Aquash was assassinated because of her involvement; still unsettled, though, is whether FBI agents executed her or if death came at the...