The Final Years
The final years of Zitkála-Šá’s life — the decade between the founding of the National Council of American Indians in the mid-1920s and her death in 1938 — were years of sustained political work in conditions of limited resources and limited recognition.
She and Raymond continued to operate the Council from their Washington home. She continued to write and speak. She continued to engage with the political questions that had occupied her for decades.
The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 represented a significant shift in the direction of federal policy, and she was alive to see it happen. The end of allotment, the recognition of tribal governments, the shift toward some form of self-determination — these were, at least in principle, the policy directions she had been advocating for.
Whether she felt satisfied with what had been achieved, or whether she saw clearly the ways in which the Act fell short of what was needed, is not fully captured in the historical record of her final years. She was a person who had spent decades watching promises fail to be fully implemented, and who had a clear-eyed view of the gap between formal legal change and actual improvement in the lives of Native communities.
She died on January 26, 1938. The obituaries that appeared in newspapers noted her career as a writer, a musician, and an advocate for Native rights. Raymond survived her by several years.
She was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The burial there — in the national military cemetery that honors those who have served the country — is a recognition that contains its own complexity. She spent her life advocating for Native rights in a country that had repeatedly failed those it claimed to protect. Being buried at Arlington places her in the commemorative space of American national identity, alongside the people the country has chosen to honor.
She deserves to be there. She also deserved more during her lifetime.