Cogewea: The Half-Blood (1927)[3] Coyote Stories (1933)[3] Tales of the Okanogans (1976)[3] Mourning Dove[a] (born Christine Quintasket[1]) or Humishuma[4] was a Native American (Okanogan (Syilx), Arrow Lakes (Sinixt), and Colville) author best known for her 1927 novel Cogewea, the Half-Blood: A Depiction of the Great Montana Cattle Range and her 1933 work Coyote Stories.

The eponymous main character hires a greenhorn easterner, Alfred Densmore, who has designs on Cogewea's land, which she had received as head of household in an allotment under the Dawes Act.

[8] Humishuma, also known as Christine Quintasket, was born "in the Moon of Leaves" (April) 1888 in a canoe on the Kootenai River near Bonners Ferry, Idaho.

[7] Mourning Dove's 1927 novel explores a theme common in early Native American fiction: the plight of the mixedblood (or "breed"), who lives in both white and Indian cultures.

After Julia marries a white rancher, she takes in her younger sisters at his ranch located within the boundaries of the Flathead Indian Reservation.

Cogewea is soon courted by Alfred Densmore, a white suitor from the East Coast, and James LaGrinder, the ranch foreman, who is mixed race.

Mourning Dove collaborated on this work with her editor Lucullus Virgil McWhorter, a white man who studied and advocated for Native Americans.

[15]Mourning Dove agreed to the changes, later writing to him: "My book of Cogewea would never have been anything but the cheap foolscap paper that it was written on if you had not helped me get it in shape.

It followed Wynema, a Child of the Forest (1891) by Muscogee (Creek) author Sophia Alice Callahan, which was rediscovered in the late 20th century and published in 1997 in a scholarly edition.

In 1933, Mourning Dove published Coyote Stories, a collection of legends told to her by her grandmother and other tribal elders.

The foreword by Chief Standing Bear in this book includes these words: "These legends are of America, as are its mountains, rivers, and forests, and as are its people.

Mourning Dove learned storytelling from her maternal grandmother, and from Teequalt, an elder who lived with her family when the girl was young.

[7] She cited the novel The Brand: A Tale of the Flathead Reservation by Therese Broderick as inspiring her to begin writing.