Memories of Childhood by Zitkala-Sa and Bama
Quick answer: Memories of Childhood, CBSE Class 12 Vistas chapter 6: Zitkala-Sa's The Cutting of My Long Hair and Bama's We Too Are Human Beings, summaries, themes and exam answers.
A Native American girl hides under a bed so strangers cannot cut her hair; a Dalit girl in Tamil Nadu watches an elder carry a snack packet by its string so his touch will not pollute it.
Class 12 Vistas pairs two autobiographical extracts by women from marginalised communities, Zitkala-Sa's from 1900 and Bama's from her 1992 memoir Karukku, as chapter 6.
The two accounts in brief
Zitkala-Sa, born Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, describes her first day at a mission school in the land of apples. The bell, the shoes and the loud eating hall bewilder her. Her friend Judewin warns that their hair will be cut; among her people shingled hair belongs to cowards and mourners. She hides under a bed in a dark room, is dragged out, tied to a chair, and feels the scissors take her braids.
Bama, walking home from school in the third standard, sees a village elder carrying a small packet by its string and laughs at the way he holds it. Her brother Annan explains that the man is from their community and the packet holds vadais for a landlord; touching it would pollute it. Annan tells her that their people are denied honour because of caste, and that studying hard will make people come to her of their own accord. She studies and stands first.
The people in them
Two girls.
Themes and meaning
Exam readings include oppression by race and caste, the loss of cultural identity, and childhood as the age when injustice is first seen clearly. The sharper point is the difference in response: Zitkala-Sa resists and is overpowered, Bama is told to study and succeeds.
The craft: the child's eye as evidence
Both writers stay inside the child's perception, so the hair-cutting is felt before it is explained and the vadai packet is funny before it is cruel. The turn in each is the moment of understanding: the scissors, Annan's explanation. Writers can steal the sequence of sensation, misreading, then knowledge, which lets the reader learn injustice at the child's pace.
For the exam
Quick material for the Class 12 exam.
What writers can take from this
- Keep the two extracts separate in structure, then compare them in a closing sentence.
- Explain the cultural meaning of shingled hair; without it the resistance looks like a tantrum.
- Give Annan's advice in full, including the reason that people would then come to her.
- Writers, let a child misread an injustice before understanding it; the correction is the story.
- Pair two accounts that respond differently to similar wrongs and let the contrast speak.
Try it yourself
Write two short linked accounts, each from a child's viewpoint, in which the child first misunderstands an act of discrimination and then has it explained by someone close. One child should resist and lose; the other should be given a long-term plan.
Questions
What is the theme of Memories of Childhood?
Both extracts show children from marginalised communities meeting oppression for the first time: Zitkala-Sa's forced haircut at a mission school attacks her Native American identity, and Bama's discovery of untouchability exposes caste humiliation. Each account ends in a different form of resistance.
Why was the cutting of hair so painful for Zitkala-Sa?
Among her people short hair was worn by cowards and by mourners, so having her braids cut by strangers meant shame and loss of identity. She hid under a bed and fought until she was tied to a chair.
What did Bama learn from her brother Annan?
That the elder carrying the packet by its string was obeying caste rules that treated his touch as pollution, and that the way to win respect for their community was to study hard so that people would seek her out.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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