Help finding a short story-native American boy rites of passage

[dradam]

A number of years ago I read a story about a native american boy given three tasks to complete in order to become a man. The third task involved killing a mother fish. He chose not kill the fish and thought he had failed only to find that he had made the right choice and successfully completed his ritual passage to manhood. I don't remember the first two tasks

It's a story I have been hoping to find and read to my kids, I just can't remember the author or title. Oddly enough I think I read it outloud to my computer years ago as as a preparation tutorial for my dragon voice recognition software. It was a part or their package to train the program. I contacted them but the were not able to help.

I hope it sound familiar enough to someone to point me in the right direction.

Thank you

[ennison]

Is it modern? There are texts that I myself have read, part read, heard of and then my mental filing system has lost them. I have never been able to train voice recognition. My Heiland accent goes over its head.

[Eiseabhal]

Me neither. What has your mental filing system mislaid? Or are there too many to mention?

[ennison]

Well there was an American novel about a fellow who visits a compound where a genetically enhanced dog is being kept awaiting the needle. He frees it on the spur of the moment having realised it is as intelligent as himself. An odd novel. Imaginative. I can remember neither title nor author nor anything much else about it. Another American novel titled I think The Great American Novel by a journalist - written in the twenties or thirties. I remember nothing else about it. Novels read in childhood which moved my childish imagination: one about Napoleon's invasion of Russia. The central character was a young drummer boy - an orphan. A very moving sentimental story for a ten-year-old. Another about a mission to deliver a secret message during the Thirty Years War. Full of intrigue and drama. Probably from theVictorian era. I think I can expect these erasures to continue and increase.

[ennison]

Dradam, sorry I can't help. It rings a very faint and distant bell but probably only because the tribal coming-of-age story was very popular at one time.

[Eiseabhal]

I doubt you'll get help here with these vague memories Ennison. Surely that journalist fellow had his tongue in his cheek when he gave his novel that title.

[tomfyhr]

I am not certain whether it is classified as a short-story, but "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie focuses on a native-American boy.

[Eiseabhal]

The Thirty Years War story wasn't something by Henty was it? Any memory of where the novel about the dog liberation man was set?

[ennison]

Dog Liberation Man was American. New Yorker I think. No I don't think the other book was a Henty. Now that was an arch-Imperialist for you! It was better than Henty but less continually dramatic. I enjoyed Henty.