Leonard Crow Dog tells his family history and the history of his nation with a love and power which can almost overpowers the reader.

In the beginning paragraph it says, "We are still making history." as Crow Dog explains his family roots. That sentence sums up the book for me. It is history. The history that is learned and not lost by Crow Dog. The ceremonies and native ways that he is trying to maintain and to pass on are intricately described. I don't think I have read a book that is so visually written. I could picture the things he described. I savored this book for a few months, letting each chapter sink in. Although the book is written in a simple manner there is nothing simple about the information shared. A great read!

With the abundant help of Richard Erdoes, Leonard Crowdog gives us the history of his people and their never-ending battle for freedom in a white world that was once theirs. I highly recomend this book for people interrested in reading about the injustices loaded onto the Native American people since the arrival of white men on their land.

This is a well written group of trickster tales. It gives us a glimpse of what the Native Americans used to teach their children. The Trickster Tales gives the average person the ability to enjoy a piece of Native American culture. Pick up this book and you will read about a trickster tale lesson!

For many years the "Trickster" and it's charecteristic was unknown to me. I heard this name everywhere when it came to native american studies, but I never knew how important is to get to know my own Trickster. this book help us all to find that within us.

The author portrays the life of a medieval French monk, Gerbert d'Aurillac, as he struggles to obtain the highest office in Christianity. Characters and events in Europe at the turn of the millenium come alive to reveal a brilliant snapshot of this critical time in history. It is the closest thing to time travel.

The book is reminiscient of Tuchmann's "A Distant Mirror" yet seems to paint even a warmer portrait of individuals and their complex relationships. The pace of the writing is surprisingly lively for an historical work. At the end, I found myself wanting to go back to the back of the line for another ride.

Gerbert is born of unknown parents and given to the monastary in Aurillac. From there, he leads an intense and passionate search for knowledge taking him to Catalonia in medieval Spain. Returning to France, he soon gains a reputation as the most brillant teacher in Europe. The emporer Otto I invites him to Germany where he becomes a major player in early European politics. After unsuccessfully holding several positions, he is finally appointed to the Papacy by Otto III. However, the rumors of having consorted with the Moslems in Cordoba haunt him and make his short five year tenure difficult. He dies amid stories of being the antichrist. A brilliant man unable to overcome the petty politics of his time, it is only later in Erdoes book that his true potential is revealed

This is an excellent book on the subject of Native Americans. This book is filled with beautiful photographs and significant qoutes from various Native Americans, as well as brief descriptions of Native American history up to the present day. There is a very strong emphasis on various religious ceremonies such as the Sweat Lodge and Visionquest. Certain groups, namely the Sioux, Navajo (Dine) and Pueblos, are focused in on. All in all, however, this is an excellent book, more emotional and intuitive than anything else. Hopefully you'll be as moved by it as I was.

Lame deer pulls no punches and tellyou how it was and how it is. I wish I could have met him in person. He teachings are carried on through others that he has taught.

I had to use this book for a storytelling class and it was a great resource and a fun read. Mr. Erdoes does a wonderful job of bringing these stories to life; ranging from the famous outlaws of the Wild West to more obscure trickster tales. A definitive book for the beginning or experienced storyteller alike!

This excellent collection of myths and legends in the "oral history" style - either from the mouths of storytellers, or from documents where their words were first captured - presents a wonderful insight into the American Indian spiritual philosophy. The book is neatly organized into chapters from the genesis of the planet and people, through myths and legends emphasizing the social structure, to love stories, warrior myths and on to the final death and afterlife stories. Stories from tribes across the North American continent show both the divergent philsophies, as well as the common ground. The editors have wonderfully resisted any urge to edit these stories. Each chapter opens with an overview provided by Erdoes and Ortiz. There are occasional editorial explanations at the ends of stories. They should expecially be applauded for including stories with humor. As someone with Indian ancestry, but not a traditional Indian upbringing, I enjoyed the experience of spiritual concordance with the basic philosophies, no matter which tribe or region of the country was being presented. The book is easily readable by most age groups; parents of younger children could read these as entertainment and even bed-tiime stories. I consider this akin to a Bible of American Indian spirituality.

Adult storybook....
I ordered this book to glimpse into the Native American mythology, and I have to say, I am very impressed. This book comprises of ten parts, each consisting of intelligent, sometimes even funny tales and facinating stories of Human Creation, World Creation, Sun-Moon-Stars, Monsters, Love and Sex, Animals and Birds, and Ghosts-to mention a few. It's filled with analogies taken from nature. All these stories come from the tribes once spread across all over the North American continent. The editors claim that some of the stories are completely "untouched" by white people and that they still convey the original folklores started some thousands of years ago.
If you are interested in idiosyncratic facts than forget about it, if you like good stories and folk-tales, this book is for you.

"American Indian Myths and Legends" is a collection of 166 stories selected and edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz that represent the heart and soul of the native people of North America. In contrast to the more familiar classical myths of ancient Greece and Roman, the genesis for these stories is much more organic, rising from the animals, plants and herb that made up the every day world of the people who told these tales. These tales also reflect the diversity of the peoples group under the name of American Indians, from the Seneca and Alconquian of the East to the White Mountain Apache and Navajo of the Southwest to the Brule Sioux and Nez Perce of the Plains.

Using an admittedly artificial system of organization, Erdoes and Ortiz present ten sections: (1) Tales of Human Creation; (2) Tales of World Creation; (3) The Eye of the Great Spirit; (4) Monsters and Monster Slayers; (5) War and the Warrior Code; (6) Tales of Love and Lust; (7) Trickster Tales; (8) Stories of Animals and Other People; (9) Ghosts and the Spirit World; and (10) Visions of the End. I have been reading my copy again to consider its inclusion in a Contemporary Mythology class I am toying with teaching, and it certainly offers students an impressive collection of myths and legends in fairly pure form. There is some commentary, but the point here is not to analyze the stories but to preserve them and present them to new readers.

However, teachers at any level who are studying myths can certainly find stories that can be used to create fascinating comparison/contrasts with tales on similar subjects from classical, Celtic, Hindu, African, or any other mythology they can get their hands on for class. I can see an excellent unit being developed just on the various creation myths of both humans and the worlds related in this book, which would provoke students to think about what difference the differences in these stories make in terms of how a people view the world and their place in it.

Note: Many of the stories in this volume were collected by the authors in their extensive field research. Others are classic accounts, which are presented in their original forms, while the rest come from 19th-century sources that have been retold by the authors in an effort to do away with the artificial style typical of the period and restore their authenticity. The result is that there is a wide spectrum of American Indian history and culture covered within these pages.

To experience the full impact of this book read "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" first and then read this book.

Before I even picked this book up from the shelf I thought of the Cheyenne proverb, "A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is done, no matter how brave its warriors nor how strong their weapons." Then I opened the book, and this quote was written at the beginning of the first chapter.

This book is essential for understanding what has been done, and is being done to Native American women and girls. Mary Crow Dog tells her own courageous story, and that of many brave women before her.

Born on a Sioux reservation in the Dakotas to a wayward father and a mother who left the traditional life for Christianity, Mary Crow Dog overcomes the difficulties of a young Native American girl to become a leader in her people's movement. This autobiography follows her early days in a Christian school and culminates with her protesting and giving birth at the 1973 Wounded Knee standoff between the troubled Lakota Sioux and the US government. Written in a conversational style, the book is tragic and, at times, funny as Crow Dog demonstrates her incredible strength and sense of humour in the face of seemingly unstoppable adversity. A stunning read

This is one of the best books available to people interested in contemporary Native Americans. Mary Brave Bird's life story sheds light on traditions of her Lakota (Sioux) people from the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations in South Dakota. She shows, in a very clear way, their tortured history with the missionaries, state bureaucracy, the courts, the FBI and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). We see to what extent the government has succeeded in destroying the old life and how small groups of the Sioux managed to preserve traditional ways and ceremonies.

The book is written in a way which preserves the unique appreciation Indians have for unadulterated truth - a style which is simple, direct and in which personal experiences are recounted in a frank, almost brutally dispassionate manner. It reveals perfectly the heartless school system ran by abusive Catholic priests and nuns trying hard to deprive young people of their traditions (don't these people have better things to do?); we see the corrupt BIA system designed to prevent cultural and economic emancipation of the Native American "traditionals" (and steal federal money) and the pointless fear that the FBI has of organized Indian movements. Above all, we see the violence that the Sioux face daily from the white South Dakotans as well as the inter-Sioux violence caused by the hopelessness of the life on the rez. I was especially amazed to see that South Dakota has preserved, at the least up to early 1980ies, the barbaric attitudes towards the Native Americans (who are, after all, the original inhabitants, and who were cheated out of their own land by the very same whites who persecute them) which have by and large disappeared from the rest of the civilized world. This includes (unpunished) assaults by drunken lumberjacks and ranchers, systematic discrimination in the courtroom, forced sterilizations at the provincial hospitals (Mary's own sister Barbara was sterilized against her own will) and a system designed to eliminate all of the Indians' most courageous and spiritually conscious young people. A system that would make Uncle Mao proud, but which made this reader very sad, ashamed and angry. I suspect many of these things are still going on in our name. I mean, why can't these people leave the Indians in peace, allow them to practice their religion and (is this too much to ask for?) respect their desire to be different?

There are also many wonderful things in this book. The descriptions of relationships between Lakota men and women, between the young and the old, between the full and half-bloods and between the host and the guest are simply priceless. Likewise Brave Bird's descriptions of peyote meetings, Sundances and Ghostdance revivals. Mary has very strong opinions about the Sioux male machismo and the reluctance exhibited by many Sioux men to providing a comfortable and loving home for their families yet she understands that this is the inevitable consequence of the systematic destruction of the old ways of tribal life. After having read the book I can see the challenges facing the indomitable Sioux nation, the challenge of preserving and honoring the old ways while educating a new elite familiar with the white system (without considering them to be sellouts); only when they gain political representation and economic self-sufficiency will Native Americans be able to keep at bay the greedy timber, mining and ranching industries whose interest is to keep the tribes divided and the people dispirited and lost in alcohol. The Lakota of today need to find a way to create loving conditions for their children. And they need to speak their truth, as often as they can, just as Mary Brave Bird has done in this amazing book.

This book is highly readable, but is not a beginning-to-end narrative, so those who pick up the book expecting a simple story will be disappointed.

Yes, it is a book of activism, and there is some feminism. Reservation poverty is described in detail. Domestic abuse and alcoholism also appear here. Plus Sun Dance self-torture. Thankfully, many sweat lodge and cedaring-off descriptions dull down the affect of the more shocking parts of Mary Brave Bird's experiences.

She falls prey to an alcoholic lifestyle inolving "party-ing" until you're either beat up or in jail. She eventually leaves her husband, Sioux medicine man Leonard Crow Dog, and treks across country (with 4 children), moving from women's shelter to homeless shelter, until they all spend a wild three years in Phoenix.

Definitely, the alcoholism mars this narrative, and lowers Mary Brave Bird's credibility. Yes, there are a lot of references to the American Indian Movement's standoff at Wounded Knee. And there's a good chapter about native American traditions with regard to menstruation. And inspiration about fighting for the land.

But I can't help wondering if the sort of hopeless drunken revelry portrayed here typifies ALL reservation Indians, and if so, aren't they in fact contributing to the end of their own culture..? Who's watching all those Indian kids while Mom's on a two day drunk?

In other words, this is a disturbing book. It's good but scandalous reading.

I read Ohitika Woman a few months before I read Lakota Woman; this was the first Native autobiography I ever read. To respond to an earlier review, the book did reiterate things covered in Lakota Woman, but that is neccesary if people read this one first as I did. I spent some time on Rosebud as a volunteer teacher last summer and came to understand to some degree why Mary writes what she does about the rez.

"Ohitika Woman" is a true confession of a life most American Women have never lived. From Wounded Knee to Washington, from rags to riches, from love to heartbreak. Mary Brave Bird talks openly about her life as a proud Lakota woman, who defends the best interest of her people in the best ways she knows how. She talks honestly about life growing up on a poor Indian reservation, and proudly of her time with the American Indian Movement during the seige of Wonded Knee during the massive Red Movement of the 1970's. She is is a remarkably head-strong woman, and has lived her life this way even against incredible odds. What I enjoyed most was her enduring strength and the need to succeed and never give up. For this, she is a true winner, and a true success. A book for all Americans, "Ohitika Woman" has something to teach us all. As a Native Canadian, I greatly admire her overwhelming courage, strength and passion in fighting for what she believes in!

You will find yourself laughing out loud at the antics in this book numerous times. I almost fell out of my chair when the book detailed Lame Deer's crime spree of moonshine whiskey and stolen cars. ;-) This one story alone os worth twice the price of the book!

There is much wisdom in this book; but the ceremonies in this book are not entirely accurate.

Many American Indian Nations witheld accurate information, but now more and more of them are coming forward and releasing accurate information. Even some of the Hopi Elders came forward about two years ago and released some of their sacred prophecies. I hope it is not too late.

I am deeply disturbed by the Kettle dance, but I am not of that culture, and have no right to judge it.

I would like to give this book five stars but I can't because some of the ceremonies are wrong.

I say the ceremonies are wrong because I have read ceremonies in many other books, and I have several full blooded American Indian friends, and they confirmed what I read in these other sources.

I recommend these books regarding American Indian Spirituality in the order listed.

"The Sacred Pipe" Joseph Epes Brown

"Native Wisdom" Ed McGaa

"Mother Earth Spirituality" Ed McGaa

"Foolscrow: Wisdom And Power" Thomas E. Mails

"Black Elk: The Sacred ways of the Lakota" Wallace Black Elk & William S. Lyons.

I recommend "The Sacred Pipe" highest because Mr. Brown actualy lived with the famous holyman Nick Black Elk for a few months while gathering information for this book.

Then; there are some books written by Indians that are full of new age pap because it sells. ;-(

I am the proud carrier of a Catlinite (pipestone) pipe that my American Indian friends helped me obtain. I agree with the 1990 quote by Orval Looking Horse "No one should be denied a peace pipe.".

If you have questions or comments; E-mail me. Two Bears.

Wah doh Ogedoda (We give thanks Great Spirit)

People here are prasing this book for the insight it gives into the lives of Native Americans. Not that this book isn't important for its take on Amerindian culture: to say that John Lame Deer doesn't have a grasp on what is important to himself and his people would be improper and negligent.

People are missing two of the things that make this book so powerful: its humor and its take on the white world that exists outside of the reservation. Erdoes commentaries on his Indian visitors, Lame Deer's comments on EVERYTHING, and the voice and process of this book are FUNNY. This book is well-constructed and fun to read. On to the second point: Lame Deer is fairly sucessful in making Europeans often look like clowns-- stripping their culture and sophistication, making them more human....

This book should have a much wider audience than it has ever had (and that is actually fairly substantial, strangely enough....) Not that this is a book that could change a person's life: it could at least give direction to the perplexed. I highly recommend this book....

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Without a lot of unnecessary rhetoric it will have a powerful effect on you, if you only read the introduction.