Customer Reviews

On Behalf of the Wolf and the First Peoples

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2 star:		(1)
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Joseph Marshall has a unique way of writing. He writes about many things that Native people don't talk about. Joseph has a way of writting that flows and is very natural. I highly recommend this book to those who are intrested in Lakota culture from someone who recieved these stories first hand.

This is an enjoyable book, easy to read and full of useful thoughts. I have read several of Marshall's books; this is one of my two favorites. The other being "The Dance House."

"These are the real stories of a Sichangu Wischasha who knows himself well and a haunting story of a people who have survived on the Northern Plains against all odds." INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY MAGAZINE

I bought "On Behalf of Wolf and the First Peoples" by an "Indian" (Lakota) writer named John Marshall III. in Abilene, Kansas. In general it is just another chapter in the White-bashing genre common among "Indian" writers since the 60s. That's a real pity too because Marshall does manage to produce some relatively brief passages of very good insight regarding Man's place in the world and some interesting tangent philosophical matters. He also presents some very good historical material and, at times, manages to express them eloquently and well, sans the anti-White rant. But much of his text is criticism of Whites for doing things that he himself freely engages in - usually on the same pages as his accusations of Whites. Among the most glaring of his hypocrisies is denouncing Whites for "stereotyping" Indians and yet he stereotypes Whites to the nth degree. Marshall bemoans many things he claims were done to his ancestors by Whites and White Society but he conveniently ignores the fact that the indigenous tribes were doing those same things to each other for hundreds of years before Whites arrived in North America. Another example - early in the book - is his criticizing Whites for looking at Crazy Horse, the Legend and not Crazy Horse, the man - yet that is exactly what author Marshall does to Andrew Jackson, Phil Sheridan and George Custer. Then there is the "forward", written by an Anglo-phobic knucklehead named Roger Welsch that is so nasty as to be ludicrous. Mostly, this book is just another epistle to the devotees of The Great White Guilt Trip. I do think Marshall could have written a much, much better book. But he didn't.
In fairness, though, his chapter on Standing Bear is superb and his discourse on the effect of reservation life on the male Indians is an accurate and dark omen of the effect of the politically fashionable devaluation of males in U.S. society which is amplifying the problems of drug abuse.