Crying for a Dream: The World through Native American Eyes [Paperback]

Richard Erdoes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2001

A powerful collection of text and full-color photographs that offers an intimate glimpse of Native American life.

• Includes rare photos and firsthand accounts of the sun dance, sacred pipe, yuwipi, and vision quest ceremonies.

• By internationally recognized ethnographer Richard Erdoes, author of Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions and Gift of Power.

How do you go about knowing a people? In this phenomenal combination of landscape, ceremony, individual portrait, and prose, Richard Erdoes brings forth the lesser seen world of the Native American experience and vision. With the aid of firsthand accounts collected during three decades of personal interactions with indigenous tribes, Erdoes chronicles the traditional rites, individual lives, and historical persecution of North America's indigenous peoples.

The images and words of Crying for a Dream represent Erdoes' finest work. His focus on the natural and sacred world of North America's indigenous peoples includes elements of the Sioux ceremonial cycle and portraits of native peoples from the plains, mesas, and deserts. The sun dance, sacred pipe, yuwipi, and vision quest are described by the author and his subjects and are illustrated with more than 70 photographs.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"The Earth is a living thing. The mountains speak. The trees sing. Lakes can think. Pebbles have a soul. Rocks have power," says Lame Deer, one of the many contemporary Native Americans quoted here. Evoking the legendary respect of Native Americans for nature, these assertions also dignify a people long abased by whites. In his intelligent, unsentimental volume, Erdoes, coeditor of American Indian Myths and Legends , surveys timeless Indian rituals, summarizes the history of the Native American civil rights movement and offers a gallery in words and pictures of landscapes, ceremonies and faces, from flute-players to tribal dancers. Although the color reproductions sometimes approach halcyon extremes, the photographs make clear the power of nature, thus suggesting its shaping of the Native American religious sensibility.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

"The native's view of the universe is very unlike that of white fellow Americans. . . Native Americans live their religion 24 hours a day. . . ." Author-photographer Erdoes demonstrates this assertion in a beautifully photographed account of the religious ceremonies of the Sioux Indians of the Plains. Drawing largely on experiences from the 1970s, he presents sweatlodge, sundance, and peyote rituals. A second section of the book illustrates the advent of Red Power during this time, while the last part shows contemporary life from many parts of Indian country, including Plains, Pueblo, and Navajo scenes. The author clearly admires America's native peoples and presents a sympathetic introduction to Sioux Indian religion.
- Mary B. Davis, Museum of the American Indian Lib., New York
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Bear & Company; 2 edition (December 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1879181681
• ISBN-13: 978-1879181687
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,465,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book Literally Saved My Life!, June 9, 2006

By 

Anna V. Carroll - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Crying for a Dream: The World through Native American Eyes (Paperback)

When this book first came out I was in an Intensive Care ward not expected to live. As a 50th birthday gift, one of the nurses put this book under my pillow. I did not know it was there. During the night I had 'visions' of a Native American man sitting next to my bed talking with me in a language I did not speak but somehow could understand. He told me many things. None of them could possibly come true. A couple of days later the Gail, the nurse, told me about the book under my pillow. When she pulled it out for me to see I almost went into cardiac arrest! The man in my vision was the same man from the book! A Lakota Medicine Man. I told Gail about my dream and she said she hoped it meant he was looking after me. Long story short; Months later I found myself on his reservation. The entire story is a book and a half. Incredible things happened to me from the time the book appeared in my life. Because of that book I am still alive today, fourteen years later. I hope to write a book of my own so that I can tell the entire story. This book is magical. Everyone who needs spiritual guidance to the right path should have it in their home.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Voices and Pictures from Native America, November 5, 2000

By 

Zekeriyah (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Crying for a Dream: The World Through Native American Eyes (Paperback)

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.