Customer Reviews

Indian Boyhood

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This is a most excellent book because it is "AUTHENTIC" and not one that speaks of prejudice and the horrors of the Native American experience; instead, it allows you to catch a glimpse of what is now lost, a world of beauty and wonder. I highly recommend it to anyone: young or old; red, white, brown, or yellow -- a book that should be preserved and revered.

There is so much myth about "the American Indian," or "The Native American," that for many non-Native Americans there is no way to understand what life was like on this continent before Euro-Americans wiped out those who lived here first.

This book, by Charles Alexander Eastman(Née Ohiyesa), offers a genuine first-hand story about what it was like growing up in the years before the massacre at Wounded Knee, when his tribe had to flee to Canada.

Ohiyesa's father was captured and imprisoned by American soldiers when his son was a very young boy. But by the time he was a teenager, his father was released from jail, and he went to Canada to reclaim his son. The boy went to American jails and ultimately was graduated from Dartmouth College as a physician. He went through a period in his life in which he wrote a series of books about the Lakota way of life, in which he explains values, belief systems, and the lifestyle he experienced as a child. Today, unfortunately, due to government imposed boarding schools during the first part of the 20th Century, this became a lost way of life and thought.

Ohiyesa's books are treasures for the soul. They are simple, spare, Spartan even, and beautiful. Above all, they are honest. And in their direct, one-to-one description of how humans lived so simply with nature, they are inspiring and spiritual.

Ohiyesa's books should be required reading for students of literature, sociology, American history, philosophy, and psychology. They are not written to lament the plight of a people. But dignifying the elegant ways of a tribe -- simply by recording it as it was -- creates and understanding. And once you understand, you cannot help but mourn for the natural and simple ways that were.

This book is a great compilation of the story of a young Indianboy who grows up to learn the traditions of his family. It was veryinformative and a great read. It would also be beneficial for people intereted in Native American history or just those wanting to read a good novel.