My Indian Boyhood [Paperback]

Luther Standing Bear (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1988

Although the traditional Sioux nation was in its last days when Luther Standing Bear was born in the 1860s, he was raised in the ancestral manner to be a successful hunter and warrior and a respectful and productive member of Sioux society. Known as Plenty Kill, young Standing Bear belonged to the Western Sioux tribe that inhabited present-day North and South Dakota. In My Indian Boyhood he describes, with clarity and feeling lent by experience, the home life and education of Indian children. Like other boys, he played with toy bows and arrows in the tipi before learning to make and use them and became schooled in the ways of animals and in the properties of plants and herbs. His life would be very different from that of his ancestors, but he was not denied the excitement of killing his first buffalo before leaving to attend the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. Luther Standing Bear is the author of Land of the Spotted Eagle, My People the Sioux, and Stories of the Sioux (also Bison Books).

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book is replete with information. Standing Bear details many native beliefs and interpretations, as well as the symbolism, of the things of nature that guided the very lives of the Lakota, and makes lucid many conceptions that white people have usually regarded as mere superstition because not understood."—Saturday Review of Literature

(Saturday Review of Literature ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Luther Standing Bear is the author of Stories of the Sioux, My People the Sioux, and Land of the Spotted Eagle (all available in Bison Books editions).

Delphine Red Shirt is a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe and the author of Turtle Lung Woman's Granddaughter and Bead on an Anthill: A Lakota Childhood, both available in Bison Books editions.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (September 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803291868
• ISBN-13: 978-0803291867
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #358,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A valuable insight into Lakota lifeways., April 10, 2004

By 

Peter Reeve (Thousand Oaks, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: My Indian Boyhood (Paperback)

Being written for young people, Standing Bear's account of his Lakota childhood is necessarily sanitized and romanticized. Its focus is on the domestic life of his people. Mention is often made of the courage of the warriors but there is no description of any military action. An incident is related of an enemy warrior stumbling into the village. We are told that he was well treated and quickly released. It is hard to believe that that was typical treatment of an enemy. Similarly, the more adult themes of courtship and sexuality are largely ignored. What we are left with is a treasure trove of homely detail: how cooking was accomplished in the absence of metal pots, how the boys caught turtles in the creek, what games they played. This is the very warp and weft of everyday life that gets left out of the broad-sweep histories that concentrate on great battles and famous lives.

Standing Bear may not always be totally reliable, any more than any other commentator - for example, his account of leather tanning, which was strictly women's work, did not quite ring true for me. (Not that I have ever tanned a buffalo hide - I just doubt it can be done in quite the way he describes). All the same this remains an essential work, packed full as it is of fascinating detail, for anyone interested in understanding the lifestyle of the Sioux, and is a perfect gift for a youngster who expresses an interest in American Indians.

5.0 out of 5 stars Vivid picture of the life of a Lakota boy, October 15, 2011

By 

Suzanne Hagelin (Woodinville, WA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: My Indian Boyhood, New Edition (Paperback)

If you want your children to have an increased respect for and understanding of other cultures, read this book to them. It has nothing in it that would be inappropriate for them to hear. There is no discussion of battle or even hatred toward others.

Chief Luther Standing Bear describes what his life was like growing up as a young Lakota boy. He does more than just paint a picture, he shares about what he learned at an early age that prepared native children for life. Each chapter focuses on a different skill, describing it enough to at least make a reader curious, if not wanting to actually go out and try it. You learn, for example, how long your arrows should be and what kind of wood to make a bow out of. You read about learning to ride a pony and how to perfect your aim by flinging rocks with a stick.

The stories may make your children question whether our lives today are actually better or if being stuck with computers for toys is a step down.

Chief Standing Bear's greatest achievement was chasing down and killing a young buffalo by himself. I was amazed and it was easy to appreciate his father's pride in his achievement. But then the book wraps up very abruptly when the white people came to take the Lakota children away to school.

The life of an Indian boy would never be the same and nothing could have painted this sad picture more beautifully.