Customer Reviews

The Sioux: Life and Customs of a Warrior Society (Civilization of the American Indian)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this book at an Indian Store in Escondido, California while attending a Pow Wow there in May 2000.

I have been a follower of Red Cloud for over twenty years now and feel a great affinity for the Sioux Indians for some reason.

My previous thoughts about what is was like to be a Sioux member were badly mistaken. This book takes the time to lay out the fundamental aspects of this tribe's, history, land movements, and cultural elements.

The cultural elements include their beliefs and are quite profound. Descriptions are given to how an individual is treated as an infant, young child, young adult, and adult. The distinctions between male and female roles are explained fully.

By the reading and absorption of the book's various chapters, I now have a much better appreciation for the difficulties the Sioux population experienced preceding the 20th Century.

Anyone who truly desires to understand one of the most powerful Plains Indians tribes should read this book.

I have an old copy of Royal B. Hassrick's book, THE SIOUX: LIFE AND CUSTOMS OF A WARRIOR SOCIETY. I got it in a bookstore in Denver in 1972. It's the best book book on the Sioux I've ever read.

It's carefully researched, scholarly and it concentrates on the period from the 1830s to the 1870s, the period when the Sioux were the dominant force on the Plains. These are the Sioux who are still the archetypical Plains Indians.

When some Frenchman thinks of "Plains Indians", he's probably got the Sioux in mind. Even other Plains Indians try to co-opt the look for themselves.

If you are the least bit interested in Plains Indians, the Sioux, or any of the more famous bands like the Lakota or Teton Sioux, you MUST HAVE this book. I have a good collection of books on Plains Indians and I've lived and worked on a Sioux reservation in western South Dakota. If I could only keep one book about Plains Indians, it would be Hassrick's.

It's old and scholarly in tone, but it's that good. It hearkens back to a time when "Indian Studies" still meant something. Loudmouth wannabees like Ward Churchill weren't tolerated on faculties and academic achievement was still held in high esteem.

I gave this book five stars. If I could, I'd give it ten.

As this study quickly points out when one considers the 'Sioux' generally that has come to mean "the Tetons, the dashing buffalo hunters of the plains." Yet as the author points out they were members of the Seven Councils or Seven Sioux divisions.

This study dates from the year 1964 when the word 'Sioux' was in common usage for these peoples so the book uses that descriptive too. Today it is more common to describe these interesting peoples as Lakota. Though dialectic differences allowed them to be known as Lakota, Dakota and Nakota. Some of this does seem confusing at times but Professor Hasrick does his best to sort it out for us. Giving insight into many aspects of their culture the book is truly informative.

In 353 pages this book is still one of best to allow insight into these buffalo hunting tribes of the plains. Bolstered by maps, diagrams, and photographs their individual histories come to light. The contents of the book is shown below:

Introduction
Part One-Rank and order

Chapter 1 The Structure of the Nation
Chapter 2 Morals, Modes, and Manners
Part Two-The Warriors
Chapter 3-Ethnocentrism
Chapter 4-The Scheme of War

Part Three-Familiarity and Respect

Chapter 5-The Family
Chapter 6-The Sexes
Chapter 7-Fun

Part Four-The Predators

Chapter 8-Nomadism
Chapter 9-The Predators
Chapter 10-Production

Part Five-Self Sacrifice

Chapter 11-The Universe and the Controllers
Chapter 12-The Vision Quest
Chapter 13-The Way to Status
Chapter 14-The Individual and the Sioux Way
Chapter 15-Epilogue
Appendix A-Iron Shell's Winter Count
Appendix B-Familiar Terms and their use.
Bibliography
Index

So there you have it, a book that after all the years will still lay down the basic constructs of what comprised the Lakota Indians. After picking this up at a local library back in 1965, I became so impressed with it that I wanted to have a copy of my own. Through the years I've purchase others as well (most recent: The Lakotas and The Black Hills, 978-0-670-021956), this is the main stay of my study. A reader can not do better than any of the books from The University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, series of The Civilization of the American Indian. The Sioux by Royal B. Hassrick is one of those many volumes.

Semper Fi.

Not much I can say to improve on the other reviews. After reading them I ordered a copy and wasn't disappointed. This book was actually starting to take shape around 1944, according to the front info. As the author pointed out, it deals with the Lakotas at their high point, from about 1840 through about 1880, a relatively brief period of 40 years. But it also includes researched material tracing the Lakota, Dakota, Oglala, and other related Soiux tribes from their earliest beginnings, as far as can be scholarly deduced from old recorded data. The bulk of the text, however, derives from actual memories of elderly Sioux and the memories told to them by their parents and grandparents from the earliest tribal days. Keep in mind that a ten-year old youth in 1874 would be only 70 years old in 1944, not very old by todays' standards, and retaining vivid actual memories of the times of the free roaming Sioux. This book recounts obscure tribal rituals and beliefs I've found nowhere else and in no other book. I learned more about the Sioux in thirty minutes with this book than I learned from any twenty other books. As one other reviewer said, "I'd give this book ten stars if it were possible." If I were limited to only one book about the Lakota Sioux, this would be the one.