lame deer seeker of visions [Paperback]

john & erdoes, richard lame deer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1976

The story he tells is one of harsh youth and reckless manhood, shotgun marriage and divorce, history and folklore as rich today as ever and of his fierce struggle to keep pride alive, though living as a stranger in his own ancestral land.

Product Details

• Paperback: 277 pages
• Publisher: Pocket; First Pocket Books Printing edition (1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671423843
• ISBN-13: 978-0671423841
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,391,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The life and philosophy of a wise man, April 2, 2000

By 

Robert S. Newman "Bob Newman" (Marblehead, Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions (Enriched Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

I once lived on the Yakima Reservation for a couple weeks, back in 1964. This constituted my entire experience with Native Americans until thirty years later I met a few Navajo and Pueblo people on a trip to the Southwest. So even though I worked as an anthropologist for many years, I had absolutely zip to do with Native Americans. I was aware that there is a huge amount of junk written and shown in movies about them; that they have been either lionized or demonized out of all proportion in America and in the world beyond. I always felt that "ethnic cleansing" was not invented in the Balkans. Only when such writers as Silko, Momaday, Alexie, and Erdrich emerged did I discover the other world of the Indian people, only the film "Smoke Signals" rang true to me. So, I wasn't sure, when I picked up LAME DEER: SEEKER OF VISIONS, co-authored by John (Fire) Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes, whether I was getting some kind of phony, "awesome-dude !" worshipful portrait of a Lakota "medicine man" or not.

Not to keep you waiting any longer---this is a wonderful book on several levels. First, it contains the life story of Lame Deer, a Lakota man born in South Dakota in 1903 at the absolute nadir of Lakota history. It tells how he grew up, surviving relentless hostility by local whites, went through many ways of life, had numerous escapades, and finally turned towards the traditional wisdom of his people, becoming a wise elder, knowledgeable in many aspects of life. He has that wry Indian humor, so different a personality to what was always presented by Hollywood. Nobody can read this book and not be impressed by this man. The second level of this book is that it presents Lakota culture from the point of view of a Lakota steeped in it over many decades, not the interpretation of it by an outside scholar. You will find chapters on the sacred sweat bath, on the holy pipes of red stone, on the meaningful symbols, on the yuwipi ceremony, the sun dance, the peyote church which came from elsewhere, the heyoka (sacred clowns) and more. Lame Deer wanted to tell the world about Lakota ways and get this all written down to preserve it for the generations to come of his own people. On a third level, this book reflects a very attractive cooperation between two people from backgrounds that could not have been more different: a Lakota man from the prairies of South Dakota and a Vienna-born refugee from Nazism, an Austro-Hungarian in the true sense of that multi-cultural empire. Richard Erdoes only introduces himself at the end; Lame Deer talks throughout the whole book.

The editing and proofreading could have been tighter in my 1972 edition-a lot of passages appear twice or more, for example-and that's why I gave this book four stars, but it is a five star book for students who want to read about the inside view of the world of another culture, it is a five star book for someone particularly interested in knowing Lakota culture and thought, and for anyone who still thinks that Indians were or are "primitive" people. This is a book that speaks to the common humanity of all of us under the four corners of the sky.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful and funny book...., October 3, 2000

By 

J. Michael Showalter (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions (Enriched Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

People here are prasing this book for the insight it gives into the lives of Native Americans. Not that this book isn't important for its take on Amerindian culture: to say that John Lame Deer doesn't have a grasp on what is important to himself and his people would be improper and negligent.

People are missing two of the things that make this book so powerful: its humor and its take on the white world that exists outside of the reservation. Erdoes commentaries on his Indian visitors, Lame Deer's comments on EVERYTHING, and the voice and process of this book are FUNNY. This book is well-constructed and fun to read. On to the second point: Lame Deer is fairly sucessful in making Europeans often look like clowns-- stripping their culture and sophistication, making them more human....

This book should have a much wider audience than it has ever had (and that is actually fairly substantial, strangely enough....) Not that this is a book that could change a person's life: it could at least give direction to the perplexed. I highly recommend this book....

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Man was as interesting as the Book, July 15, 2005

By 

Garrett Michael Hayes (Smyrna, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions (Enriched Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

I had the great pleasure of meeting Lame Deer in the mid 1970's, when he came and spoke with a college class I was attending. Well, perhaps "spoke" is not the right word. Looking back from some 30 years later, I cannot say whether the presence he had was completely authentic, completely manufactured, or some combination of the two. But a very definite presence is most certainly what he had. He communicated as much through gesture, posture and his gaze as he did with his words.
And when I say he spoke "with" the class, that is exactly what I mean. Far more than most of the guest "lecturers" I have seen over the years, Lame Deer clearly attended to each question he was asked, as if it was the most important thing in his world for that moment.
I have not read the book in many years (it was lost in a move shortly after that visit) but I remember that it did an excellent job of taking me out of my customary perspective while allowing me to feel GOOD about it rather than threatened or "put down."