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Neither Wolf Nor Dog #1
Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder
In this 1996 Minnesota Book Award winner, Kent Nerburn draws the reader deep into the world of an Indian elder known only as Dan. It’s a world of Indian towns, white roadside cafes, and abandoned roads that swirl with the memories of the Ghost Dance and Sitting Bull. Readers meet vivid characters like Jumbo, a 400-pound mechanic, and Annie, an 80-year-old Lakota woman living in a log cabin. Threading through the book is the story of two men struggling to find a common voice. Neither Wolf nor Dog takes readers to the heart of the Native American experience. As the story unfolds, Dan speaks eloquently on the difference between land and property, the power of silence, and the selling of sacred ceremonies. This edition features a new introduction by the author. “This is a sobering, humbling, cleansing, loving book, one that every American should read.” — Yoga Journal
336 pages, Paperback
First published August 9, 2002
673 people are currently reading
7399 people want to read
About the author
Kent Nerburn
42 books461 followersI'm a child of the 60's, a son of the north, and a lover of dogs.
Grew up in a crackerbox post-war bungalow outside of Minneapolis with my mother and father, two younger sisters, various dogs and cats, and a neighborhood full of rugrat kids playing outside until called in for the night.
Studied American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Religious Studies and Humanities at Stanford University, received a Ph.D. in Religion and Art in a joint program at Graduate Theological Union and the University of California at Berkeley. Lots of learning, lots of awards. Phi Beta Kappa. Summa cum Laude. Lots of stuff that looks good on paper.
But just as important, an antique restorer's shop in Marburg, Germany; the museums of Florence; a sculpture studio in the back alleys of Pietrasanta, Italy; an Indian reservation in the forests of northern Minnesota; and, perhaps above all, the American road.
Always a watcher, always a wanderer, perhaps too empathetic for my own good, more concerned with the "other" than the "self", always more interested in what people believed than in what they thought. A friend of the ordinary and the life of the streets.
Twenty years as a sculptor -- over-life sized images hand-chiseled from large tree trunks -- efforts to embody emotional and spiritual states in wood. Then, still searching, years helping young people collect memories of the tribal elders on the Red Lake Ojibwe reservation in the Minnesota north. Then writing,
always writing, finding a voice and even a calling, helping Native America tell its story.
A marriage, children, a home on a pine-rimmed lake near the Minnesota-Canadian border.
Book after book, seventeen in all, ever seeking the heartbeat of people's belief. Journeys, consolations, the caring observer, always the teacher, always the learner. Ever mindful of the wise counsel of an Ojibwe elder, "Always teach by stories, because stories lodge deep in the heart."
Through grace and good luck, an important trilogy (Neither Wolf nor Dog, The Wolf at Twilight, and The Girl who Sang to the Buffalo), a film, Minnesota Book Awards, South Dakota book of the year, many "community reads," book sales around the world.
In the end, a reluctant promoter, a quiet worker, a seeker of an authentic American spirituality, more concerned with excellence than quantity. Proud to be referred to as "a guerilla theologian" and honored to be called "the one writer who can respectfully bridge the gap between native and non-Native cultures". But more honored still to hear a twelve-year-old girl at one of my readings whisper to her mom, "He's a really nice man."
At heart, just an ordinary person, grateful to be a father and a husband, more impressed by kindness than by power, doing what I can with the skills that I have to pay my rent for my time on earth. And trying, always trying, to live by Sitting Bull's entreaty: "Come let us put our minds together to see what kind of lives we can create for our children."
And petting every dog that I can.
Grew up in a crackerbox post-war bungalow outside of Minneapolis with my mother and father, two younger sisters, various dogs and cats, and a neighborhood full of rugrat kids playing outside until called in for the night.
Studied American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Religious Studies and Humanities at Stanford University, received a Ph.D. in Religion and Art in a joint program at Graduate Theological Union and the University of California at Berkeley. Lots of learning, lots of awards. Phi Beta Kappa. Summa cum Laude. Lots of stuff that looks good on paper.
But just as important, an antique restorer's shop in Marburg, Germany; the museums of Florence; a sculpture studio in the back alleys of Pietrasanta, Italy; an Indian reservation in the forests of northern Minnesota; and, perhaps above all, the American road.
Always a watcher, always a wanderer, perhaps too empathetic for my own good, more concerned with the "other" than the "self", always more interested in what people believed than in what they thought. A friend of the ordinary and the life of the streets.
Twenty years as a sculptor -- over-life sized images hand-chiseled from large tree trunks -- efforts to embody emotional and spiritual states in wood. Then, still searching, years helping young people collect memories of the tribal elders on the Red Lake Ojibwe reservation in the Minnesota north. Then writing,
always writing, finding a voice and even a calling, helping Native America tell its story.
A marriage, children, a home on a pine-rimmed lake near the Minnesota-Canadian border.
Book after book, seventeen in all, ever seeking the heartbeat of people's belief. Journeys, consolations, the caring observer, always the teacher, always the learner. Ever mindful of the wise counsel of an Ojibwe elder, "Always teach by stories, because stories lodge deep in the heart."
Through grace and good luck, an important trilogy (Neither Wolf nor Dog, The Wolf at Twilight, and The Girl who Sang to the Buffalo), a film, Minnesota Book Awards, South Dakota book of the year, many "community reads," book sales around the world.
In the end, a reluctant promoter, a quiet worker, a seeker of an authentic American spirituality, more concerned with excellence than quantity. Proud to be referred to as "a guerilla theologian" and honored to be called "the one writer who can respectfully bridge the gap between native and non-Native cultures". But more honored still to hear a twelve-year-old girl at one of my readings whisper to her mom, "He's a really nice man."
At heart, just an ordinary person, grateful to be a father and a husband, more impressed by kindness than by power, doing what I can with the skills that I have to pay my rent for my time on earth. And trying, always trying, to live by Sitting Bull's entreaty: "Come let us put our minds together to see what kind of lives we can create for our children."
And petting every dog that I can.
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April 3, 2015
This book came to me out of the blue. It was a gift. I'm not sure if it was an important book to the person who gave it to me or more of a gift of convenience. Whichever, it turned out to be a good one for me. Instead of putting it aside as I might do with such a gift, I opened it up and read it.
It is the second edition of a book first published in 1994. An American Indian elder, then in his 80s, wants to speak the truth about what happened to his people. He's not a writer, so he recruits the author, who had written other books about native Americans.
The fact I pulled out Soul on Ice the other day may not be unrelated, since Eldridge Cleaver was doing the same thing about his people.
This book's title, "Neither wolf nor dog," is a quote from Sitting Bull: "I do not wish to be shut up in a corral. All agency Indians I have seen were worthless. They are neither red warriors nor white farmers. They are neither wolf nor dog."
The old Indian man tells the author: "That's what happened to us. We listened to the white man. Now we're neither wolf nor dog. Sitting Bull was right."
The man tells the author he never knew how white people lived until he and others saw other parts of this country after WWII. Only then did he see cowboy and Indian movies in a new light. He explains how our image of Native Americans had been created. Buffalo Bill made it up. After he had wiped out the buffalo and still in need of income, he started the Wild West Show, which traveled east and across the world. He says that and Longfellow's Hiawatha created the image of Indians that spread through movies and TV.
That image of Indians justified their treatment in the eyes of their harrassers--us. We don't persecute people because they are "bad guys;" we make them the bad guys to give ourselves permission to persecute.
The book explores how that works. For example, how the dominant culture used language to accomplish the demonization of the target group: when we won it was a victory (no matter how many babies we killed); when the Indians won it was a massacre.
Brutal soldiers were sent West after the Indians--those soldiers who couldn't fit in, or couldn't let go of killing after the Civil War. The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred in 1890. From 150 to 300 Lakota Sioux were killed; the old Indian says 200. See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_....
"You can tell us time has passed. You can say the world has changed. But the bones of my father still cry; my son is buried in a conquered land."
The question of why it happened the way it did plagues the old man. Why were his people decimated?
"I am sad that the Creator saw fit to destroy us to give you life.... Maybe it was the power of our spirit that made the Creator see that we, alone, could save you, who cared so much about things that should not matter.... Maybe it is we who are the true sons and daughters of God, who had to die on the cross of your fears and greed, so that you could be saved from yourself.... Is that so strange? I do not think so...."
He goes on to say his people have got to bury their anger because it is no longer time for fighting. But he says the white people must bury their arrogance, too: "They are not the only ones placed on the earth. Theirs is not the only way." He says the dominant culture has to learn to honor different ways. He asks if they can share their material power and strength--or only use it to get more.
Is that likely to happen?
Maybe not, but the person who experiences this awareness may be creating freedom.
He also talks about the ongoing deception his people sustained. He talks about the not-so-distant past when they were put in special schools and made to give up their language. He talks about how Indians are popular now, with some, for their spirituality--and under pressure to basically sell their sacred things and ways. He talks about how our racial emphasis as it impacted Native Americans not only made them "them," but divided them up further with our focus on "half breed," "full blood," and so forth.
It had become this old man's mission to get these things said before he died--to get the truth out for the good of his people and for the country, and so there could be change. If not direct change in the wider culture, then change first in himself.
In thinking about this book I'm not espousing the belief that our current culture is evil. I don't think capitalism is evil (or believe unmitigated capitalism equals the ticket to freedom, either). The question of what it means that one culture thrives and dominates while another fades or is even wiped out is huge. After all, these are real, flesh-and-blood people we're talking about. I do think the notion that one's own cultural and/or religious group represents the intended will of God is a potentially dangerous one. How "should" a society react when challenged by contact with another society or even by an influx of immigrants? Briefly, we can say that the conservatives will have one answer, the liberals another--and that change is par for the course.
It is the second edition of a book first published in 1994. An American Indian elder, then in his 80s, wants to speak the truth about what happened to his people. He's not a writer, so he recruits the author, who had written other books about native Americans.
The fact I pulled out Soul on Ice the other day may not be unrelated, since Eldridge Cleaver was doing the same thing about his people.
This book's title, "Neither wolf nor dog," is a quote from Sitting Bull: "I do not wish to be shut up in a corral. All agency Indians I have seen were worthless. They are neither red warriors nor white farmers. They are neither wolf nor dog."
The old Indian man tells the author: "That's what happened to us. We listened to the white man. Now we're neither wolf nor dog. Sitting Bull was right."
The man tells the author he never knew how white people lived until he and others saw other parts of this country after WWII. Only then did he see cowboy and Indian movies in a new light. He explains how our image of Native Americans had been created. Buffalo Bill made it up. After he had wiped out the buffalo and still in need of income, he started the Wild West Show, which traveled east and across the world. He says that and Longfellow's Hiawatha created the image of Indians that spread through movies and TV.
That image of Indians justified their treatment in the eyes of their harrassers--us. We don't persecute people because they are "bad guys;" we make them the bad guys to give ourselves permission to persecute.
The book explores how that works. For example, how the dominant culture used language to accomplish the demonization of the target group: when we won it was a victory (no matter how many babies we killed); when the Indians won it was a massacre.
Brutal soldiers were sent West after the Indians--those soldiers who couldn't fit in, or couldn't let go of killing after the Civil War. The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred in 1890. From 150 to 300 Lakota Sioux were killed; the old Indian says 200. See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_....
"You can tell us time has passed. You can say the world has changed. But the bones of my father still cry; my son is buried in a conquered land."
The question of why it happened the way it did plagues the old man. Why were his people decimated?
"I am sad that the Creator saw fit to destroy us to give you life.... Maybe it was the power of our spirit that made the Creator see that we, alone, could save you, who cared so much about things that should not matter.... Maybe it is we who are the true sons and daughters of God, who had to die on the cross of your fears and greed, so that you could be saved from yourself.... Is that so strange? I do not think so...."
He goes on to say his people have got to bury their anger because it is no longer time for fighting. But he says the white people must bury their arrogance, too: "They are not the only ones placed on the earth. Theirs is not the only way." He says the dominant culture has to learn to honor different ways. He asks if they can share their material power and strength--or only use it to get more.
Is that likely to happen?
Maybe not, but the person who experiences this awareness may be creating freedom.
He also talks about the ongoing deception his people sustained. He talks about the not-so-distant past when they were put in special schools and made to give up their language. He talks about how Indians are popular now, with some, for their spirituality--and under pressure to basically sell their sacred things and ways. He talks about how our racial emphasis as it impacted Native Americans not only made them "them," but divided them up further with our focus on "half breed," "full blood," and so forth.
It had become this old man's mission to get these things said before he died--to get the truth out for the good of his people and for the country, and so there could be change. If not direct change in the wider culture, then change first in himself.
In thinking about this book I'm not espousing the belief that our current culture is evil. I don't think capitalism is evil (or believe unmitigated capitalism equals the ticket to freedom, either). The question of what it means that one culture thrives and dominates while another fades or is even wiped out is huge. After all, these are real, flesh-and-blood people we're talking about. I do think the notion that one's own cultural and/or religious group represents the intended will of God is a potentially dangerous one. How "should" a society react when challenged by contact with another society or even by an influx of immigrants? Briefly, we can say that the conservatives will have one answer, the liberals another--and that change is par for the course.
January 26, 2009
Wow, this book completely changed my views of the Native American Culture and made me look stereotypes that I didn't even know I had about their culture and how my culture ties into it.
The book is mostly of the author, Kent Nerburn, traveling across the Dakotas with an Elder who explains, quite beautifully, the Indian way of life, how the mainstream white culture is still attacking his culture and how much hurt and pain there is in the Indian culture.
June 8, 2015
I live and work in an area with a substantial First Nations population. There is a consistent struggle to find a balance between meeting the very valid needs of the First Nations students and related community, and not overstepping your bounds as someone who is not a member of that community. Every job posting in my department calls for "knowledge of and sensitivity to the culture and aspirations of local First Nations students". Until recently, in order to teach here, within your first two years with the Department of Education - even if you were born and raised here - you had to take two courses at the local college that were designed specifically to improve your knowledge of the local First Nations culture - presumably to ensure that you could meet the listed desired job skill. Oddly, most often these courses were taught by white teachers who had not been born and raised here. The question becomes how to acquire the knowledge and sensitivity without being intrusive, how to learn about several similar and related cultures without allowing yourself to be influenced by assumptions and stereotypes that you sometimes don't even know you hold, and which are sometimes so prevalent, so systemic that they are held in the bones and blood of the very people that are demeaned and victimized by those stereotypes?
In the foreword of this book, I was struck forcibly by a feeling of familiarity when Kent Nerburn warns the reader of the following:
When it comes down to it, that struggle is what this book is about. How do the First Nations peoples of North America, and the descendants of the European settlers, who until very, very recently have continued - collectively and in some cases individually - to perpetrate policies of assimilation, officially condoned racism and overt abuse, accept social accountability for harm, acknowledge the results of the trauma and learn to live and work together effectively, without falling into the patterns of blame and anger self-hatred and desperation that often mark the 7 generations after the last group of people survives the active trauma enacted on them. (If you're not familiar with the 7 Generation rule of thumb, do some research on it and then, bearing it in mind, consider the impacts of things like American Slavery and way in which emancipation was handled in the South, consider the Holocaust under the Nazi regime, consider the impacts of World Wars I and II on the soldiers and the citizens, consider the impact of Apartheid, consider the impacts of civil war on the child soldiers who manage to survive, consider the impacts on immigrants who survive civil war in Syria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Sudan, Rwanda, Nigeria, Bosnia and Serbia, Iran, the Ukraine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel and Palestine and then ask yourself again why it is that some people have difficulty transitioning to a new way of life!??!?! The fact that they are as effective, open minded, willing to take on risks and challenges, and try new things at all is amazing.)
Nerburn does an exemplary job of distinguishing between his own voice, often by introducing location through vivid prose, and that of the Lakota Elder, Dan, and Dan's companion, Grover. Nerburn makes a point of taking the reader with him through the struggles he works through trying to make sure that he doesn't, in fact, turn Dan into the stereotypical Wise Old Indian Man, clearly expressing the times he and Dan get angry with and frustrated by their inabilities to bridge the difficulties that different social expectations and differences of generation create in how they communicate with each other. More than that, Kent Nerburn is willing to admit to and offer up the times when he is particularly dense - at least by Dan's reckoning, and he doesn't turn Dan into some Sacred Guru, afraid to be annoyed with him, either because Dan is Native or because Dan is an octogenarian - which let's face it - in almost any culture, you've got to grant that after you've lived that long, you've seen a bit more than the average middle-ager.
Dan's insights are insightful, because he's an insightful person. Period. He is not insightful because he is of the Lakota people. His insights are about humanity, and they are generally on the topic of the interactions between Aboriginal North Americans and non-Aboriginal North Americans because that formed the basis of his life experience. For the most part, the things he said resonated. He is a smart guy - but Kent Nerburn held up his end of the bargain - Dan is a guy. I didn't agree with everything I read, and there were things that Dan said that I found myself saying "Um, sorry dude, but you're missing some info here." I liked that though - because I had the feeling that if I met him, because he had the courage of his convictions, although he may have heard me out - after he'd finished his Little Talk - he would have been able to point out that my white person's insistence on the details of the facts missed the point *grin*. He'd probably be right, too.
As cheezy as it is to say, the truth is that I did both laugh and cry and sometimes I had to put the book down so that I could chew on the ideas. Some things were things I'd already come to, but put a new way. Some things were a new twist on things I was familiar with. Some things I disagreed with but they challenged me to consider WHY I disagreed and how I'd frame my thoughts to Dan, and imagine what he'd say to me in return - and ask if I'd dare put my arguments to him. I plan to use several bits of the book in my teaching, because I think that just because Dan is not an Elder of their band or clan doesn't mean that Dan doesn't have something to say to my students. I wish that more of the Elders here could read his words, if only to have their own experiences validated by somewhere else, far away. To know that it wasn't just here.
Maybe we'll never really get why things are or have been the way they are or have been. If we do not look or ask or reach out and talk and listen, we will never hear how very the same we are under all of our differences, nor will we ever be able to talk about new ways to create alternatives. Dan had tremendous courage to invite someone into his life to start that process in a world and format that was inherently not a place or a way he trusted. That is admirable, and we can all learn something from him, just like we can all learn something from just about anyone that old with something to say.
In the foreword of this book, I was struck forcibly by a feeling of familiarity when Kent Nerburn warns the reader of the following:
"Too many white people I know - good and caring people who are deeply concerned with the plight of Indian people and the tragic history of their last several centuries on this continent - try to "become" Indians, or , at least, try to become one with the Indian experience. They take on the trappings, they romanticize, they try to right the historical wrong through a great outpouring of empathy, or try to enhance their own identity by appropriating Indian values or belief. In the process, they distort the reality of the people about whom they care so deeply, and turn them into a reflection of their own needs.
This is exactly what Dan and Grover and all the others would never let me do. They remained resolutely and unashamedly themselves, and demanded that I do the same. Whenever I stepped across the boundary, I was slapped down. They refused to let me slip into glib generalizations that would mute their individuality. I was asked to recognize their common Indianness, but was constantly reminded that this did not mean that I could invest them with a common identity that would reduce them to collective objects of sympathy, pity or veneration."
When it comes down to it, that struggle is what this book is about. How do the First Nations peoples of North America, and the descendants of the European settlers, who until very, very recently have continued - collectively and in some cases individually - to perpetrate policies of assimilation, officially condoned racism and overt abuse, accept social accountability for harm, acknowledge the results of the trauma and learn to live and work together effectively, without falling into the patterns of blame and anger self-hatred and desperation that often mark the 7 generations after the last group of people survives the active trauma enacted on them. (If you're not familiar with the 7 Generation rule of thumb, do some research on it and then, bearing it in mind, consider the impacts of things like American Slavery and way in which emancipation was handled in the South, consider the Holocaust under the Nazi regime, consider the impacts of World Wars I and II on the soldiers and the citizens, consider the impact of Apartheid, consider the impacts of civil war on the child soldiers who manage to survive, consider the impacts on immigrants who survive civil war in Syria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Sudan, Rwanda, Nigeria, Bosnia and Serbia, Iran, the Ukraine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel and Palestine and then ask yourself again why it is that some people have difficulty transitioning to a new way of life!??!?! The fact that they are as effective, open minded, willing to take on risks and challenges, and try new things at all is amazing.)
Nerburn does an exemplary job of distinguishing between his own voice, often by introducing location through vivid prose, and that of the Lakota Elder, Dan, and Dan's companion, Grover. Nerburn makes a point of taking the reader with him through the struggles he works through trying to make sure that he doesn't, in fact, turn Dan into the stereotypical Wise Old Indian Man, clearly expressing the times he and Dan get angry with and frustrated by their inabilities to bridge the difficulties that different social expectations and differences of generation create in how they communicate with each other. More than that, Kent Nerburn is willing to admit to and offer up the times when he is particularly dense - at least by Dan's reckoning, and he doesn't turn Dan into some Sacred Guru, afraid to be annoyed with him, either because Dan is Native or because Dan is an octogenarian - which let's face it - in almost any culture, you've got to grant that after you've lived that long, you've seen a bit more than the average middle-ager.
Dan's insights are insightful, because he's an insightful person. Period. He is not insightful because he is of the Lakota people. His insights are about humanity, and they are generally on the topic of the interactions between Aboriginal North Americans and non-Aboriginal North Americans because that formed the basis of his life experience. For the most part, the things he said resonated. He is a smart guy - but Kent Nerburn held up his end of the bargain - Dan is a guy. I didn't agree with everything I read, and there were things that Dan said that I found myself saying "Um, sorry dude, but you're missing some info here." I liked that though - because I had the feeling that if I met him, because he had the courage of his convictions, although he may have heard me out - after he'd finished his Little Talk - he would have been able to point out that my white person's insistence on the details of the facts missed the point *grin*. He'd probably be right, too.
As cheezy as it is to say, the truth is that I did both laugh and cry and sometimes I had to put the book down so that I could chew on the ideas. Some things were things I'd already come to, but put a new way. Some things were a new twist on things I was familiar with. Some things I disagreed with but they challenged me to consider WHY I disagreed and how I'd frame my thoughts to Dan, and imagine what he'd say to me in return - and ask if I'd dare put my arguments to him. I plan to use several bits of the book in my teaching, because I think that just because Dan is not an Elder of their band or clan doesn't mean that Dan doesn't have something to say to my students. I wish that more of the Elders here could read his words, if only to have their own experiences validated by somewhere else, far away. To know that it wasn't just here.
Maybe we'll never really get why things are or have been the way they are or have been. If we do not look or ask or reach out and talk and listen, we will never hear how very the same we are under all of our differences, nor will we ever be able to talk about new ways to create alternatives. Dan had tremendous courage to invite someone into his life to start that process in a world and format that was inherently not a place or a way he trusted. That is admirable, and we can all learn something from him, just like we can all learn something from just about anyone that old with something to say.
February 2, 2024
Kent Nerburn received a phone call from a woman who said there was someone who wanted to talk to him - that he'd need to come to the requester, and it would be on a reservation. Some time passes until KN can get there, but when he does, he meets "Dan," an Indian Elder.
From there this book reports on the walks and talks between Kent (a white man) and Dan (an indigenous man) who, knowing that KN is an author, hopes that the Indigenous point of view can be put in front of readers so that the disparities, the errors and "histories" that have been in print, media and cultural landmarks can be shown for what they are: false, misleading and demeaning toward First Peoples as a whole.
What I loved best about this read was that I felt included on those walks and talks - the author invites reader in on even the awkward and uncomfortable ones, the emotional spiritual ones - where Dan is pleading for whites to please shusssssh! and listen for once! He shows how the silence itself is a presence and has place and value and is a party to these discussions. Of the people in the book - the main two, as well as the others brought into facilitate discussions and work through the logistics of the visits - all are authentic and genuine and filled with earnest endeavor related to their message.
From there this book reports on the walks and talks between Kent (a white man) and Dan (an indigenous man) who, knowing that KN is an author, hopes that the Indigenous point of view can be put in front of readers so that the disparities, the errors and "histories" that have been in print, media and cultural landmarks can be shown for what they are: false, misleading and demeaning toward First Peoples as a whole.
What I loved best about this read was that I felt included on those walks and talks - the author invites reader in on even the awkward and uncomfortable ones, the emotional spiritual ones - where Dan is pleading for whites to please shusssssh! and listen for once! He shows how the silence itself is a presence and has place and value and is a party to these discussions. Of the people in the book - the main two, as well as the others brought into facilitate discussions and work through the logistics of the visits - all are authentic and genuine and filled with earnest endeavor related to their message.
May 15, 2021
In 1994 Kent Nerburn published Neither Wolf Nor Dog: on Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder. The book received strong reviews and won the 1996 Minnesota Book Award.
It’s certainly true that Nerburn writes beautifully. “Morning dawned with a wet and heavy air. Mosquitoes buzzed against the screen and a foggy haze rose from the fields outside the motel window. Somewhere nearby a semi sat idling with its refrigeration unit on. The low diesel rumble pulsed and droned against the motel wall.”
And the book is populated with memorable characters, especially the two main Native American characters—Dan, who is the “Elder” of the title, 95 years old; and Grover, not quite so old, who drives a big gas guzzling Buick through the desert like a tank, on and off roads, and is a close admirer of Dan. The two men are interesting in their own right in very different ways but, the narrative at first struck me as a bit stereotypical and predictable—white man thinks he knows but doesn’t, Indians tell him like it is, and so forth. And I guess that isn't an inaccurate summation of the story. But, even though it takes patience on the reader’s part, Nerburn is able to make you want to see the world through Dan’s eyes.
Dan has recruited Nerburn to be his recorder, to write a book that gets the Indian story right. Nerburn struggles to make progress, misses his family, wants to go home. His truck breaks down, and he is stuck. Dan and Grover “kidnap” him and take him on a days-long journey into the desert in Grover’s big car. They take the old dog, Fatback, with them, and they stop at unexpected and expected places—on the side of the road where Dan wanders into the desert, at an old friend’s house in the far outback, where Nerburn gets the “you don’t know anything” lecture from Dan’s granddaughter, and finally, the most important stop of the journey, Wounded Knee, where Nerburn’s conversion takes place.
My favorite character might be Jumbo, a 400 pound mechanic who fixes Nerburn’s truck in a run-down, dirty garage while Dan and Grover take Nerburn on his crazy ride through the desert. And it’s hard not to like Grover, the archetypal sidekick to the hero.
In the opening chapters, I tended to think of Dan as a stereotype (though he rails against stereotypical Indians), and I was a bit disappointed. And truthfully, he never quite escapes the stereotype entirely. His role is the oracle. “This is a good talk, Dan,” says Grover. But Dan grows more real and complex as the journey proceeds, and in the end, he does become oracular. The saving grace for the book may be that, though Dan doesn’t really say anything that other Indian sages haven’t said before, he says them in pretty interesting ways.
His thoughts on history, reality, and religion were very near the bone for me. Here’s how Nerburn narrates a sample:
[Dan] pushed on, undeterred. “Those missionaries come around the reservation. Three, four ladies in a car, all dressed up. They come out and try to talk to you about Jesus. Now, Jesus has been dead for a lot of years. Why do they come try to talk to us about Jesus?”
He was on the trail again. All I could do was go along. “Because they believe if you believe in him he will be alive in your heart and you will be saved,” I said.
“Right!” Dan was excited. “Now, why don’t they get all dressed up and come and talk to us about Abraham Lincoln?”
The image was so bizarre that I didn’t even hazard an answer.
“It’s because Abraham Lincoln is dead. But, now, Jesus is dead, too. But he can come alive if you bring him into your heart. That’s what they always say. Here’s the question: Why can’t Abraham Lincoln come alive if you bring him into your heart?”
I felt like a contestant on a surreal quiz show. “I don’t know.”
Dan was triumphant. “It’s because Abraham Lincoln was part of white man history.”
“And Jesus wasn’t?”
“No. He’s part of a different kind of history. The kind Indian people understand. Where things have power because they are wakan [spiritual]. That’s why so many Indian people believe in him.”
In the end, Dan surprises Nerburn with the suggestion that the Indian people might have died to save the white people—that they are in effect the savior of the world. “I am sad that the Creator saw fit to destroy us to give you life. But maybe that is not so bad, for is that not what your religion teaches you that he did with Jesus? Maybe it was the power of our spirit that made us able to accept our physical death. Maybe it was the power of our spirit that made the Creator see that we, alone, could save you, who cared so much about things that should not matter.”
I’d like to know how the average Native American reader responds to Dan’s idea. As for me, after reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee a few months ago, I’m not at all comfortable with it, especially since the destructive greed of the descendants of white Europeans in America continues unabated.
In Neither Wolf nor Dog Nerburn is the direct object of Dan’s subject/verb. He is acted upon, and he responds. The book is, of course, Nerburn’s spiritual journey, and he arrives at the destination planned for him—humbled, respectful, repentant.
It’s certainly true that Nerburn writes beautifully. “Morning dawned with a wet and heavy air. Mosquitoes buzzed against the screen and a foggy haze rose from the fields outside the motel window. Somewhere nearby a semi sat idling with its refrigeration unit on. The low diesel rumble pulsed and droned against the motel wall.”
And the book is populated with memorable characters, especially the two main Native American characters—Dan, who is the “Elder” of the title, 95 years old; and Grover, not quite so old, who drives a big gas guzzling Buick through the desert like a tank, on and off roads, and is a close admirer of Dan. The two men are interesting in their own right in very different ways but, the narrative at first struck me as a bit stereotypical and predictable—white man thinks he knows but doesn’t, Indians tell him like it is, and so forth. And I guess that isn't an inaccurate summation of the story. But, even though it takes patience on the reader’s part, Nerburn is able to make you want to see the world through Dan’s eyes.
Dan has recruited Nerburn to be his recorder, to write a book that gets the Indian story right. Nerburn struggles to make progress, misses his family, wants to go home. His truck breaks down, and he is stuck. Dan and Grover “kidnap” him and take him on a days-long journey into the desert in Grover’s big car. They take the old dog, Fatback, with them, and they stop at unexpected and expected places—on the side of the road where Dan wanders into the desert, at an old friend’s house in the far outback, where Nerburn gets the “you don’t know anything” lecture from Dan’s granddaughter, and finally, the most important stop of the journey, Wounded Knee, where Nerburn’s conversion takes place.
My favorite character might be Jumbo, a 400 pound mechanic who fixes Nerburn’s truck in a run-down, dirty garage while Dan and Grover take Nerburn on his crazy ride through the desert. And it’s hard not to like Grover, the archetypal sidekick to the hero.
In the opening chapters, I tended to think of Dan as a stereotype (though he rails against stereotypical Indians), and I was a bit disappointed. And truthfully, he never quite escapes the stereotype entirely. His role is the oracle. “This is a good talk, Dan,” says Grover. But Dan grows more real and complex as the journey proceeds, and in the end, he does become oracular. The saving grace for the book may be that, though Dan doesn’t really say anything that other Indian sages haven’t said before, he says them in pretty interesting ways.
His thoughts on history, reality, and religion were very near the bone for me. Here’s how Nerburn narrates a sample:
[Dan] pushed on, undeterred. “Those missionaries come around the reservation. Three, four ladies in a car, all dressed up. They come out and try to talk to you about Jesus. Now, Jesus has been dead for a lot of years. Why do they come try to talk to us about Jesus?”
He was on the trail again. All I could do was go along. “Because they believe if you believe in him he will be alive in your heart and you will be saved,” I said.
“Right!” Dan was excited. “Now, why don’t they get all dressed up and come and talk to us about Abraham Lincoln?”
The image was so bizarre that I didn’t even hazard an answer.
“It’s because Abraham Lincoln is dead. But, now, Jesus is dead, too. But he can come alive if you bring him into your heart. That’s what they always say. Here’s the question: Why can’t Abraham Lincoln come alive if you bring him into your heart?”
I felt like a contestant on a surreal quiz show. “I don’t know.”
Dan was triumphant. “It’s because Abraham Lincoln was part of white man history.”
“And Jesus wasn’t?”
“No. He’s part of a different kind of history. The kind Indian people understand. Where things have power because they are wakan [spiritual]. That’s why so many Indian people believe in him.”
In the end, Dan surprises Nerburn with the suggestion that the Indian people might have died to save the white people—that they are in effect the savior of the world. “I am sad that the Creator saw fit to destroy us to give you life. But maybe that is not so bad, for is that not what your religion teaches you that he did with Jesus? Maybe it was the power of our spirit that made us able to accept our physical death. Maybe it was the power of our spirit that made the Creator see that we, alone, could save you, who cared so much about things that should not matter.”
I’d like to know how the average Native American reader responds to Dan’s idea. As for me, after reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee a few months ago, I’m not at all comfortable with it, especially since the destructive greed of the descendants of white Europeans in America continues unabated.
In Neither Wolf nor Dog Nerburn is the direct object of Dan’s subject/verb. He is acted upon, and he responds. The book is, of course, Nerburn’s spiritual journey, and he arrives at the destination planned for him—humbled, respectful, repentant.
June 1, 2015
'"It's a good thing Jesus wasn't an Indian," he continued. "The U.S. government would have hunted him down and killed him. They would have killed him like they killed Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. Just another dead Indian trouble-maker."'
A white man's journeys through the western plains with an Indian elder. Sobering. Captivating. Humbling. Nonfiction.
Nonfiction.
Injustice still exists.
'You can tell us time has passed. You can say the world has changed. But the bones of my father still cry. My son is buried in a conquered land.'
This book will change your life, and it should.
'Dan's words were fading like the last rays of daylight. "We believed too much. We loved Jesus too much. We made him our leader. You didn't want him to be our leader. When we went to see if he was coming back, you killed us. All the women. All the little children. So much hope. Dead. All dead.'
Nonfiction.
'"You won't even let us have hope," he said finally. "There are no armies to free us. No governments to help us. We cry out and nobody hears us. We starve and nobody cares. All we have left is hope. But if you see hope you kill that, too."'
A white man's journeys through the western plains with an Indian elder. Sobering. Captivating. Humbling. Nonfiction.
Nonfiction.
Injustice still exists.
'You can tell us time has passed. You can say the world has changed. But the bones of my father still cry. My son is buried in a conquered land.'
This book will change your life, and it should.
'Dan's words were fading like the last rays of daylight. "We believed too much. We loved Jesus too much. We made him our leader. You didn't want him to be our leader. When we went to see if he was coming back, you killed us. All the women. All the little children. So much hope. Dead. All dead.'
Nonfiction.
'"You won't even let us have hope," he said finally. "There are no armies to free us. No governments to help us. We cry out and nobody hears us. We starve and nobody cares. All we have left is hope. But if you see hope you kill that, too."'
August 14, 2012
For the first two chapters or so, I was agreeing with the author when he derided white people who "try to be Indian" - and considered him one of them! And maybe he still is...but once he got into the STORY of the book - well, wow, this was fabulous. I have Ojibwe in my heritage and have read a lot about the Ojibwe/Anishinaabeg people, so it was interesting to read about Dacotah/Bwaanag people. And "Nerburn" (as his Dacotah friends call him) is an excellent writer and willing to look critically at himself as well as the people he is writing about. One possible negative is the old man, Dan, is a little "noble savage" in his viewpoint - talking about how the Indians were always totally peaceful before the white men came. "Oh, we may have had our little skirmishes" but really, that is not true. But in a certain way it is true...just like Americans were disturbed by the way the North Vietnamese battled us (no lines, no honesty, using any trick possible, even ones that just shock and disgusted the soldiers) - that is how the "Indians" viewed the lying, cheating, disrespectful, really kind of evil, white people they dealt with. Anyway, a great book and I look forward to reading more from Nerburn.
October 31, 2014
I just hid from my children to finish the last few chapters of this book. Recommended by a friend with perfect timing as I have recently become fascinated with learning more about the Native American ways and origins of this country. Too many quotes to share. So thought-provoking, mind and heart widening, humbling. Makes me wonder if this book or something like it should be required reading in all American History classes. I, for one, will never be able to think of it the same again.
March 19, 2019
The author, Kent Nerburn, describes his journey with a Lakota Elder (Dan) and his companion (Grover) through sacred Lakota territory. Along the way Dan teaches Nerburn lessons meant to help him understand what it is like to be an Indian in today's world. Dan is very blunt and pulls no punches. But Nerburn is very patient, far more so than I would have been, as Dan berates white culture, white people, including Nerburn himself, for the history and plight of the Native Americans.
Although I felt uncomfortable at times while reading this account, overall I felt I learned a lot. Here are just a couple of passages of Dan's words of wisdom that I felt were worth pondering:
Although I felt uncomfortable at times while reading this account, overall I felt I learned a lot. Here are just a couple of passages of Dan's words of wisdom that I felt were worth pondering:
There are leaders and there are rulers. We Indians are used to leaders. When our leaders don't lead, we walk away from them. When they lead well, we stay with them.
White people never understood this. Your system makes people rulers by law, even if they are not leaders ... How can a calendar tell us how long a person is a leader? That's crazy.
----------
Your people must learn to give up their arrogance. They are not the only ones placed on this earth. Theirs is not the only way. People have worshiped the Creator and loved their families in many ways in all places. Your people must learn to honor this.
It is your gift to have material power. You have much strength not given to other people. Can you share it, or can you use it only to get more? That is your challenge – to find the way to share your gift, because it is a strong and dangerous one.
June 16, 2015
This is an exceptional book and a compellng read. If you have anything like a passing acquaintance with how badly the US government and various groups like those who hunted the buffalo treated Indians there is not a lot that is new here. However, what is unique about this book and what makes it exceptional is how real and how personal the author makes this story. That is also the author's genius, he does not get in the way of the story. He lets the story tell itself in its own terms especially in passages like these: "Sometimes I think I would like to go into one of your cemeteries with a bulldozer and knock over all the headstones and plow up all the coffins. Then I'd take the bones and put them in plastic bags. I'd put them all in the window of a store with a sign that said, ‘White People's Artifacts.’ Then you could come down and point at a bag and say, ‘That's my grandmother.’ If you were lucky, I might even have the measurements of her skull on a little card on the bag."
April 7, 2023
This was incredible. It is extremely poignant and grounding to listen to this tale, almost a memoir, told from the mouth of a contemporary elder. There is a mindset here that is missing in fiction / non-fiction regarding 'Native Americans' / those indigenous to America - something proud and strong, something deeply thoughtful and altogether unique. I loved reading this, it's a book I will recommend to everyone.
March 23, 2015
One of the most tragic stories in human history describes the spread of civilization into the lands of the wild and free. This story has countless variations, in every region of the world, and they rarely end happily, with the wild and free expelling the invaders. Instead, what usually happened was that the civilized people proceeded to kill or enslave the natives, and then destroy the ecosystem, which eventually doomed the civilization.
In New England, the European invaders tried to transform the Indians into submissive, hard-working Christian farmers. This plan enjoyed little success. In the 19th century, the strategy changed. Indians were herded into concentration camps called reservations, or gunned down if they resisted. The Indians were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned.
The first wave of my Norwegian ancestors immigrated in 1879 and settled in the eastern regions of Iowa and North Dakota — recently the home of the Lakota and vast herds of bison. This was three years after Custer was defeated at Little Big Horn, and eleven years before the last group of free Lakota was exterminated at Wounded Knee. The world would be a happier place today if everyone had stayed at home, spent time with therapists working through their superiority and domination complexes, developed effective family planning systems, and learned how to live in harmony with their land.
Kent Nerburn’s book, Neither Wolf Nor Dog, presents the Lakota perspective on the European invasion, as seen through the eyes of “Dan,” a 78 year old elder (1913-2002). It’s a perspective that white folks are rarely exposed to, unfortunately. Dan had many important ideas that he wanted to pass along to the younger generations of all peoples, and Nerburn compiled them into a book. The format of the oratory was very laid back — riding around Indian country in an old Buick with two elders, a big dog, and a cloud of cigarette smoke.
Dan was a traditional Lakota who had no affection for white government, white religion, or white people. He had been angry all his life at what the whites had done to his land and his people. The conquest provided no benefits for the Lakota, it was a complete disaster, a toxic explosion of greed, craziness, and injustice. Yet white historians described the conquest in glowing terms — brave pioneers conquering and civilizing an untamed wilderness — progress! God bless America!
The perspective in Lakota country could not be more different. In their eyes, the conquest of America resembled something like the 2011 tsunami of east Japan that erased everything in its path. The bison were exterminated, the forests were eliminated, the prairies were plowed, and contagious disease killed millions. They shot the buffalo just to kill them! They had no respect for the land or the beings that lived there.
When Indians killed “innocent” white settlers, the whites howled about barbaric savages and bloody massacre. But the Indians had little choice. The invaders intended to completely erase Indian society, even if this included exterminating every Indian. The whites relentlessly advanced. The soldiers were young men who had been hired to kill the “animals” that stood in the path of empire, and many of them took pleasure in killing. There was no possibility of negotiation, because the invaders broke every agreement they made. There was nowhere to flee to. Surrender promised cultural obliteration.
For the whites, the land was not alive and sacred — it was a treasure to be seized and exploited as quickly as possible. The Lakota saw the land as their sacred mother, and they treated her with great respect. Dan could never understand why, despite their good treatment, mother had gotten angry and punished the Lakota with invasion, diseases, and harsh winters. Dan wondered what she had in store for the whites, who have shown no respect whatsoever. We’ll surely find out.
One day, Nerburn drove Dan through his village on the reservation, an impressive scene of rundown houses, junk cars, and trash. White people typically drive through and perceive nothing but “a bunch of shit.” Dan asked Nerburn what he thought Indians saw when they visited a white city. “We say the same thing.” “You see a dirt path with a pop can next to it and you think that is worse than a big paved highway that is kept clean. You get madder at a forest with a trash bag in it than at a big shopping center…”
White people are fascinated with the idea of freedom, because they have so little freedom in their lives. Dan saw that whites are confined in a world of cages — their fenced property, their permanent home, their rulers, their bosses, their laws, their religious beliefs. Indians have always enjoyed great freedom, and they had no desire to become farmers and join the whites in their world of miserable cages.
This is why the whites had Sitting Bull murdered. He didn’t want to sign treaties, because that would turn his people into blanket Indians. They would turn white. Sitting Bull said “I do not wish to be shut up in a corral. All agency Indians I have seen were worthless. They are neither red warriors nor white farmers. They are neither wolf nor dog.”
After Sitting Bull was gunned down, many of his people fled to Wounded Knee, with soldiers in pursuit. The weather was frigid, but they didn’t dare make fires, fearing that they would be discovered. They were cold, hungry, and weak when the soldiers caught them. The Indians were disarmed, then all of them were mowed down with machine guns — men, women, children, and the elderly.
The climax of the story came when Dan and Nerburn spent a night at the Wounded Knee cemetery, in a realm of powerful spirits. Throughout his life, Dan had remained in close contact with the spirits of his ancestors. The invasion had filled his life with pain, rage, and sorrow. The injustice was unbearable. Why did the Creator allow this to happen? His ancestors had died running.
Dan prayed for healing. He was sure that the passage of generations would eventually bury the anger. Peace would eventually return. This is a book I will never forget.
In New England, the European invaders tried to transform the Indians into submissive, hard-working Christian farmers. This plan enjoyed little success. In the 19th century, the strategy changed. Indians were herded into concentration camps called reservations, or gunned down if they resisted. The Indians were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned.
The first wave of my Norwegian ancestors immigrated in 1879 and settled in the eastern regions of Iowa and North Dakota — recently the home of the Lakota and vast herds of bison. This was three years after Custer was defeated at Little Big Horn, and eleven years before the last group of free Lakota was exterminated at Wounded Knee. The world would be a happier place today if everyone had stayed at home, spent time with therapists working through their superiority and domination complexes, developed effective family planning systems, and learned how to live in harmony with their land.
Kent Nerburn’s book, Neither Wolf Nor Dog, presents the Lakota perspective on the European invasion, as seen through the eyes of “Dan,” a 78 year old elder (1913-2002). It’s a perspective that white folks are rarely exposed to, unfortunately. Dan had many important ideas that he wanted to pass along to the younger generations of all peoples, and Nerburn compiled them into a book. The format of the oratory was very laid back — riding around Indian country in an old Buick with two elders, a big dog, and a cloud of cigarette smoke.
Dan was a traditional Lakota who had no affection for white government, white religion, or white people. He had been angry all his life at what the whites had done to his land and his people. The conquest provided no benefits for the Lakota, it was a complete disaster, a toxic explosion of greed, craziness, and injustice. Yet white historians described the conquest in glowing terms — brave pioneers conquering and civilizing an untamed wilderness — progress! God bless America!
The perspective in Lakota country could not be more different. In their eyes, the conquest of America resembled something like the 2011 tsunami of east Japan that erased everything in its path. The bison were exterminated, the forests were eliminated, the prairies were plowed, and contagious disease killed millions. They shot the buffalo just to kill them! They had no respect for the land or the beings that lived there.
When Indians killed “innocent” white settlers, the whites howled about barbaric savages and bloody massacre. But the Indians had little choice. The invaders intended to completely erase Indian society, even if this included exterminating every Indian. The whites relentlessly advanced. The soldiers were young men who had been hired to kill the “animals” that stood in the path of empire, and many of them took pleasure in killing. There was no possibility of negotiation, because the invaders broke every agreement they made. There was nowhere to flee to. Surrender promised cultural obliteration.
For the whites, the land was not alive and sacred — it was a treasure to be seized and exploited as quickly as possible. The Lakota saw the land as their sacred mother, and they treated her with great respect. Dan could never understand why, despite their good treatment, mother had gotten angry and punished the Lakota with invasion, diseases, and harsh winters. Dan wondered what she had in store for the whites, who have shown no respect whatsoever. We’ll surely find out.
One day, Nerburn drove Dan through his village on the reservation, an impressive scene of rundown houses, junk cars, and trash. White people typically drive through and perceive nothing but “a bunch of shit.” Dan asked Nerburn what he thought Indians saw when they visited a white city. “We say the same thing.” “You see a dirt path with a pop can next to it and you think that is worse than a big paved highway that is kept clean. You get madder at a forest with a trash bag in it than at a big shopping center…”
White people are fascinated with the idea of freedom, because they have so little freedom in their lives. Dan saw that whites are confined in a world of cages — their fenced property, their permanent home, their rulers, their bosses, their laws, their religious beliefs. Indians have always enjoyed great freedom, and they had no desire to become farmers and join the whites in their world of miserable cages.
This is why the whites had Sitting Bull murdered. He didn’t want to sign treaties, because that would turn his people into blanket Indians. They would turn white. Sitting Bull said “I do not wish to be shut up in a corral. All agency Indians I have seen were worthless. They are neither red warriors nor white farmers. They are neither wolf nor dog.”
After Sitting Bull was gunned down, many of his people fled to Wounded Knee, with soldiers in pursuit. The weather was frigid, but they didn’t dare make fires, fearing that they would be discovered. They were cold, hungry, and weak when the soldiers caught them. The Indians were disarmed, then all of them were mowed down with machine guns — men, women, children, and the elderly.
The climax of the story came when Dan and Nerburn spent a night at the Wounded Knee cemetery, in a realm of powerful spirits. Throughout his life, Dan had remained in close contact with the spirits of his ancestors. The invasion had filled his life with pain, rage, and sorrow. The injustice was unbearable. Why did the Creator allow this to happen? His ancestors had died running.
Dan prayed for healing. He was sure that the passage of generations would eventually bury the anger. Peace would eventually return. This is a book I will never forget.
December 16, 2016
When I find a book that can make me laugh and cry, and helps me to remember my humanity, it's a golden time. Even after working full days, I stayed up until midnight two nights running, and finished the last part of the book this morning. I am so saddened to close that book, I am so happy to have a friend gift it to me this Christmas.
What I loved about this book, and there is much to love, is the independence that Dan and Kent keep throughout the journey. He is still white, and Dan is a still First People bearer of the broken-hearted Deeper Story. It's excruciating to listen to the stories, and try to come to grips with the genocide and the re-writing of history books. But as a woman, I am used to that, white men did the same thing with women healers or midwives, called them witches and destroyed them. But women have made some headway this century, and I cannot say the same for Native Americans.
But beyond the blood baths, lies and misery, and loss of trust what moved me deeply is the ending. This is where I see the deepest, soundest truth come from-and I won't spoil the ending-and I agree with Dan. It's this juxtaposition of evil to goodness, that Goodness does not push away Evil, but continues to show evil how to be good. Good always embraces the evil as a sacrifice. I see the same things happen with China and Tibet.
But, it broke my heart open again, and so it should. I am better for it. My highest recommendation!!!
What I loved about this book, and there is much to love, is the independence that Dan and Kent keep throughout the journey. He is still white, and Dan is a still First People bearer of the broken-hearted Deeper Story. It's excruciating to listen to the stories, and try to come to grips with the genocide and the re-writing of history books. But as a woman, I am used to that, white men did the same thing with women healers or midwives, called them witches and destroyed them. But women have made some headway this century, and I cannot say the same for Native Americans.
But beyond the blood baths, lies and misery, and loss of trust what moved me deeply is the ending. This is where I see the deepest, soundest truth come from-and I won't spoil the ending-and I agree with Dan. It's this juxtaposition of evil to goodness, that Goodness does not push away Evil, but continues to show evil how to be good. Good always embraces the evil as a sacrifice. I see the same things happen with China and Tibet.
But, it broke my heart open again, and so it should. I am better for it. My highest recommendation!!!
October 4, 2014
All of the books in this trilogy are on my favorite books list. I recently got to purchase them again with the author's personal message to me. I feel blessed. These books are ones everyone in America should read.
They have touched me more than anyone could ever know.
Now I'm sending my set to my best friend as they have not picked them up yet. I have bought them for my uncle who said these were the best gifts he has even gotten in his life. That is how much these books on the journey with Elder Dan means. I bought them for a friend who loved them as well.
You will laugh, you will cry a lot and you will be sickened as the books move on into bad, bad things and bad, bad people.
Please read and fill these books in your heart.
They have touched me more than anyone could ever know.
Now I'm sending my set to my best friend as they have not picked them up yet. I have bought them for my uncle who said these were the best gifts he has even gotten in his life. That is how much these books on the journey with Elder Dan means. I bought them for a friend who loved them as well.
You will laugh, you will cry a lot and you will be sickened as the books move on into bad, bad things and bad, bad people.
Please read and fill these books in your heart.
October 23, 2020
Boiled down, this is basically the thoughts of a Lakota elder on white man. His thoughts on what white man did to the Indians in the 1800s and how white man thinks today. This book made me sad, ashamed, and angry. Many times I wished Nerburn would have pressed a little more to bring the elder out of the past and into the present, asking what white people can do for the Indians today. I did feel that the elder generalized white people, putting us all on the same level and treating us as if none of us would ever understand or have the awareness of the universe that the Indian has. The story dragged along in spots and became very enlightening in others.
January 8, 2015
This is a book everyone should read! I can't wait to start the 2nd one!
July 18, 2018
***YOU (yes, you!) SHOULD READ THIS BOOK!***
"Dan*," a Native American elder, had his granddaughter contact Kent Nerburn, a writer who had worked with a group of Native students to preserve their grandparents' stories. Dan had been trying to write his story (including being taken away from his family and forced to attend an Indian school, an unsuccessful marriage to a white woman, and the death of his young-adult son) and his truth, but he needed help. He chose "Nerburn" (which is what Dan and his friend "Grover" call the author throughout the book) to make his story sound better, but this book ended up being the story of writing the book. Initially, Nerburn interviewed Dan at his home, often with Grover present, but the bulk of the book is about the road trip the three men took (basically against Nerburn's will), which helped Dan to illustrate his points.
On protecting native culture:
"Now don't get me wrong on this. But you've got to understand that we are still at war. It's not like we are fighting against America or the American people, but we are still defending who we are. It's war to us, because if we don't fight for who we are we will be destroyed. We'll be destroyed by false ideas and phony Indians and all the good intentions of people who think they are helping us by making us act like white people." (This is followed by an interesting/amusing -- because it's so true -- tangent about how so many white people claim to have a Cherokee grandmother and the repercussions of that story.)
On preserving native history:
"Then later, when you tried to divide our land up and give us little pieces, you tried to make us have last names and marriage certificates like white people. You wrote it all down. Some of our people thought it was so stupid they would give you different names every time they talked to you. So you got everything confused and wrong. By the end, everything was wrong and a lie. But it was all written down, so you said it was true and you taught it to your children like it was true. That's what your white history did for us."
"But it did something worse, too. It took away all of our history from before the time you came here to our country. It's like before you came here, we didn't exist. You won't believe anything we tell you unless you can dig up some pot or an arrowhead. Then you put it in a lot of machines and put chemicals on it so that you can know when it was made, and then you say, 'Now we know about it. Now we know what happened.' Then the man who did the tests writes down what he found out and other people write down what they think about what he found out, and you call that history." (This is followed by another fascinating tangent about how native oral history shares many similarities with biblical history, but one is considered "myth" while the other is considered "truth.")
I'd never heard of this book until two of my book group ladies said they were going to see the film adaptation. (Obviously, this was months ago, but this title took a while to work its way up my to-read list.) Now I'm really curious to see how the film compares, but this is definitely a book that EVERYONE SHOULD READ. Even if you're not American or North American, there's a very good chance that you interact with an indigenous group whose story and culture have been taken from them. READ THIS!
*not his real name as he wished to remain anonymous
"Dan*," a Native American elder, had his granddaughter contact Kent Nerburn, a writer who had worked with a group of Native students to preserve their grandparents' stories. Dan had been trying to write his story (including being taken away from his family and forced to attend an Indian school, an unsuccessful marriage to a white woman, and the death of his young-adult son) and his truth, but he needed help. He chose "Nerburn" (which is what Dan and his friend "Grover" call the author throughout the book) to make his story sound better, but this book ended up being the story of writing the book. Initially, Nerburn interviewed Dan at his home, often with Grover present, but the bulk of the book is about the road trip the three men took (basically against Nerburn's will), which helped Dan to illustrate his points.
On protecting native culture:
"Now don't get me wrong on this. But you've got to understand that we are still at war. It's not like we are fighting against America or the American people, but we are still defending who we are. It's war to us, because if we don't fight for who we are we will be destroyed. We'll be destroyed by false ideas and phony Indians and all the good intentions of people who think they are helping us by making us act like white people." (This is followed by an interesting/amusing -- because it's so true -- tangent about how so many white people claim to have a Cherokee grandmother and the repercussions of that story.)
On preserving native history:
"Then later, when you tried to divide our land up and give us little pieces, you tried to make us have last names and marriage certificates like white people. You wrote it all down. Some of our people thought it was so stupid they would give you different names every time they talked to you. So you got everything confused and wrong. By the end, everything was wrong and a lie. But it was all written down, so you said it was true and you taught it to your children like it was true. That's what your white history did for us."
"But it did something worse, too. It took away all of our history from before the time you came here to our country. It's like before you came here, we didn't exist. You won't believe anything we tell you unless you can dig up some pot or an arrowhead. Then you put it in a lot of machines and put chemicals on it so that you can know when it was made, and then you say, 'Now we know about it. Now we know what happened.' Then the man who did the tests writes down what he found out and other people write down what they think about what he found out, and you call that history." (This is followed by another fascinating tangent about how native oral history shares many similarities with biblical history, but one is considered "myth" while the other is considered "truth.")
I'd never heard of this book until two of my book group ladies said they were going to see the film adaptation. (Obviously, this was months ago, but this title took a while to work its way up my to-read list.) Now I'm really curious to see how the film compares, but this is definitely a book that EVERYONE SHOULD READ. Even if you're not American or North American, there's a very good chance that you interact with an indigenous group whose story and culture have been taken from them. READ THIS!
*not his real name as he wished to remain anonymous
December 15, 2019
This book is rather obscure when it should be a classic, and its cover information portrays it like a breezy, positive road trip where an Indian elder and a Westerner smoke sweetgrass, act agreeably and make peace. This book is much better than that, it's a powerful, transformative, penetrating series of oral meditations or speeches delivered by a very perceptive Indian elder, Dan, that reveal the perspectives of Indians on wide-ranging topics of history, culture, and Indian-Western relations. These meditations can stun as they reveal the vast difference of the Indian perspective, so much so as to deviate into a completely separate paradigm of seeing the world. Among the topics the man talks about are as follows:
1) the difference between Indian and Western founding religions, and how these have shaped their perception of land, as a maternal source for the Indians, and as passive property for conquest for Westerners. Indians perceive the land as a great Mother that can give abundantly, but punish with scarcity if the Indians don't behave morally; in contrast, Abrahamic religions teach that God commanded humans to till the earth and make it fruitful for their descendants
2)there's a lot of contempt for Indians due to the perceived slovenliness of their reservations, how they just throw away their trash, from aluminum cans to rotting car husks, on the land they supposedly revere. But to Dan the Indian, all steel, aluminum and plastic is trash, and so Western cities with their parking ramps and skyscrapers are simply hulking edifications of trash. He says he could not understand why Westerners think their cities are acceptable, even as they defile the soil, simply for being clean and shiny. A further contributor to this censurable behavior among Indians, he says, is traditional Indian attitudes towards property and ownership. When they hunted buffalo, they left the bones and carcasses behind and trusted that the skeletal structures would be buried by the soil and integrated into the natural world. They do the same to plastic and steel but it does not work. Furthermore, they traditionally left stuff behind for the next hunting Indians to retrieve, use and impart to the next generation. They do the same now with cars and motorcycles, in hopes of communal use.
3) the predominance of the English language and how this affects the balance or objectivity of both historiography and jurisprudence. When Indian great-grandchildren come home to their reservation, they toggle textbooks that teach them at a very young age of history as the story of 'the frontier' that was extended by the 'wagons of civilization' barreling into the American West. But this history teaches the children to perceive themselves as part of the savage land beyond the initial frontier of civilization, dismissing the long Indian history of intertribal constitutions and laws. Furthermore, English contracts and English laws favor the people who ply it as their natural language and twist its subtleties in court battles.
4) the bitterness that hippies, yuppies, and 'rent-a-Indians' provoke among Indians. Hippies may be harmless 'lost children' who desire identification with Indians, but they should respect that Indians have their own identity, that their people and their culture can die and the most sympathetic hippie will live on within the defenses of his or her inborn privilege. Yuppies desire to fill voids of spiritual meaninglessness by buying accoutrements of turquoise jewelry, dreamcatchers, and other Indian products. While this provide for Indians materially, yuppies should forebear from excessive pursuit of Indian symbols with the foreknowledge that they belong in a culture that teaches them they can possess entire cultures by buying them. 'Rent-a-Indians' are Indians who 'perform' on rounds of public talks by concretizing stereotypes of the 'noble Indian' myths without actualizing Indian lives today, which are filled with troubles and issues in common with other people.
5)the tragic prevalence of alcohol in reservations, how it seems like an overpowering drug for Indians in particular
6) the difference between freedom and honor, how freedom is the ultimate Western value, while honor is the priority among Indians. How this misunderstanding has colored Western-Indian relations. Westerners resent the lack of visible gratitude among Indians for being 'gifted' the freedom of land in the form of reservations, when Indians regard this 'gift' as a blemish on their honor.
7) a lot of other things, including the role of women in Indian culture, etc.
This book, thankfully, does not try to be 'the wise teachings of the noble Indian' and never needed to be. The protagonist is imperfect; some of his later oratories descend into cantankerous grudge lists; the writer acts as his graceful foil and a visit to the Indian elder's family create insight on the personal affairs that may have colored his worldview. However, pound for pound, this is one of the deepest, fairest books to read about another person's worldview.
1) the difference between Indian and Western founding religions, and how these have shaped their perception of land, as a maternal source for the Indians, and as passive property for conquest for Westerners. Indians perceive the land as a great Mother that can give abundantly, but punish with scarcity if the Indians don't behave morally; in contrast, Abrahamic religions teach that God commanded humans to till the earth and make it fruitful for their descendants
2)there's a lot of contempt for Indians due to the perceived slovenliness of their reservations, how they just throw away their trash, from aluminum cans to rotting car husks, on the land they supposedly revere. But to Dan the Indian, all steel, aluminum and plastic is trash, and so Western cities with their parking ramps and skyscrapers are simply hulking edifications of trash. He says he could not understand why Westerners think their cities are acceptable, even as they defile the soil, simply for being clean and shiny. A further contributor to this censurable behavior among Indians, he says, is traditional Indian attitudes towards property and ownership. When they hunted buffalo, they left the bones and carcasses behind and trusted that the skeletal structures would be buried by the soil and integrated into the natural world. They do the same to plastic and steel but it does not work. Furthermore, they traditionally left stuff behind for the next hunting Indians to retrieve, use and impart to the next generation. They do the same now with cars and motorcycles, in hopes of communal use.
3) the predominance of the English language and how this affects the balance or objectivity of both historiography and jurisprudence. When Indian great-grandchildren come home to their reservation, they toggle textbooks that teach them at a very young age of history as the story of 'the frontier' that was extended by the 'wagons of civilization' barreling into the American West. But this history teaches the children to perceive themselves as part of the savage land beyond the initial frontier of civilization, dismissing the long Indian history of intertribal constitutions and laws. Furthermore, English contracts and English laws favor the people who ply it as their natural language and twist its subtleties in court battles.
4) the bitterness that hippies, yuppies, and 'rent-a-Indians' provoke among Indians. Hippies may be harmless 'lost children' who desire identification with Indians, but they should respect that Indians have their own identity, that their people and their culture can die and the most sympathetic hippie will live on within the defenses of his or her inborn privilege. Yuppies desire to fill voids of spiritual meaninglessness by buying accoutrements of turquoise jewelry, dreamcatchers, and other Indian products. While this provide for Indians materially, yuppies should forebear from excessive pursuit of Indian symbols with the foreknowledge that they belong in a culture that teaches them they can possess entire cultures by buying them. 'Rent-a-Indians' are Indians who 'perform' on rounds of public talks by concretizing stereotypes of the 'noble Indian' myths without actualizing Indian lives today, which are filled with troubles and issues in common with other people.
5)the tragic prevalence of alcohol in reservations, how it seems like an overpowering drug for Indians in particular
6) the difference between freedom and honor, how freedom is the ultimate Western value, while honor is the priority among Indians. How this misunderstanding has colored Western-Indian relations. Westerners resent the lack of visible gratitude among Indians for being 'gifted' the freedom of land in the form of reservations, when Indians regard this 'gift' as a blemish on their honor.
7) a lot of other things, including the role of women in Indian culture, etc.
This book, thankfully, does not try to be 'the wise teachings of the noble Indian' and never needed to be. The protagonist is imperfect; some of his later oratories descend into cantankerous grudge lists; the writer acts as his graceful foil and a visit to the Indian elder's family create insight on the personal affairs that may have colored his worldview. However, pound for pound, this is one of the deepest, fairest books to read about another person's worldview.
August 18, 2012
The author – a white man - ran a program that helped Indian children interview their elders and publish the stories. After these were published, he was contacted by an elderly Indian man from South Dakota who wanted the author to help him write his stories and thoughts about white-Indian history. Nerburn visited Dan on the reservation and began recording his thoughts and ideas. With another Indian named Grover, they go on a road trip through the Dakotas – often totally off any known road – and Dan shows Nerburn the other side of Indian history and culture.
I should have loved this book and there were many parts that I found important and fascinating. For example, I have always been aware of the importance of words, and think that Dan was right when he points out that white people talk about civilization as stopping at the frontier with just Indians beyond (i.e. uncivilized) and as white victories versus Indian massacres. But there was something not quite right about the book. It felt created or fake in some way. Who was Grover and why was he there? Why was Dan so determined to break Nerburn down and was that necessary? Why was the Indian way simply right, the white way simply wrong? I realize it has been the other way for a long time, but at the beginning of the book there is the hope for some dialog and recognition of the strengths in each culture. The discussion of why reservations are so unkempt by white standards is a one example of pushing this envelope a bit. I found the whole book just a little staged. Must just be my white point of view.
It is still very worth reading.
I should have loved this book and there were many parts that I found important and fascinating. For example, I have always been aware of the importance of words, and think that Dan was right when he points out that white people talk about civilization as stopping at the frontier with just Indians beyond (i.e. uncivilized) and as white victories versus Indian massacres. But there was something not quite right about the book. It felt created or fake in some way. Who was Grover and why was he there? Why was Dan so determined to break Nerburn down and was that necessary? Why was the Indian way simply right, the white way simply wrong? I realize it has been the other way for a long time, but at the beginning of the book there is the hope for some dialog and recognition of the strengths in each culture. The discussion of why reservations are so unkempt by white standards is a one example of pushing this envelope a bit. I found the whole book just a little staged. Must just be my white point of view.
It is still very worth reading.
August 28, 2022
- Schweigende Menschen in einem Pick up: 3/3 (+ 1 altersschwacher Hund)
- Vergossene Tränen: Viele - Gegen das Vergessen
- Schreibstil: 7/10
Kent Nerburn, ein recht bekannter Schriftsteller, wird eines Tages auf die rätselhafteste Weise überhaupt dazu beauftragt, die Biografie des uralten Lakota Dan zu schreiben. Einfache Sache, oder? Dan hat im Laufe seines Lebens endlose Gedankenfetzen aufgeschrieben und in einem Schuhkarton gesammelt – daraus einfach ein Buch schustern, fertig. Nur wäre damit niemals alles gesagt, was unbedingt gesagt werden muss und schon an Tag eins tut sich zwischen den beiden Männern der erste, tiefe Konflikt auf: Dan will, dass sein Werk ernstgenommen wird, dass Weiße es lesen und verstehen und damit einen kulturellen Abgrund überwinden, der seinem Sohn damals das Leben gekostet hat. Aber wie könnte Nerburn das Recht haben, ein solches Buch zu schreiben? Ein weiteres, schmerzhaftes Klischee von weisen, alten Indianern und reumütigen Weißen und am Ende sind alle wieder im Einklang mit Mutter Erde? Niemals. Dans Notizen landen im Feuer und Nerburns erste Kapitel lösen sich in Luft auf. Feststeht: Sie müssen miteinander reden.
Und so geht es dann durch die Prärie – teilweise auch mal fernab von jeder Straße – Nerburn, Dan und der sture, alte Grover. Und natürlich Fatback im Gepäck, Dans halbwilder Hund.
Sie sprechen über Rassismus, über Vorurteile und das Leben in den Reservaten, aus allen Blickwinkeln. Natürlich sind nicht immer alle derselben Meinung und manchmal kracht es ganz gewaltig. Es geht um kulturelle Unterschiede, Schuld und Vergebung und einen niemals endenden Krieg. Über die Vergangenheit und wie jeder für sich damit abschließt (oder eben nicht), über Autowracks in Vorgärten und eingezäunte Gedenkstafeln.
Was bleibt, ist eine offengelegte, alte Wunde, die viel zu oft stillgeschwiegen oder übergangen wurde. Die Verbitterung über fehlende Gerechtigkeit. Und ein neugeschöpftes Vertrauen, das uns alle trotz unserer Unterschiede mitteinander Verbinden kann.
„In meinem Buch geht es um den Versuch, den anderen trotz aller Unterschiede zu verstehen, darum, den Zorn und die Trauer zu akzeptieren und Teil der großen Menschenfamilie zu werden, ungeachtet aller gebrochenen Versprechen.“ Nicht Wolf nicht Hund, Kent Nerburn
- Vergossene Tränen: Viele - Gegen das Vergessen
- Schreibstil: 7/10
Kent Nerburn, ein recht bekannter Schriftsteller, wird eines Tages auf die rätselhafteste Weise überhaupt dazu beauftragt, die Biografie des uralten Lakota Dan zu schreiben. Einfache Sache, oder? Dan hat im Laufe seines Lebens endlose Gedankenfetzen aufgeschrieben und in einem Schuhkarton gesammelt – daraus einfach ein Buch schustern, fertig. Nur wäre damit niemals alles gesagt, was unbedingt gesagt werden muss und schon an Tag eins tut sich zwischen den beiden Männern der erste, tiefe Konflikt auf: Dan will, dass sein Werk ernstgenommen wird, dass Weiße es lesen und verstehen und damit einen kulturellen Abgrund überwinden, der seinem Sohn damals das Leben gekostet hat. Aber wie könnte Nerburn das Recht haben, ein solches Buch zu schreiben? Ein weiteres, schmerzhaftes Klischee von weisen, alten Indianern und reumütigen Weißen und am Ende sind alle wieder im Einklang mit Mutter Erde? Niemals. Dans Notizen landen im Feuer und Nerburns erste Kapitel lösen sich in Luft auf. Feststeht: Sie müssen miteinander reden.
Und so geht es dann durch die Prärie – teilweise auch mal fernab von jeder Straße – Nerburn, Dan und der sture, alte Grover. Und natürlich Fatback im Gepäck, Dans halbwilder Hund.
Sie sprechen über Rassismus, über Vorurteile und das Leben in den Reservaten, aus allen Blickwinkeln. Natürlich sind nicht immer alle derselben Meinung und manchmal kracht es ganz gewaltig. Es geht um kulturelle Unterschiede, Schuld und Vergebung und einen niemals endenden Krieg. Über die Vergangenheit und wie jeder für sich damit abschließt (oder eben nicht), über Autowracks in Vorgärten und eingezäunte Gedenkstafeln.
Was bleibt, ist eine offengelegte, alte Wunde, die viel zu oft stillgeschwiegen oder übergangen wurde. Die Verbitterung über fehlende Gerechtigkeit. Und ein neugeschöpftes Vertrauen, das uns alle trotz unserer Unterschiede mitteinander Verbinden kann.
„In meinem Buch geht es um den Versuch, den anderen trotz aller Unterschiede zu verstehen, darum, den Zorn und die Trauer zu akzeptieren und Teil der großen Menschenfamilie zu werden, ungeachtet aller gebrochenen Versprechen.“ Nicht Wolf nicht Hund, Kent Nerburn
August 11, 2022
I am glad I listen to this book. Mr. Herburn's writing style keeps the stories told by Dan ( Old Man), and his friend Grover moving at a good pace.
This isn't like anything I listened to or read before. Some of the statements made by Dan I have heard before. An example, Dan talks about how white hore soldiers murdered women, old people, and children in several locations for other reasons than to destroy the future of that tribe.
Dan also takes Kent to task several times about how his own feeling toward Indians. Also, Kent and white people, in general, spend too much time worrying about their stuff and not enough time thinking about the world around them.
In the '70s, I had the opportunity to sit and talk with Russell means of the American Indian Movement, A.I.M., about the plight of Indians. I understood his anger and wanting to strick back at white men for past crimes that have been done to them.
This narrative is not new, the information isn't new, but it is still relevant.
I was left with a sad feeling because not much has changed for American Indians, and the younger people aren't interested in keeping the traditions alive within their tribe.
Pay attention to what is being said and you may hear a little voice in your own head going, "Damn!".
This isn't like anything I listened to or read before. Some of the statements made by Dan I have heard before. An example, Dan talks about how white hore soldiers murdered women, old people, and children in several locations for other reasons than to destroy the future of that tribe.
Dan also takes Kent to task several times about how his own feeling toward Indians. Also, Kent and white people, in general, spend too much time worrying about their stuff and not enough time thinking about the world around them.
In the '70s, I had the opportunity to sit and talk with Russell means of the American Indian Movement, A.I.M., about the plight of Indians. I understood his anger and wanting to strick back at white men for past crimes that have been done to them.
This narrative is not new, the information isn't new, but it is still relevant.
I was left with a sad feeling because not much has changed for American Indians, and the younger people aren't interested in keeping the traditions alive within their tribe.
Pay attention to what is being said and you may hear a little voice in your own head going, "Damn!".
May 21, 2024
This was quite the surprise. The first part had me in tears. I enjoyed the thoughts on Native American history as well as current situations and how they see it. There was plenty of food for thought here and opportunities to gain a better understanding.
I liked the voices of both Dan and the author, Kent Nerburn. However, I also feel that one Indian Elder's experience isn't the same experience for everyone. He talked about how the "half breed" kids were treated as Indian on the reservation and how they were bullied in Anglo society. That was not my dad's experience at all. He wasn't accepted in the Anglo world and when his family traveled back to the reservation for the summer months, he wasn't accepted there either. This was a painful experience for him not belonging in either world. There were a couple of other things too that weren't universal across all reservations.
I listened to the audio and it was well done. The narration added to the overall thought provoking vibe. I'd listen to this again just for that. Parts were definitely 5 star worthy, but not as a whole. I did round up though because I finished this one days ago and I'm still thinking about it. I also put it on my reread list. So I'm rounding up to the full 5.
I liked the voices of both Dan and the author, Kent Nerburn. However, I also feel that one Indian Elder's experience isn't the same experience for everyone. He talked about how the "half breed" kids were treated as Indian on the reservation and how they were bullied in Anglo society. That was not my dad's experience at all. He wasn't accepted in the Anglo world and when his family traveled back to the reservation for the summer months, he wasn't accepted there either. This was a painful experience for him not belonging in either world. There were a couple of other things too that weren't universal across all reservations.
I listened to the audio and it was well done. The narration added to the overall thought provoking vibe. I'd listen to this again just for that. Parts were definitely 5 star worthy, but not as a whole. I did round up though because I finished this one days ago and I'm still thinking about it. I also put it on my reread list. So I'm rounding up to the full 5.
November 29, 2009
My dad gave me this book years ago, after he first read it. I got about3 chapters into it and then it migrated to the bottom of my stack and eventually to the book case. Last summer however, when I was trying to think of a gift for a friend, it occurred to me that he might like this book, so I pulled it out and finished it. The pace seemed to pick up right where I had left off in my previous reading, and I finished it easily. I did end up giving the book away, so this review is based mostly on memory and a few choice quotes that I typed out just before giving the book away.
In this book the author, Kent Nerburn, tells the story of his interactions with an old Lakota man named Dan. As a result of Nerburn's previous project, To Walk the Red Road, a compilation of essays written by Indian youth, Dan had invited Nerburn to the reservation because he wanted to pass along his accumulated wisdom. He wanted someone he could trust to tell his story, and, surprisingly, he wanted a white person to tell the story.
Nerburn tells the story in a matter of fact way without glorifying himself or Dan. He is honest about his frustrations with the way Dan sometimes treats him. At one point he has had it and decides to give up on the project and go home, but his car breaks down and Dan convinces him to come along on a road trip with him and his friend Grover. It is on the course of this road trip that the story really unfolds, and Dan begins to share his philosophy of Indian-American relations with Nerburn.
Nerburn does a masterful job of showing us the competing forces of outrage and the need to forgive that Dan experiences and struggles to resolve. This book is not a compendium of ancient Native American wisdom, nor a memoir of Dan's life, but rather a story of one Indian man's struggle to make sense of what happened to the Lakota people and to communicate that vision with others.
Dan has no patience for whites who try to superficially emulate Indian ways or to hijack Indian spirituality, but he also recognizes with compassion that white Americans are in desperate need of a spiritual center. It is only after destroying Indian culture that they (we) realize that it contained something vital that we need more than ever today.
Dan: We know that white people have an endless hunger. They want to consume everything and make it part of them. Even if they don't own it physically, they want to own it spiritually. That is what is happening with the Indian, now. The white people want to own us spiritually. You want to swallow us so you can say you are us. This is something new. Before you wanted to make us you. But now you are unhappy with who you are, so you want to make you into us. You want our ceremonies and our ways so you can say you are spiritual. You are trying to become white Indians. ... If this is meant to happen, it will happen in the Creator's time. We cannot make you us by giving you those things that are ours.
For me one of the climaxes of the book came in this monolog from Dan:
Here is what I really think. White people are jealous of us. If it hadn't been for your religion you would have lived just like us from the first minute you got to this land. You knew we were right. You started wearing our clothes. You started eating our food. You learned how to hunt like us. When you fought the English you even fought like us.
You came to this country because you really wanted to be like us. But when you got here you got scared and tried to build the same cages you had run away from. If you had listened to us instead of trying to convert us and kill us, what a country this would be.
That last line floored me. It had never occurred to me that things could have been different. I saw only two options: (1) the way it happened, or (2) what it would have been like if Europeans had stayed in Europe. This idea that we could have come here (more slowly and in smaller numbers) and adapted to the Indian way of life, living in peace with them and with the land--wow, what a country indeed that could have been. And what a heartbreak that we blew it.
A second climax of the book came for me when Dan interprets the sufferings of the Indian nations as another incarnation of Christ's suffering. This took me by surprise, but seemed entirely legitimate to me.
There is also an stirring section in which Dan's granddaughter gives her take on the women's movement in America and why Indian women did not find a place in it.
Danielle: it's our turn now--Indian women. The men are tired. They fought for almost two hundred years. Now it's our turn. ... You took their spirits and left them with shame. But no one paid any attention to us women. We kept things alive in our hearts and hands.
They ignored us. We were just women. But we were always the ones to keep the culture alive. That was our job, as women and mothers. It always has been. The men can't hunt buffalo anymore. But we can still cook and sew and practice the old ways. We can still feed the old people and make their days warm. We can teach the children. Our men may be defeated, but our women's hearts are still strong.
White women haven't been able to understand us. They talk about sisterhood and liberation, but their struggle is not our struggle. We don't need to get free. We need to free our men.
Things are different for us. We know who we are. We are mothers. We are the bearers of our race. It gives us status to do other things. We are honored for what we are. If our men are treating us poorly, it is because they are shamed. Why should we want to set ourselves against them and call that liberation? Until they are free in their hearts again, none of us Indian people will be free."
In this book the author, Kent Nerburn, tells the story of his interactions with an old Lakota man named Dan. As a result of Nerburn's previous project, To Walk the Red Road, a compilation of essays written by Indian youth, Dan had invited Nerburn to the reservation because he wanted to pass along his accumulated wisdom. He wanted someone he could trust to tell his story, and, surprisingly, he wanted a white person to tell the story.
Nerburn tells the story in a matter of fact way without glorifying himself or Dan. He is honest about his frustrations with the way Dan sometimes treats him. At one point he has had it and decides to give up on the project and go home, but his car breaks down and Dan convinces him to come along on a road trip with him and his friend Grover. It is on the course of this road trip that the story really unfolds, and Dan begins to share his philosophy of Indian-American relations with Nerburn.
Nerburn does a masterful job of showing us the competing forces of outrage and the need to forgive that Dan experiences and struggles to resolve. This book is not a compendium of ancient Native American wisdom, nor a memoir of Dan's life, but rather a story of one Indian man's struggle to make sense of what happened to the Lakota people and to communicate that vision with others.
Dan has no patience for whites who try to superficially emulate Indian ways or to hijack Indian spirituality, but he also recognizes with compassion that white Americans are in desperate need of a spiritual center. It is only after destroying Indian culture that they (we) realize that it contained something vital that we need more than ever today.
Dan: We know that white people have an endless hunger. They want to consume everything and make it part of them. Even if they don't own it physically, they want to own it spiritually. That is what is happening with the Indian, now. The white people want to own us spiritually. You want to swallow us so you can say you are us. This is something new. Before you wanted to make us you. But now you are unhappy with who you are, so you want to make you into us. You want our ceremonies and our ways so you can say you are spiritual. You are trying to become white Indians. ... If this is meant to happen, it will happen in the Creator's time. We cannot make you us by giving you those things that are ours.
For me one of the climaxes of the book came in this monolog from Dan:
Here is what I really think. White people are jealous of us. If it hadn't been for your religion you would have lived just like us from the first minute you got to this land. You knew we were right. You started wearing our clothes. You started eating our food. You learned how to hunt like us. When you fought the English you even fought like us.
You came to this country because you really wanted to be like us. But when you got here you got scared and tried to build the same cages you had run away from. If you had listened to us instead of trying to convert us and kill us, what a country this would be.
That last line floored me. It had never occurred to me that things could have been different. I saw only two options: (1) the way it happened, or (2) what it would have been like if Europeans had stayed in Europe. This idea that we could have come here (more slowly and in smaller numbers) and adapted to the Indian way of life, living in peace with them and with the land--wow, what a country indeed that could have been. And what a heartbreak that we blew it.
A second climax of the book came for me when Dan interprets the sufferings of the Indian nations as another incarnation of Christ's suffering. This took me by surprise, but seemed entirely legitimate to me.
There is also an stirring section in which Dan's granddaughter gives her take on the women's movement in America and why Indian women did not find a place in it.
Danielle: it's our turn now--Indian women. The men are tired. They fought for almost two hundred years. Now it's our turn. ... You took their spirits and left them with shame. But no one paid any attention to us women. We kept things alive in our hearts and hands.
They ignored us. We were just women. But we were always the ones to keep the culture alive. That was our job, as women and mothers. It always has been. The men can't hunt buffalo anymore. But we can still cook and sew and practice the old ways. We can still feed the old people and make their days warm. We can teach the children. Our men may be defeated, but our women's hearts are still strong.
White women haven't been able to understand us. They talk about sisterhood and liberation, but their struggle is not our struggle. We don't need to get free. We need to free our men.
Things are different for us. We know who we are. We are mothers. We are the bearers of our race. It gives us status to do other things. We are honored for what we are. If our men are treating us poorly, it is because they are shamed. Why should we want to set ourselves against them and call that liberation? Until they are free in their hearts again, none of us Indian people will be free."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 1, 2017
X XX Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads With an Indian Elder by Kent Nerburn is an extraordinary story, originally written in 1994. I discovered it through a kickstarter account to produce the movie of this book, and wanted to see what I would be making my small donation to bring to the silver screen.
I only wish I could do more. Although I enjoy nonfiction concerning native indigenous peoples I have managed to miss Kent Nerburn. This is a book I will share with my mother, my daughter, my son. Mr. Nerburn has many other books that are going on my list, as well.
The first punch that floors you is Dan. Crusty, angry, aging fast, Dan has a message to share with the world and had decided based on a previous book written by Kent Nerburn that he will be able to tell the story so that whites will understand the problems faced by the many tribes of America's pre-colonial peoples. He manages in the first few pages to point out the biases we don't even notice making as we try to identify the disparity between our white lives and theirs. The grandmother that was indian or part indian. Never a grandfather. I had three great-grandmothers that I am quite proud of - they raised families - huge families -on small farms and always managed to have a smile on their face and something good for supper. Mary Ellen Huggins, 1858-1899. LouVIsa Pritchett 1842-1924 and her mother, Frances Shiflett 1823-1928. And Barbara Underhill 1863-1925. All married farmers who had itchy feet and followed the frontier as it progressed. And most were Cherokee - LouVisa and her mother were a part of the Blount Cty, Al Cherokees and another great grandmother, Mary Ellen Barron, goes back to Hannah Annie Beehunter 1692-1747 and Chief Charles Fawling Leaf 1684-1753 on Cherokee Nation East (now Span, Johnson County, Georgia).
At first I got huffy. Some of us really DO have Cherokee grandmothers. But after Mr. Nerburn talks with Dan's granddaughter Danielle, her statements made it all fall into place. Our Cherokee grandmother's don't help. And they don't make us understand any more than anyone else about the broken culture and the steady loss of what they hold sacred. Read this book. And this is a movie I can't wait to see. Probably the recommendation I agree with most for this writer is this, from the American Indian College Fund. “This is one of those rare works that once you've read it, you can never look at the world, or at people, the same way again. It is quiet and forceful and powerful.”
I only wish I could do more. Although I enjoy nonfiction concerning native indigenous peoples I have managed to miss Kent Nerburn. This is a book I will share with my mother, my daughter, my son. Mr. Nerburn has many other books that are going on my list, as well.
The first punch that floors you is Dan. Crusty, angry, aging fast, Dan has a message to share with the world and had decided based on a previous book written by Kent Nerburn that he will be able to tell the story so that whites will understand the problems faced by the many tribes of America's pre-colonial peoples. He manages in the first few pages to point out the biases we don't even notice making as we try to identify the disparity between our white lives and theirs. The grandmother that was indian or part indian. Never a grandfather. I had three great-grandmothers that I am quite proud of - they raised families - huge families -on small farms and always managed to have a smile on their face and something good for supper. Mary Ellen Huggins, 1858-1899. LouVIsa Pritchett 1842-1924 and her mother, Frances Shiflett 1823-1928. And Barbara Underhill 1863-1925. All married farmers who had itchy feet and followed the frontier as it progressed. And most were Cherokee - LouVisa and her mother were a part of the Blount Cty, Al Cherokees and another great grandmother, Mary Ellen Barron, goes back to Hannah Annie Beehunter 1692-1747 and Chief Charles Fawling Leaf 1684-1753 on Cherokee Nation East (now Span, Johnson County, Georgia).
At first I got huffy. Some of us really DO have Cherokee grandmothers. But after Mr. Nerburn talks with Dan's granddaughter Danielle, her statements made it all fall into place. Our Cherokee grandmother's don't help. And they don't make us understand any more than anyone else about the broken culture and the steady loss of what they hold sacred. Read this book. And this is a movie I can't wait to see. Probably the recommendation I agree with most for this writer is this, from the American Indian College Fund. “This is one of those rare works that once you've read it, you can never look at the world, or at people, the same way again. It is quiet and forceful and powerful.”
September 25, 2012
This is one of those books I was getting up early in the morning to continue reading (I'm a slow reader). Thomas Helm said that the test of a good book is dreading to begin the last chapter. Well, that's a big tick in that box for me. The only thing that let me down somewhat was the ending - it didn't quite roll out into a conclusion. Just stopped a little abruptly ... but not as bad as some other books I've read.
Anyway, from start to finish, the book was really interesting. :) I've always been fascinated by American Indians, and it was great to read about not only what they did, but how they thought. The main thing that struck me though (and I suppose the main thing that was supposed to come across in the book) was their view of the 'white man': a crazy, mixed-up fool who wants freedom and inner satisfaction, so he takes it from those who already have it, thinking that what he takes from them can belong to him. It highlighted the strange way western systems work, and the greediness in the hearts of men, comparing it to the honour and freedom which the old Indian elder in this story, Dan, says his people had.
I guess if you look objectively you see that the Indians in general weren't such nice people - they were just like anybody else and had the same evil motives and bad characters; yet while the picture Dan paints may not be entirely accurate, what he does paint is quite challenging to someone who wants to improve himself and live as a good person.
In short, it changed the way I thought for the better. :) I'd recommend this book to just about anyone.
Anyway, from start to finish, the book was really interesting. :) I've always been fascinated by American Indians, and it was great to read about not only what they did, but how they thought. The main thing that struck me though (and I suppose the main thing that was supposed to come across in the book) was their view of the 'white man': a crazy, mixed-up fool who wants freedom and inner satisfaction, so he takes it from those who already have it, thinking that what he takes from them can belong to him. It highlighted the strange way western systems work, and the greediness in the hearts of men, comparing it to the honour and freedom which the old Indian elder in this story, Dan, says his people had.
I guess if you look objectively you see that the Indians in general weren't such nice people - they were just like anybody else and had the same evil motives and bad characters; yet while the picture Dan paints may not be entirely accurate, what he does paint is quite challenging to someone who wants to improve himself and live as a good person.
In short, it changed the way I thought for the better. :) I'd recommend this book to just about anyone.
September 9, 2015
If you are looking for an unvarnished, realistic portrait of the Indian experience in modern day America this book will give it to you.
One of the most interesting parts of the book is Dan's discussion of why, of all the things Europeans brought to this land one thing that was largely embraced by Indians was Christianity. This book explains why Jesus and Christianity resonated so well for Indians.
This book also does a masterful job at showing how the loss of the culture, the loss of people and the unjust, treatment of Indians by the US Government percolates down in modern day Indian life, and how the hurt, anger and rage doesn't just go away because no one old enough to remember the actual events is alive anymore. It is then easier to understand how that anger comes to the surface again so easily as current day events mirror those older events. (Think restricted water rights, pollution on reservations from coal mining, toxic waste sites on reservations that sit and do not get cleaned up and so on.) Truth is, to this day the US Government in the name of American people continues to shit on Indians and then people wonder why Indians don't just move off of the reservation and get a life. This book will explain to you the Indian answer to that.
Parts of this book will make you laugh out loud, parts will make you sad, parts will make you angry and other parts will make you feel ashamed at your own complicity in affairs between the US Gov't and the Indian nations. All of the book will allow you to see issues with Indian eyes for a moment and this is a rare gift indeed.
One of the most interesting parts of the book is Dan's discussion of why, of all the things Europeans brought to this land one thing that was largely embraced by Indians was Christianity. This book explains why Jesus and Christianity resonated so well for Indians.
This book also does a masterful job at showing how the loss of the culture, the loss of people and the unjust, treatment of Indians by the US Government percolates down in modern day Indian life, and how the hurt, anger and rage doesn't just go away because no one old enough to remember the actual events is alive anymore. It is then easier to understand how that anger comes to the surface again so easily as current day events mirror those older events. (Think restricted water rights, pollution on reservations from coal mining, toxic waste sites on reservations that sit and do not get cleaned up and so on.) Truth is, to this day the US Government in the name of American people continues to shit on Indians and then people wonder why Indians don't just move off of the reservation and get a life. This book will explain to you the Indian answer to that.
Parts of this book will make you laugh out loud, parts will make you sad, parts will make you angry and other parts will make you feel ashamed at your own complicity in affairs between the US Gov't and the Indian nations. All of the book will allow you to see issues with Indian eyes for a moment and this is a rare gift indeed.
October 25, 2021
Ein weißer Autor macht einen Road-Trip mit einem älteren "native American" und führt dabei einen ehrlichen und schmerzhaften Dialog über die blutige Eroberung Amerikas und deren Folgen.
Als weißer Leser fühlt man sich mehr als einmal bei der Lektüre angegriffen, kann aber leider nach genauer Überlegung nur zustimmen.
Hier ein paar Stellen, die ich markierenswert fand:
“You need to understand this. We did not think we owned the land. The land was part of us. We didn’t even know about owning the land. It is like talking about owning your grandmother. You can’t own your grandmother. She just is your grandmother. Why would you talk about owning her?
“This is very important for you to understand. We thought these people were crazy. We thought we must not understand them right. What they said made no sense."
“You remember a few years ago? Some Indians decided they would rather be called Native Americans. It’s an okay name; it’s more dignified than ‘Indians.’ But it’s no more real than Indians, because to us this isn’t even America. The word ‘America’ came from some Italian who came over here after Columbus. Why should we care if we’re called Native Americans when the name is from some Italian? “It’s like if someone took over this country now and called it, say, Greenland, and then they said that those of us who were already here are going to be called Native Greenlanders. And they said they were doing this out of respect. Would you feel respected? Would you care a whole hell of a lot if they called you that or something else?"
“Owning things is what white people’s lives are about. I watch TV, and every ad I see tells me something is ‘new.’ That means I should get it because what I have is old and this is new. That’s no reason to get something, just because it’s new. Your way teaches people to want, want, want. What you have is no good. What you don’t have is new and better."
“From the first you are told, ‘This is mine, this is yours’; ‘Don’t touch that, it doesn’t belong to you.’ You are taught to keep away from things because of ownership, not because of respect. In the old days we never had locks on our doors. There was no stealing, but if someone was hungry, they could go in your house and get food. That was all. Why didn’t people take things? Because of respect. “You build fences around your yards and pay money for people to measure the ground to tell you if your neighbor’s fence is one inch too close to your house. You give nothing away unless you can get something in return. Everything is economic. “Your most powerful people don’t even hide their thinking on this. If you ask for something, they don’t ask whether you need it; they say, ‘What’s in it for me?’”
“We have to live in this world. The Europeans killed all the animals and took all our land. We can’t live our way anymore. We have to live your way. In our way, everything had its use then it went back into the earth. We had wooden bowls and cups, or things made of clay. We rode horses or walked. We made things out of the things of the earth. Then when we no longer needed it, we let it go back into the earth. “Now things don’t go back into the earth. Our kids leave pop cans around. We leave old cars around. In the old days these would be bone spoons and horn cups, and the old cars would be skeletons of horses or buffalo. We could burn them or leave them and they would go back to the earth. Now we can’t. “We are living the same way, but we are living with different things. We will learn your way, but, you see, you really don’t understand any better. All you really care about is keeping things clean. You don’t care how they really are, just so long as they are clean. You see a dirt path with a pop can next to it and you think that is worse than a big paved highway that is kept clean. You get madder at a forest with a trash bag in it than at a big shopping center that is all clean and swept. “It all comes back to possessions. You want to have everything and you think that is fine as long as it is put in piles or in rooms or in boxes with labels. We don’t have very much and we leave it when we don’t want it or need it. “
“Here is something that is important to understand. When something is sacred, it does not have a price. I don’t care if it is white people talking about heaven or Indian people talking about ceremonies. If you can buy it, it isn’t sacred. And once you start to sell it, it doesn’t matter whether your reasons are good or not. You are taking what is sacred and making it ordinary."
The earth is here forever, but it will only be exactly like this on one day. Today.”
“Listen to me. We Indians don’t talk to white people much. We never have. There is a reason. White people have never listened to us when we talked. They have only heard what they wanted to hear. Sometimes they pretended to hear and made promises. Then they broke those promises. There was no more reason for us to talk. So we stopped talking. Even now, we tell our children, ‘Be careful when talking to the wasichu. They will use your words against you.’"
“In your churches there is someone at the top. In your schools, too. In your government. In your business. There is always someone at the top and that person has the right to say whether you are good or bad. They own you. “No wonder Americans always worry about freedom. You have so damn little of it. If you don’t protect it, someone will take it away from you. You have to guard it every second, like a dog guards a bone.”
Your clothes fit like cages. Your houses looked like cages. You put fences around your yards so they looked like cages. Everything was a cage. You turned the land into cages. Little squares. “Then after you had all these cages you made a government to protect these cages. And that government was all cages. All laws about what you couldn’t do. The only freedom you had was inside your own cage. Then you wondered why you weren’t happy and didn’t feel free. You made all the cages, then you wondered why you didn’t feel free."
“I wish your people would stop pushing for a while and see what you are doing. You don’t even know why you push. You just do. “You push to be richer. You push to own more things. Columbus pushed against the whole world just to see what would happen."
Als weißer Leser fühlt man sich mehr als einmal bei der Lektüre angegriffen, kann aber leider nach genauer Überlegung nur zustimmen.
Hier ein paar Stellen, die ich markierenswert fand:
“You need to understand this. We did not think we owned the land. The land was part of us. We didn’t even know about owning the land. It is like talking about owning your grandmother. You can’t own your grandmother. She just is your grandmother. Why would you talk about owning her?
“This is very important for you to understand. We thought these people were crazy. We thought we must not understand them right. What they said made no sense."
“You remember a few years ago? Some Indians decided they would rather be called Native Americans. It’s an okay name; it’s more dignified than ‘Indians.’ But it’s no more real than Indians, because to us this isn’t even America. The word ‘America’ came from some Italian who came over here after Columbus. Why should we care if we’re called Native Americans when the name is from some Italian? “It’s like if someone took over this country now and called it, say, Greenland, and then they said that those of us who were already here are going to be called Native Greenlanders. And they said they were doing this out of respect. Would you feel respected? Would you care a whole hell of a lot if they called you that or something else?"
“Owning things is what white people’s lives are about. I watch TV, and every ad I see tells me something is ‘new.’ That means I should get it because what I have is old and this is new. That’s no reason to get something, just because it’s new. Your way teaches people to want, want, want. What you have is no good. What you don’t have is new and better."
“From the first you are told, ‘This is mine, this is yours’; ‘Don’t touch that, it doesn’t belong to you.’ You are taught to keep away from things because of ownership, not because of respect. In the old days we never had locks on our doors. There was no stealing, but if someone was hungry, they could go in your house and get food. That was all. Why didn’t people take things? Because of respect. “You build fences around your yards and pay money for people to measure the ground to tell you if your neighbor’s fence is one inch too close to your house. You give nothing away unless you can get something in return. Everything is economic. “Your most powerful people don’t even hide their thinking on this. If you ask for something, they don’t ask whether you need it; they say, ‘What’s in it for me?’”
“We have to live in this world. The Europeans killed all the animals and took all our land. We can’t live our way anymore. We have to live your way. In our way, everything had its use then it went back into the earth. We had wooden bowls and cups, or things made of clay. We rode horses or walked. We made things out of the things of the earth. Then when we no longer needed it, we let it go back into the earth. “Now things don’t go back into the earth. Our kids leave pop cans around. We leave old cars around. In the old days these would be bone spoons and horn cups, and the old cars would be skeletons of horses or buffalo. We could burn them or leave them and they would go back to the earth. Now we can’t. “We are living the same way, but we are living with different things. We will learn your way, but, you see, you really don’t understand any better. All you really care about is keeping things clean. You don’t care how they really are, just so long as they are clean. You see a dirt path with a pop can next to it and you think that is worse than a big paved highway that is kept clean. You get madder at a forest with a trash bag in it than at a big shopping center that is all clean and swept. “It all comes back to possessions. You want to have everything and you think that is fine as long as it is put in piles or in rooms or in boxes with labels. We don’t have very much and we leave it when we don’t want it or need it. “
“Here is something that is important to understand. When something is sacred, it does not have a price. I don’t care if it is white people talking about heaven or Indian people talking about ceremonies. If you can buy it, it isn’t sacred. And once you start to sell it, it doesn’t matter whether your reasons are good or not. You are taking what is sacred and making it ordinary."
The earth is here forever, but it will only be exactly like this on one day. Today.”
“Listen to me. We Indians don’t talk to white people much. We never have. There is a reason. White people have never listened to us when we talked. They have only heard what they wanted to hear. Sometimes they pretended to hear and made promises. Then they broke those promises. There was no more reason for us to talk. So we stopped talking. Even now, we tell our children, ‘Be careful when talking to the wasichu. They will use your words against you.’"
“In your churches there is someone at the top. In your schools, too. In your government. In your business. There is always someone at the top and that person has the right to say whether you are good or bad. They own you. “No wonder Americans always worry about freedom. You have so damn little of it. If you don’t protect it, someone will take it away from you. You have to guard it every second, like a dog guards a bone.”
Your clothes fit like cages. Your houses looked like cages. You put fences around your yards so they looked like cages. Everything was a cage. You turned the land into cages. Little squares. “Then after you had all these cages you made a government to protect these cages. And that government was all cages. All laws about what you couldn’t do. The only freedom you had was inside your own cage. Then you wondered why you weren’t happy and didn’t feel free. You made all the cages, then you wondered why you didn’t feel free."
“I wish your people would stop pushing for a while and see what you are doing. You don’t even know why you push. You just do. “You push to be richer. You push to own more things. Columbus pushed against the whole world just to see what would happen."
July 24, 2011
i had heard good things about this book, so i went into it expecting to like it. i didn't like it at all. the prose style is adequate, but there's little to comment on in terms of its quality or voice. what i found so disturbing about this book is the author's insistence that he isn't writing this book for himself, that he isn't just one more white writer picking up on native american narratives and spiritual belief systems in order to make a name for himself. yet, he inserts himself into the story at every turn, even when other editorial choices could or should have been made. even the title refers to the author, and not to the elderly native american man whose story nerburn claims he is here to represent. there are plenty of good books out there, on related topics, authored by native american writers. pick up one of those, and skip this sham.
June 24, 2015
I love my in person book club. I really do but we have a member who loves "spiritual quests" books. I do not. I gave this book 75 long, long pages of a white man writing the thoughts of a Native American in the western Dakotas. It was full of wonderful thoughts on how tobacco was sacred, intermarrying between races and singing that was "issuing from their mouths as naturally as breath."
Even more annoying this was a second hand book read by a lover of it. Almost every sentence was underlined and there were notes all over the book that really interfered with my reading which might have been a good thing. Just not my kind of book.
Even more annoying this was a second hand book read by a lover of it. Almost every sentence was underlined and there were notes all over the book that really interfered with my reading which might have been a good thing. Just not my kind of book.
January 27, 2015
Hands down the best book I have ever read.
Ever.
And that is quite a lot of books.
This book blew me away.
I am studying Native American History so I do have a great interest in the subject matter - but even if you just want to understand life there are some amazing passages in this book.
It is one book I would and will tell everyone to read.
Ever.
And that is quite a lot of books.
This book blew me away.
I am studying Native American History so I do have a great interest in the subject matter - but even if you just want to understand life there are some amazing passages in this book.
It is one book I would and will tell everyone to read.
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