I adored this book, because I left Sioux Falls, my birthplace, when I was only one and a half. When I read this book, I learned so much about where I was from and it helped me choose where I am going to visit when I go with my family on a trip all over South Dakota! This book is for all South Dakotans!

This guide to quillwork and its counterpart beadwork was originally published in the 1940s for the U.S. Dept. of Indian Affairs, and sees new light today thanks to Dover. Craftspeople of all kinds will find Sioux Quill And Beadwork Designs And Techniques begins with a short history of Sioux art and patterns to quickly move into the specifics of creating and sewing quills and using beadwork techniques adapted for Sioux designs. A special guide to a very specific art.

This is the story of the contact and trade teams of Earth.

A much larger and more powerful empire of the stars have to death with outward diplomacy. But is there a silent conspiracy from inside the trade agency. Is it for or against the will of Earth.

A good tale that compares cultures of different worlds and their similarities to Earth

Ilove this book so much that I bought it. I appreciate how the book talks about the Native Americans side.You find out that the white men were doing the wrong. The Indians had a very wonderful life that didn't need gold,money, perfume just natural resources. I reccomend it.

Winter Counts were the historical calendars of the Sioux Nation. An historian, appointed by the tribe, drew one pictograph on a buffalo or deer skin at the end of each winter season. The Big Missouri Winter Count is housed in the Sioux Museum in Rapid City, South Dakota and is one of the best preserved of all these Native American calendars. This winter count calendar commemorates 131 years (1796 to 1926) in the lives of the Sioux bands who lived along the Missouri River, spanning a century which brought devastating changes for them. Sioux Winter Count: A 131-year Calendar Of Events is a superbly produced, informative study of that calendar and will prove to be of immense interest to students of Native American culture in general, and the Sioux Nation in particular.

Sarah Wakefield, being an educated doctor's wife in 1862, had a lot more than many of the people who lived through the 1862 Uprising/Conflict, she was able to relate in a logical way what happened to her, without anger. She tells of the way she and her children were taken care of by Chaska and his family. How their lives were spared because of the Dakota family. Her words show another side of the story, how whites were saved by the Dakota. When many were saying they had been abused, Sarah told of care. When Chaska was hanged on 26th December she was understandably distressed, here was her saviour, who she had promised would be spared as she was, dead, through a quirk of fate. In 1997, I and another woman working on a Native American Committee to honor the dead of the conflict in Minnesota wrote to President Clinton asking for a pardon for Chaska, on Sarah Wakefield's behalf. Chaska's name should be cleared. It has been 136 years and he is still known as a man who abused women and children during a six week war. Read this story and if you feel the same way, please write to the President as well. Chaska saved Sarah's life, his name should at least be cleared of wrongdoing.Thank you.

I'm a 911 dispatcher. I'm also an EMT with a volunteer ambulance service. This was one of those disasters that my community knows "could happen", but thinks never will. I have used the Sioux City rescue response and their training and example to my fellow emergency workers quite often. As always, there were chincks in the armor, but it was the epitome of a rescue.

On a personal note, this book helped me more than words can express with PTSD -- post traumatic stress disorder. Thank you, Emily & Pam for sharing your stories.

This book is fabulous in that in that it not only charts the tour sites of the Great Sioux was with excellent maps, directions and fantastic pictures but also provides excellent mini-histories on what occurred at each site including bios on the main participants. Just reading this book gives you a good historical perspective for the great plains war with chapters that categorize the historical sites by period starting with the Gratten marker in Wyoming. The Gratten monument was for a Lt. and his company that threatened Conquering Bear's village over the alleged theft of a cow resulting in his death and his companies (1856). This book proceeds with sites and histories flowing the Red Cloud War of 1866, through the Little Bighorn Campaign period and aftermath, the summer and winter campaigns. Also includes historical sites after 1877 such as sitting Bull's Canadian sites with descriptions of the sites and pictures. Hedren covers every major historical site from old forts, some of which have been reconstructed and some have actual structures that he describes and has pictures of. You can virtually follow the expeditions of the army or find exact locations of significant village sites. This book adds an extra dimension to any trip as Hedren shows you additional sites, some obscure, right next door to the more publicized sites. A great example is Little Bighorn, just 30 miles away is the pristine Rosebud Battlefield site where Crook encountered the Sioux and Cheyenne in a desperate and critical battle a week before Custer. In addition, the Powder River Battlefield where Crook's forces struck first but lost the initiative in March is just further west of the Rosebud Battlefield. This book provides so much information and easy directions including those that are on private property (includes caution to seek permission) that an adventurous traveler can seemingly so it all in a long week but perhaps two. The book's pictures are better than many books that are dedicated to a specific battle. The pictures of the massive Bear Butte Mountain are incredible as its mass is seen along a flat plain. The also book includes pictures of the main participants and their places of rest. A book that Walter Camp would be proud of as he documented many of these sites almost 100 years ago before they were lost to obscurity. I wish I had this book when I visited the Little Bighorn two years ago; however, there is so much great information I would have had to stay west another week.

A true mystic's view, inspired by his subconscious, this rhymed couplet volume of five songs shows the process of the take over of the Native American lands. This recital of the facts and details of the westward expansion focuses on five distinct times, commencing with the Ashley-Henry expedition and culminating with the Native American "Ghost Dancers" attempt to return their lands to the people as a whole, rather than to individuals or companies.

Neihardt neither praises nor condemns the expansion itself but shows how it occurred, warts and all. While sympathetic to the Native American cause, Neihardt judges neither the white man nor the Plains folk.

Neihardt praises the beauty of the human form, spirit and tenacity. He sees the beauty underneath the blemishes that are all too obvious. He shows the power of perseverence in his song of Hugh Glass. He shows the love and jealousy of two men in the shooting of the cup. He shows the Native American subjugation through religion as no other writer could.

His simple rhyming couplets that extend for five full length books, reveal the mystical relationship Neihardt had not only with Native Americans but also with the Earth and all of her denizens.

From his early days as a Kansas farm boy to his later years as a professor of literature, Neihardt has sustained this objective but sympathetic view from the Native American's eyes.

Only John Gneisenau Neihardt could hear the songs from the Wind, the Earth, the Moon, the Sun, the Spirits of the Fathers and Grandfathers that went before and then place them on paper, for those who cared to listen, to hear them.

This compendium of information, data, insight and welt geist is not only accurate in detail but is also related in a gracious flowing poetry that, while beautiful on the page, also sings on the lips of the intuitive aloud reader.

This book was recommended to me for its wonderfully sensitive portrayal of the Sioux people as living, culturally alive, reaching for the fullness of their possibilities. It was suggested that other Native American tribes should consider creating a similar self-portrait. I have been very much impressed by the content and quality of this work.