Lakota Belief and Ritual

It was a strong attempt at saving a culture

Lakota Belief and Ritual is a book rich in oral history. It was recorded at the a time when there were First Nations members who had the personal experiences of a lifetime and whose tradition was an oral tradition. Dr. Walker (a physician and anthropologist) collected and preserved this oral history in the face of the destruction of most First Nation's cultures through the intervention of the European cultures.The narratives are all excellent and there are 90 + documents containing those first-person narratives along with several photographs.The Bison Books edition has an extensive (and very valuable) series of appendices, including an extensive (modern) bibliography.The original Walker papers (or the majority, at any rate) are now part of the Colorado Historical Society collection.A first rate piece of work by the editors, DeMallie & Jahner, working from the primary materials created and preserved by Dr. Walker and his family.An invaluable work. This book -or at least excerpts- should be part of any text on U.S. History. The inclusion of First Nations culture in our textbooks is rare, indeed.

Book arrived on time and in great condition. The price is great. A very good educational book. I will be purchasing more from this company.

I am a serious student of Native American spirituality. I find this to be an excellent resource because it is based in documents actually created by Native Americans. The book is indexed, which I find a definite asset to any serious book I purchase. I also recommend any of the papers written by John G. Neihardt, and in particular The Sixth Grandfather:Black Elk's Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt (1984, a Bison Book) Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions (Enriched Classics)Between Earth & Sky: Legends of Native American Sacred Places365 Days of Walking the Red Road: The Native American Path to Leading a Spiritual Life Every Day [365 DAYS OF WALKING THE RED RO ] Rainbow Tribe: Ordinary People Journeying on the Red Road

In my obsession to learn about the Lakhota culture, I have read many books on the subject. I have just read The 6th Grandfather, now I am finishing Walker's book. Between these two books one can get a feeling and understanding of the Lakhota culture. I've always felt that instead of forcing "civilization" down the Native American throats, The Washichuns should have paid more attention to the beliefs of the Indians. Why are Christians myths any more valid than those of all other cultures? Shunghilaska imachiyapi

I used this product to inform myself about some important historical understandings of native traditions. The descriptions of Walker, his work, the front piece situating the work was very helpful. The original research was stellar in anthropological importance.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Though the subject matter is largely based on Native American folklore, the lessons are very important and relevant in the context of current American society.

This contains a great deal of information now lost to many Lakota people and as such is helpful in reconstructing heritage and culture. Unfortunately it was not written in the Lakota language and must be read with an open mind and should be verified where problematic with a Lakota elder in order to capture the Truth within the text from a spiritual perspective.

This is a publication of all the input judged to be most significant by the editorial panel, that was received by James R Walker MD from his training as a Medicine Man by the old men of the Lakota (1896 - 1914). James sort out this training so as to make his medical practice as acceptable as possible to the Lakota in order to have the best chance to control disease upon the largest reservation on the Plains. In time it became an anthropological study and went on to inform his own Spiritual practices.This second edition (like the first edition of the Bison publication) is purely in English and reflects the phonetic input from the old men as the editorial panel believe James R Walker to have understood it. Usefully the panel point out consistent errors in the way James R Walker heard the Lakota language, for example he consistently failed to hear a difference between nasalisation and other forms of Lakota pronunciation, but then in the preface go on to regret that beyond gross error they only focused on what James R Walker thought the input that he received to mean, rather than also taking a view on what they believed the Lakota informants to have meant. None the less the input collated in the book includes that material collected independently by a native speaker so some cross-comparison can be made between the material directly collected by James R Walker and that collected by an intermediary informant.Something that neither James R Walker nor the editorial panel appear to have understood is how compact a form some First Nation language can present. Concepts not presented in the verbose manner of the Greek and Roman styles were therefore dismissed as fragmentary, as opposed to being recognised as pivotal and were not included in this volume. There were however four volumes planned and some of the 'fragmentary' notes were included in the second and third volumes that had been published by 1991. I am currently unsure if the planned fourth volume ever made it into print.What makes this 4 stars rather than 5 for me is that I would have wanted to have seen transcripts of the original phonetic notes alongside the English translation. I would also have wanted not only the corrections of gross error, but the view of the editorial panel concerning what they thought the Lakota old men meant (along with their reasoning) as opposed to what James R Walker heard. None the less, since the volume also includes independently recorded material by an intermediary who had a better grasp upon the Lakota language, some cross-comparison can still be done on the basis of this work.It is useful that this volume does set out the baseline of what James R Walker thought he was being taught, from the evidence as he received it. It would have been even better if the intended meaning of the interactions from the witnesses had also been a focus of discussion. By this second edition the editorial panel were beginning to wish they had done more with the time allotted to them, but the research funding would at that stage no longer support such an expanded view.There is still therefore a task to be performed to go back into the James R Walker archive and through comparative analysis of all primary views of Lakota Ritual and Belief, recorded by James R Walker and later scholars, to take a view on what the primary informants of James R Walker might actually have said and what they may have meant by it. This could then be set alongside subsequent published synthesis by James R Walker and others to illustrate differences between Lakota Ritual and Belief as it was remembered and interpreted in the context of the situation in the Reservation in 1896 - 1914 and how misunderstandings have to some extent been mainstreamed into Neo-Lakota practices concerning ritual and belief and what a form more true to the sense of foundation in belief of the Old men of the tribe in 1896 - 1914 could perhaps come to look like now. That would be a mighty task and take many Councils to properly shape.

Lovely ook

Allerdings muss der Leser sehr gut Englisch können, um die Zusammenhänge und einzelne Passagen des Buches zu verstehen. Ansonsten war es für mich genau richtig. Das Buch gibt auch über den Autor eine gute Biographie her. Seine Erklärungen zu Personen und ihrem Leben sind kurz aber gut. Das Buch ist übersichtlich und gut unterteilt. Für mich ein "Must Have"