My Indian Boyhood

Classic memoir of life, experience, and education of a Lakota child in the late 1800s.

Luther Standing Bear, born in the 1860s, describes his traditional childhood as part of the Western Sioux tribe in modern-day North and South Dakota.

A full-blooded Sioux Indian describes his childhood experiences and training as a warrior in the 1870's and 1880's until he was taken to live in the white man's world at age fifteen.

From New York Times bestselling author Sherman Alexie and Caldecott Honor winning Yuyi Morales comes a striking and beautifully illustrated picture book celebrating the special relationship between father and son. Thunder Boy Jr. wants a normal name...one that's all his own. Dad is known as big Thunder, but little thunder doesn't want to share a name. He wants a name that celebrates something cool he's done like Touch the Clouds, Not Afraid of Ten Thousand Teeth, or Full of Wonder. But just when Little Thunder thinks all hope is lost, dad picks the best name...Lightning! Their love will be loud and bright, and together they will light up the sky.

Standing Bear's dismay at the condition of his people, when after sixteen years' absence he returned to the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation, may well have served as a catalyst for the writing of this book, first published in 1933. In addition to describing the customs, manners, and traditions of the Teton Sioux, Standing Bear also offered more general comments about the importance of native cultures and values and the status of Indian people in American society. Standing Bear sought to tell the white man just how his Indians lived. His book, generously interspersed with personal reminiscences and anecdotes, includes chapters on child rearing, social and political organization, the family, religion, and manhood. Standing Bear's views on Indian affairs and his suggestions for the improvement of white-Indian relations are presented in the two closing chapters.

My Indian Boyhood is a classic memoir of life, experience and education of a Lakota child in the late 1800s. Author's wish was to to educate the public about Lakota culture and to challenge government policies toward Native Americans by presenting his personal life story. Luther Standing Bear was a Sicangu and Oglala Lakota chief notable in history as a Native American author, educator, philosopher, and actor of the twentieth century. Standing Bear fought to preserve Lakota heritage and sovereignty; he was at the forefront of a Progressive movement to change government policy toward Native Americans.

A Loving Tribute To A Unique Upbringing When Stephen Alter Is Asked The Simple Question Where Are You From, Originally? He Hesitates. Although He Is In Almost Every Way An American-Granted With A Trace Of British Accent-He Has An Unexpected Reply: My Real Home Was In India, A Hill Station Called Mussoorie, Seven And A Half Thousand Feet Up The Himalayas. That Was Where I Was Born And Raised, In A Section Known As Landour... It Is A Landscape, And A Time, That Haunts Him Still: I Miss The Place Itself; The Mountains, The View Of The High Himalayas Beyond Mussoorie, Stretching All The Way To Heaven. The Son And Grandson Of Presbytarian Missionaries Living In India For More Than Half A Century, Every Day Alter Straddled The Profound Boundary Between Utterly Different Peoples, Cultures, Languages And Religions. He And His Brothers Spoke A Pidgin Dialect Of Hindustani And English As Young Boys, Fished In The Rivers Song, Ganga And The Jumna, And Later Hunted For Barking Deer And Ghoral In The Steep Foothills Of The Mountains Always Looming Behind Them. They Studied American History But Knew More About India'S Recent Independence From England. In All The Way To Heaven, Alter Writes Affectionately Of His Family, His Indian Friends And His Memories Exotic And Mundane.

" ... [The book] is just a message to the white race; to bring my people before their eyes in a true and authentic manner ..."--Preface.

The celebrated writer reminisces about his boyhood in Michigan at the turn of the century.

An effort by a Native American to explain the content and attraction of Indian spirituality, concluding that Christianity and civilization are ultimately incompatible concepts.