Ed McGaa (1936–2017)

It's unsettling to read something published 25 years ago and to feel how our communal viewpoints have shifted and not shifted. Ed McGaa (Eagle Man) writes very honestly. I could feel this book is coming out of a culture foreign to me, and yet shaped by the same cultural institutions. It is primarily a spiritual book written by a Marine, lawyer, professor and tribal leader with a voice clearly Indian.
I am now paying closer attention to Standing Rock; this text is surely background to that phenomena.
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Another in a string of books I've read dealing with Lakota ceremonies from a Native American viewpoint. Written as fiction but knowing that McGaa was a Marine fighter pilot during the Vietnam War makes me wonder how much of his own history (or wish fulfillment) he put into Kyle, the main character. Definitely written for men, with its periodic focus on machines/planes and ogling women, but no more focus on sex than your average bodice-ripper.
Follows Kyle Charging Shield's experiences from Catholic boarding school as a child to Vietnam pilot to Sundancer. Includes synchronistic experiences of himself as an Eagle and a Meadowlark/Eagle mate, and interpretation of events a presaging future events. Gives full description of Kyle's first experiences in yuwipi, sweat lodge, sundance, and vision fast ceremonies. Tied in to the recounting of a life is a mystical mission to fight the Blue Man, known to the holy men as a potent force disrupting the harmony of the people.
It was very interesting to read the inclusion of real holy men, e.g. Catches (see Pete Catches' memoir & teachings in Sacred Fireplace: Oceti Wakan) and Fools Crow (see Thomas Mails' biography based on interviews of him). And to read the experience of students in a school run by Father Buchwald, who seems to have been modeled after Rev Eugene Buechel, S.J., the compiler of a Lakota dictionary.… (mehr)