No social or legal definition of “Indian” exists in the United States. Yet, 10 to 20 million U. S. citizens may have Indian ancestry. Few identify themselves as such. Nevertheless, an uncounted number of “mixed-bloods” struggle to capture their place on the American landscape of who and what an Indian is. This book is written with such folks in mind. The author, both Indian and white, settles comfortably on his Nakota/Lakota heritage. This arrangement was arrived at after his rearing by a Sioux mother, a lifetime of hearing oral history, and five years of research on this book.

In Search of Spirit is the saga of a transposed people surviving the upheavals of the western expansion across the American Plains. Generational players of Chiefs and scoundrels move across the western panorama of the 1800s, ending with the author’s mother who would protect her children from the same trail of fateful challenges that she discovered on her life’s journey. Her path searched for ways of maintaining traditional values and a world view which was earlier recast brutally in a white Christian mold. A distinctive cast of characters take the reader to a deeper understanding of the tribal losses and the individual survival spirit of a Sioux family.

Especially for the reader who has asked the question, “who is an Indian,” this book provides historical perspective, cultural clarification, a time-line of historical changes, and inspirational examples of survival. For many, the spiritual struggle of walking in two worlds is as needed today as it was in the past.

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