Indian Boyhood

In 1858, a boy named Ohiyesa is born into a world that is already beginning to disappear. This is his memory of growing up Sioux: the deep forests of Minnesota where his family winters, the golden grasslands of Dakota territory where they hunt buffalo in summer, the pony that becomes his brother, the elders whose stories hold centuries of wisdom. Charles Eastman writes with aching clarity about a childhood saturated with danger and delight in equal measure. He learns to track deer through snow, to ride bareback across open prairie, to fast until visions come. He listens as his grandmother tells stories that have been passed down for generations. This is not nostalgia it is testimony. Eastman wrote this book in English for a white audience, yet its heart remains entirely Indigenous: it is a record of everything that was lost, and a fierce celebration of how fully a child can belong to the earth.