Choteau Creek: A Sioux Reminiscence - Softcover

Joseph Iron Eye Dudley (Iron Eye is his ancestral family name, which he has reclaimed) is a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe and an ordained United Methodist minister. He frequently lectures and gives workshops on topics such as racism, intercultural relations, and Native American spirituality.

A warm, poignant evocation by Methodist minister Dudley of a childhood spent on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, secure in the home of his grandparents, from whom he received a legacy of love as well as stories of his people and their world. Beginning in 1948, when at age eight he was separated from his brother and sister, Dudley recalls the first Christmas spent alone with his elderly grandparents in their battered three-room house. Impoverished though they were, the couple's affection for one another meant a generally harmonious household, with daily rituals including the grandfather bringing a morning cup of coffee to his wife in bed. Their relative isolation meant hardships as well, but they still were part of a community, so when both elders were hospitalized briefly, a friend came to stay with the child, and Dudley's grandmother was able to practice Christian charity in turn by visiting a young man on his deathbed. An Episcopalian for whom prayer at home required family participation, the elderly woman also recalled vividly for her grandson the last Ghost Dance held on the reservation, which she attended as a child. Her faith was her strength as cataracts obscured her vision, and, as he matured, that faith helped the author to understand the importance of religion in his own life. Even through difficult teenage years in which he had to care for his grandparents in their increasing infirmity while attending a distant high school, Dudley found that his grandparents' presence and stories offered a sustaining sense of continuity and belonging. Tender but honest--a memorable family portrait in which the everyday merges with distinctive elements of a Sioux heritage, with the delicate innocence of youth fully retained. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.