BOOKS - Spirit Beings and Sun Dancers
S-1 -2
Black Hawk's Vision of the Lakota World. 2000. By Janet Catherine Berlo; Introductory Note by Eugene V. Thaw; Forward by Arthur Amiotte.
Charles Sinclair brought a copy of this volume by when he brought the April 2025 painted bison robe (see below) to me. 3 hours later I looked up from this scrupulously honest book. Then I started searching for available copies to add here. Wow.
Both Thaw and Amiotte are worth studying themselves; their depth of knowledge of this subject - Native/Lakota ledger art itself is it's own book.
I was not directly aware of Black Hawk, the chief medicine man of Sans Arc Lakota band in the mid to late 1880's. Not many records of this time and this band/tribe survived ... but Black Hawk's ledgerbook did. That history, too, is a story unto itself.
As The Ledger book of Thomas Blue Eagle may have introduced many of you to native ledger art, this 189 page work will give depth, meaning and substance to the subject. Truly, I could not get my eyes away (and the grass finally did need mowing, dang it!).
And similarly to the Blue Eagle book, the actual cover, under the dust jacket, mimics the original Black Hawk ledgerbook.
Originally published at $65. (and it was worth it!)
Below, on the lower part of this April, 2025 hide, are some of the interpretations of Black Hawk's ledger art Charles put on the robe.
