Raised in a sheltered, puritanical household in New England, Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863–1953) followed her conscience and calling in 1885 when she traveled west and opened a school on the Great Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Over the next six years she witnessed many of the monumental events that affected the Lakotas, including the inception of the Ghost Dance religion and the fallout from the Wounded Knee massacre in December 1890. She also fell in love with and married Charles Eastman, a Dakota doctor with whom she had six children, and went on to help edit his many popular books on Sioux life and culture. This biography draws on a newly discovered cache of more than one hundred letters from Elaine that were collected by one of her sisters, Rose Goodale Dayton, as well as newly discovered family correspondence and photographs. Previous books about Elaine—including her own autobiography—emphasize her work on the Sioux reservation and association with her famous husband. Access to her personal papers, however, enabled Theodore D. Sargent to shed new light on the dynamics of her thirty-year marriage to Charles and its ultimate demise, the importance of her own literary contributions during this period, and the challenges and successes of her life following their separation. The result is a long overdue multidimensional portrait of the relationships and aspirations that impelled and troubled this fascinating woman and her extraordinary life.

"It was held a distinct adventure back in the demure 1880s for a properly brought-up New England girl to open a day school in a primitive Sioux village," Elaine Goodale Eastman recalled in later years. With boundless energy and dedication she had set out to teach the white man's ways to the Sioux. The Indian women called her "little sister" as she entered wholeheartedly into village activities. She watched the emergence of the Ghost Dance religion, visited with Sitting Bull shortly before his death, and was at Pine Ridge during the last month of 1890—"a time of grim suspense." There she met her future husband, Dr. Charles Eastman, the agency physician and a mixed-blood Sioux. A short time later they shared in the heart-wrenching job of caring for the survivors of the Wounded Knee massacre.

Raised in a sheltered, puritanical household in New England, Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863?1953) followed her conscience and calling in 1885 when she traveled west and opened a school on the Great Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Over the next six years she witnessed many of the monumental events that affected the Lakotas, including the inception of the Ghost Dance religion and the fallout from the Wounded Knee massacre in December 1890. She also fell in love with and married Charles Eastman, a Dakota doctor with whom she had six children, and went on to help edit his many popular books on Sioux life and culture. ø This biography draws on a newly discovered cache of more than one hundred letters from Elaine that were collected by one of her sisters, Rose Goodale Dayton, as well as newly discovered family correspondence and photographs. Previous books about Elaine?including her own autobiography?emphasize her work on the Sioux reservation and association with her famous husband. Access to her personal papers, however, enabled Theodore D. Sargent to shed new light on the dynamics of her thirty-year marriage to Charles and its ultimate demise, the importance of her own literary contributions during this period, and the challenges and successes of her life following their separation. The result is a long overdue multidimensional portrait of the relationships and aspirations that impelled and troubled this fascinating woman and her extraordinary life.

Indian legends that are animal fables are retold in more fragmented versions. They give the basis of Indian philosophy and understanding of how the child's mind is developed.

In this "brave and good book which shatters bad myths" (Commonweal), McNeill shows that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality, and argues that the Church must not continue its homophobic practices.

The importance of Eastman's life story was reiterated for a new generation when the 2007 HBO film entitled Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee used Eastman, played by Adam Beach, as its leading hero. This book presents an account of the American Indian experience as seen through the eyes of the author.