Set in a Sioux Indian reservation, The Grass Dancer weaves back and forth through time from the 1860's to the 1980's, with the unrequited love of Ghost Horse and the beautiful warrior woman Red Dress shaping the fates of their descendants.

Descriptions of the dances, costumes, body decorations, and musical accompaniment supplement information on the cultural background of Indian dancing

Initially published in 1982 in the Smithsonian Folklife Series, Thomas Vennum's The Ojibwa Dance Drum is widely recognized as a significant ethnography of woodland Indians.-From the afterword by Rick St. Germaine

Assembles information on and photographs of the shirts, robes, moccasins, headdresses, and ceremonial clothing of various Plains Indian tribes, illuminating their history and culture

The intertribal pow-wow is the most widespread venue for traditional Indian music and dance in North America. Heartbeat of the People is an insider's journey into the dances and music, the traditions and regalia, and the functions and significance of these vital cultural events. Tara Browner focuses on the Northern pow-wow of the northern Great Plains and Great Lakes to investigate the underlying tribal and regional frameworks that reinforce personal tribal affiliations. Interviews with dancers and her own participation in pow-wow events and community provide fascinating on-the-ground accounts and provide detail to a rare ethnomusicological analysis of Northern music and dance.

"An inside view of the Lakota world-of the meaning of Lakota song and dance, of their history, of what it is to be Lakota in America today. . . . A lasting personal tribute to the Lakota way of living."-Whole Earth Review. "A unique, in-depth presentation on Lakota music and the profession of singer, a useful contemporary Oglala representation of the core of their culture, and a version of the involvement of the American Indian Movement on Pine Ridge Reservation, told by a man who was affiliated but not a principal leader. . . . This is a subjective statement, well and persuasively written."-Choice. Severt Young Bear stood in the light-in the center ring at powwows and other gatherings of Lakota people. As founder and, for many years, lead singer of the Porcupine Singers, a traditional singing and drumming group, he also stood, figuratively, in the light of understanding the cherished Lakota heritage. Young Bear's own life in Brotherhood Community, Porcupine District of the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation, is the linchpin of this narrative, which ranges across the landscape of Dakota culture, from the significance of names to the search for modern Lakota identity, from Lakota oral traditions to powwows and giveaways, from child-rearing practices to humor and leadership. "Music is at the center of Lakota life, " says Young Bear; he describes in rich detail the origins and varieties of Lakota song and dance. Severt Young Bear performed with the Porcupine Singers throughout North America, taught at Oglala Lakota College, and served on the Oglala Sioux tribal council. He was music and dance consultant for the films Dances with Wolves and Thunder Heart. This book is the fruit of his longfriendship and collaboration with R. D. Theisz, a fellow Porcupine Singer and professor of communications and education at Black Hills State University.