This is one of the most important books I've encountered. It sheds light on a little-known culture, but even more important, it helps the reader learn how to go about beginning to try to understand people from a different culture; a skill that very few people seem to possess today. This autobiography may even shed light on the origin of what many philosophers such as Aldous Huxley, George Orwell (née Eric Blair), and Daniel Quinn seem to consider as the current monotonically downward spiral of North American culture into oblivion.

The author was born in 01858 a native North American of the Sioux Nation of the clan of the Wah'petons or "Dwellers among the Leaves." Then living in the southern region of what is now known as Manitoba, the book opens with the 15 year-old author reflecting: "From childhood I was consciously trained to be a man; that was, after all, the basic thing; but after this I was trained to be a warrior and a hunter, and not to care for money or possessions, but TO BE IN THE BROADEST SENSE A PUBLIC SERVANT." (emphasis added by reviewer)

The author's father---who had been thought by his tribe to have been killed by European colonists in The Sioux Wars fought between 01854 and 01890---had actually been a prisoner of war for years. As such, he had been converted by missionaries from his native religion (that honored the "Great Mystery"; author's quotes) to Christianity.

In the autumn of his fifteenth year of life the author's father returned to the tribe to ask his son to come live in the European colonists' "civilization" in Flandreau, South Dakota with him. After deep introspection, the author complied with his father's wishes and ultimately completed a European-American style formal education and became a New England physician. "Eastman first attended Beloit College and Knox colleges; he graduated from Dartmouth College in 1887. He went on to medical school at Boston University, where he graduated in 1889 and was among the first Native Americans to be certified as a European-style doctor." [wikipedia]

Having been a member of Sioux culture for his first 15 years and afterward having been a member of European-American culture for the rest of his life, Dr. Eastman was in a rare position to be able to write from first-hand experience about the positive and negative values of both cultures.

This is a "must-read" book.