From the Deep Woods to Civilization: Chapters in the Autobiography of an Indian Book

The author's father was arrested, along with dozens of others, after the 1862 Indian revolt in Minnesota, and was presumed executed. The boy was raised by his grandmother and uncle among a band of Sioux that had fled across the Canada line. When he was a teenager, his father (who had been pardoned by Lincoln and converted to Christianity) unexpectedly returned for him and brought him to his Dakota homestead. He sent him to the white man's school to learn to read and write.

Ohiyesa, who now went by the name Charles Eastman, wasn't at all sure about this radical change of life. His father, convinced that the time of the Indians was irrevocably passing, encouraged him to apply himself to studying the white man's knowledge and culture:

When you see a new trail, or a footprint that you do not know, follow it to the point of knowing… The way of knowledge is like our old way of hunting. You begin with a mere trail - a footprint. If you follow that faithfully, it may lead you to a clearer trail - a track - a road. Later on there will be many tracks, crossing and diverging one from the other. Then you must be careful, for success lies in the choice of the right road.

Eastman went on, eventually, to Dartmouth and became a doctor. He returned to Pine Ridge, married, and was present to tend the injured at Wounded Knee. He went on in later life to become a touring lecturer and an advocate for Native American rights and the reconciliation of Indian and white culture.

As was inevitable, Eastman was criticized from both sides over the years. Whites accused him of smoothing over some of the less savory aspects of Sioux life (torture of enemies, ritual self-mutilation, eating of dogs, etc.). Native Americans accused him of selling out to white culture and religion, and of looking down his nose at his own people.

As it usually proves to be, the truth was something more complex. For all the simplicity of Eastman's style, the subtleties of his own perspective and character come through in this book. He was a man who wanted to belong to both cultures equally, not to divorce himself from either. He wanted to hold each to its own highest standards. He saw the tracks confusedly crossing and re-crossing, like his father had warned, but believed in a point of convergence, though it always seemed to recede before him.

I read the Lakeside Press edition which includes select chapters from Eastman's Indian Boyhood too. Since Deep Woods only picks up where Indian Boyhood leaves off, I recommend both.