Reviewed by Timothy White. Reprinted from Shaman's Drum, Number 68.
Although Keeping Heart on Pine Ridge doesn’t focus directly on shamanic themes, this anthology of twenty-four slice-of-life essays by Vic Glover should appeal to any reader who has participated in Native American spiritual ceremonies, and should be a must read for anyone who has ever visited—or contemplated visiting—the Pine Ridge “Rez.” Glover, a Pine Ridge resident, humorist, and journalist, describes in an unpretentious, impressionistic style the ups and downs of daily life on one of the financially poorest reservations in North America. A sampling of his chapter titles—“Jesus on the Rez,” “Tree Day,” “At the Dance,” “Going After Commods,” “Medicine Family,” “Lynette’s M
emorial,” “Rez Dogs,” “Uncle Joe is Always Operating on Indian Time,” “Larue’s Hanblecheya Song,” “Sun Dance Fever,” “When a Strange Cat Comes to Your House, Spit on It Twice,” and “Armageddon Didn’t Happen Yet”—hint at his subject matter, but the book is ultimately a humble thank-you note to the Creator for helping The People survive on the rez.Writing from “a paradisiacal writer’s retreat disguised as a tar-paper drinker’s shack,” Glover deftly wields contemporary “rez” language like a paintbrush-scalpel, probing the humor, values, emotions, perseverance, and resilience of his people in an empathetic, no-holds-barred way that no outsider would ever get away with. His seemingly rambling style intersperses tidbits of wisdom alongside sarcastic jabs and humorous asides that kept this reviewer reading from cover to cover. Unfortunately, trying to convey the down-to-earth style of his writing in a few short quotes is as tricky as walking through a field of Pine Ridge “red-mud gumbo”—no matter how hard you try to keep the quotes short, his descriptions seem to stick together in large lumps, as if everything was related.
In the process of relating stories about the Lakota sweat lodge, Sun Dance, and peyote ceremonies, juxtaposed against the nitty-gritty details of surviving on commodity foods and dealing with deadly car accidents, Glover shows how the spirituality of the Lakota people is rooted not just in their ceremonies but in their daily life. In one essay, “Generosity,” he writes about the fundamental role of the Sun Dance in Lakota culture: “In addition to [dancing for] The People, we’re in there for ourselves … and our families. And then we realize just how big our family really is. And then after the dance is over, one’s load may get heavier. You’ve got 361 days to keep on dancing through life. Our daily walk is our dance.” Then he draws a direct comparison that goes to the heart of the Sun Dance: “That’s why that buffalo skull is on the altar. Like Jesus, the Creator sent that buffalo to The People to take care of their needs. And like Jesus, that buffalo is a giveaway, laid down its life … gave its flesh and blood so The People could live. That’s why it’s considered sacred. That’s why it’s on the altar.”
Glover doesn’t shy away from tackling controversial or politically sensitive issues. In one essay, “People Rolling Through,” he pokes fun at naive outsiders who bring their baggage to the rez: “You see a lot of people rolling through this reservation. They come here with various motives. Some want to see if we still live in tipis. Some want to ‘help the Indians.’ Some want an Indian name. Some want to be adopted into the tribe. Some just want to take some photographs.… Some people want to come to ceremonies, while others want to go to the casino. Some want to eat peyote, and others want to smoke a ‘peace pipe.’ Some are looking for a medicine man, and some are looking for Indian artwork.” Then he adds, “There’s one thing these folks all have in common—they want something.”
Glover certainly doesn’t mince words when it comes to spinning stories of outsiders visiting the rez—like the time a young man from California showed up at the Rosebud Reservation looking for a peyote meeting, after eating half a sack of magic mushrooms. Apparently due to Native tolerance and the fact that he was entertaining the little kids, the locals allowed him into a meeting, although someone eventually said, “Don’t give that guy any more peyote.” The following day, the young fellow moved over to Pine Ridge, where he began babbling nonstop—as Glover puts it, “I mean non-freaking-stop—incoherent, disconnected, stream-of-consciousness, sometimes hilarious, off-the-top-of-his-head nonsense.” Instead of calling the cops, the rez boys decided to take him into the sweat lodge—“in hopes of bringing him back down to earth.” But, as Glover adds, “Didn’t work. We realized that when he went scrambling over the hot rocks and out the door at the end of the first round. ‘I gotta get outta here!’ he exclaimed after being restrained on his first two attempts by the two guys who were sitting beside him. His brains was still cookin’.”
Without calling undue attention to the educational content of his stories, Glover tosses in this comment about the purposes of Lakota humor: “A good story or good joke never gets old around here. It’s told repeatedly, usually teasingly, often distorted and stretched, in the presence of the person at whom it’s aimed. You’re not supposed to get uptight or take offense. You listen and laugh right along with everyone else. If you try to explain that that’s not the way it went, or if you get upset, you … just … don’t … get it.” Then, for those who don’t get the point, he offers a more explicit story: “The people around here are mostly tolerant and receptive, but some will tell you straightforward, like a lady friend who said, ‘Get the fuck out of here,’ to that Rainbow chick who materialized at a Sun Dance, claiming the ‘Cosmic Eye’ had sent her and that Crazy Horse had appeared in her dream.” As Glover comments, “I didn’t know Crazy Horse had so many incarnations.… All of ‘em white people, so far as I’ve met. That’s okay. Indians believe in dreams. A friend came by the other night and said, ‘Let’s go to the casino. I dreamed I lined up three red sevens on the double diamonds.’”
While quite willing to tease outsiders, Glover doesn’t shy away from scrutinizing his own people’s struggles and attitudes. In a poignant essay, “Hospitals, Ceremonies, and Cemeteries,” he addresses the high mortality rate on the reservation: “The daughter of another relative was brain-dead after a car wreck, they said, so they pulled the plug. Another cousin was diagnosed with cancer, and somebody else associated with the family up and died of a heart attack at thirty-some years old. And then the daughter of ‘Grandma Celeste’ also died of a heart attack.” As Glover points out, when disasters strike in Indian Country, it prompts all sorts of speculation about the cause-effect relationships: “This spirit did this, and that spirit did that, and this happened because that person didn’t do something just right … or that person from the grave is putting some kind of mojo on us.” Glover comments, “Well, if it’s that spirit of that guy who died along the creek ten or fifteen years ago, what about ignoring a doctor’s advice to stop smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee? And what about a lifetime of commodities, fry bread, and tanega [cow intestines]?”
Interwoven through the stories of daily and ceremonial life are miscellaneous comments about ceremonial issues that may be of interest to our readers. For example, regarding the issue of ceremonial traditions, he writes: “So now, you’ve got all these things going on … women piercing … Dances run like ‘a three-ring-circus,’ everybody says … white folks dancing and carrying pipes … and a lot of stuff that’s not ‘traditional,’ whatever that means to the Cherokee princess. It’s okay over there … but not okay over there. People bitch about it, or accept it. Can everybody be right?” Stating that it probably “don’tmattertojesus,” as one of his elders used to say, Glover suggests that the important thing is to keep doing the ceremonies.
Glover also respectfully addresses both sides of the continuing debate over non-Natives participating in Sun Dances. On the one hand, he acknowledges, “The Lakota claim ownership of the Sun Dance, although other tribes across the North American continent are said to have practiced it. The Lakota say it was theirs, and perhaps rightly so, for here, the language and ceremonies and customs remained intact when others were snuffed out and paved over by American culture.” On the other hand, he reports: “Others will openly invite anyone to participate and pray with us. ‘I see white brothers and sisters out there shedding their flesh and blood,’ said Milo Yellow Hair one day during a discussion on the topic of white participation. ‘Inside the arbor, the Creator doesn’t recognize color.’”
Appreciative of White visitors, such as writer-builder Steve Chappel’s crew, who constructed greenhouses and a field office for the Slim Buttes community, and a group from The Farm who built a kitchen extension, Glover asks rhetorically, “What can indigenous people offer those who bring their energy, skills, and resources to the reservation?” He answers, with typical Lakota generosity, that all his people have left to share is their ceremonies. “Like your last food in the house, it is put out for The People, saying, ‘This is all I’ve got to offer.’”
One of the reasons that I recommend this book—beyond its entertainment value—is that it offers an honest but nonconfrontational portrait of contemporary Native beliefs and perspectives on the reservations, as well as positive examples showing how the wounds between Native and non-Native people can be healed. Glover’s humorous accounts of life on the Pine Ridge Reservation carry teachings that could start the healing—laughter has always been a healing medicine, and hopefully many Natives and non-Natives will find comfort as they chuckle along with his stories.
Timothy White is editor of Shaman’s Drum.
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