For centuries, a persistent and important component of Lakota religious life has been the Inipi, the ritual of the sweat lodge. The sweat lodge has changed little in appearance since its first recorded description in the late seventeenth century. The ritual itself consists of songs, prayers, and other actions conducted in a tightly enclosed, dark, and extremely hot environment. Participants who sweat together experience moral strengthening, physical healing, and the renewal of social and cultural bonds. Today, the sweat lodge ritual continues to be a vital part of Lakota religion. It...

Dakota Cross-Bearer is the story of Harold S. Jones, a Dakota Indian born in 1909 and raised on the Santee Reservation in Nebraska, who rose through the ranks of the Episcopal Church to become the first Native bishop of a Christian church. Jones's biography sheds light on the importance of Christianity for the Dakotas and other Native peoples during the twentieth century. His story yields insights into the history of twentieth-century missionary activity among Native communities and illuminates instances of conflict and discrimination within the Episcopal Church, the processes of clerical...

Lakotas, Black Robes, and Holy Women makes available in English a rare collection of eyewitness accounts by German Catholic missionaries among the Lakotas in the late nineteenth century. German missionaries played an important role in the early years of the St. Francis mission on the Rosebud Reservation, and the Holy Rosary mission on the Pine Ridge Reservation, both in South Dakota. Although the accounts reflect the dominant perspective and attitude of missionaries and white teachers in the period of assimilation policy, they also offer firsthand accounts of the Lakotas in the early...