A consummate storyteller and writer in both Mesquakie and English, Ray A. Young Bear is a noted poet whose skills are evident in these intricate, finely woven stories that balance encounters and experiences with religion, myths, dreams, poverty, and injustice with the love and support offered by family and friends.In Black Eagle Child Young Bear recreates his life within the fifties, sixties, and seventies circumstances of a familiar American history of racism, Vietnam, drugs, the Doors, and Castaneda's cults. But always central to these honest, imaginative vignettes are Young Bear's exits from and returns to his home on Iowa's Mesquakie Settlement, the lands his great-great-grandfather, Ma mwi wa ni ke, helped obtain on behalf of the tribe in 1856.Through the eyes of Edgar Bearchild, a member of the Black Eagle Child Settlement, we meet such enduring characters as Ted Facepaint, Junior Pipestar, Brook Grassleggings, the Hyena family, Pat "Dirty" Red Hat ("the ugliest man in Big Valley"), and Claude Youthman ("the Cantaloupe Terrorist"). From Edgar's introduction to the faith of his tribal elders, to his childhood delight in grape Jell-O, to his years at a California university, his journey to adulthood is a fascinating one.Like the astonishingly beautiful and intricate Mesquakie beadwork, this autobiography combines aspects of the dominant white culture with elements from Red Earth history and tradition. In Black Eagle Child Ray A. Young Bear has created a distinct and dazzling vision that will speak to all who will heed its voice. Read Less