DOC Marching with Sherman: Passages from the Letters and Campaign Diaries of Henry Hitchcock; Major and Assistant Adjutant General of Volunteers; November 1864-May 1865 by Henry Hitchcock in History

Description

A profoundly spiritual book; Yuwipi describes a present-day Oglala Sioux healing ritual that is performed for a wide range of personal crises. The vivid narrative centers on the experience of a hypothetical father and son in need of spiritual and physical assistance. The author combines the Yuwipi ceremony with two ancient Sioux rituals often performed in conjunction with it; the vision quest and the sweat lodge. Wayne Runs Again; suffering from alcoholism and worried about his father’s health; seeks out a shaman who; while bound in darkness; calls on supernatural beings to free him and to communicate. While the young man undergoes purification in a sweat lodge and waits on a hill for a vision; the community prays for him and his father. The ceremony serves not only to cure the sick but also to reaffirm the continuity of Oglala society.