On the Rez

Ian Frazier recounts his experiences among modern-day American Indians, especially the storied Oglala Sioux, who now live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Crazy Horse, perhaps the greatest Indian war leader of the nineteenth century, and Black Elk, the holy man whose teachings are known around the world, were both Oglala. With his longtime friend Le War Lance, Frazier visits their descendants on Pine Ridge Reservation-"the rez"-now one of the poorest places in America, and finds there, in the career of Su Anne Big Crow, a modern emergence of the Sioux Hero who saves her people. Throughout, he portrays the survival, through toughness and humor, of a great people whose culture has shaped American identity.