All My Relatives

Reviews / Votes

"All My Relatives is an important contribution to the anthropological and ethnohistorical research on Lakota religion. It sets several standards for the field, showcasing the richness of sources, the complexity of theological Lakota argumentation, and how these sources can be analyzed in a meaningful way."-Sebastian Braun, Journal of Anthropological Research "In this superb ethnography of North American animism, David Posthumus paints a vivid and poetic picture of what it meant for the nineteenth-century Lakota Sioux to live in a world beyond the human that they shared with scores of animal persons and spirits. A remarkable achievement."-Philippe Descola, author of Beyond Nature and Culture
"All My Relatives provides us with a look into the core beliefs and practices of the Lakota people from an ontological view as well as an ethnographic one. Posthumus's firm grasp of Lakota history and culture adds clarity and historical significance to text, which is vital to understanding the Lakota people, their beliefs, and their rituals."-Victoria Sprague, Great Plains Quarterly "This is a must-read for the student of Lakota ontology, belief, and ritual. Posthumus adds to the field of collected works that capture once again the adage, 'We have much to learn from the American Indian.'"-Maka Akan Najin Clifford, Nebraska History "All My Relatives is a work that challenges the modern West's collective memory of American Indian spiritual beliefs, a relic of nineteenth-century Christian colonialism through missionary enterprises. Most impressive is the author's use of Lakota language to offer a more accurate translation of words and phrases that the Christian missionaries defined and employed to portray Lakota religion as void of any spiritual value. To the contrary, Posthumus argues that in an animist ontology, the principle of relatedness is at the heart of Lakota spirituality."-Lisa Barnett, South Dakota History "The serious reader will be richly rewarded in working through the book given Posthumus's sophisticated explication of Lakota interspecies relations and their implications for ritual enactment. . . . His work clearly demonstrates the promise of the new animism for indigenous research, and its application to Lakota lifeways specifically, and to Native American sacred traditions in general."-Fritz Detwiler, Reading Religion "The subject of Lakota ontology, belief, and ritual has enduring value and significance for all who are interested in the Sioux, in the literature of Black Elk, and in Plains ethnohistory generally. . . . All My Relatives is very strong in its command of Lakota sources, notably the writings of the Delorias, of ethnohistorical records, and of relevant secondary sources."-Jennifer S. H. Brown, professor emerita of history at the University of Winnipeg and editor of Ojibwe Stories from the Upper Berens River: A. Irving Hallowell and Adam Bigmouth in Conversation