Open-access edition of To Come to a Better Understanding: Medicine Men and Clergy Meetings on the Rosebud Reservation, 1973–1978 by Sandra L. Garner

FAIN: DR-296500-24

University of Nebraska, Lincoln (Lincoln, NE 68503-2427)
Jane Ferreyra (Project Director: June 2023 to present)

To Come to a Better Understanding analyzes the cultural encounters of the medicine men and clergy meetings held on Rosebud Reservation in St. Francis, South Dakota, from 1973 through 1978. Though the groups ended their formal discussions after eighty-four meetings, Sandra L. Garner shows how this cultural exchange reflects a rich Native intellectual tradition and articulates the multiple meanings of “understanding” that necessarily characterize intercultural encounters. Garner examines the exchanges of these two very different cultures, which share a history of inequitable power relationships, to explore questions of cultural ownership and activism. These meetings were another form of activism, a “quiet side” without the militancy of the American Indian Movement. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and archival analysis, this volume focuses on the medicine men participants—who served as translators, interpreters, and cultural mediators—to explore how modern political, social, and religious

Associated Products

Single Publication (Open Access eBook or Collection)
Publication Type: Single Publication
Title: To Come to a Better Understanding: Medicine Men and Clergy Meetings on the Rosebud Reservation, 1973–1978
Year: 2016
ISBN: 9781496241597
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Author: Sandra L. Garner
Abstract: To Come to a Better Understanding examines the intercultural (mis)understandings between medicine men and Jesuit priests during a five-year dialogue on the Rosebud Indian Reservation from 1973-1978.
Primary URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/oa_monograph/book/45550
Primary URL Description: Project Muse
Secondary URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1d4v189?searchText=(ti%3A(to%20come%20to%20a%20better%20understanding))&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoAdvancedSearch%3Fq0%3Dto%2Bcome%2Bto%2Ba%2Bbetter%2Bunderstanding%26f0%3Dti%26c1%3DAND%26f1%3Dall%26acc%3Don&ab_segments=0%2F
Secondary URL Description: JSTOR
Type: Single author monograph

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