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Rating: 
Summary: Jerry Mohatt's Priceless Gift
Review: I was so impressed with this book - it struck so close to home - that I could not read it all at once. Like Mohatt, I lived with these people, I Sundanced with Joe Eagle Elk's father, ceremonied, got drunk, into trouble & rose again to help people. Mohatt's text is so close to the actual truth of the conditions on the reservation it literally scared me. That's why I had to stop reading from time to time. The Price of a Gift is the equal of Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions, which is one of the great books about Lakota spirituality.
Rating:
Summary: Splendid, invaluable contribution to Native American studies
Review: The story of Joseph Eagle Elk, Lakota Healer (1931-91), as told to Gerald Mohatt, cross-cultural psychologist, is simply and beautifully told.The effect of many mirrors of the gift of Joseph Eagle Elk derives in part from testimonials by people who he knew and helped to heal themselves. The sacrifice, persecution, and exhausting , demanding life of the traditional Lakota healer are fully portrayed. But the beauty that sings through in Price of a Gift is undeniable. Just to read such a book, just to know such a person lived and touched others, is profound and impacting in itself. An awareness of the core value of our lives radiates through the stories of the life of Eagle Elk. It is impossible to avoid the basic message of this book, with all its humble compassion. Without distortion, greed, evil, or pettiness, the matter of spiritual healing both as duty and joy is its glorious burden. Black Elk's vision included an awareness that the Lakota legacy would include an intrument of healing. The Price Of A Gift is evidence of that legacy. What a gift it is, to us all.Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer
Rating:
Summary: Splendid, invaluable contribution to Native American studies
Review: The story of Joseph Eagle Elk, Lakota Healer (1931-91), as told to Gerald Mohatt, cross-cultural psychologist, is simply and beautifully told.The effect of many mirrors of the gift of Joseph Eagle Elk derives in part from testimonials by people who he knew and helped to heal themselves. The sacrifice, persecution, and exhausting , demanding life of the traditional Lakota healer are fully portrayed. But the beauty that sings through in Price of a Gift is undeniable. Just to read such a book, just to know such a person lived and touched others, is profound and impacting in itself. An awareness of the core value of our lives radiates through the stories of the life of Eagle Elk. It is impossible to avoid the basic message of this book, with all its humble compassion. Without distortion, greed, evil, or pettiness, the matter of spiritual healing both as duty and joy is its glorious burden. Black Elk's vision included an awareness that the Lakota legacy would include an intrument of healing. The Price Of A Gift is evidence of that legacy. What a gift it is, to us all. Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer
Rating:
Summary: Honors the true voice
Review: This is a remarkable work that honors the true voice of a Lakota medicine man and the voices of his people. Mohatt's labor is not to analyze or interpret so much as present an experience which can only begin to be appreciated or understood when the suffering, missteps, fears, and clowning of the healer are shown along with their transcendence. Eagle Elk was an ordinary man who resisted but finally gave himself over to his calling. There are many books that romanticize tokens of Native cultures or presume to make use of them; this is not that sort of book. Like Fadiman's, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, this is a work of great reverence.
Rating:
Summary: Honors the true voice
Review: This is a remarkable work that honors the true voice of a Lakota medicine man and the voices of his people. Mohatt's labor is not to analyze or interpret so much as present an experience which can only begin to be appreciated or understood when the suffering, missteps, fears, and clowning of the healer are shown along with their transcendence. Eagle Elk was an ordinary man who resisted but finally gave himself over to his calling. There are many books that romanticize tokens of Native cultures or presume to make use of them; this is not that sort of book. Like Fadiman's, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, this is a work of great reverence.
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