Two natives, the author and a dog named Fatback

Neither Wolf Nor Dog:
On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

by Kent Nerburn

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I don't want to write about it.  If rancor and pain can linger in a collective soul for so long, what hope has mankind?

At the same time I'm listening to a book about World War II in Japan.  These people, indoctrinated from birth to fear and hate foreigners, told that their race was a superhuman one and all others little more than brutal savages, raised a generation of soldiers capable of killing without remorse.  Chinese, Koreans, and American prisoners were beaten, tortured or murdered.  The decent humans feared to act--sadism ruled.

But today they're our allies.  Trading partners and friends.  What happened?

I'm hoping some of the books on my reading list will enlighten.  But the point of this diatribe is, how can we ever reconcile with the hearts of our own native races?  I'm not saying the Indian elder in this book hated the white man--he chose a white man to write down his philosophy--but oh, how he loathed the acts of the conquerors.  You feel the very land weep, poisoned with the blood of her children.  You feel the great sadness of the ones left to live...if you can call it that.