Woman Walking Ahead: In Search of Catherine Weldon and Sitting Bull

This beautiful work reminds me of one of my favorite books of all time, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Like Anne Fadiman, Eileen Pollack has an amazing sense of structure and of the important, risky, daring questions to ask. She confronts what others might shy away from, and she makes sense of it all for us. I loved learning about the brave and almost-forgotten Catherine Weldon.Some of the key questions raised for me by this book are: what does it mean to be an insider, or an outsider, in a particular group or in a country? Does the outsider have any possibility of understanding/aiding/participating in another culture? How do we help or harm each other? Which tragedies are preventable, and which inevitable, and why? Pollack seems to show the same courage and dedication as her subject -- Sitting Bull's great-great-granddaughter invited her to participate in ceremonies not usually open to outsiders. Her trust is well repaid by this remarkable book.