Chapters 1-5: Alone on the Hilltip; That Gun in the New York Museum Belongs to Me; The Green Frog Skin; Getting Drunk, Going to Jail; Sitting on Top of Teddy Roosevelt's Head Summary and Analysis

At the age of sixteen, a young Indian boy (Bureau of Census name, John Fire) spent four days and nights in the vision pit, as a passage into manhood and as a part of Sioux tradition for aspiring medicine men. Sitting in a hole dug into a hill, with a blanket covering his nakedness, a peace pipe and tobacco, and a gourd holding forty small pieces of skin from his grandmother, the lad waited for his vision. With the...