The Road to Lame Deer
A bittersweet cross-cultural friendship and the richness and melancholy of modern Cheyenne life are unforgettably recorded in the words and photographs of The Road to Lame Deer.\ In the 1970s photographer and writer Jerry Mader was drawn into the community of Lame Deer on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. The winding road to Lame Deer allowed Mader to gradually perceive something of both the pain and the continuing vitality of the Cheyennes' distinctive world. Mader's narrative is...
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A bittersweet cross-cultural friendship and the richness and melancholy of modern Cheyenne life are unforgettably recorded in the words and photographs of The Road to Lame Deer. In the 1970s photographer and writer Jerry Mader was drawn into the community of Lame Deer on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. The winding road to Lame Deer allowed Mader to gradually perceive something of both the pain and the continuing vitality of the Cheyennes' distinctive world. Mader's narrative is centered on what he believed to be his last visit to the reservation and on the memories it awakened. In particular he explores his initial feelings about and first perceptions of the community and how Lame Deer, as well as Mader and the relationships he forged there, changed over time. As he learned about the people and began to take photographs of Cheyenne elders, images of the reservation and its people became seared in his memory and are movingly recalled throughout this work—the hot, dry dust of an afternoon whirlwind, a quest for a stone woman, the haunting melody of a Cheyenne flute, and the desolation and desperation of the bars scattered along the edges of the reservation.At the heart of the book is Mader's relationship and friendship with Cheyenne elder Henry Tall Bull, which was punctuated by both insight and misunderstanding and ultimately ended in tragedy. Witty, knowledgeable, and bearing a bitterness that could flare into white-hot anger under the influence of alcohol, Tall Bull guided Mader through the maze of relationships and obligations that girded and defined the Lame Deer community. The memory of the doomed friendship between photographer and Cheyenneelder haunts Mader still as he continues to travel the long road to Lame Deer in his dreams.Publishers WeeklyPhotographer Jerry Mader lived with the Northern Cheyennes in Lame Deer, Mont., during the early 1970s, a period he chronicles in The Road to Lame Deer, a deeply felt memoir. Henry Tall Bull, a medicine man, plays a pivotal role for Mader; after a long period of conditional friendship, Tall Bull ascertains that the photographer's intentions are honorable and introduces him to the more private life of the tribe, including peyote meetings and other spiritual practices intimately connected to the earth. The leader's trust of the photographer also made it possible for Mader to take photographs of tribe members (many reproduced here) that illustrate the complicated personal histories he records. Along the way, Mader discusses such sociological issues as the history of the rise of alcoholism on reservations, and how patterns of sexual behavior have changed in response to Christianity.
\ The Seattle Times"Personal and heartfelt. . . . A time capsule of a singular place and people, in words and pictures, which carries a grave echo of the Little Big Horn, Wounded Knee and dogged cultural survival."—The Seattle Times\ \ \ \ \ James Welch"The Road to Lame Deer is a very special journey of one man in his effort to understand another culture and his relationship to that culture. The road isn't easy. Along with a kind of spiritual enlightenment comes the painfully sad reality of life in the Indian community—alcohol abuse, family dysfunction, unemployment, and grinding poverty. That Jerry Mader is able to tell his story with compassion and gut-wrenching honesty is a tribute to his own decency and integrity. The Road to Lame Deer is an important book."—James Welch, author of The Heartsong of Charging Elk\ \ \ Publishers WeeklyPhotographer Jerry Mader lived with the Northern Cheyennes in Lame Deer, Mont., during the early 1970s, a period he chronicles in The Road to Lame Deer, a deeply felt memoir. Henry Tall Bull, a medicine man, plays a pivotal role for Mader; after a long period of conditional friendship, Tall Bull ascertains that the photographer's intentions are honorable and introduces him to the more private life of the tribe, including peyote meetings and other spiritual practices intimately connected to the earth. The leader's trust of the photographer also made it possible for Mader to take photographs of tribe members (many reproduced here) that illustrate the complicated personal histories he records. Along the way, Mader discusses such sociological issues as the history of the rise of alcoholism on reservations, and how patterns of sexual behavior have changed in response to Christianity.\ \
