Closing Remarks
A few remarks are now possible concerning a characterology of Plentycoups. His leadership depended on his great abilities for rational linear thinking, but this natural talent is informed and permeated by the transcendent connection to the medicine-dream. His rational powers and perceptual perspicuity are used in tandem with his medicine and do not have potency without the medicine. In the description of his exploits, it is obvious that he exhibited great intelligence as a problem-solver, great courage as a warrior, and great diplomacy in political life. All of these aspects of Plenty-coups’ personality are molded in the relevance structure determined by the significance of his medicine-dreams. A worthy avenue of research would be to relate Plenty-coups’ life to other great leaders that have been spiritually guided such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi. One would then compare how a transcendent meaning-context bestows significance on a specific life, and then one would be able to differentiate the characterologies of specific historical personages within the typicality of the particular cultural milieu. However, the medicinedream is not a guide for the leaders of humanity only, it is meant to be a guide for everyone. Each of us can form a connection with the cosmos and experience our true selves and become rooted to a community in a primordial way. The Red-World is the milieu that satisfies the necessary conditions for the fulfillment of a medicine-dream, symbolic reality is its reality.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “From Maus to Claude Levi-Strauss,” in Signs, Richard C. McCleary (trans.) (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), p. 123.
See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “The Philosopher and Sociology,” in his Signs, op. cit., pp. 98–113.
Frank B. Linderman, Plenty-coups, Chief of the Crows (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1930), p. 28.
Alfred Schutz, “Symbol, Reality and Society,” in The Problem of Social Reality: Collected Papers I, Maurice Natanson (ed.) (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1962), p. 331.
Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944), p. 83.
Alfred Schutz, Reflections on the Problem of Relevance, Richard M. Zaner (ed.) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), pp. 1–15.
See William James, “The Perception of Reality,” in The Principles of Psychology, Volume Two (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1950), pp. 283–324.
See Alfred Schutz and Thomas Luckmann, “Provinces of Reality with Finite Meaning-Structure,” in The Structures of the Life-World. Richard M. Zaner and H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. (trans.) (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), pp. 22–34 (This is an opus on which Alfred Schutz worked intensively in the last year of his life, one meant to gather into a connected argument his various writings on the life-world. The work was completed by Thomas Luckmann, following Schutz’s outline, detailed references to his published work, and drafts and notes of new analyses.)
See Schutz and Luckmann (1973), op. cit., “Stratifications of the Everyday Life-World,” pp. 35–36.
Tom Brown Jr., The Vision (New York: Berkeley Books, 1988), p. 133.
Ed McGaa, Eagle Man, Mother Earth Spirituality Native American Paths to Healing Ourselves and Our World (New York: Harper San Francisco, 1990), p. 75.
Leonard Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes, Crow Dog: Four Generations of Sioux Medicine Men (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995), p. 89.
Dennis H. McPherson and J. Douglas Rabb, “Dancing with Chaos: An Interview with Douglas Cardinal,” in their Indian from the Inside (Thunder Bay: Centre for Northern Studies, Lakehead University, 1993), p. 71.
Ibid., p. 72.
Steven Foster and Meredith Little, The Book of the Vision Quest: Personal Transformation in the Wilderness, A Sun Bear Book (New York: Prentice Hall, 1987), p. 33.
John Redtail Freesoul, Breath of the Invisible: The Way of the Pipe (London: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1986). p. 37.
Lindermann, op. cit., pp. 59–60.
McPherson and Rabb, op. cit., p. 72.
Foster and Little, op. cit., p. 45.
Linderman, op. cit., pp. 61–62.
Ibid., p. 64.
William Stoltzman SJ (First Eagle), How to Take Part in Lakota Ceremonies (Pine Ridge: Red Cloud Indian School, 1988), p. 45.
McPherson and Rabb, “The Phenomenology of the Vision Quest,” in op. cit., p. 62.
Foster and Little, op. cit, p. 33.
McGaa, op. cit., p. 79.
Brown Jr., op. cit., p. 125.
McPherson and Rabb, op. cit., p. 73.
Brown Jr., op. cit., p. 135.
Foster and Little, op. cit., p. 54.
Ibid., p. 48.
Elisabeth Tooker (ed.), Native North American Spirituality: Sacred Myths, Dreams, Visions, Speeches, Healing Formulas, Rituals and Ceremonies (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), pp. 70–71.
Foster and Little, op. cit., p. 41.
Leonard Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes, op. cit., p. 88.
Brown Jr., op. cit., p. 132.
McPherson and Rabb, op. cit., p. 72.
Linderman, op. cit., p. 33.
Ibid., p. 34.
Schutz and Luckmann (1973), op. cit., pp. 127–128.
Ibid., p. 171.
Alfred Schutz and Thomas Luckmann, The Structures of the Life-World, Volume II, Richard M. Zaner and David J. Parent (trans.) (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1989), pp. 41–42. See the remark on this work in n. 11 supra.
Linderman, op. cit., pp. 42–43.
Ibid., p. 44.
Ibid., p. 57.
Ibid., p. 66.
Ibid., pp. 66–67.
Ibid., p. 69.
Ibid., p. 73.
Foster and Little, op. cit., p. 52.
Ibid., p. 53.
Linderman, op. cit., p. 228.
McGaa, op. cit., p. 78.
Foster and Little, op. cit., p. 49.
Ibid., p. 54.
Alfred Schutz, “Dancing with Chaos: An Interview with Douglas Cardinal,” in their Indian from the Inside (Thunder Bay: Centre for Northern Studies, Lakehead University, 1993), p. 68.
Schutz and Luckmann (1973), op. cit., p. 19.
Gregory Cajete, Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence (Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishers, 2000), p. 45.
Linderman, op. cit., p. 5.
Ibid., p. 28.
Mark St. Pierre and Tilda Soldier, Walking in the Sacred Manner (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), pp. 105–106.
Ibid., p. 47.
Ibid., p.75.
Ibid., p. 78.
Ibid., pp. 82–83.
Ibid., p. 83.
Ibid., p. 115.
Ibid., p. 147.
Ibid., p. 143.
Ibid., p. 244.
Ibid., p. 245.
Ibid., p. 248.
Royal B. Hassrick, The Sioux (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), p. 269.
Ibid., pp. 274–275.
Ibid., p. 276.
Ibid., p. 148.
Ibid., p. 239.
Ibid., p. 240.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 308.
Ibid., pp. 97–98.
Schutz and Luckmann (1989), op. cit., p. 123.
Ibid., p. 124.
McPherson and Rabb, op. cit., p. 72.
Schutz and Luckmann (1989), op. cit., p. 127.
McPherson and Rabb, op. cit., p. 72.
Schutz and Luckmann (1989), op. cit., p. 127.
McPherson and Rabb, op. cit., p. 73.
Schutz, “Symbol, Reality and Society,” op. cit., p. 343.
Jamake Highwater, The Primal Mind: Vision and Reality in Indian America (New York: A Meridian Book, 1981), p. 65.
Joseph Epes Brown, Animals of the Soul (Rockport: Elements, Inc., 1992), p. 6.
Foster and Little, op. cit., p. 42.
Ibid., p. 43.
Ibid., p. 45.
Ibid., pp. 46–47.
Highwater, op. cit., p. 69.
Ibid., p. 55.
Ibid., pp. 131–132.
Joseph Epes Brown, The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Co., 1988), p. 80.
Highwater, op. cit., p. 91.
Brown Jr. op. cit., p. 126.
Brown, op. cit., p. 78.
Ibid., p. 80.
Brown Jr., op. cit., p. 126.
Highwater, op. cit., p. 96.
Brown Jr., op. cit., p. 127.
Ibid.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 Springer
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Backhaus, G. (2005). The Medicine-Dreams of Chief Plenty-Coups: A Study in Phenomenological Anthropology. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) The Enigma of Good and Evil; The Moral Sentiment in Literature. Analecta Husserliana, vol 85. Springer, Dordrecht . https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3576-4_27
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3576-4_27
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-3575-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-3576-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)