The first Crow Dog was born in the 1830s. A contemporary and comrade of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, he was a leading participant in the messianic Ghost Dance of 1889 that precipitated the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. In 1973, his great-grandson, Leonard Crow Dog, was AIM's spiritual leader at the second Wounded Knee. The memories that link the two are intact, and form the spine of a narrative that sweeps across two centuries in the history of the West.

Leonard, the book's principal narrator, discovered as a young boy that he had a special spiritual vision, a power, and at thirteen became a wichasha wakan - what white people call a medicine man. Still staunchly traditional in the face of pressure to Christianize, Leonard describes in detail the sun dance and many ceremonies and rituals that still play a significant role in Lakota life.

In the sixties and seventies, Leonard took up the family's political challenge through his involvement with AIM, for which he became spiritual leader. He was a key figure in the momentous events in South Dakota and Washington, D.C., that centered on the 1973 siege of Wounded Knee and the notorious raids, murders, and trials at the Pine Ridge Reservation.

This is the story of two centuries of struggle and triumph, of reckless deeds and heroic lives, of degradation and survival. It is a saga in every sense of the word.