AUTHOR’S NOTE

Hopefully it should be clear that such artificial designations as “People of the Plain” and “People of the Lake” are more poetical than factual. This is not to say these references are not helpful; they are, that is why I have used them. But they are not strictly accurate as any Native American scholar knows. For instance, many tribes lived by rivers; it was a good way to live. Woodland tribes might also be called, in some cases, mountain tribes. Desert people—Apaches, for instance—ranged vigorously about the mountains, the plains, and the deserts. Most tribes, in their own language, referred to themselves as the People, not the People of.

I also wish to add the following comment—the meditation passages in this book are quite literally meditations. They arose out of deep thought and were written in a trance-like state, which may account for their stylistic rhythm. Later I accurately researched and sometimes corrected the thread of my thoughts. I did not, however, alter their “voice.”