Lakota Hoops

About this book

"For the Lakota, basketball is an elixir: at once enjoyable and restorative. The sport is wildly popular throughout Indian Country, and Lakota Hoops shows the game as it reflects contemporary life at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Through portraits of people who have been pivotal in the sport's popularity the book delves into Lakota history and culture, but features the ways that basketball can call on traditional culture to play a role in today's Pine Ridge- shoring up collective identity, rediscovering the efficacy of old practices, or channeling warrior ideals. The game also reveals the turmoil in Lakota life, especially how at times the community's cohesion is threatened by old social rifts. And navigating the difficult racial climate of South Dakota also showcases basketball in the ways that Lakota athletes carve out responses to the racism that looms so large in their world."--