Doug Boyd

This is a book about a Native American shaman, by someone who knew him well and spent a lot of time with him. Unfortunately, he is completely uncritical about the events he claims to witness - at one point, after something supernatural appears to have happened, the author comments smugly that someone who knew Rolling Thunder less well than he did might have asked the shaman to explain what had just happened. It's true that someone who took a more challenging approach might not have got so close to Rolling Thunder, but for this reader at least, it was frustrating.

Sample: Rolling Thunder had not offered me any tangible proof that a summer flower could be taken from the snow. Perhaps there could have been a demonstration, but how meaningless it would have been! He could have done it several times to be sure that I was convinced. I could have taken pictures and shown them to others as through the whole point was whether, in fact, Rolling Thunder had actually plucked a flower from the snow. Caught up in that hopeless challenge, I would have failed to find out anything.… (meer)