FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sara Sgarlat, Publicity Director
434-296-2772, ext. 49
ssgarlat@hrpub.com

To Become a Human Being
The Message of Tadodaho Chief Leon Shenandoah
by: Steve Wall

“We give thanks for all kinds of medicine, the berries, water, the air, and the land.To show this appreciation to the Creator we have ceremony. We must show our appreciation for what He has given us because without the earth we wouldn’t survive.” —Chief Leon Shenandoah, Tadodaho

     Once, our ancestors lived in physical and spiritual communion with the earth. To Become a Human Being reminds us of our origins— and our incredible potential— through the words of the late Tadodaho Chief Leon Shenandoah, high chief among the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy and cherished friend of photojournalist Steve Wall. Based on conversations over a thirteen-year period, To Become a Human Being echoes Shenandoah’s belief about what it really means to be human: to rise to an expanded level of consciousness by living on the Earth as it was intended for us to live.

“The Creator hears the prayers of even one person, but there must be at least one. It’s better if there’s a lot,
but I hope there’s always at least one. Even one pleases the Creator. It shows the Creator that somebody is paying attention.”

     As a photojournalist, Steve Wall has traveled the world with his work appearing in National Geographic Magazine, Time, People, Smithsonian, and other national publications. As an author, Steve Wall has explored the spiritual world of those he has photographed, particularly the lives and philosophies of Native Americans. In his attempts to capture the soul of his subjects in both his photographs and his words, Wall has discovered that he has also been on a spiritual journey, one that was being shaped and formed by those he studied. His thirteen-year relationship with Tadodaho Chief Leon Shenandoah was not the beginning of the journey for Steven Wall but illuminated the path he was to follow. Wall captures, in both photographs and the words of Shenandoah, the powerful message and deep wisdom of a man who dedicated his life to practicing the “old ways” of his people. To Become a Human Being is the vision and the voice of two friends who came from very different physical places but who were going in the same direction.

“…I’ll  promise you that I’ll do my best to give thanks and carry on the ceremonies for all the people of the world
for as long as I live.”

ISBN 1-57174-341-3, Trade paperback, $16.95, March 2002