Provides reliable information on Indian life today, filling the information void on the modern-day Indian tribes.

    The author, who was born and raised at Jemez Pueblo, is a recognised authority and respected writer on Pueblo history and has been a voice in the affairs of the nineteen New Mexico Pueblos over several decades.

    This text looks at the Native American people, the Timucua, using information gathered from archaeological excavations and from the interpretation of historical documents left behind, mainly by Spain and France, who sought to colonize Florida and to place the Timucua under their sway.Contents: Preface. 1. The Beginning. 2. Who Were the Timucua? 3. The Invasion. 4. Spanish Missions. 5. Mission Settlements and Subsistence. 6. The Organization of Societies. 7. Beliefs and Behavior. 8. The End. Bibliography.

    A fine sampling of a unique native American artistic heritage is laid out before you, in text and in pictures, in this exciting book."--Gordon R. Willey, Peabody Museum, Harvard University For thousands of years, the Indians of Florida created exquisite objects from the natural materials available to them--wood, bone, stone, clay, and shell. This stunning full-color book, the first devoted exclusively to the artistic achievements of the Florida aborigines, describes and pictures 116 of these masterpieces. A brief history of the consequences of European infiltration and laterinvestigations by explorers and archaeologists sets the stage for consideration of the works themselves. They date from the Paleoindian period (ca. 9500-8000 BC) to the mid-16th century and include utilitarian creations, instruments of personal adornment and magic, objects indicating status, and those paying homage to ancestors or aiding the dead in their journey into the next world. Because European explorers took little notice of the adornment of the Florida natives and the people themselves did not survive, no enduring artistic traditions prevail from this early period. This collection, a record of the quality and beauty of their art, includes representative objects in all media used and from all cultural periods, geographic areas, and environmental settings in which the pieces functioned. Barbara A. Purdy is professor emerita in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida, curator emerita in archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, and author of How to Do Archaeology the Right Way (UPF, 1996) and The Art and Archaeology of Florida’s Wetlands (1991). Roy C. Craven, Jr., is professor of art emeritus, founding director of the University Gallery at the University of Florida, and author of Ceremonial Centers of the Maya (UPF, 1974) and A Concise History of Indian Art (1991).

    Formerly the second-in-command in Francisco Pizarro’s conquest of the Incas in 1531, Hernando de Soto arrived in the country he called La Florida in 1539, leading a glittering, armored Renaissance-era army of six hundred men on the first major exploration of North America. Obsessed with finding a second Inca empire, he instead encountered the Mississippians, a sophisticated culture of mound and city builders, warriors, artisans, and diplomats whose society collapsed after the Spaniards’ destructive march through their territory. Unable to find his golden country, Soto pushed deeper into the wilderness, ravaged by exhaustion, starvation, and incessant warfare with the Mississippians until he died and was secretly buried in the Mississippi River, which he is credited (wrongly) with discovering.

    Readers can now rely on Encyclopedia of North American Indians for an authentic and often surprising portrait of the complexities of the Native American experience. Written by more than 260 contemporary authorities, the volume features many Native American contributors - including eminent writers, tribal elders, scholars, and activists - with voices as distinct as their subjects, offering a deeper and more informed appreciation of American Indian life, past and present. Illustrated with many rare photographs, the Encyclopedia features articles on subjects such as mound builders, reservations, cigar-store Indians, child rearing, powwows, boarding schools, museums and collectors, dreams, the occupation of Alcatraz, and the impact of American Indian civilizations on Europe and the world. Contemporary topics include gambling, sports mascots, alcoholism, urban Indians, and the status of women. Biographies illuminate not only famous chiefs and warriors but an enormously diverse group of historical figures, such as Pauline Johnson, a Mohawk who becme the first American Indian woman to publish poetry; Charles Curtis, a Kaw Indian who served as vice president under Herbert Hoover; and "Chief" Bender, an Ojibwa who played and coached professional baseball and is lauded in the Baseball hall of Fame. Covering Arctic to southeastern peoples, separate articles on more than one hundred major tribes - from Abenaki to Zuni - discuss community origins, rituals and beliefs, social organizations, and present-day life.

    On a quest to sort fact from fiction, Ingeborg Marshall, a leading expert on the Beothuk, has produced an elegant, comprehensive, and scholarly review of the history and culture of the Beothuk that incorporates an unmatched amount of new archival material with up-to-date archaeological data. The book is beautifully and extensively illustrated with maps, portraits, photographs of Beothuk artifacts, burial sites, and camps, and a set of drawings by Shanawdithit. A History and Ethnography of the Beothuk is a compelling story and an indispensable reference tool for anyone interested in the Beothuk or Native peoples of North America.

    

    Prodigious research and a quarter-century of fieldwork went into her 1939 encyclopedic two-volume work, Pueblo Indian Religion.The author gives an integrated picture of the complex religious and social life in the pueblos, including Zuni, Acoma, Laguna, Taos, Isleta, Sandia, Jemez, Cochiti, Santa Clara, San Felipe, Santa Domingo, San Juan, and the Hopi villages. In volume I she discusses shelter, social structure, land tenure, customs, and popular beliefs. Parsons also describes spirits, cosmic notions, and a wide range of rituals.The cohesion of spiritual and material aspects of Pueblo culture is also apparent in volume II, which presents an extensive body of solstice, installation, initiation, war, weather, curing, kachina, and planting and harvesting ceremonies, as well as games, animal dances, and offerings to the dead. A review of Pueblo ceremonies from town to town considers variations and borrowings. Today, a half century after its original publication, Pueblo Indian Religion remains central to studies of Pueblo religious life.