Best of
Native-American-History

1997

Lakota Noon: The Indian Narrative of Custer's Defeat


Gregory F. Michno - 1997
    The author's innovative approach allows readers to follow the warriors onto the battlefield and see the fight through their eyes.

Archaeology of The Southwest


Linda S. Cordell - 1997
    The new edition is entitled Archaeology of the Southwest, and it provides a coherent and comprehensive summary of the major themes and topics central to the modern practice and interpretation of Southwest archaeology. Cordell's text is the best study on the market. After an extensive review process, the revision addresses specific issues in order to effectively meet the audience's interests and demands. This new edition introduces new data and syntheses of information, including those available through advanced technology. It presents reconceptualized chapters, and provides new or improved illustrations throughout the text.Key Features* Offers a readable and accurate representation of current debates and research in the American Southwest* Challenges readers to integrate the structure and meaning of various broad regional trends that preceded the European conquest* Covers the latest in field research and topical syntheses* Addresses curricular cultural diversity requirements* Contains new maps, line drawings, and photos

Hell with the Fire Out: A History of the Modoc War


Arthur Quinn - 1997
    Grant and Quaker activist Lucretia Mott against William Tecumseh Sherman - the destroyer of Georgia - and his outspoken desire for the Modocs' "utter extermination." When it ended in 1873, with the execution of the tribal leaders and the relocation of the Modoc tribe to Oklahoma, the federal goverment's Peace Commission was in tatters. The way was paved toward the more famous, but no bloodier, battle at Little Bighorn and the battle at Wounded Knee, the last battle of the western Indian wars and the final closing of the frontier.

Rethinking American Indian History


Donald L. Fixico - 1997
    Using innovative methodologies and theories to rethink American Indian history, this book challenges previous scholarship about Native Americans and their communities.

Spirits of the Earth: A Guide to Native American Nature Symbols, Stories, and Ceremonies


Bobby Lake-Thom - 1997
    If you seek for guidance, you will discover truth." —Bobby Lake-ThomMuch of the ancient knowledge that has been passed down from Native American medicine men, or shamans is in danger of being lost. Bobby Lake-Thom, a Native American healer known as Medicine Grizzly Bear, has sought to preserve this powerful heritage by sharing his wisdom and experience learning from the world around us. The result is Spirits of the Earth, an extraordinary compilation of legends and rituals about nature's ever-present signs. From the birds that soar above us to the insincts beneath our feet, Bobby Lake-Thom shows how the creatures of the earth can aid us in healing and self-knowledge.What does it mean if a hawk appears in a dream? What are the symbolic interpretations of a deer, a skunk, a raccoon? Lake-Thom, who has studied with the elders of many tribes, explains the significance of animal figures as manifestations of good or evil, and shows how we can develop our own powers of awareness and intuition. The first book of its kind, this practical and enlightening resource includes dozens of fashinating animal myths and legends, as well as exercises and activities that draw upon animal powers for guidance, healing, wisdom, and the expansion of spiritual influences in our lifes. You'll discover here:How animals, birds, and insects act as signs and omensThe significance of vision questsHow to make and use a medicine wheelThe role of spirit symbols—and how they affect the unconsciousExcercises for creative dreamingThe power of the earth-healing ceremonyHow to increase your spiritual strength and create sacred spacesAnd more

Life Amongst the Modocs


Joaquin Miller - 1997
    As a nature writer, he was among the first to capture the fierce power and sublime beauty of California's wild landscape. He was also a maverick in his portrayal of the state's emotional landscape, dealing as no one has before or since with themes such as loneliness and defeat, melancholy and rage, weakness and strength, joy and loyalty.

Hidden Faces


Edward S. Curtis - 1997
    During his journeys in the United States, Canada, and Alaska, from the 1890s through to the 1930s, these aspects of tribal life, recorded extensively on film and in text, played a large part in Curtis's multi-volume publication, The North American Indian. Masquerades, body painting, scarring, and other ritual-related transformations were parts of the cultures of many native nations. Some tribes crafted elaborate masks and costumes to impersonate deities in their highly meaningful ceremonies and celebrations. Two peoples in particular had especially rich masking traditions - the Kwakiutl of British Columbia and the Navaho of tbe American Southwest. In Hidden Faces, striking images of these sacred dramatic displays and the characters depicted have been selected by Curtis expert Christopher Cardozo. Accompanying text, excerpted from Curtis's own writings, explains the role and identity of each image. In many cases, traditional rites had already been lost or were no longer performed by the time of Curtis's arrival. His photographs thus serve a dual purpose, as a record preserving a vivid native religious and cultural tradition and as a powerful artistic expression.

The Hernando de Soto Expedition: History, Historiography, and "Discovery" in the Southeast


Patricia Kay Galloway - 1997
    The eighteen contributors to this volume—anthropologists, ethnohistorians, and literary critics—investigate broad cultural and literary aspects of the resulting social and demographic collapse or radical transformation of many Native societies and the gradual opening of the Southeast to European colonization.

Leaving Almost Everything Behind: The Songs and Memories of a Cheyenne Woman


Bertha Little Coyote - 1997
    She is predictably outspoken and courageous, and her opinions are, to many people's chagrin, piercingly correct in most situations. In this memoir (and the accompanying compact disc) she shows herself also as a deeply tender-hearted, expressive musician who is fiercely committed to people - especially Cheyenne people. She has triumphed over eighty-four years of a difficult life, and has full hopes for an exciting spiritual existence after she "leaves everything on earth behind." Here are Bertha Little Coyote's songs and memories of government school, old-time Cheyenne life, fighting white boys, singing around the drum, dancing with the war mothers, being baptized in the lake, and dreaming important dreams.

Great Apache Chiefs: Cochise and Geronimo


Edwin R. Sweeney - 1997
    Sweeney and Geronimo by Angie Debo.Two of American history's most feared and admired figures together in one volume.

Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650-1790


Jean M. O'Brien - 1997
    Rather, the Native peoples in such places as Natick, Massachusetts, creatively resisted colonialism, defended their lands, and rebuilt kin networks and community through the strategic use of English cultural practices and institutions. So why did New England settlers believe that the Native peoples had vanished? In this thoroughly researched and astutely argued study, historian Jean M. O’Brien reveals that, in the late eighteenth century, the Natick tribe experienced a process of “dispossession by degrees,” which rendered them invisible within the larger context of the colonial social order, thus enabling the construction of the myth of Indian extinction.

After King Philip’s War: Presence and Persistence in Indian New England


Colin G. Calloway - 1997
    This collection challenges that assumption, showing that Indians adapted and survived, existing quietly on the fringes of Yankee society, less visible than before but nonetheless retaining a distinct identity and heritage. While confinement on tiny reservations, subjection to increasing state regulation, enforced abandonment of traditional dress and means of support, and racist policies did cause dramatic changes, Natives nonetheless managed to maintain their Indianness through customs, kinship, and community.

Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains 1865-1879


Thomas Goodrich - 1997
    As settlers moved west following the Civil War, they found powerful Indian tribes barring the way. When the U.S. Army intervened, a bloody and prolonged conflict ensued.Drawing heavily from diaries, letters, and memoirs from American Plains settlers, historian Thomas Goodrich weaves a spellbinding tale of life and death on the prairie, told in the timeless words of the participants themselves. Scalp Dance is a powerful, unforgettable epic that shatters modern myths. Within its pages, the reader will find a truthful account of Indian warfare as it occurred.

A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust & Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present


Ward Churchill - 1997
    Here, he explores the history of holocaust and denial in this hemisphere, beginning with the arrival of Columbus and continuing on into the present.He frames the matter by examining both revisionist denial of the Nazi-perpatrated Holocaust and the opposing claim of its exclusive uniqueness, using the full scope of what happened in Europe as a backdrop against which to demonstrate that genocide is precisely what has been--and still is--carried out against the American Indians.Churchill lays bare the means by which many of these realities have remained hidden, how public understanding of this most monstrous of crimes has been subverted not only by its perpetrators and their beneficiaries but by the institutions and individuals who perceive advantages in the confusion. In particular, he outlines the reasons underlying the United States's 40-year refusal to ratify the Genocide Convention, as well as the implications of the attempt to exempt itself from compliance when it finally offered its endorsement.In conclusion, Churchill proposes a more adequate and coherent definition of the crime as a basis for identifying, punishing and preventing genocidal practices, wherever and whenever they occur.