Book picks similar to
Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney


history
non-fiction
mythology
native-american

Goddesses in Everywoman


Jean Shinoda Bolen - 1984
    Psychoanalyst Jean Bolen's career soared in the early 1980s when Goddesses in Everywoman was published. Thousands of women readers became fascinated with identifying their own inner goddesses and using these archetypes to guide themselves to greater self–esteem, creativity, and happiness.Bolen's radical idea was that just as women used to be unconscious of the powerful effects that cultural stereotypes had on them, they were also unconscious of powerful archetypal forces within them that influence what they do and how they feel, and which account for major differences among them. Bolen believes that an understanding of these inner patterns and their interrelationships offers reassuring, true–to–life alternatives that take women far beyond such restrictive dichotomies as masculine/feminine, mother/lover, careerist/housewife. And she demonstrates in this book how understanding them can provide the key to self–knowledge and wholeness.Dr. Bolen introduced these patterns in the guise of seven archetypal goddesses, or personality types, with whom all women could identify, from the autonomous Artemis and the cool Athena to the nurturing Demeter and the creative Aphrodite, and explains how to decide which to cultivate and which to overcome, and how to tap the power of these enduring archetypes to become a better "heroine" in one's own life story.

What America Was Really Like in 1776


Thomas Fleming - 2012
    New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Thomas Fleming takes us back to the days of the founders, detailing the surprising facts of American life in 1776 - including its resemblance to today.

East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North


Peter Christen Asbjørnsen - 1845
    The 33 Scandinavian folk tales take the imagination of the reader from rags to riches, from skulduggery to heroism, via witches' curses, beautiful princesses, giants, quests, billy goats and the occasional wicked troll, to a happy ending.

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus


Charles C. Mann - 2005
    Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city. Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man’s first feat of genetic engineering. Indeed, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.

The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype (Bollingen)


Erich Neumann - 1955
    Appearing as goddess and demon, gate and pillar, garden and tree, hovering sky and containing vessel, the Feminine is seen as an essential factor in the dialectical relation of individual consciousness, symbolized by the child, to the ungraspable matrix, symbolized by the Great Mother.

The Souls of Black Folk


W.E.B. Du Bois - 1903
    W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) played a key role in developing the strategy and program that dominated early 20th-century black protest in America. In this collection of essays, first published together in 1903, he eloquently affirms that it is beneath the dignity of a human being to beg for those rights that belong inherently to all mankind. He also charges that the strategy of accommodation to white supremacy advanced by Booker T. Washington, then the most influential black leader in America, would only serve to perpetuate black oppression.Publication of The Souls of Black Folk was a dramatic event that helped to polarize black leaders into two groups: the more conservative followers of Washington and the more radical supporters of aggressive protest. Its influence cannot be overstated. It is essential reading for everyone interested in African-American history and the struggle for civil rights in America.

Favorite Folktales from Around the World


Jane Yolen - 1986
    Over 150 tales are compiled from Iceland to Syria, Cuba to Papua.Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places


Colin Dickey - 2016
    Crammed into old houses and hotels, abandoned prisons and empty hospitals, the spirits that linger continue to capture our collective imagination, but why? His own fascination piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles that revealed derelict foreclosures and "zombie homes," Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. Some have established reputations as "the most haunted mansion in America," or "the most haunted prison"; others, like the haunted Indian burial grounds in West Virginia, evoke memories from the past our collective nation tries to forget.            With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living—how do we, the living, deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed, for whatever reason, haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes to those facts are made—and why those changes are made—Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes left unsolved. Spellbinding, scary, and wickedly insightful, Ghostland discovers the past we're most afraid to speak of aloud in the bright light of day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in the dark.From the Hardcover edition.

Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths


Natalie Haynes - 2020
    And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost three thousand years ago. But modern tellers of Greek myth have usually been men, and have routinely shown little interest in telling women’s stories.Now, in Pandora’s Jar, Natalie Haynes – broadcaster, writer and passionate classicist – redresses this imbalance. Taking Greek creation myths as her starting point and then retelling the four great mythic sagas: the Trojan War, the Royal House of Thebes, Jason and the Argonauts, Heracles, she puts the female characters on equal footing with their menfolk. The result is a vivid and powerful account of the deeds – and misdeeds - of Hera, Aphrodite, Athene and Circe. And away from the goddesses of Mount Olympus it is Helen, Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Antigone and Medea who sing from these pages, not Paris, Agamemnon, Orestes or Jason.

The Way of the Shaman


Michael Harner - 1980
    Ten years after it was first published, this is still the leading resource and reference for all those interested in cross-cultural and current forms of shamanism: now with a new introduction and a list of current shamanic resources.

The Killing of Crazy Horse


Thomas Powers - 2010
    His victory over General Custer at the battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 was the worst defeat inflicted on the frontier Army. And the death of Crazy Horse in federal custody has remained a controversy for more than a century. The Killing of Crazy Horse pieces together the many sources of fear and misunderstanding that resulted in an official killing hard to distinguish from a crime. A rich cast of characters, whites and Indians alike, passes through this story, including Red Cloud, the chief who dominated Oglala history for fifty years but saw in Crazy Horse a dangerous rival; No Water and Woman Dress, both of whom hated Crazy Horse and schemed against him; the young interpreter Billy Garnett, son of a fifteen-year-old Oglala woman and a Confederate general killed at Gettysburg; General George Crook, who bitterly resented newspaper reports that he had been whipped by Crazy Horse in battle; Little Big Man, who betrayed Crazy Horse; Lieutenant William Philo Clark, the smart West Point graduate who thought he could “work” Indians to do the Army’s bidding; and Fast Thunder, who called Crazy Horse cousin, held him the moment he was stabbed, and then told his grandson thirty years later, “They tricked me! They tricked me!”At the center of the story is Crazy Horse himself, the warrior of few words whom the Crow said they knew best among the Sioux, because he always came closest to them in battle. No photograph of him exists today.The death of Crazy Horse was a traumatic event not only in Sioux but also in American history. With the Great Sioux War as background and context, drawing on many new materials as well as documents in libraries and archives, Thomas Powers recounts the final months and days of Crazy Horse’s life not to lay blame but to establish what happened.

By Canoe and Dog Train: The Adventures of Sharing the Gospel with Canadian Indians


Egerton Ryerson Young - 2015
    It meant nearly freezing when sleeping outside in 50-below-zero weather. It meant canoeing upstream for hundreds of miles to reach remote Indian villages. It meant eating wild cat and other stranger things, or eating nothing for days at a time. But it also meant you were privileged to present the good news of the true Great Spirit to those who were often misunderstood and mistreated. The adventures in this book are rivaled only by the incredible conversions of those who saw the Creator in nature and then worshipped Him too. You will be challenged and inspired by the results of one man who went where the Lord led, with little regard for himself. About the Author Egerton Ryerson Young was a teacher, pastor, author, and a brave missionary to remote Canadian Indians. Young’s mother died in 1842, and consequently he was raised by his stepmother, Maria Farley. After a brief stint as a school teacher, Young was ordained and called to a pastorate of the First Methodist Church in Hamilton. In 1868, however, he was invited to become a missionary to the natives of Rupert’s Land. After praying over this with his new wife, Elizabeth, he asked her what she thought about this call. “I think it is from God and we will go,” was her reply. What happens next is the compelling story of this book.

Crazy Horse and Custer


Stephen E. Ambrose - 1975
    Ambrose, a dual biography of two great nineteenth century warriors, General Custer and Crazy Horse, culminating in the Battle of Little Bighorn.

“All the Real Indians Died Off”: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans


Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz - 2016
    Tracing how these ideas evolved, and drawing from history, the authors disrupt long-held and enduring myths such as:"Columbus Discovered America""Thanksgiving Proves the Indians Welcomed Pilgrims""Indians Were Savage and Warlike""Europeans Brought Civilization to Backward Indians""The United States Did Not Have a Policy of Genocide""Sports Mascots Honor Native Americans""Most Indians Are on Government Welfare""Indian Casinos Make Them All Rich""Indians Are Naturally Predisposed to Alcohol"Each chapter deftly shows how these myths are rooted in the fears and prejudice of European settlers and in the larger political agendas of a settler state aimed at acquiring Indigenous land and tied to narratives of erasure and disappearance. Accessibly written and revelatory, "All the Real Indians Died Off" challenges readers to rethink what they have been taught about Native Americans and history.

The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony


Roberto Calasso - 1988
    "A perfect work like no other. (Calasso) has re-created . . . the morning of our world."--Gore Vidal. 15 engravings.