Offers fast access to more than 15,000 years of culture and history, covering more than 600 Native American Groups.
The Blue Tattoo : The Life of Olive Oatman by
In 1851 Olive Oatman was a thirteen-year old pioneer traveling west toward Zion, with her Mormon family. Within a decade, she was a white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures. The Blue Tattoo tells the harrowing story of this forgotten heroine of frontier America. Orphaned when her family was brutally killed by Yavapai Indians, Oatman lived as a slave to her captors for a year before being traded to the Mohave, who tattooed her face and raised her as their own. She was fully assimilated and perfectly happy when, at nineteen, she was ransomed back to white society. She became an instant celebrity, but the price of fame was high and the pain of her ruptured childhood lasted a lifetime. Based on historical records, including letters and diaries of Oatman’s friends and relatives, The Blue Tattoo is the first book to examine her life from her childhood in Illinois—including the massacre, her captivity, and her return to white society—to her later years as a wealthy banker’s wife in Texas. Oatman’s story has since become legend, inspiring artworks, fiction, film, radio plays, and even an episode of Death Valley Days starring Ronald Reagan. Its themes, from the perils of religious utopianism to the permeable border between civilization and savagery, are deeply rooted in the American psyche. Oatman’s blue tattoo was a cultural symbol that evoked both the imprint of her Mohave past and the lingering scars of westward expansion. It also served as a reminder of her deepest secret, fully explored here for the first time: she never wanted to go home.
American Indian Health and Nursing by
The first book to examine the profound disparities in American Indian health through a nursing lens and how they can be remedied The average life expectancy of a male born on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota today is somewhere in the mid-40s Aithe lowest life expectancy ofall peoples not only in the United States but the entire Western Hemisphere. Written by and for nurses, this is the first text to focus exclusively onAmerican Indian health and nursing. In fact, it is likely the only nursing book to even mention American Indian health as a distinct entity. The textaddresses the profound disparities in policy, health care law, and health outcomes that affect American Indians, and describes how these disparities, woveninto the cultural, environmental, historical, and geopolitical fabric of American Indian society, are responsible for the marked lack of well-being amongAmerican Indians. American Indian nurse authors, natives of nine unique American Indian cultures, address the four domains of health Aiphysical, mental, spiritual, andemotional Aiwithin each region to underscore the many stunning inequalities of opportunity for health and well-being within the American Indian culturecompared with AuAnglo Au culture. In an era of cultural competency, these expert nurse authors bring awareness of what is perhaps the least understoodminority population in the United States. The text covers the history of American Indians with a focus on the drastic changes that occurred followingEuropean contact. Included are excerpts from relevant journal articles, historical reports, interviews with tribal health officials, and case studies. Thebook addresses the roots of American Indian nursing, including coverage of indigenous knowledge and traditional approaches to health and healing. Itexamines current issues surrounding American Indian nursing, nursing education, and health care within 10 distinct American Indian cultural populations, including a crucial discussion of the health care needs of American Indians living in urban areas. KEY FEATURES: Focuses exclusively on American Indian health and nursing Aithe first book to do so Written by American Indian nurses Covers four domains of health: physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional Highlights nine specific cultural areas spanning Indian Country, each with its own unique history and context, with urban spaces as a final Auarea Au "
Trail of Tears by
This book covers a critical event in U.S. history: the period of Indian removal and resistance from 1817 to 1839, documenting the Cherokee experience as well as Jacksonian policy and Native-U.S. relations.• Written by a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, the volume provides current, informed perspectives on the Cherokee experience• Provides biographical sketches that introduce the reader to the key players on all sides of the event• Explains how intensified contact with Europeans through trading relationships and developing technological dependency changed Cherokee society and created a new'global economy'• Supplies primary document excerpts that offer additional insight and perspective on historical events, incorporating legislation, petitions, newspaper articles, court decisions, letters, and treaties• Examines a key curricular topic for high school and undergraduate student researchers—Indian removal and resistance in the 1800s• Includes portraits of important figures, such as Major Ridge, John Ridge, and John Ross as well as maps of Cherokee territory in the southeast and routes of the Trail of Tears
First peoples : a documentary survey of American Indian history by
Colin G. Calloway is the John Kimball Jr. 1943 Professor of History and Professor of Native American Studies at Dartmouth College. He served for two years as associate director of and editor at the D’Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian at the Newberry Library in Chicago and taught for seven years at the University of Wyoming. Professor Calloway has written many books on Native American history, including The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and The Transformation of North America (2006); One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and Clark (2003); and two books for the Bedford Series in History and Culture: Our Hearts Fell to the Ground: Plains Indians Views of How the West Was Lost (1996), and The World Turned Upside Down: Indian Voices from Early America (1994).
Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians but Were Afraid to Ask by
"I had a profoundly well-educated Princetonian ask me, 'Where is your tomahawk?' I had a beautiful woman approach me in the college gymnasium and exclaim, 'You have the most beautiful red skin.' I took a friend to see Dances with Wolves and was told, 'Your people have a beautiful culture.' . . . I made many lifelong friends at college, and they supported but also challenged me with questions like, 'Why should Indians have reservations?'" What have you always wanted to know about Indians? Do you think you should already know the answers--or suspect that your questions may be offensive? In matter-of-fact responses to over 120 questions, both thoughtful and outrageous, modern and historical, Ojibwe scholar and cultural preservationist Anton Treuer gives a frank, funny, and sometimes personal tour of what's up with Indians, anyway. --What is the real story of Thanksgiving? --Why are tribal languages important? --What do you think of that incident where people died in a sweat lodge? White/Indian relations are often characterized by guilt and anger. Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians but Were Afraid to Ask cuts through the emotion and builds a foundation for true understanding and positive action.
Code Talker by
The Navajo code is the only unbroken code in modern warfare. It ensured the end of WWII by assuring the US victory in Japan. Only one original Navajo code talker still survives; Code Talker is his story. The Japanese had managed to crack every code the United States used. US military intelligence turned to the Navajo recruits and their native language to create a secret military code that the Japanese were unable to break and allowed embattled regiments of Marines to communicate quickly, concisely and above all, securely.
New Trail of Tears: how Washington is destroying American Indians by
If you want to know why American Indians have the highest rates of poverty of any racial group, why suicide is the leading cause of death among Indian men, why native women are two and a half times more likely to be raped than the national average and why gang violence affects American Indian youth more than any other group, do not look to history. There is no doubt that white settlers devastated Indian communities in the 19th, and early 20th centuries. But it is our policies today--denying Indians ownership of their land, refusing them access to the free market and failing to provide the police and legal protections due to them as American citizens--that have turned reservations into small third-world countries in the middle of the richest and freest nation on earth. The tragedy of our Indian policies demands reexamination immediately--not only because they make the lives of millions of American citizens harder and more dangerous--but also because they represent a microcosm of everything that has gone wrong with modern liberalism. They are the result of decades of politicians and bureaucrats showering a victimized people with money and cultural sensitivity instead of what they truly need--the education, the legal protections and the autonomy to improve their own situation. If we are really ready to have a conversation about American Indians, it is time to stop bickering about the names of football teams and institute real reforms that will bring to an end this ongoing national shame.
The Blue Tattoo : The Life of Olive Oatman by
In 1851 Olive Oatman was a thirteen-year old pioneer traveling west toward Zion, with her Mormon family. Within a decade, she was a white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures. The Blue Tattoo tells the harrowing story of this forgotten heroine of frontier America. Orphaned when her family was brutally killed by Yavapai Indians, Oatman lived as a slave to her captors for a year before being traded to the Mohave, who tattooed her face and raised her as their own. She was fully assimilated and perfectly happy when, at nineteen, she was ransomed back to white society. She became an instant celebrity, but the price of fame was high and the pain of her ruptured childhood lasted a lifetime. Based on historical records, including letters and diaries of Oatman’s friends and relatives, The Blue Tattoo is the first book to examine her life from her childhood in Illinois—including the massacre, her captivity, and her return to white society—to her later years as a wealthy banker’s wife in Texas. Oatman’s story has since become legend, inspiring artworks, fiction, film, radio plays, and even an episode of Death Valley Days starring Ronald Reagan. Its themes, from the perils of religious utopianism to the permeable border between civilization and savagery, are deeply rooted in the American psyche. Oatman’s blue tattoo was a cultural symbol that evoked both the imprint of her Mohave past and the lingering scars of westward expansion. It also served as a reminder of her deepest secret, fully explored here for the first time: she never wanted to go home.
The Native American Mascot Controversy by
Sports mascots have been a tradition for decades. Along with the usual lions and tigers, many schools are represented by Native American images. Once considered a benign practice, numerous studies have proved just the opposite: that the use of Native American mascots in educational institutions has perpetuated a shameful history of racial insensitivity. The Native American Mascot Controversy provides an overview of the issues that have been associated with this topic for the past 40 years. The book provides a comprehensive and critical account of the issues surrounding the controversy, explicating the importance of anti-Indian racism in education and how it might be challenged. A collection of important primary documents and an extensive list of resources for further study are also included. Expounding the dangers and damages associated with their continued use, The Native American Mascot Controversy is a useful guide for anyone with an interest in race relations.
The Native American identity in sports : creating and preserving a culture by
On October 15, 1964 Billy Mills became the only American to win an Olympic Gold Medal for the 10,000 meters. It was but one notable triumph in sports by a Native American. Yet, unlike Mills's achievement, most significant contributions from Native Americans have gone unheralded. From individual athletes, teams, and events, it is clear that the "Vanishing Americans" are not vanishing but they are sadly overlooked. The Native American Identity in Sports: Creating and Preserving a Culture not only includes, but goes beyond the great achievements of Billy Mills to note numerous other instances of Native American accomplishment and impact on sports. This collection of essays examines how sport has contributed to shaping and expressing Native American identity from the attempt of the old Indian Schools to Americanize Native Americans through sport to the Indian mascot controversy and what it says about the broader public view of Native Americans. Additional essays explore the contemporary use of the traditional sport Toka to combat obesity in some Native American communities, the Seminoles commercialization of alligator wrestling a Native sport that was, in fact, only developed as a sport due to interest from tourists and much more. The contributions to this volume not only tell the story of Native Americans participation in the world of sports, but also how Native Americans have changed and enriched the sports world in the process. For anyone interested in the deep effect sport has on culture, The Native American Identity in Sports is an indispensable read."
The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by
A landmark history -- the sweeping story of the enslavement of tens of thousands of Indians across America, from the time of the conquistadors up to the early 20th century Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet, as Andre's Resendez illuminates in his myth-shattering The Other Slavery, it was practiced for centuries as an open secret. There was no abolitionist movement to protect the tens of thousands of natives who were kidnapped and enslaved by the conquistadors, then forced to descend into the "mouth of hell" of eighteenth-century silver mines or, later, made to serve as domestics for Mormon settlers and rich Anglos. Resendez builds the incisive case that it was mass slavery, more than epidemics, that decimated Indian populations across North America. New evidence, including testimonies of courageous priests, rapacious merchants, Indian captives, and Anglo colonists, sheds light too on Indian enslavement of other Indians -- as what started as a European business passed into the hands of indigenous operators and spread like wildfire across vast tracts of the American Southwest. The Other Slavery reveals nothing less than a key missing piece of American history. For over two centuries we have fought over, abolished, and tried to come to grips with African-American slavery. It is time for the West to confront an entirely separate, equally devastating enslavement we have long failed truly to see.
Native America and the Question of Genocide by
Did Native Americans suffer genocide? This controversial question lies at the heart of Native America and the Question of Genocide. After reviewing the various meanings of the word genocide, author Alex Alvarez examines a range of well-known examples, such as the Sand Creek Massacre and the Long Walk of the Navajo, to determine where genocide occurred and where it did not. The book explores the destructive beliefs of the European settlers and then looks at topics including disease, war, and education through the lens of genocide. Native America and the Question of Genocide shows the diversity of Native American experiences postcontact and illustrates how tribes relied on ever-evolving and changing strategies of confrontation and accommodation, depending on their location, the time period, and individuals involved, and how these often resulted in very different experiences. Alvarez treats this difficult subject with sensitivity and uncovers the complex realities of this troubling period in American history."
The Inconvenient Indian: a curious account of native people in North America by
In The Inconvenient Indian, Thomas King offers a deeply knowing, darkly funny, unabashedly opinionated, and utterly unconventional account of Indian-White relations in North America since initial contact. Ranging freely across the centuries and the Canada-U.S. border, King debunks fabricated stories of Indian savagery and White heroism, takes an oblique look at Indians (and cowboys) in film and popular culture, wrestles with the history of Native American resistance and his own experiences as a Native rights activist, and articulates a profound, revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands. Suffused with wit, anger, perception, and wisdom, The Inconvenient Indian is at once an engaging chronicle and a devastating subversion of history, insightfully distilling what it means to be "Indian" in North America. It is a critical and personal meditation that sees Native American history not as a straight line but rather as a circle in which the same absurd, tragic dynamics are played out over and over again. At the heart of the dysfunctional relationship between Indians and Whites, King writes, is land: "The issue has always been land." With that insight, the history inflicted on the indigenous peoples of North America--broken treaties, forced removals, genocidal violence, and racist stereotypes--sharpens into focus. Both timeless and timely, The Inconvenient Indian ultimately rejects the pessimism and cynicism with which Natives and Whites regard one another to chart a new and just way forward for Indians and non-Indians alike.
North American Indians: a very short introduction by
When Europeans first arrived in North America, between five and eight million indigenous people were already living there. But how did they come to be here? What were their agricultural, spiritual, and hunting practices? How did their societies evolve and what challenges do they face today? Eminent historians Theda Perdue and Michael Green begin by describing how nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers followed the bison and woolly mammoth over the Bering land mass between Asia and what is now Alaska between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago, settling throughout North America. They describe hunting practices among different tribes, how some made the gradual transition to more settled, agricultural ways of life, the role of kinship and cooperation in Native societies, their varied burial rites and spiritual practices, and many other features of Native American life. Throughout the book, Perdue and Green stress the great diversity of indigenous peoples in America, who spoke more than 400 different languages before the arrival of Europeans and whose ways of life varied according to the environments they settled in and adapted to so successfully. Most importantly, the authors stress how Native Americans have struggled to maintain their sovereignty--first with European powers and then with the United States--in order to retain their lands, govern themselves, support their people, and pursue practices that have made their lives meaningful. Going beyond the stereotypes that so often distort our views of Native Americans, this Very Short Introduction offers a historically accurate, deeply engaging, and often inspiring account of the wide array of Native peoples in America. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
Native Americans in the movies : portrayals from silent films to the present by
Since the early days of the silent era, Native Americans have been captured on film, often in unflattering ways. Over the decades, some filmmakers have tried to portray the Native American on screen with more balanced interpretations to varying degrees of success. More recent films such as The New World, Flags of Our Fathers, and Frozen River have offered depictions of both historical and contemporary Native Americans, providing viewers with a range of representations. In Native Americans in the Movies: Portrayals from Silent Films to the Present, Michael Hilger surveys more than a century of cinema. Drawing upon his previous work, From Savage to Nobleman, Hilger presents a thorough revision of the earlier volume. The introductory material has not only been revised with updated information and examples but also adds discussions of representative films produced since the mid-1990s. Now organized alphabetically, the entries on individual films cover all relevant works made over the past century, and each entry contains much more information than those in the earlier book. Details include .film summary .nation represented .image portrayal .production details .DVD availability Many of the entries also contain comments from film critics to indicate how the movies were regarded at the time of their theatrical release. Supplemented by appendixes of image portrayals, representations of nations, and a list of made-for-television movies, this volume offers readers a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of hundreds of films in which Native American characters have appeared on the big screen. As such, Native Americans in the Movies will appeal not only to scholars of media, ethnic studies, and history but also to anyone interested in the portrayal of Native Americans in cinema."
The Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes by
Providing essays on the history, culture and current status of approximately 400 Native American groups, this work is divided into four geographic volumes. An overview essay introduces each of the ten regions covered, giving a geographic perspective on the tribes covered, as well as insights on cultural and tribal communalities. Individual tribal entries follow alphabetically. Also featured are biographical profiles of prominent tribal leaders.
Native Americans : an encyclopedia of history, culture, and peoples by
This landmark two volume source ranks as one of the field's most comprehensive guides to Native American studies, offering historical, cultural, and modern reference, supporting a complete range of research. * Richly illustrated with photos and drawings * Maps of tribal locations and culture areas * Bibliographic citations for each tribal entry, a glossary, and a subject index
Here is a list of some possible search terms:
Or you can search by a specific tribe such as, but not limited to: Apache, Yavapai, Mohave, Hochunk, Chippewa, Cherokee, Navaho, etc.