Native American Studies

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  Learning Native Wisdom: What Traditional Cultures Teach Us about Subsistence, Sustainability, and Spirituality

  Many native North American cultures have origins that predate Confucius, who lived 500 years before the birth of Christ. For generations the people of these traditions have thrived under conditions that many view as harsh, if not hostile. Through their close association with nature, members of native communities have created complex systems for cooperating with one another and living within their environments. This book explains how to nurture a society by closely observing the traditions of various native cultures. It explores the need to live sustainably, in harmony with the land, in order to preserve our cultures, communities, and humankind ...Read More

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  Killing the Indian Maiden: Images of Native American Women in Film

  This book examines the fascinating and often disturbing portrayal of Native American women in film. Through discussion of thirty-four Hollywood films from the silent period to the present, the book examines the sacrificial role of what it terms the “Celluloid Maiden”—a young Native woman who allies herself with a white male hero and dies as a result of that choice. The book intertwines theories of colonization, gender, race, and film studies to ground the study in socio-historical context all in an attempt to define what it means to be an American. As the book charts the consistent depiction of the ...Read More

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  Miskwabik, Metal of Ritual: Metallurgy in Precontact Eastern North America

  Miskwabik, Metal of Ritual examines the thousands of beautiful and intricate ritual works of art—from ceremonial weaponry to delicate copper pendants and ear ornaments—created in eastern North America before the arrival of Europeans. The first comprehensive examination of this 3,000-year-old metallurgical tradition, the book provides unique insight into the motivation of the artisans and the significance of these objects, and highlights the brilliance and sophistication of the early civilizations of the Americas.Comparing the ritual architecture and metallurgy of the original Americans with the ethnological record, Amelia M. Trevelyan begins to unravel the mystery of the significance of the objects as ...Read More

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  "So Wise Were Our Elders": Mythic Narratives from the Kamsá

  "So wise were our elders!" Thus exclaims Mariano Chicunque, himself an elder, expressing in a single phrase the thrust of the mythic narrative tradition he simultaneously presents and represents in his storytelling.

  A remarkable body of mythology is documented for the first time in this volume. John Homes McDowell’s study revolves around thirty-two mythic narratives of the Kamsá Indians who live in the Sibundoy Valley of the Colombian Andes, collected by the author from several renowned Kamsá storytellers. Each myth is given in the native language with parallel English translations that seek to capture the flavor of the original performances. ...Read More

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  The Shawnee

  Many Indian tribes claimed Kentucky as hunting territory in the eighteenth century, though for the most part their villages were built elsewhere. For the Shawnee, whose homeland was in the Ohio and Cumberland valleys, Kentucky was an essential source of game, and the skins and furs were vital for trade. When Daniel Boone explored Kentucky in 1769, a band of Shawnee warned him they would not tolerate the presence of whites there. Settlers would remember the warning until 1794 and the Battle of the Fallen Timber. In The Shawnee, Jerry E. Clark eloquently recounts the bitter struggle between white settlers ...Read More

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  Disputed Waters: Native Americans and the Great Lakes Fishery

  This disturbing study of the struggle of the Chippewa and Ottawa Indians for traditional fishing rights in the Great Lakes raises legal and public policy questions that extend far beyond that region. Who owns common-property resources in the United States? Who should manage those resources and for whose benefit? Should Native Americans be accorded rights which supersede those of other citizens and restrict their economic and recreational opportunities? Can federal courts successfully resolve conflicts over resource allocation?

  In the pages of this book Robert Doherty follows the conflict from the 1960s, when Native Americans renewed their struggle to maintain their ...Read More

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  Sayings of the Ancestors: The Spiritual Life of the Sibundoy Indians

  The Sibundoy valley of southwestern Colombia is the home of a unique Indian culture—one that blends Incan elements with those of the aboriginal natives. Moreover, Sibundoy bridges two domains, the Andean highlands and the Amazonian basin, and inter-mixed with all of these elements are European influences, particularly folk and orthodox Catholicism. From this cultural enclave, John McDowell presents here a body of oral material collected from the Santiago Ingano community.

  This corpus of material is made up of some 200 “sayings of the ancestors,” proverb-like statements, many concerned with dreams and the forecasting of future events. From an analysis of ...Read More

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  Eskimo Boyhood: An Autobiography in Psychosocial Perspective

  Here is a unique view of life as experienced by a young Eskimo. The autobiography was written by a youth in his early twenties who relates the details of his boyhood life, recalling the feelings accompanying his experiences.

  In addition to allowing Nathan simply to relate his story thereby illustrating the uniqueness of an individual life, Mr. Hughes sets the autobiography in a broader context, which illustrates the major trends in sociocultural changes in a small and isolated corner of the world. Not only were different answers required in this new evolving world, but different questions were being asked—not how ...Read More