Books by Topic
Brothers of the Buffalo by
A captivating and historical story of two young men on opposing sides of war. In 1874, the U.S. Army sent troops to subdue and move the Native Americans of the southern plains to reservations. Brothers of the Buffalo follows Private Washington Vance Jr., an African-American calvaryman, and Wolf, a Cheyenne warrior, during the brief and brutal war that followed. Filled with action and suspense from both sides of the battle, this is a tale of conflict and unlikely friendship in the Wild West.
ISBN: 1682750078Publication Date: 2016-03-15
Jonny Appleseed by
'You're gonna need a rock and a whole lotta medicine' is a mantra that Jonny Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer, repeats to himself in this vivid and utterly compelling novel. Off the reserve and trying to find ways to live and love in the big city, Jonny becomes a cybersex worker who fetishises himself in order to make a living. Self-ordained as an NDN glitter princess, Jonny has one week before he must return to the 'rez,' and his former life, to attend the funeral of his stepfather. The next seven days are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and the heartbreaking recollection of his beloved kokum (grandmother). Jonny's world is a series of breakages, appendages, and linkages - and as he goes through the motions of preparing to return home, he learns how to put together the pieces of his life. Jonny Appleseed is a unique, shattering vision of Indigenous life, full of grit, glitter, and dreams.
ISBN: 9781551527253Publication Date: 2018-05-15
Kyotopolis by
A darkly comic and theatrical fantasia, this sequel to Big Buck City follows the continuing journeys of the First Nation families the Bucks and the Fishers. Exploring the nature of communication and the ongoing struggle Aboriginal peoples in Canada face in finding an identity, this bizarre and otherworldly drama makes use of science fiction conventions to express an indigenous worldview.
ISBN: 1550967541Publication Date: 2018-08-24
Riding the Trail of Tears by
Sherman Alexie meets William Gibson. Louise Erdrich meets Franz Kafka. Leslie Marmon Silko meets Philip K. Dick. However you might want to put it, this is Native American fiction in a whole new world. A surrealistic revisiting of the Cherokee Removal, Riding the Trail of Tears takes us to north Georgia in the near future, into a virtual-reality tourist compound where customers ride the Trail of Tears, and into the world of Tallulah Wilson, a Cherokee woman who works there. When several tourists lose consciousness inside the ride, employees and customers at the compound come to believe, naturally, that a terrorist attack is imminent. nbsp; Little does Tallulah know that Cherokee Little People have taken up residence in the virtual world and fully intend to change the ride’s programming to suit their own point of view. Told by a narrator who knows all but can hardly be trusted, in a story reflecting generations of experience while recalling the events in a single day of Tallulah’s life, this funny and poignant tale revises American history even as it offers a new way of thinking, both virtual and very real, about the past for both Native Americans and their Anglo counterparts.
ISBN: 0803268211Publication Date: 2011-03-01
Sacred Smokes by
Winner of the 2018 Tillie Olsen Award for Creative Writing from the Working-Class Studies Association Selected for the Recommended Fiction Book List of the 2019 In the Margins Book Award Growing up in a gang in the city can be dark. Growing up Native American in a gang in Chicago is a whole different story. This book takes a trip through that unexplored part of Indian Country, an intense journey that is full of surprises, shining a light on the interior lives of people whose intellectual and emotional concerns are often overlooked. This dark, compelling, occasionally inappropriate, and often hilarious linked story collection introduces a character who defies all stereotypes about urban life and Indians. He will be in readers' heads for a long time to come.
ISBN: 0826359906Publication Date: 2018-08-15
You Who Enter Here by
Finalist for the 2020 Colorado Book Award in the Literary Fiction category presented by the Colorado Center for the Book Finalist for the 2019 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Multicultural (Adult Fiction) category 2020 In the Margins Top Ten and Fiction Recommendation Matthew has grown up in hell. His father is gone, and his mother drinks and hooks up with men who abuse Matthew and his sister. He finally decides to hit the streets of Farmington to get away and to drink himself to death--in his mind, his destiny. He meets Chris, who saves him, takes him home, cleans him up, gets him sober, and initiates Matthew into one of Albuquerque's Native American gangs, the 505s. The 505s have been around for generations. They now sell heroin, and it's their subservience to the Mexican gangs that has allowed them to survive. However, Chris decides that his little Native American gang deserves to be as big as the Mexican gangs in Albuquerque, bringing in new business from deep inside Indigenous communities in Mexico. Then, Matthew falls in love with Chris's girlfriend. Matthew's story is one of terrible darkness, but also, unexpected beauty and tenderness.
ISBN: 1438473168Publication Date: 2019-03-01
The Feathered Heart by
This revised and expanded edition of The Feathered Heart, Mark Turcotte's celebrated collection of Native American poetry, brings traditional oral culture to print. Torn, painful, vibrant, and full of hope, his poetry weaves together the multilayered and textured fabric of contemporary Native American urban and rural existence. Appropriately, each poem in The Feathered Heart possesses a deeply lyrical quality. Raw emotion echoes in Turcotte's voice, in his verse, in the things he sees. "Ten Thousand Thousand Bones," for example, "a poem about the desecration of Native American burial sites and objects by archeologists," is dedicated "to an ancient woman taken from the Earth near New Lenox, Illinois in the winter 1993/94."
ISBN: 0870139622Publication Date: 1998-05-31
Stands Alone, Faces, and Other Poems by
Stands Alone, Faces, and Other Poems, Patrick LeBeau's first collection, is a self-reflective work on identity, ancestry, and family relationships voiced in three parts. "Stands Alone," the first voice heard, is the singular "he"--an entity lost in a sea of loneliness, loneliness that freezes growth and stagnates creativity. It places the self in a dizzy reality of emotions and knee-jerk reactions, cut off from the community. "He" wanders, seeking connections to land and community, but often finding confusion and despair and, occasionally, clarity and humor. Alone, he fends alone and suffers decisions made with only his counsel. The voice in part two moves the "he" to embrace community and a place of identity exploration and discovery. A language is learned. A language of stories that enables him to link his own personal history to a larger Native community and experience. Through this found relationship with ancestry and family, "he" becomes receptive to spiritual teachings and cultural practices. Part three sets "he" free to consolidate the "pieces" of his memories and experiences into one, large creative net of experimentation and form. Desiring inclusion of personal history and reflections regardless of notions of good or bad, positive or negative, "he" finally settles on a skin he can live with and within.
ISBN: 0870135333Publication Date: 1999-09-30
Little Whale by
Long ago in southeastern Alaska, Keet, a ten-year-old Tlingit Indian boy, stows away for a voyage on his father's canoe and soon finds himself caught in the middle of a wild seastorm that carries him far from his home village and, after making land, right in the middle of a dangerous dispute between two Indian clans.
ISBN: 1602232962Publication Date: 2016-08-15
Buffalo is the new buffalo : stories by
"Powerful stories of "Metis futurism" that envision a world without violence, capitalism, or colonization. "Education is the new buffalo" is a metaphor widely used among Indigenous peoples in Canada to signify the importance of education to their survival and ability to support themselves, as once Plains nations supported themselves as buffalo peoples. The assumption is that many of the pre-Contact ways of living are forever gone, so adaptation is necessary. But Chelsea Vowel asks, "Instead of accepting that the buffalo, and our ancestral ways, will never come back, what if we simply ensure that they do?" Inspired by classic and contemporary speculative fiction, Buffalo Is the New Buffalo explores science fiction tropes through a Metis lens: a Two-Spirit rougarou (shapeshifter) in the nineteenth century tries to solve a murder in her community and joins the nehiyaw-pwat (Iron Confederacy) in order to successfully stop Canadian colonial expansion into the West. A Metis man is gored by a radioactive bison, gaining super strength, but losing the ability to be remembered by anyone not related to him by blood. Nanites babble to babies in Cree, virtual reality teaches transformation, foxes take human form and wreak havoc on hearts, buffalo roam free, and beings grapple with the thorny problem of healing from colonialism. Indigenous futurisms seek to discover the impact of colonization, remove its psychological baggage, and recover ancestral traditions. These eight short stories of "Metis futurism" explore Indigenous existence and resistance through the specific lens of being Metis. Expansive and eye-opening, Buffalo Is the New Buffalo rewrites our shared history in provocative and exciting ways."-- Provided by publisher.
ISBN: 1551528800Publication Date: 2022
From the Hilltop by
For the characters we meet in Toni Jensen s stories, the past is very much the present. Theirs are American Indian lives off the reservation, lives lived beyond the usual boundaries set for American Indian characters: migratory, often overlooked, yet carrying tradition with them into a future of difference and possibility."
ISBN: 1282555707Publication Date: 2010-01-01
After the First Full Moon in April by
In this extraordinary book Josephine Peters, a respected northern California Indian elder and Native healer, shares her vast, lifelong cultural and plant knowledge. The book begins with Josephine's personal and tribal history and gathering ethics. Josephine then instructs the reader in medicinal and plant food preparations and offers an illustrated catalog of the uses and doses of over 160 plants. At a time of the commercialization of traditional ecological knowledge, Peters presents her rich tradition on her own terms, and according to her spiritual convictions about how her knowledge should be shared. This volume is essential for anyone working in ethnobotany, ethnomedicine, environmental anthropology, Native American studies, and Western and California culture and history.
ISBN: 9781598743647Publication Date: 2010-04-30
Black Eagle Child by
"A consummate storyteller and writer in both Mesquakie and English, Ray A. Young Bear is a noted poet whose skills are evident in these intricate, finely woven stories that balance encounters and experiences with religion, myths, dreams, poverty, and injustice with the love and support offered by family and friends." "In Black Eagle Child Young Bear recreates his life within the fifties, sixties, and seventies circumstances of a familiar American history of racism, Vietnam, drugs, the Doors, and Castaneda's cults. But always central to these honest, imaginative vignettes are Young Bear's exits from and returns to his home on Iowa's Mesquakie Settlement, the lands his great-great-grandfather, Ma mwi wa ni ke, helped obtain on behalf of the tribe in 1856." "Through the eyes of Edgar Bearchild, a member of the Black Eagle Child Settlement, we meet such enduring characters as Ted Facepaint, Junior Pipestar, Brook Grassleggings, the Hyena family, Pat "Dirty" Red Hat ("the ugliest man in Big Valley"), and Claude Youthman ("the Cantaloupe Terrorist"). From Edgar's introduction to the faith of his tribal elders, to his childhood delight in grape Jell-O, to his years at a California university, his journey to adulthood is a fascinating one." "Like the astonishingly beautiful and intricate Mesquakie beadwork, this autobiography combines aspects of the dominant white culture with elements from Red Earth history and tradition. In Black Eagle Child Ray A. Young Bear has created a distinct and dazzling vision that will speak to all who will heed its voice."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 9780877453567Publication Date: 1992-03-01
Braiding Sweetgrass by ISBN: 9781571313560
Indian Voices by
In Indian Voices, Alison Owings takes readers on a fresh journey across America, east to west, north to south, and around again. Owings's most recent oral history--engagingly written in a style that entertains and informs--documents what Native Americans say about themselves, their daily lives, and the world around them. Young and old from many tribal nations speak with candor, insight, and (unknown to many non-Natives) humor about what it is like to be a Native American in the twenty-first century. Through intimate interviews many also express their thoughts about the sometimes staggeringly ignorant, if often well-meaning, non-Natives they encounter--some who do not realize Native Americans still exist, much less that they speak English, have cell phones, use the Internet, and might attend powwows and power lunches. Indian Voices, an inspiring and important contribution to the literature about the original Americans, will make every reader rethink the past--and present--of the United States.
ISBN: 0813554187Publication Date: 2012-10-01
The Land Looks after Us by
Native Americans practice some of America's most spiritually profound, historically resilient, and ethically demanding religions. Joel Martin draws his narrative from folk stories, rituals, and even landscapes to trace the development of Native American religion from ancient burial mounds, through interactions with European conquerors and missionaries, and on to the modern-day rebirth of ancient rites and beliefs. The book depicts the major cornerstones of American Indian history and religion--the vast movements for pan-Indian renewal, the formation of the Native American Church in 1919, the passage of the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act of 1990, and key political actions involving sacred sites in the 1980s and '90s. Martin explores the close links between religion and Native American culture and history. Legendary chiefs like Osceola and Tecumseh led their tribes in resistance movements against the European invaders, inspired by prophets like the Shawnee Tenskwatawa and the Mohawk Coocoochee. Catharine Brown, herself a convert, founded a school for Cherokee women and converted dozens of her people to Christianity. Their stories, along with those of dozens of other men and women--from noblewarriors to celebrated authors--are masterfully woven into this vivid, wide-ranging survey of Native American history and religion.
ISBN: 0195145860Publication Date: 2001-02-22
A Metaphoric Mind by
Dr. Joseph Couture (1930-2007), known affectionately as "Dr. Joe," stood at the centre of some of the greatest political, social, and intellectual struggles of Aboriginal peoples in contemporary Canada. A profound thinker and writer, as well as a gifted orator, he easily walked two paths, as a respected Elder and traditional healer and as an educational psychologist, one of the first Aboriginal people in Canada to receive a PhD. His work challenged and transformed long-held views of Canada's Indigenous peoples, and his vision and leadership gave direction to many of the current fields of Aboriginal scholarship. His influence extended into numerous areas--education, addictions and mental health treatment, community development, restorative justice, and federal correctional programming for Aboriginal peoples. With a foreword by Lewis Cardinal, A Metaphoric Mind brings together for the first time key works selected from among Dr. Joe's writings, published and unpublished. Spanning nearly thirty years, the essays invite us to share in his transformative legacy through a series of encounters, with Aboriginal spirituality and ancestral ways of knowing, with Elders and their teachings, with education and its role in politicization, self-determination, and social change, and with the restorative process and the meaning of Native healing.
ISBN: 1926836545Publication Date: 2013-09-01
Native America by
This is a study of the tribes, traditions, and leaders of Native America, from ancient social structures to contemporary land disputes. The book is composed of articles by well-known Native Americans, offering a view of their culture from pre-Columbian times to the present. The articles cover history, religion, arts, language and current issues, revealing a portrait of a people.
ISBN: 0810394529Publication Date: 1994-05-01
Navajo Weavers of the American Southwest by
From the mid-17th century to the present day, herding sheep, carding wool, spinning yarn, dyeing with native plants, and weaving on iconic upright looms have all been steps in the intricate process of Navajo blanket and rug making in the American Southwest. Beginning in the late 1800s, amateur and professional photographers documented the Diné (Navajo) weavers and their artwork, and the images they captured tell the stories of the artists, their homes, and the materials, techniques, and designs they used. Many postcards illustrate popular interest surrounding weaving as an indigenous art form, even as economic, social, and political realities influenced the craft. These historical pictures illuminate perceived traditional weaving practices. The authors' accompanying narratives deepen the perspective and relate imagery to modern life.
ISBN: 1467129720Publication Date: 2018-10-08
Prehistoric Games of North American Indians by
Prehistoric Games of North American Indians is a collection of studies on the ancient games of indigenous peoples of North America. The authors, all archaeologists, muster evidence from artifacts, archaeological features, ethnography, ethnohistory, and to a lesser extent linguistics and folklore. Chapters sometimes center on a particular game (chunkey rolling disc game or patolli dice game, for example) or sometimes on a specific prehistoric society and its games (Aztec acrobatic games, games of the ancient Fremont people), and in one instance on the relationship between slavery and gaming in ancient indigenous North American societies. In addition to the intrinsic value of pursuing the time depth of these games, some of which remain popular and culturally important today among Native Americans or within the broader society, the book is important for demonstrating a wide variety of research methods and for problematizing a heretofore overlooked research topic. Issues that emerge include the apparently ubiquitous but difficult to detect presence of gambling, the entanglement of indigenous games and the social logic of the societies in which they are embedded, the characteristics of women's versus men's games or those of in-group and out-group gaming, and the close correspondence between gaming and religion. The book's coverage is broad and balanced in terms of geography, level of socio-cultural organization and gender.
ISBN: 1607815605Publication Date: 2017-06-30
