A groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492. Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus?s landing had crossed the Bering...  more

A groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492. Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus?s landing had crossed the Bering Strait twelve thousand years ago; existed mainly in small, nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas was, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last thirty years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong. In a book that startles and persuades, Mann reveals how a new generation of researchers equipped with novel scientific techniques came to previously unheard-of conclusions. Among them: ? In 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe. ? Certain cities?such as Tenochtitl?n, the Aztec capital?were far greater in population than any contemporary European city. Furthermore, Tenochtitl?n, unlike any capital in Europe at that time, had running water, beautiful botanical gardens, and immaculately clean streets. ? The earliest cities in the Western Hemisphere were thriving before the Egyptians built the great pyramids. ? Pre-Columbian Indians in Mexico developed corn by a breeding process so sophisticated that the journal Science recently described it as ?man?s first, and perhaps the greatest, feat of genetic engineering.? ? Amazonian Indians learned how to farm the rain forest without destroying it?a process scientists are studying today in the hope of regaining this lost knowledge. ? Native Americans transformed their land so completely that Europeans arrived in a hemisphere already massively ?landscaped? by human beings. Mann sheds clarifying light on the methods used to arrive at these new visions of the pre-Columbian Americas and how they have affected our understanding of our history and our thinking about the environment. His book is an exciting and learned account of scientific inquiry and revelation.

Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the...  more

Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world?s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico?s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence. With the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the author was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a fifty-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot wonder.With a sharp wit and wild exuberance, McDougall takes us from the high-tech science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultrarunners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to the climactic race in the Copper Canyons. Born to Run is that rare book that will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that the secret to happiness is right at your feet, and that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.

Immediately recognized as a revelatory and enormously controversial book since its first publication in 1971, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is universally recognized as one of those rare books that forever changes the way its subject is perceived. Now repackaged, with a new introduction from...  more

Immediately recognized as a revelatory and enormously controversial book since its first publication in 1971, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is universally recognized as one of those rare books that forever changes the way its subject is perceived. Now repackaged, with a new introduction from bestselling author Hampton Sides, to coincide with a major HBO dramatic film of the book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a terrific seller on the backlist, is poised to be rediscovered by a new and even larger audience of readers. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Browns classic, eloquent, meticulously documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the nineteenth century. A national bestseller in hardcover for more than a year after its initial publication, it has sold over four million copies in multiple editions and has been translated into 17 languages. Using council records, autobiographies, and firsthand descriptions, Brown allows great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes to tell us in their own words of the series of battles, massacres, and broken treaties that finally left them and their people demoralized and decimated. A unique and disturbing narrative told with force and clarity, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee changed forever our vision of how the West was won, and lost. It tells a story that should not be forgotten, and so must be retold from time to time.

Celluloid Indians is book that makes an important contribution to the discourse of representations of Native Americans in the dominant culture. In Celluloid Indians, Jacquelyn Kilpatrick considers the combination of the misrepresentations and the displacement of native peoples, the use of...  more

Celluloid Indians is book that makes an important contribution to the discourse of representations of Native Americans in the dominant culture. In Celluloid Indians, Jacquelyn Kilpatrick considers the combination of the misrepresentations and the displacement of native peoples, the use of popular stereotypes to rewrite history, as well as the gendering of this activity. Furthermore, Kilpatrick's Celluloid Indians examines stereotypes in twentieth-century films as she posits that popular images of Indians speak more importantly to the Euro-American agenda and history of conquest.

Hidden in the shadow cast by the great western expeditions of Lewis and Clark lies another journey every bit as poignant, every bit as dramatic, and every bit as essential to an understanding of who we are as a nation -- the 1,800-mile journey made by Chief Joseph and eight hundred Nez Perce...  more

Hidden in the shadow cast by the great western expeditions of Lewis and Clark lies another journey every bit as poignant, every bit as dramatic, and every bit as essential to an understanding of who we are as a nation -- the 1,800-mile journey made by Chief Joseph and eight hundred Nez Perce men, women, and children from their homelands in what is now eastern Oregon through the most difficult, mountainous country in western America to the high, wintry plains of Montana. There, only forty miles from the Canadian border and freedom, Chief Joseph, convinced that the wounded and elders could go no farther, walked across the snowy battlefield, handed his rifle to the U.S. military commander who had been pursuing them, and spoke his now-famous words, "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." The story has been told many times, but never before in its entirety or with such narrative richness. Drawing on four years of research, interviews, and 20,000 miles of travel, Nerburn takes us beyond the surrender to the captives' unlikely welcome in Bismarck, North Dakota, their tragic eight-year exile in Indian Territory, and their ultimate return to the Northwest. Nerburn reveals the true, complex character of Joseph, showing how the man was transformed into a myth by a public hungry for an image of the noble Indian and how Joseph exploited the myth in order to achieve his single goal of returning his people to their homeland. Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce is far more than the story of a man and a people. It is a grand saga of a pivotal time in our nation's history. Its pages are alive with the presence of Lewis and Clark, General William Tecumseh Sherman, General George Armstrong Custer, and Sitting Bull. Its events brush against the California Gold Rush, the Civil War, the great western pioneer migration, and the building of the telegraph and the transcontinental railroad. Once you have read this groundbreaking work, you will never look at Chief Joseph, the American Indian, or our nation's westward journey in the same way again.

He is the only original World War II Navajo code talker still alive, and this is his story . . . His name wasn't Chestesr Nez. That was the English name he was assigned in kindergarten. And in boarding school at Fort Defiance, he was punished for speaking his native language, as the teachers...  more

He is the only original World War II Navajo code talker still alive, and this is his story . . . His name wasn't Chestesr Nez. That was the English name he was assigned in kindergarten. And in boarding school at Fort Defiance, he was punished for speaking his native language, as the teachers sought to rid him of his culture and traditions. But discrimination didn't stop Chester from answering the call to defend his country after Pearl Harbor. For the Navajo have always been warriors, and his upbringing on a New Mexico reservation gave him the strength -- both physical and mental -- to excel as a Marine. During World War II, the Japanese had managed to crack every code the United States used. But when the Marines turned to its Navajo recruits to develop and implement a secret military language, they created the only unbroken code in modern warfare, and helped assure victory for the United States over Japan in the South Pacific.

In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all. S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the...  more

In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all. S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined just how and when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. So effective were the Comanches that they forced the creation of the Texas Rangers and account for the advent of the new weapon specifically designed to fight them: the six-gun. The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads -- a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being. Against this backdrop Gwynne presents the compelling drama of Cynthia Ann Parker, a lovely nine-year-old girl with cornflower-blue eyes who was kidnapped by Comanches from the far Texas frontier in 1836. She grew to love her captors and became infamous as the "White Squaw" who refused to return until her tragic capture by Texas Rangers in 1860. More famous still was her son Quanah, a warrior who was never defeated and whose guerrilla wars in the Texas Panhandle made him a legend.

Welcome the second book in the Folktales of the World series! Engaging, inspirational, and above all entertaining, these legends come from Native American peoples across the U.S. Richly illustrated with original art, they capture a wide range of belief systems and wisdom from the Cherokee,...  more

Welcome the second book in the Folktales of the World series! Engaging, inspirational, and above all entertaining, these legends come from Native American peoples across the U.S. Richly illustrated with original art, they capture a wide range of belief systems and wisdom from the Cherokee, Cheyenne, Hopi, Lenape, Maidu, Seminole, Seneca, and other tribes. The beautifully retold tales, all with informative introductions, range from creation myths to animal fables to stirring accounts of bravery and sacrifice. Find out how stories first came to be, and how the People came to the upper world. Meet Rabbit, the clever and irresistible Creek trickster. See how the buffalo saved the Lakota people, and why the Pawnee continue to do the Bear Dance to this very day.Stefano Vitale?s art showcases a stunning array of animal figures, masks, totems, and Navajo-style rug patterns, all done in nature?s palette of brilliant turquoises, earth browns, shimmering sun-yellow, vivid fire-orange, and the deep blues of a dark night.  

Did you know that the okra plant and the word okra were introduced to the Americas from Africa? Or that squash was first a word from the language of the Narragansett tribe of New England? According to etymologists people who study words, languages, and word histories many languages grow by...  more

Did you know that the okra plant and the word okra were introduced to the Americas from Africa? Or that squash was first a word from the language of the Narragansett tribe of New England? According to etymologists people who study words, languages, and word histories many languages grow by adopting words from other languages, or loanwords. American English is a giant stew, simmering with loanwords like okra and squash. In her latest book, Linda Boyden shares an alphabet list of indigenous loanwords from North, South, and Central America that have found their way into common usage either nationally or regionally. From abalone to zopilote, Boyden celebrates the cultural diversity of American English while her brilliantly colored collage illustrations and simple, direct text reveal the flexibility and adaptability of language to young readers.

An astonishing untold story of the American West The great Sioux warrior-statesman Red Cloud was the only American Indian in history to defeat the United States Army in a war, forcing the government to sue for peace on his terms. At the peak of Red Cloud?s powers the Sioux could claim control...  more

An astonishing untold story of the American West The great Sioux warrior-statesman Red Cloud was the only American Indian in history to defeat the United States Army in a war, forcing the government to sue for peace on his terms. At the peak of Red Cloud?s powers the Sioux could claim control of one-fifth of the contiguous United States and the loyalty of thousands of fierce fighters. But the fog of history has left Red Cloud strangely obscured. Now, thanks to the rediscovery of a lost autobiography, and painstaking research by two award-winning authors, the story of our nation?s most powerful and successful Indian warrior can finally be told. Born in 1821 near the Platte River in modern-day Nebraska, Red Cloud lived an epic life of courage, wisdom, and fortitude in the face of a relentless enemy?the soldiers and settlers who represented the ?manifest destiny? of an expanding America. He grew up an orphan and had to overcome numerous social disadvantages to advance in Sioux culture. Red Cloud did that by being the best fighter, strategist, and leader of his fellow warriors. As the white man pushed farther and farther west, they stole the Indians? land, slaughtered the venerated buffalo, and murdered with impunity anyone who resisted their intrusions. The final straw for Red Cloud and his warriors was the U.S. government?s frenzied spate of fort building throughout the pristine Powder River Country that abutted the Sioux?s sacred Black Hills?Paha Sapa to the Sioux, or ?The Heart of Everything That Is.? The result was a gathering of angry tribes under one powerful leader. ?The white man lies and steals,? Red Cloud told his thousands of braves at council fire. ?My lodges were many, now they are few. The white man wants all. They must fight for it.? What came to be known as Red Cloud?s War (1866?1868) culminated in a massacre of American cavalry troops that presaged the Little Bighorn and served warning to Washington that the Plains Indians would fight, and die, for their land and traditions. But many more American soldiers would die first. In The Heart of Everything That Is, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin, the New York Times bestselling authors of Halsey?s Typhoon and The Last Stand of Fox Company, restore Red Cloud to his rightful place in American history in a sweeping and dramatic narrative based on years of primary research. As they trace the events leading to Red Cloud?s War they provide intimate portraits of the many and various men and women whose lives Red Cloud touched?mountain men such as the larger-than-life Jim Bridger; U.S. generals like William Tecumseh Sherman who were charged with annihilating the Sioux; fearless explorers such as the dashing John Bozeman; and the warriors whom Red Cloud groomed, the legendary Crazy Horse in particular. And residing at the heart of the story is Red Cloud, fighting for the very existence of the Indian way of life. This fiery narrative, fueled by contemporary diaries and journals, newspaper reports, eyewitness accounts, and meticulous firsthand sourcing, is a stirring chronicle of the conflict between an expanding white civilization and the Plains Indians who stood in its way. The Heart of Everything That Is not only places the reader at the center of this remarkable epoch, but finally gives Red Cloud the modern-day recognition he deserves.

The supply of uranium that fueled the Cold War came largely from the Four Corners area of the Colorado Plateau. Some of the richest deposits were found on the Navajo Reservation, where about one-fourth of the miners and millers were Native Americans. For nearly three decades in the face of...  more

The supply of uranium that fueled the Cold War came largely from the Four Corners area of the Colorado Plateau. Some of the richest deposits were found on the Navajo Reservation, where about one-fourth of the miners and millers were Native Americans. For nearly three decades in the face of growing evidence that uranium mining was dangerous, state and federal agencies neglected to warn the miners or to impose safety measures in the mines.

The name "Geronimo" came to Corine Sombrun insistently in a trance during her apprenticeship to a Mongolian shaman. That message and the need to understand its meaning brought her to the home of the legendary Apache leader's great-grandson, Harlyn Geronimo, himself a medicine man on the...  more

The name "Geronimo" came to Corine Sombrun insistently in a trance during her apprenticeship to a Mongolian shaman. That message and the need to understand its meaning brought her to the home of the legendary Apache leader's great-grandson, Harlyn Geronimo, himself a medicine man on the Mescalero Apache reservation in New Mexico. Together, the two of them?the French seeker and the Native American healer?would make a pilgrimage that retraced Geronimo's life while following the course of the Gila River to the place of his birth, at its source. Told in the alternating voices of its authors, In Geronimo's Footsteps is the record of that journey. At its core is an account of Geronimo's life, from his earliest days in a Chiricahua Apache family and his path as a warrior to his surrender and the years spent in exile until his death, at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Recounted by his great-grandson, his story is steeped in family history and Apache lore to create a portrait of a leader intent on defending his people and their land and traditions?a mission that Harlyn continues, even as he campaigns to recover his ancestor's bones from the U.S. government. Completing Corine's circle, the book also explores the possible links, genetic and cultural, between the Apache and the people of Mongolia.

An Infinity of Nations explores the formation and development of a Native New World in North America. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, indigenous peoples controlled the vast majority of the continent while European colonies of the Atlantic World were largely confined to the eastern...  more

An Infinity of Nations explores the formation and development of a Native New World in North America. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, indigenous peoples controlled the vast majority of the continent while European colonies of the Atlantic World were largely confined to the eastern seaboard. To be sure, Native North America experienced far-reaching and radical change following contact with the peoples, things, and ideas that flowed inland following the creation of European colonies on North American soil. Most of the continent's indigenous peoples, however, were not conquered, assimilated, or even socially incorporated into the settlements and political regimes of this Atlantic New World. Instead, Native peoples forged a New World of their own. This history, the evolution of a distinctly Native New World, is a foundational story that remains largely untold in histories of early America. Through imaginative use of both Native language and European documents, historian Michael Witgen recreates the world of the indigenous peoples who ruled the western interior of North America. The Anishinaabe and Dakota peoples of the Great Lakes and Northern Great Plains dominated the politics and political economy of these interconnected regions, which were pivotal to the fur trade and the emergent world economy. Moving between cycles of alliance and competition, and between peace and violence, the Anishinaabeg and Dakota carved out a place for Native peoples in modern North America, ensuring not only that they would survive as independent and distinct Native peoples but also that they would be a part of the new community of nations who made the New World.

Mary Brave Bird grew up fatherless in a one-room cabin, without running water or electricity, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Rebelling against the aimless drinking, punishing missionary school, narrow strictures for women, and violence and hopeless of reservation life, she...  more

Mary Brave Bird grew up fatherless in a one-room cabin, without running water or electricity, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Rebelling against the aimless drinking, punishing missionary school, narrow strictures for women, and violence and hopeless of reservation life, she joined the new movement of tribal pride sweeping Native American communities in the sixties and seventies. Mary eventually married Leonard Crow Dog, the American Indian Movement's chief medicine man, who revived the sacred but outlawed Ghost Dance. Originally published in 1990, Lakota Woman was a national best seller and winner of the American Book Award. It is a unique document, unparalleled in American Indian literature, a story of death, of determination against all odds, of the cruelties perpetuated against American Indians, and of the Native American struggle for rights. Working with Richard Erdoes, one of the twentieth century's leading writers on Native American affairs, Brave Bird recounts her difficult upbringing and the path of her fascinating life.

An award-winning author and veteran mountain climber takes us deep into the Southwest backcountry to uncover secrets of its ancient inhabitants.For more than 5,000 years the Ancestral Puebloans?Native Americans who flourished long before the first contact with Europeans?occupied the Four Corners...  more

An award-winning author and veteran mountain climber takes us deep into the Southwest backcountry to uncover secrets of its ancient inhabitants.For more than 5,000 years the Ancestral Puebloans?Native Americans who flourished long before the first contact with Europeans?occupied the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. Just before AD 1300, they abandoned their homeland in a migration that remains one of prehistory's greatest puzzles. Northern and southern neighbors of the Ancestral Puebloans, the Fremont and Mogollon likewise flourished for millennia before migrating or disappearing. Fortunately, the Old Ones, as some of their present-day descendants call them, left behind awe-inspiring ruins, dazzling rock art, and sophisticated artifacts ranging from painted pots to woven baskets. Some of their sites and relics had been seen by no one during the 700 years before David Roberts and his companions rediscovered them.In The Lost World of the Old Ones, Roberts continues the hunt for answers begun in his classic book, In Search of the Old Ones. His new findings paint a different, fuller portrait of these enigmatic ancients?thanks to the breakthroughs of recent archaeologists. Roberts also recounts his last twenty years of far-flung exploits in the backcountry with the verve of a seasoned travel writer. His adventures range across Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado, illuminating the mysteries of the Old Ones as well as of the more recent Navajo and Comanche.Roberts calls on his climbing and exploratory expertise to reach remote sanctuaries of the ancients hidden within nearly vertical cliffs, many of which are unknown to archaeologists and park rangers. This ongoing quest combines the shock of new discovery with a deeply felt connection to the landscape, and it will change the way readers experience, and imagine, the American Southwest. 16 pages of color illustrations

Treaties: The History and Legacy of US-American Indian Diplomacy explores the promises, diplomacy, and betrayals involved in treaties and treaty making between the United States government and Native nations. One side sought to own the riches of North America and the other struggled to hold on...  more

Treaties: The History and Legacy of US-American Indian Diplomacy explores the promises, diplomacy, and betrayals involved in treaties and treaty making between the United States government and Native nations. One side sought to own the riches of North America and the other struggled to hold on to traditional homelands and ways of life. The book reveals how the ideas of honor, fair dealings, good faith, rule of law, and peaceful relations between nations have been tested and challenged in historical and modern times. The book consistently demonstrates how and why centuries-old treaties remain living, relevant documents for both Natives and non-Natives in the 21st century.

     Today our minds, our emotions, our relationships, and our bodies are out of kilter. We know it, but we tend to ignore it until something brings us up short?a worrying diagnosis, a broken relationship, or simply an inability to function harmoniously in everyday life. When things are a little...  more

     Today our minds, our emotions, our relationships, and our bodies are out of kilter. We know it, but we tend to ignore it until something brings us up short?a worrying diagnosis, a broken relationship, or simply an inability to function harmoniously in everyday life. When things are a little off, we read a self-help book. When they?re really bad, we bring in oncologists to address cancer, neurologists to repair the brain, psychologists to help us understand our family of origin. But this fragmented approach to health is merely a stopgap. To truly heal, we need to return to the original recipe for wellness discovered by shamans millennia ago: One Spirit Medicine.      Through One Spirit Medicine, the shamans found that they could grow a new body that allowed them to live in extraordinary health. They learned how to switch off the ?death clock? inside every cell, and turn on the ?immortality? genes that reside in password-protected regions of our DNA. Cancer, dementia, and heart disease were rare. The shamans of old were truly masters of prevention.      Drawing on more than 25 years of experience as a medical anthropologist?as well as his own journey back from the edge of death?acclaimed shamanic teacher Alberto Villoldo shows you how to detoxify the brain and gut with superfoods; techniques for working with our luminous energy fields to heal your body; and follow the ancient path of the medicine wheel to shed disempowering stories from the past and pave the way for rebirth.      Using the principles and practices in this book, you can feel better in a few days, begin to clear your mind and heal your brain in a week, and in six weeks be on your way to a new body?one that heals rapidly, retains its youthful vitality, and keeps you connected to Spirit, to the earth, and to a renewed sense of purpose in your life.

Wisconsin?s rich tradition of sustainability rightfully includes its First Americans, who along with Aldo Leopold, John Muir, and Gaylord Nelson shaped its landscape and informed its “earth ethics.? This collection of Native biographies, one from each of the twelve Indian nations of Wisconsin,...  more

Wisconsin?s rich tradition of sustainability rightfully includes its First Americans, who along with Aldo Leopold, John Muir, and Gaylord Nelson shaped its landscape and informed its “earth ethics.? This collection of Native biographies, one from each of the twelve Indian nations of Wisconsin, introduces the reader to some of the most important figures in Native sustainability: from anti-mining activists like Walt Bresette (Red Cliff Ojibwe) and Hillary Waukau (Menominee) to treaty rights advocates like James Schlender (Lac Courte Oreille Ojibwe), artists like Truman Lowe (Ho-Chunk), and educators like Dorothy “Dot? Davids (Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians), along with tribal geneologists, land stewards, and preservers of language and culture. Each of the biographies speaks to traditional ecological values and cultural sensibilities, highlighting men and women who helped to sustain and nurture their nations in the past and present.   The Native people whose lives are depicted in Seventh Generation Earth Ethics understood the cultural gravity that kept their people rooted to their ancestral lands and acted in ways that ensured the growth and success of future generations. In this way they honor the Ojibwe Seventh Generation philosophy, which cautions decision makers to consider how their actions will affect seven generations in the future—some 240 years.

Edward Curtis was dashing, charismatic, a passionate mountaineer, a famous photographer?the Annie Liebowitz of his time. And he was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave it all up to pursue his great idea: He would try to capture on film the Native American nation before it disappeared. At...  more

Edward Curtis was dashing, charismatic, a passionate mountaineer, a famous photographer?the Annie Liebowitz of his time. And he was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave it all up to pursue his great idea: He would try to capture on film the Native American nation before it disappeared. At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, Egan?s book tells the remarkable untold story behind Curtis's iconic photographs, following him throughout Indian country from desert to rainforest as he struggled to document the stories and rituals of more than eighty tribes. Even with the backing of Theodore Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan, it took tremendous perseverance?six years alone to convince the Hopi to allow him into their Snake Dance ceremony. The undertaking changed him profoundly, from detached observer to outraged advocate. He would die penniless and unknown in Hollywood just a few years after publishing the last of his twenty volumes. But the charming rogue with the grade-school education had fulfilled his promise?his great adventure succeeded in creating one of America's most stunning cultural achievements.

Five thousand years ago an American people vanished. They lived by the sea and along the lower stretches of the rivers in what is now Maine. They harvested the sea, notably for one of its more dangerous prey, the sword fish. They buried their dead in orderly graves filled with a ritual red...  more

Five thousand years ago an American people vanished. They lived by the sea and along the lower stretches of the rivers in what is now Maine. They harvested the sea, notably for one of its more dangerous prey, the sword fish. They buried their dead in orderly graves filled with a ritual red powder known as ochre, along with stone tools and bone ornaments of exquisite beauty and craftsmanship. Compared with other contemporary maritime cultures, for example those who occupied what is now Scandinavia, the Red Paint People stood out. They hunted more dangerous prey, had far-flung networks, more elaborate mortuary rituals, and larger, more elaborate stone tools and decorative ornaments. They worked in wood for buildings and furniture and boats. They effectively invented the cemetery in which the dead were buried, and unlike most other cultures, there were seemingly few distinctions between the rulers and the ruled, the wealthy and the poor. Today there are around forty-four cemeteries with thousands of excavated graves and their artifacts which together form a fascinating if distant keyhole view of an early American culture. Reissued, Oct., 2012, as The Swordfish Hunters.  

Beard was not only a witness to two major battles against the Lakota; he also traveled with William ?Buffalo Bill? Cody?s Wild West show, worked as a Hollywood Indian, and witnessed the grand transformation of the Black Hills into a tourism mecca. Beard spent most of his later life fighting to...  more

Beard was not only a witness to two major battles against the Lakota; he also traveled with William ?Buffalo Bill? Cody?s Wild West show, worked as a Hollywood Indian, and witnessed the grand transformation of the Black Hills into a tourism mecca. Beard spent most of his later life fighting to reclaim his homeland and acting as ?old Dewey Beard,? a living relic of the ?old West? for the tourists.

An anthology of more than 130 Native American legends representative of many different tribes and organized by geographical regions across the United States. Each legend is introduced with a headnote and many are accompanied by a drawing.