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The author, a professor of children's literature at University of Toronto, has written a book that is aimed at teachers from elementary picture-book-age readers through junior high school. His audience is non-Native teachers at schools -- Canadian and U.S. -- whose populations are entirely or mainly non-Native. Short reviews summarizing themes and content of several hundred children's books, U.S. and Canadian are grouped at the end of each thematically-organized chapter. All but a handful of the books discussed are either works of fairly recent contemporary fiction or legends -- a few adult collections but mostly those retold as children's stories. The overwhelming majority of the books discussed and reviewed are by non-Native authors. At the end of Stott's book is a long appendix setting out a program for incorporating Native stories into the Language Arts program. Stott gives no attention to Indian history or current affairs (because he says that's social studies). Similarly, the efforts of authors like Abenaki Joseph Bruchac (who writes an enthusiastic foreward to the book) to relate "nature stories and legends" to a kind of science instruction that is more holistic and presents a world view in which human beings are one part of a web of existence, are treated as if they were just more stories for the language arts program. In science, though, the stories are part of a proposed alternative to a powerful way -- western science and technology -- of knowing, altering, and being in the world. Stott specifically warns of a "danger of realistic stories becoming thinly disguised social studies texts showing the way little Native boys or girls from specific cultures do or used to live." No danger of that here. Realism is actively avoided, denied, hidden. The lesson plans are for grades 3 through 9, in order of an age- determined complexity of objectives or difficulty of the listed readings. (Elsewhere, picture books for younger children are extensively discussed and reviewed.) It's a pretty good program -- many teachers will be pleased with the neatly-outlined objectives and clear, specific lesson plans set forth in the Appendix. They will easily be able to adapt the forms to use with other books than the ones used there. Let's take a look at these units by the numbers. What's the proportion of Native authors studied? I express this as a ratio (any book by or retold by an Indian writer first, books by all writers second) for each unit, followed by overall percentages: ARCTIC FOOD ON ICE (early elementary) -- 1 (native): 4
(total). Non-native authors: 75%. Total books for these study units: 33. Total Indian authors: 3. Total non-Indian authors: 30. Percent Indian authors: 9.09%. Percent non-Indian authors: 90.91%. Stott's inability -- unwillingness -- to see this is symbolized by his actual omission of the Inuit novel that caused him embarrassment because the main character kills himself at the end. This is a realistic novel with a realistic (not happy) ending, so Stott waffles off onto some mysterious Inuit cultural values he claims are incomprehensible to westerners and ignores this book except for its anecdotal use in his introduction. That's real life intruding into his comfortable professorate, and lecture circuit gig where the white man is once again explaining Indians to other whites. Hey, real life belongs in social studies, not language arts. It seems as little likely to creep in there as it has here. From the viewpoint of Native peoples, protection of the remaining land base, which is constantly under attack in both the U.S. and Canada, is the paramount fact for cultural and physical survival. It is possible that a generation of schoolchildren who had a better understanding of this aspect of our history -- of the fact that attacks are still going on -- might form empathies or sym- pathies to provide more dependable, less romantic allies. Nothing in Stott's approach will promote this. It is a book by a white person, who examines books about Indians that are almost entirely by white authors and illustrators, in a vacuum of history and complete absence of current social context. See longer review. Also contrast with THROUGH INDIAN EYES: THE NATIVE EXPERIENCE IN CHILDREN'S BOOKS. Reviewed by Paula Giese file 536
This book contains 36 narratives by Dakota full-bloods and mixed bloods which tell their views of causes and actions of the so-called Graeat Sioux Uprising of 1862, which led to the largest mass execution in U.S. history and the exiling of all Dakota people from Minnesota to the Dakotas and Nebraska. These narratives have been chosen from a total of 63 which are available. Selection was made to try to represent all factions among the Dakotas, as well as to provide the narratives of those few women who told of their experiences, and one Black mixed-blood. Many of the narratives were edited from some 800 pages of testimony at early 19th-century U.S. Court of Claims hearings. The narratives are divided into 10 chapters: Causes of the Dakota War; The War Begins; Attack on the Redwood Agency; The War Bcomes General; Attack on the Yellow Medicine Agency; Gathering at Little Crow's Village; The Battles; Flight North and Emergence of the Peace Party; Wood Lake and Camp Release; The Final Days. Many of the narratives ar divided among these chapters. The editors have followed a sensible schema of putting "continued on page ___" at the ends of all sectioned narratives. The reader has the choice of reading the book "vertically" chapter-by-chapter (in roughly chronological order of the happenings narrated) or of following a single person's narrated experiences from beginning to end. It is a good idea to do both. An introduction summarizes the history of the war, but says rather little about the treaties and actions of white traders and agents that led to it -- that's left to more conventional histories. Each chapter has a very brief introduction giving an overview of events narrated there, and how those fit into the larger picture. The book can be recommended to anyone with an interest in Dakota or Lakota -- the Plains descendants of the Dakota peoples -- history, or with the idea that by collecting mqny contemporary Native narratives, white histories can -- or could have -- been corrected. Reviewed by Paula Giese file 537
This is one of the greatest illustrated history bargains I've ever seen. For teachers looking to put together a Native studies unit, its value is increased by the existence of colloquial lifestories from two members of the family -- Buffalo Bird Woman (there's also her garden and food memoir) and Goodbird, her son. There are other aspects which favor this, which is much more than just the catalog of a travelling Hidatsa exhibit that the Historical Society put together as a kind of centenary of the dstructive Dawes Allottment Act. To see why, why the book is so much more than an exhibition of objcts, and so much more suitable for those multicult ed courses than almost any others, we look toward the end of the book, with an eye on its title, The Way to Independence. Independence, it is drowned now. When they visited North Dakota and met with Hidatsa people at the start of the project in 1985, Hidatsa elder Anson Baker told the MHS exhibit assemblers and principal authors of this book: "We always had a saying in our language. You could translate it as 'People determine your destiny.' And what that there is saying to us is 'You treat people right, they'll treat you right, they'll take care of you, they're the ones who make or break you.' I have got a lot of faith in the human race." Amazingly bighearted in the cirumstances of what the white U.S. government part of the human race has done to the 3 tribes (Hidatsa, Mandan, Arikara, who have all intermarried a lot.) "I believe we are in the process of healing," Catherine Fox Harmon testified in 1986. "My sons, both teenagers, are encouragd by myself to return to their land and people. My objective now is to plan for my children and grandchildren. They in return will continue to negotiate the return of our lands." This book beautifully documents a long past and points toward an uncertain future. As Catherine Harmon notes, the struggle for both survival and justice is not over for the people. Due to the early 20th century activities of Gilbert Wilson, it contains a large amount of material -- writings, photos, objects -- that were not saved by anyone else in conjunction with the countless academic and historical studies of Indian people. Thus the Hidatasa people have a uniquely complete and valuable historical foundation, much of the story told by themselves. And of course the consistent government attacks on them, whenever they reach some new survival balance, are not only well-documented here, they are continuing. This book mentions coal only in passing: the dam drowned small surface outcroppings the people could easily dig for fuel, as well as drowing all the bottomland timber used for fuel and construction, and all the farmlands. The book does not mention that almost the entire reservation is underlain by a huge seam of coal called lignite, for which there have been plans made in the early 1970's to set up 35 huge gassification plants to covert it to gas for the benefit of more populous states, like Minnesota. Minnegasco is a participant in the government-sponsored scheme. At one point in the early 1970's, the prestigious U.S. National scretly advisd that the whole region, including further wet through the Black Hills and Powder Rivr country -- should be declared "A National Sacrifice Area," since land, air and water will be entirely ruined by it. So in reading this beautiful book, it is not ancient, dead history, but that of continued life and continued attacks on that life, you learn about, and you learn that very much from the perspective of the people themselves. This has wider application than the Hidatsa clan whose several generations furnished much of the info on the older periods. That history, by extension, must stand for th countless tribs for whom no such documentation exists. To read what Wolf Chief -- the rare traditional fullblood lader who, in the 19th-century could read and write -- was writing to Washington, to look at the1954 picture of tribal chairman Gilette involuntarily weeping sourounded by hostile modern bureaucrats, as he is forced to sign the document they prepared for him to authorize the dam (that was already being built) is to understand by extension entire world views and feelings of highly intelligent peoples, for and of whom nothing like that was recorded by anyone. It is one small group, one small place, and all that is said is specific to those people, and yet it can (and must) stand for all the others who are voiceless, save formisrepresentations without life or reality in the academic and anthropological records of the white society, with their distortions, omissions. Books similar to this one, but focussed only on art or craft objects and usually lacking any real Indian participation are often put out by prestigious museums selling for $30 - $60. This MHS book at $15 -- the price of many ordinary unillustrated, small paperbacks today -- is therefore one of the greater bargains going in Indian history, culture, art, and current issues. Because it so well documents not only historical but continuing attacks on Indian people, land, and culture, it is a far better source for multicultural education for white youth than the typical text: " Long ago they used to live in tipis, they made some nice-looking artwork, they were in tune with Mother Earth, plus they gave us corn," This typical approach presents Indian history and culture as dead, ancient specimens. A live history can foster understanding of what's actually still going on, and perhaps win the coming generations of Indian people some political allies other than ducks. Very highly recommended. Consider it given a 4-thumbs-ups, my thumbs making a sign-language gesture indicating you should order it right now. Get Goodbird's Story and Goodbird's sketches coloring book, from MHS while you're at it. See longer, illustrated review. Reviewed by Paula Giese
Ignatia Broker, member of Minnesota's White Earth Ojibwe tribe who died in 1987, was a storyteller and local teacher in both the Ojibway tradition and modern schools. She was the founder of the Minnesota Indian Historical Society. She found school materials for true history, feeling, and values lacking, In addition to this, her masterpiece, she wrote booklets and teacher guides for the Minneapolis public schools and the Indian education program at Cass Lake Ojibwe reservation (her ancestral home), as well as authoring a filmstrip. In this partly-fictionalized book, she tells the true life story of Nibowissegwe (Nicknamed Oona in her childhood), a great-great-grandmother to many Minnesota Ojibwe, born during a lunar eclipse at a time when white influence in Northern Minnesota was just beginning to manifest. When she's 5, Some of the clan group decides to move away from their forest homeland to the Rainy Lake area, where fur traders and trappers are disturbing the land much less than farmers and loggers. Oona's family goes with part of the group to the Nett Lake area. "The forests have never failed the Ojibwe," her grandfather says, as they choose a new spot to settle. Oona grows up, learning from all who teach the lifstyles, customs and visions shared by the Anishnaabeg peoples. "We sustain our (Ojibwe) beliefs, and the beliefs sustain us. That is a circle. From seed to harvest, the life of the Ojibway is full, and it is sufficient. This is what must not be lost, and this is what you must tell my great grandchildren," Oona's own grandma tells her. All too soon, a white man shows up with a paper that must be obeyed, rquiring the people to move to the Whie Earth reservation. It was government policy at that time -- the 1840's -- to move all northern midwest U.S. Indians there in a kind of concentration camp. They resume thir traditional life until anothr white man shows up with an order that the kids must all go to a school located in the main rservation village. The people don't want to move, and the alternative will be that the kids are taken from them and boarded. People knew of the sicknesses and most did not want to live in the white way. If the band doesn't move and the children are taken to board, Oona's grandfather points out that "If the children live in the school longhouse, they will never know our ways. Our strength will be lost. If we move close to the big village, the children will stay home at night and we can still teach them the old ways." The people decide to move to the village and remain close to their children. There is more adoption of white ways. The big logging efforts are underway. Oona grows up, marries, and, by 1879, involved in white-style work in the new village environment, has little time to observe and meditate. Her husband works as a logger. Her children and grandchildren increasingly become involved in the news lifeways, and seem to lose interest in the old. When she is 80, she wonders if the new generation will care at all about the old beliefs, since no child has asked to learn them for a long time. There's a knock on the door, and a child says she wants "to hear the stories of our people." The book ends with Oona, giving her formal name, and starting to tell -- the story of this book. Through Indian Eyes reviewers said "This beautiful book is a blessing, a gift, an antidote to all the poisonous lies about our past we have had to endure. It is full of courage and love. This is how it was." Very highly recommended for grades 6+ through adult. Reviewed by Paula Giese file ad532   THANKSGIVING: A NATIVE PERSPECTIVE, Doris Seale; Oyate, 2702 Mathews St; Berkeley, CA 94702; 510-848-6700. 1996, about 100 pages (unpaginated), maps Black and white drawings. $8. No ISBN
This book is a must have for every elementary teacher (espcially those at non-Indian schools) and most Middle school teachers as well. In almost all schools, elementary classes make a big thing of holidays -- with artwork and writing by the children posted all over, and various lessons and readings about the history of the holiday. Thanksgiving is generally related to American history, in a sacharine and superficial way. This book collects a number of authentic Native ceremonies, stories, and poems of thanks, presenting them in their own cultural contexts. Also included are historical documents -- and this history isn't only of the 17th century. In 1970, 350 years after the Pilgrim landing, there was a celebration held at Plymouth by white people "still clinging to the myth of friendly relations between their forefathers and the Wampanoag". Frank James, a Wampanoag, was asked to speak at this celebration. The planners asked to see his speech in advance, and rejected it, because his speech was based on actual facts of history, not the myth of warm-hearted mutual friendship the sponsors wished to present -- the same myth that gets trotted out in most schools every year. James was told he could not deliver his own speech, and refused to give one written for him by a white PR man. The surpressed speech is here, 26 years late. Why the friendly Pilgrims buddying it up with friendly Indians is a myth is explained in detail in many documents, including a group of materials prepared by Nanepashemet, historian of the Wampanoag Indian Program of Plimoth Plantation. A number of short historical documents recording indigenous perspectives on the settlers' invasions are included. So is the infamousEnglish report on the situation in the Virginia colony (1622) where it's said right up front: the settlers want the "savages'" land, not forest land they were given, because those so-called savages had already cleared and farmed it, saving a lot of work. So they plan to (and of course did) carry out various massacres, which settler men were legally required to participate in -- this report contains that plan. Several articles prepared (usually with some kind of Native paritcipation) appeared in various periodicals in the late 1970's, sparked by bicentennial fervor and surviving interest in Indians awakened by the 1973 AIM occupation of Wounded Knee (In 1970, AIM leader Russell Means had led -- as a consciousness-raising confrontational exercise -- an Indian takeover of a replica of the Mayflower landing at Plymouth.) These articles include "Why I'm not Thanksful for Thanksgiving," (Michael Dorris, Modoc, 1978); "Thre are Many Thanksgiving Stories to Tell," (Chuck Larsen et al, Washington State Department of Education, 1986); "Beyond Ten Little Indians and Turkeys: Alternative Approaches to Thanksgiving," (Patricia Ramsey, 1979). All of these articles appeared in obscure sources and are hard to find today. "Thanksgiving: A New Perspective (and its implications for the Classroom)," (Dorothy Davids et al, Stockbridge-Munsee, Madison Metropolitan School District, 1977) is followed by a number of student research and activity projects, some suitable for K-5, saome for older students (or adults). The book ends with an Oyate-prepared series of pictorially-based exercises on denigratory stereotypes from ads, children's books, and other sources. file ad539
Wild rice, mahnoomin in Ojibwe, or Zinzania aquatica in the scientific Latin of botanists, is a grain that grows in shallow lakes that have an outlet, so the water does not become stagnant, and along slow-flowing slough margins of some rivers in the Great Lakes region, and has been a tribal food staple -- the most important food -- for Anishinaabeg peoples in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Canada. In the early fall, it bears plentiful grains which still are harvested from canoes poled through the standing reeds by -- traditionally -- a woman using two smooth, lightweight sticks called knockers. This method of harvest leaves enough reseeding grains to fall later, when the last of the head shatters. A few grains fall into the water when the stalks are pulled into the canoe with one stick, struck gently with the other. Traditionally, rice chiefs (now rice committees) observed the rice and declared when it was ready: ripe enough that the dying reeds would not be hurt by canoes crisscrossing the beds, but the stalks would spring back up to later deliver their remaining grains to the mud for the next year's crop. The rice officers traditionally oversaw the rice camps, making sure no one injured the rice. And the people gave thanks for it. The rice was, and to traditional people still is, considered a gift of the spirits, woven into Ojibwe culture through legends, ceremonies and the fact that this grain was the staple food of life, the central fact of Anishinaabeg peoples' existence. Harvest was a time when families of a band who riced the same lake came together for work, hunting wildfowl who were gorging on the rice to fatten up for their journey south, fish, and for socializing beefore the long winter, when the group disbanded into smaller family units who could support themselves on the winter hunting of a particular woods range. It is richer in nutrients than all cultivated grains, when prepared by drying, parching and husking. Caches of the grain can last for years, and the grain will rmain viable. Discovered by tourist-hunters, the wild rice became a favored gourmet food, so selling some the harvest also became a means of obtaining small amounts of cash, to buy the various white man's goods that have become necessary in the years since the 1700's, and as a cash crop, too, for relatives who meet their families at the ricing beds, up from the city for the annual fall ricing, to get some food for the city winter, and some cash for the winter hard times. Vennum's book is divided into 8 sections: The plant (its environment and sensitivities not only to air and water pollution but to water level changes such as are caused by dams), rice as a food (nutritional values, preparation, cooking, and how the rice supported the intrusion of the fur traders); in legend and ceremony (how the rice is central to the culture and identity of the peoples who depended on it); methods and social life of the traditional harvest; the rice camps and the society they were part of. The last three chapters of the book -- the economics, the law, and the future -- take rice into the second half of the 20th century. World War II was the beginning of the end for these ancient traditions. The young men,were away at war, whose strength was so important in the traditional method of hulling, where the rice is "jigged" or danced-on very lightly with a turned foot and grinding motion, in a lined pit. Older men, clever mechanics, began to devise clever improvised machinery for threshing that used paddles in barrels, turned by power takeoffs from old cars or trucks. This change introduces a massive invasion, discussed in the final chapters on economics, law and the future. Vennum's book is, in a way, a funeral oration , modern-style. He ends "While these signs of change and suggestions for improvement [in land and water governmental management] are promising, they do not address the immediate, fundamental economic problem: to what extent and by what mans can the Ojibway expect to reap financial reward from their wild rice crop?" Tribal spokespeople have suggested making the entirety of ricing (including paddy growing) an Indian-controlled industry. This sems unlikely, it has already gone out of control. In the preface to a book containing info about the scientific studies and agriculture, one writer says "To take the attitude of some sociologists and welfare agents that 'the rice should be left to the Indian' is to close one's eyes to facts....To curb th trend [to massive capitalist industrializing] by stubborn, lethargic do-nothingness will be to lose the business to another state with vision and will to prosper its agricultural community. If the Indian is to be raised to equality and respectability and become a self-supporting part of the Minnesota economy, it is criminal neglect to let him waste his heritage and make no effort to better the one economic heritage that is uniquely his." With racist scientists, economists, and politicians whose views and actions are summarized in that statement, all firmly in the camp of multinational, hugely capitalized food industry, the economics of this unique heritage is gone already, betterment, so-called has once again come by theft. "For cultural reasona alone, the Ojibway pople will probably never give up ricing willingly," Vennum concludes, after having pointed out that the traditional beds are threatened by everything from dams to environmental pollution (fertilizer runoff, acid rain) to a huge mining enterprise near the Mole Lake, Wisconsin, Ojibwe rez. "We have a deep feeling of satisfaction and gratitude as we sack up the rice again toward evening....I often wonder what my children will do whn the rice is gone forever. What will take its place when this last tradition is gone?" These words from Norma Smith of Mole Lake [ricebeds there are threatened by proposed mining effluents] end the book. For now, Ojibwe people living on reservations and in the cities might take their kids from school for a few days of traditional ricing. Hand-harvested rice is used in feasts and ceremonies. But this is an act of educational cultural preservation, it no longer a vital and delightful part of everyday life. See longer review-essay. You can find out more about wild rice -- its traditions, its history, harvesting and processing traditionally, legends, and recipes, here at my web unit on Traditional Food, Health and Nutrition. See also review of The Sacred Harvest: Ojibwe Wild Rice Gathering, for Middle school reading level. Reviewed by Paula Giese
Venum's booklet is a paperbound reprint of OJIBWE MUSIC FROM MINNESOTA: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE, sponsored by the Minnesota Historical Society and State Arts Board. The booklet provides a general intro to Indian music, focussing on Ojibwe. There's a brief discussion of the unique recordings and transcriptions of hundreds of songs collected in the early 20th century by ethnologist Frances Densmore, using early recording techniques. The tape contains some music over a century by various Minnesota Ojibwe singers, and a lot of music sung (and explained) at a 1988 competition powwow held in northern Minnesota. Vennum provides very brief translations (not transcriptions) of the meaningful words that form themes of the older songs, and points out that younger drum groups don't know thje language or the song meanings, often singing just "vocables". Most interesting is a comparison on a dream song by Kimiwun, recordd in 1910 by Densmore at Ponemah on the Red Lake rez, in contrast to its current version by the Ponemah singers. The booklet-tape combination makes a fine intro to Native music -- a must-have for any school with substantial Ojibwe population, but also suitable for non-Indian schools as providing something more for teachers and students than merely the sound of drums or flutes and incomprehensible words. Vennum's booklet places native music in two contexts: the earlier where it has many functions of Native people for themselves (Dream Songs, Mocassin Game Songs, Story Songs, Love Songs), and the later, where powwows have come to be commercial events highly influenced by competition dancing and the prize money. Not covered are medicine songs of the Midewiwin lodge, of which Densmore recorded hundreds in the primitive technology of the day, but also provided scored transcriptions, from which simple songs might be recovered when the wax cylinders are missing or unplayable. The tape-booklet combo is very highly recommended. Reviewed by Paula Giese file ad531
One thing that awl means is that involving knowledgeable Indian people to work with archaeologists -- sharing power with them as Spector described it when I called her, after reading this book -- is a better way to learn a lot more about the actual lives of the people whose old village sites are being examined than any other, absent a time machine. Spector -- an archaeologist at the University of Minnesota, who is currently in New Mexico -- was inspired to seek such help because of her increasing dissatisfaction with the methods and results of her science. She'd been educated to think that "archaeologists apparently considered artifact classification more important than the people who had made the tools, about whom very little was said....Neither professors of archaeology nor texts suggsted that we might get closer to these [ancient] people by studying contemporary Indian languages, religions or philosophies." Spector found that the methods of study focused on men's roles in ancient societies, tending to ignore or minimize women's work and lives, When she came to Minnesota she became interested in the site of a 19th-century Wahpeton Dakota village, Little Rapids, not far from the Twin Cities. She was not itnerested in disturbing graves (there are some burial mounts south of the village site), but to discover lifestyles, and how they connect with history. She made efforts to involve knowledgeable local Dakota people in a dig at this site. Talking to Chris Cavender (Upper Sioux reservation Granite Falls), she mentioned that written records showed Manzomani (Iron Walker) had been one of the village leaders, who had lived there with his family. Chris said nothing right then, until he had consulted with his family. He then asked to visit the site with Spector. Only then did he tell her that he was descended from Mazomani. Mazonmani and his wife Hazawin (Blueberry woman) had a daughter, Mazaokiyewin (Woman who Talks to Iron). Also known as Isabel Archer, she was exiled from Minnesota with all the Dakota people after the unsuccessful Dakota rebellion of 1862, but later returned to live at the Upper Sioux reservation near Granite Falls. Her grandaughters are Elsie Cavender (Chris's mother, who died in 1991) and Carrie Schommer, recently retired as a Dakota language instructor at the University of Minnesota, Chris's aunt. Through these relationships the project at Inyan Cheyaka Atonwan (Little Rapids Village on the Minnesota river) became very different, from a conventional dig. Supplemented by active involvement of thes Dakota people, the awl (and much lse of course) gave unexpected answers to that question of the book's title. The answers are a story. You may read a sketch of it, and how it grew, in my longer review. I give this book a very high recommendation -- in my longer review, you'll see why it made me so thoughtful. It outlines a new and different way to reconstruct a past, which has been skewed in the service of an existing power structure, and deprived of all life, color, and interest by the character of the male academics who dominate it, who define what their science will and will not recognize. As a bonus, an interesting story reconstructs an entirely different picture of traditional Dakota life than you probably yourself hold. It helps to show why the common (false) picture is a kind of propaganda, a self-justifying history that self-justifies the land-taking.. An interesting supplement to this book is the Minnesota Historical Society's DAKOTA INDIANS COLORING BOOK. Its drawings -- much more elaborate than the usual children's coloring book outlines -- show the Dakota seasonal round, centering on food and and some recreation. This accurate portrayal preceded the discoveries outlined in Spector's book by almost a decade. It complements and illustrates many details. Advisors and authors of the Dakota captions were 4 women -- including elder Elsie Cavender -- of the Wahpeton Dakota family whose memories were so important in understanding the daily life of some 350 Wahpetonwan who lived in Little Rapids from about 1810 until in 1851,when they were removed, and the site was platted for a white town that never materialized. These Dakota women were concerned to preserve their memories in a form that might be used in spite of the very racist rural white schools to which their children had to be sent, The two books -- the little one, which is an accurate, detailed reconstruction pictorially of the life and the one which is by turns a story, a philosophy, a history, and an exposition of some methods of a science -- both of them so strongly influenced by peopl (especially older women) of the same Dakota family -- make an astonishingly good combination. Reviewed by Paula Giese file 535
"Hello," the white men said. "We're Phil Sheridan and George Wright from Cavalry Records in New York City. We've come to talk to you about a recording contract." Sherman Alexie's first novel opens on a note that's actually a chord: resonating with both humor and sadness. When resurrected blues guitarist Robert Johnson stumbles onto the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington, he tells Thomas-Builds-the-Fire he's been looking for (and dreaming about) a big woman who rides a horse, sings songs, can make his hands play the guitar again, and save him from "The Gentleman." The only person Thomas can think of is Big Mom, a mysterious and powerful woman who lives on the top of Wellpinit Mountain. Thomas gives Johnson a ride to the base of the mountain, lets him out, and watches him disappear up the mountain. It's then that he discovers that Johnson has left his guitar behind. Thomas picks it up and hits the strings, playing the first notes of the "Reservation Blues." Those who have read Alexie's book of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), will be familiar with Thomas, snubbed tribal storyteller, and his two friends, arrogant Victor Joseph and his backward sidekick Junior Polatkin. In his new novel, Alexie continues his story of the three, who find that possessing the guitar endows them with sudden talent, which they put to immediate use by forming an all-Indian rock and blues band (accompanied by Chess and Checkers, sisters from the Flathead Reservation who sing backup) named Coyote Springs. Without being accused of providing a synopsis instead of a review, I can say that most of the book relates the band's quest for gigs and a recording contract. Along the way, Alexie reflects on the many contradictions of Indian life, many related in dreams or drunken reveries: commodity food and 7-11 stores; Catholicism, Christianity and ancient wisdom; the Indian Health Service (on the Spokane Reservation, they only give out dental floss and condoms), traditional medicine and Spokane Hospitals; mysticism and New-Age wannabes, in a brilliant blend of heartbreak and comedy. These incongruities, despite the occasional crossing over into caricature (especially unstable Michael White Hawk who spends his days marching around the bases of the local softball field), express a poetic candor and are interpreted with a fresh awareness that is far beyond Alexie's twenty-eight years. Grade: A- Also by Alexie: First Indian on the Moon (literary collection, 1993), The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (short stories, 1993), Old Shirts and New Skins (poetry, 1993), The Business of Fancydancing (stories and poems, 1992) Reviewed by Steve Brock See Long Reviews and some controversy about RezBlues from 3 Native people
An Indian perspective on education, that emphasizes how environmental and ecological education might relate to students' lives (and thir lives to the world of nature), Cajete proposes extensions to a traditional model to make education more meaningful and useful for Indian youth, integrating education more fully into the lives of children, families, cultures. Cajete feels that storytelling is one of the most fundamental human activitie, providing a context of all sorts of info that makes it meanigful. Interesting proposals from a respected Native educator, who has ideas for putting them into effect in today's native schools or with Indians students in public schools. Cajete has little or nothing to say about Native education relevant to my #1 choice immediately below. Reviewed by Paula Giese file: ad501
I'm reviewing the original hardcover edition, which was supressed for 10 years by lawsuits conducted by former S.D. governor William Janklow (who didn't like what Matthiessen quoted Indian people -- and legal proceedings -- as saying about him), and FBI agent David Price. Like most people (who are aware of legal fees for this sort of thing) I believe these legal surpressions were financed by the U.S. government. Why this was done was expressed by Leonard Peltier, perhaps the best-known longtime U.S. political prisoner: Matthiessen is a very good writer, who can not only marshall the complex facts of history, Indian activism, and the Peltier case, but imbue them with the life and literary expertise of a fine professional writer. He is perhaps the only real pro to have tackled such a task from the viewpoint of Native people, sovereignty, injustice with such success. At the time the book was surpressed, it likely would have mustered a great deal of support for Peltier's release. In a review here, I really have nothing to say except: (1) Every Indian person should own a family copy of this book, as should any non-Indians who porofess any sort of interest in "Native Americans". (2) I was shocked to find that none of the academic, University "Native American Studies" profs listed it as one of the 10 books they would use to teach their courses if they had to pick their top 10. (4) Nor does AISES offer it. Hard to find in bookstores, too. So it appears as if there's still a sort of academic conspiracy of silence. The second edition, released in paperback as well as hardcover after the long-fought lawsuits -- financed (on the book's side) mainly by Viking -- had been won contains the original, plus some updates: the story of the lawsuits, and the famous Matthiessen interview of the masked Indian guy who says he was the actually killer of the 2 FBI men at Oglala (a confession which has had no effect on Peltier's status). You can also read here a long review essay which compares the info in this book to info in several others; it appeared anonymously in Akwesasne Notes in 1984. Then go out and buy that book for your family, your school, and yes, your students, all of them who are wannabe-interested in Native spirituality or whatever it is that makes them take your academic courses. This book is living history, and it is literature, too, due to the skills of its author. I find it astonishing that it is not carried by AISES Books (the reasons can only be political) and used in eevery Intro to NAtive American Studies. Get it, read it, keep it, give it as gifts to those who should have one. That's all I have to say about this essential book. Not-reviewed-by Paula Giese See longer review by Leonard Peltier file: ad502
It is astonishing and disheartening that AISES (American Indian Science and Engineering Soceity) does not carry this book, which should be read by every Native student, and certainly sponsored by such an organization as AISES. It is published by a small company, not easy to find. The book tells about what Fr. Theodore M. Hesburgh calls " the story of a far greater massacre than Wounded Knee, albeit a technical, medical, and ultimately legal massacre afflicting the Navajo Nation and inflicted by the federal govrnment. It is another tragfedy of the nuclear age, crying to heaven for justice." Actually, it afflicts the Hopi and several pueblos as well, and since the uranium mine and mill tailings and other radioactive environmental disasters are timebombs active for tens of thousands of years, just who may be ultimately affected in the southwest is not presently clear. Basically all who depend on the acquifers and rivers that pass through the very large area -- with Indians in the front lines, and Navajos making up the majority of those already dead and dying. The uranium boom, and the deaths and long-lasting environmental hazards, were created entirely by the U.S. government, which wanted tyhe uranium for weapons of mass destruction, was the only customer, and was the sole guarantor of safety for the workers.Some 1200 uramium mines were dug on and around the Navajo reservation, using mainly Navajo miners for the most hazardous and low-paying work. In addition to miners who died or can expect to, the rservation is left with a variety of expensive and hazardous results of the now-abandoned mine projects, and since radioactive materials also can leach down to the water table, the possible affects can't really be foretold. See longer review. Reviewed by Paula Giese file ad503
Here's another book -- long unavailable after supplies of the original were exhausted, and never well-distributed in the U.S. -- that not a single NA Studies academic mentioned on their top 10 essential books list. Anna Mae Pictou Acquash was a Canadian Micmac woman who became active in the cause of Indian rights and was murdered by the U.S. government in early 1976. For the short time I knew her I considered her a good friend and a brilliant person. Apparently others -- officials -- considered her from the point of view that she was a threat to entrenched interests. The FBI's entire file on her and on whatever they call investigation of her killing remains in Minneapolis, inaccessible to Freedom of Information attempts, because, the FBI says, they're still investigating. Of course they're not, they're preventing any clues which might slip through whatever purging they gave those old files from getting into the hands of someone who might use such info to identify the killers. There have ben some attempts to force a reopening of the investigation, but in my opinion, if the government arrested someone, thir case against such a person would most likely be a frameup of someone they still considered a threatening Indian leader today. Brand (who was a researcher for CBC in the 1970's) is nowhere near the writer that Matthiessen is, so this book does not qualify as litrachoor, only history -- history of a woman who was assassinated by the U.S. government, which also covered it up afterwards. Many of the same events are coverd ( in less detail) as in Matthiessen's book as regards the "incident at Oglala" but Johanna (and Mohawk Shirley Hill Witt, who wrote an eulogy for her after her death) are the only ones to try to show Anna Mae alive, as a person, from her early life to what led her into the activism, and an intellectual leadership, which caused her to be targeted and killed. Anna Mae's sister, Becky Julian, writes in a 1993 afterword: "I believe that the knowledge Anna Mae accumulated did in fact lead to her execution-style killing...The courage and spirit that my sister Anna showed should be brought out in each of us.". So maybe even if the NA Studies profs don't think this is an important book and you can't find it in your campus bookstore, you'll get it anyway. It can be ordered through Native Book Centre. This is another one that should be read by every Indian person. Wouldn't hurt any white people, either, except those with blind faith in their governments. Reviewed by Paula Giese file ad504
This book, written when she was 23 and translated into more than 17 languages, probably is mainly what won Rigoberta the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, the World Year of Indigenous peoples. It's another one no NA Studies professorial type thought to include among the 10 essential books they would expose their college students to. Here's a short reviewwritten a few years sometime before she received Nobel and the world spotlight that came with that: In first-person narrative, 23-year-old Rigoberta Menchu describes her relationship with nature, life, death and her community (Mayan people), and rveals the cultural descrimination and genocide waged against Guatemalan Indian tribes today. In large part this is the story of all the indigenous peoples of the Americas. But it's also deeply personal, a gift of a human voice that whispers sacross the immense gap between the nature-based society of the Quiche Indians and our modern capitalistic societies. If you think you have time to read only one book about central America, read this one, because it will demand of you to read (and do) more. -- Jeanne Carstensen, writing in Whole Earth Review Even if the Native American Studies profs didn't think so I think it should be on your top 10 list of Native books. Every person who wants to be considered educated should read it. It is written clearly and with strong emotion, so although it is an adult book, it can be read by grades 8+. It belongs in every school library. You can read a bit more about and by Rigoberta -- including a trendy web tout service that disses her -- on MayaPages here. In addition to my links to all the websites that cover long-dead Mayan ruins, there's a speech by Rigoberta (which Point Communications considered "shrill and huffy"), and a very few websites that deal with the wars being conducted against Mayan people today in Guatemala and Mexico. Though NA Studies profs don't consider it literature (unlike the Nobel Prize committee), and not many bookstores carry it, you can get it through the AISES, at least. It's not clear who added the dumb subtitle "An Indian Woman in Guatemala". That's where she grew up, and where her family was tortured and murdered, but she made a lot of contacts and explored values, cultures (and genocides) among tribal peoples of Central American, and with some AIM people she met when she was a refugee, at 17 (when it was no longer safe -- as it's never been since -- for her to be in Guatemala). Although there have been governmental assassination attempts on her in many lands, she's the genociders' top target. Reviewed by Paula Giese file ad505
Momaday, a Kiowa, was raised in the southwest. This novel, his first, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 -- the first by an Indian writer. The story of Abel, a Pueblo youth raised traditionally in the self-contained world with its meaningful customs, sacred events -- and the boredom that leaves him envying eagles and longing to fly away himself -- is told by an interleaving of disconnected interior monologues from a variety of characters, full of flashacks, forwards, and side glances. To figure out plot and events, we have to fit these monologues together like a puzzle. In the end certain key pieces are left missing, a mystery that keeps the story always before the reader's own inner eye, turning in the circle which is its basic structure. The book starts with a "now";which is sometime in the early winter of 1952. The distantly-seen figure of Abel, smeared with ash, is running a sacred endurance race. At the very end of the book, Abel's grandfather has just died -- running off in that same race, where he excelled as a young man, beyond his pain of illness and age, chasing the dark shadow-figure of death. After Abel has prepared his body for burial, he goes out in the snowy dawn to join the blackened runners, who may be metaphoric, imaginary. Abel's run to me meant survival of the people and their culture, despite the hard times of Termination and Relocation, which have just started. Yet there is also an implication Abel will run into the shadows beyond his own pain -- drink himself to death. Literary reviewers described the book as the story of a post-war Indian man's "descent to hell" caused by his war years away from timeless beauties of his tribe and his exposure to a senseless and violent alien culture. In this view, Abel is modeled on Pima Ira Hayes, a war hero who was a drunk on his return and drowned in 2 inches of water. That's an oversimplification. But it is much more than that. The vividly conveyed (but ultimately impenetrable) human mysteries, and set-piece visual images, give the book most of its power. None of its force has been lost over 30 years. House Made of Dawn is -- for its groundbreaking form and its enduring power -- the most important literary work by a Native writer to date. It is a classic. No person of any culture can claim to be educated who has not read and pondered it. See longer review. Advanced high school students can follow it, the passages themselves are not difficult reading. For those not experienced with complex literary form, teacher help with the time scheme will be required. Reviewed by Paula Giese
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Wilson was an anthropologist. This book is his University of Minnesota PhD thesis. Unlike most such it is absorbing reading. Representing years in the early 1900's spent with the Hidatsa people now living at Fort Berthold, and a particularly close relationship to the old lady identified at Buffalo Bird Woman, and in other works Waheenee and Owl Woman, this fascinating book reads like a combination gardener's and cook's How2, as the old lady speaks for herself. Tools and structures used in the planting, cultivation harvest, processing, storage, and cooking are shown in small, clear drawings. She tells of the entire year's round. I couldn't put this book down, it completely fascinated me. I got a better picture of real, daily traditional community life here than from just about anything else I've read. It's more like a How2 book than an anthropology book. Wilson spent many years in the early 1900's with the Hidatsa people. I hope to see some of his other writings, too. Though this is reviewed in the adult book section, it's very easy to read; I think highschool Native youth will like it, especially girls. See longer review Reviewed by Paula Giese File ad507
Neihardt was an epic poet whose turgid epics of the West and Indians are all but unreadable today. But in researching for his long poem Twilight of the Sioux he visited Pine Ridge reservation in 1930, wanting to meet a "Medicine Man" who had been active in the Ghost Dance movement of the 1880's. He was introduced to Black Elk. Sensing that a poet was a different kind of writer from reporters or anthros who had bothered him unsuccessfully before, Black Elk began to recount his life, and emphasized certain dreams and one great vision he had had as a young man. Later, he adopted Neihardt, and gave him the name Flaming Rainbow, which came from one of his major visions, the one he felt he had failed to fulfill in his life, but perhaps could pass on for the future, via Neihardt's book. Neihardt corresponded with Black Elk through his son Ben, and returned in May of 1931, where he was graciously received. The resulting book describes Black Elk;s traditional boyhood, his great vision, several famous battles including Custer at Little Bighorn, ending with the massacre at Wounded Knee: "I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from the high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women lying heaped and scattered all along th crooked gulch. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud in was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream." At the very end, Neihardt accompanies Black Elk to th top of sacrerd Harney Peak in the Black Hills, where the old man prays, crying that he has failed to fullfil his vision and make the white tree bloom. "Hear me in my sorrow, for I may never call again. O make my people live!" Black Elk's prayer was heard and answered. This book, this record, this prayer, became the seed of a rebirth of Lakota spiritual life and ways, and was the strongest culture-bearing influence on a younger generation from many tribes. This book is recommended to all native persons of any age who have not yet read it. It has played a most important role, sparking a cultural revival, in the history of all Native Nations, especially but not only of the Oglala Lakota Oyate. Though the ceremonies and rituals and some of the stories recounted are specific to Lakota history and traditions, it nevertheless speaks to the hearts of everyone. Its aftermath, after Black Elk's death, speaks to the spirit: Visions have practical survival value is what this book says, in its content, in its despairing ending prayer, and in its 2-generations-later history which I have sketched in the longer review here. Reviewed by Paula Giese
These are the transcripts of Neihardt's listening to Black Elk, in the 1930's. They became the basis for the books Black Elk Speaks ( see review) and When the White Tree Flowered a memoir of 19th century life of Plains Lakota at its height. Perhaps the transcripts are of most interest to research specialists, yet I feel that many native people to whom Black Elk's words are precious will want this relatively unfiltered version too. Reviewed by Paula Giese record, 509: file ad508
This book departs from those that primarily investigate Black Elk's early life. Instead, Steltenkamp, using information obtained from Black Elk's daughter Lucy Looks Twice, analyzes Black Elk's later years, his conversion to the Catholic religion, his attempts to minister to members of his tribe, and the use of the "Two Roads Map" as a catechist (good behavior is the "red road," evil acts are the "black road"). He concludes that Black Elk retained the "power to live" well into his later years, challenging his peers to act responsibly. Combined with "Black Elk Speaks," and "The Sacred Pipe," the entire life of Black Elk is now illuminated. Though this book will not be highly regarded by Lakota traditionals, it is recommended. Reviewed by Steve Brock record 510, file ad508 Because of the great importance for Native cultural revival of Black Elk and his book it would be good if thre were a sensitively-done, beautifully-illustrated version for children. There is a children's book, but unfortunatly, Native reviewers have thought it is poorly done. See review of BLACK ELK: A MAN WITH A VISION THE SEVEN VISIONS OF BULL LODGE AS TOLD BY HIS DAUGHTER GARTER SNAKE, gathered by Fred Gone, edited by George Horse Capture. Originally published by Bear Claw Press, Ann Arbor: 1980; paperback reprint University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1992. 125 pages, preface, map. $8.95. 0-8032-7256-1
The story of the recovery of this important book is in a way as fascinating as the story of A'aninin (Gros Ventre) spiritual leader Buffalo Bull Lodge (1802-1886) told by his daughter, the Pipe Child, Garter Snake (1868 - 1953). Trying to retrieve a destroyed history, Horse Capture found a reference to a 1930's WPA Writers project, in which tribal member Fred Gone had been supported as a writer to record the history of the last pipe keeper, Bull Lodge, as told by his daughter before her death at 86. Bull Lodge was a well-known healer, and the last sacred powers keeper of the feathered Pipe of the tribe. Although he was a noted warrior and political figure, this book is his story of a life devoted to the sacred. It is told, gathered, and edited by Native people of the tribe, an excellent model of what can be done by Native people working together, even when th work is done decades apart. The book is highly recommended; its purchase will help to rebuild the nearly-destroyed Gros Ventre or A'aninin culture, but it is also a well-assembled, unified story of a spiritually interesting life, authentically told by Native people for Native people. See long review Reviewed by Paula Giese file ad511
This is a Borealis reprint -- some 25 years after its original publication -- of a collection made in the late 1960's of oral narratives from (mostly) elders who then were in their 70's and 80's. They are from reservations in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming -- but mostly in the Dakotas and Minnesota. The collectors were from the University of South Dakota, and the Native American oral history project was one of sevral financed by wealthy recluse Doris Duke. The book is divided into sections (often splitting on person's narratived to several sections) titled Things that Guide the People; Reservation Life; Depression, War and Revival of Self-Government; Today and Tomorrow. The first chapter is fairly pedestrian, often a repeat of legends or bits of history much-recorded elsewhere, such as was remembered in the late 1960's, i.e. there are earlier records by Indian people closer to the events and the older culture. Much mor interesting -- to someone familiar with a literature of earlier collections -- are the recollections of the politics of the 1930's and 1940's, often seen through the eyes of representatives of different factions and of tribal people employed by the BIA. Thw collected narratives of this book end with a few speeches by younger activists such as Lehman Brightman. These don't really predict the decade of turmoil and occupations of buildings, Alcatraz, Wounded Knee and many other sites, that eventually led to a recognition of a dilute form of sovereignty. Leadership of those struggles came almost entirely from younger Indians who were living in cities, though they were attempting to return to reservation roots. The collection is unique and gives an interesting perspective -- particularly about Native feelings concerning the New Deal, the Indian Re-organization Act, and the politics of the Depression and post-world War II period. Several interesting photo-essays have been added by Minnesota Historical Society editors in this paperback reprint. The collection is descvribed as focussing on "individual concerns of Indian identity" but it does not actually seem to me to do that. The recollections of the people interviewed provide more a portrait of a way of life on reservations, as it was just before a serious struggle for sovereignty and better lives was undertaken. The sampling is fairly broad, and a diversity of opinions and memories ar presented. The MHS presents it as a valuable source for college Native American Studies courses, and so it contiues to be. It may also be a source of teacher background material on recent history for many central reservations -- all of largr, more isolated ones, outside the southwest. Reviewed by Paula Giese file ad538
Volume five in the American Indian Literature and Cultural Studies series, this small book is big on drama. Woven into various narrative styles are stories of the difficulties of being a mixed-blood - an outcast from both cultures searching for an identity, dreams of traveling easily as the U.S. mail, training a cat not to scratch the furniture, and the title story of Turle and Navaron, seeking comfort with words that are "firesticks finding their way through the dark." A bittersweet account, grounded in reality. Highly recommended. Reviewed by Steve Brock. See Long evaluative review by Marianna Wright
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Contributions of indigenous peoples of the western hemisphere to the world: agriculture, medicine, architecture, science. Most importantly. Weatherford shows the large amounts of (gold) extracted by several European countries at the start of their exploitations provided the substantial excesses monies -- surplus wealth -- that financed the transformation of European societies from craft-and-fief oriented to capitalistic, large enterprises, bank financing, the growth of a bourgeois middle class economy. Slave labor -- Indians were among the slaves -- financed the growth of America (treated in Vol 2) but monetary metals extracted from Mexico, central and South America financied the growth of Europe. This analysis is probably the more important contribution of this volume; however, the contributions of Western hemisphere vegetables to the growth of substantial European mass agriculture, which in turn supported both population and urban growth, and other effects on history, are also examined. In England, for example, the Enclosure Act, which forced huge numbers of small farmers off their traditional small-farm lands, poastures and villages (a commons) to enclose huge farmlands for th noblemen led to mass emigration to America, as well as settlement in London and the industrial north as disdpossed workingmen in the new factories. Ironically, these were corn laws, it was corn from America that could readily be farmed on these huge enclosures. Review Note by Paula Giese, see combined review vols 1, 2
This is volume 2 of Weatherford's compilation and analysis of Native America's contributions to both the growth of modern European economioes and the formation of America (mostly the U.S., though there is some Canadian material). As vol. 1 focussed outward, to what Europe gained, vol. 2 focusses inward. Perhaps the most important aspect of what was gained is philosophical, political: the concept of "United states" and later of "United Nations" which came from the Haudenosee (Iroquois) League. The very idea was foreign to Europe and the orient: a stat3 or nation assimilated others by conquest. There were empires, and pacts (for musutal defense) among indpendent states, but not confederated governments, that left local concerns to the component states and governned by federation for overarching concerns of all. As with Vol 1, this book contains much else, ranging from Native medicines and physical survival helps by early settlers to the role that Indian slavery played in launching and financing colonial penetrations. Review note: Paula Giese See Long Review of both books. records 513, 514, file givers.html
Bresette is a Wisconsin Red Cliff Reservation Ojibwe, and Whaley is one of the main organizers of what grew to be a large non-Indian support network for the treaty-based land, wildlife, and environmental issues whose struggles over the years are recounted here. This book is of renormous importance from many different angles. I would like to see it be the basic text for all introductory Native American Studies colleg courses; if those college students are introduced to nothing else about Indian people but this, they will have a good grounding in historical, cultural, environmental and economic realities of Native Nations today -- and something else as well This book recounts how a grass-roots-level alliance between Native people and non-Indian supporters has successfully worked in non-violent ways (one of the main ones described is the fishing Witness project) to overcome redneck racism, and more importantly the covert interest and support of those redneck racists (against Native land rights) by large corporations who are or plan to undertake major mining efforts on or near Native lands. Though this book covers a tribal struggle that is particular to the upper Midwest Great Lakes region, it is a paradigm or model with applications to Native nations all over the U.S. and Canada, where similar overt racism and covert economic and governmental backing threaten Native lands and environments -- and existing or establishable Native rights. What is most politically significant about this book is that it recounts a history that is in opposition both to self-defeating racism (i.e. Native people dumping on whites) and white wannabes who mosey around ripping off bits and pieces of what they regard as Native spirituality, which they want to consume like a commodity or product. Here the alliance supported specific Native rights, accepted Native leadership to define its (the support group's) tasks, and was actually a very effective political force. Without this support, the Wisconsin struggle would be less well known than it is (not that it is too well known anywhere). Without the support there would have undoubtedly been more violence, deaths (one of the racist slogans was "Spear a pregnant squaw, save 2 walleyes"). As it is, two known deaths (in 1989, by burning a home in the early morning hours) were most likely murders of 2 important white supporters, rather than killings of Indians. The struggle is not over. A 1992 injunction brought against the racists who mob the fish areas to "protest the Indians" has led to the state saying they couldn't enforce nonviolence against "potential riots" by the racists against the Native fishing families. The traditional fish spearing, the off-reservation hunting, fishing, and gathering treaty-rights, isn't the real struggle, it is just the turf where the real struggle began. Why the state supported and has made all efforts to inflame the redneck racist opposition to treaty rights is that the real struggle is about mining and other environmentally damaging large corporate and major industrial exploitation of northern Wisconsin. In lieu of a summary, here's a listing of the major sections of the book: 1. A brief history of the Anishinabe (with spiritual and cultural teachings as relevant, and an analysis of the treaties). 2. Fallout of the Voigt (hunting and fishing treaty rights): Anti-Indian backlash in Wisconsin. 3. Witness in our own backyard: the first year the (non-Indian) Witness joins the spearfishers (1988) 4. Mentors and Allies: Coming to leadership as Native American Activists. 5. Powerful Enemies and Steady Friends: Why are you (non-Indians) Involved? 6. The River Opens to the Righteous -- Civil Rights Legacy and White Backlash Today. 7. Small Miracles and Heavy Hitters: Year 3 of spearing and witnessing. 8. Interwoven Issues: Indian treaty rights and the mining threat. 9. A Solidarity Success Story: Healing, not Winning. 10. The "New People" Lessons and projctions. 11. Epilog: Recent Developments in Wisconsin politics (how the state develops strategizes and tactics to use against Indian land and treaty rights). Everything comes together in this book. Real working multiracial alliances, cross-cultural friendships built out of sharing common struggles, the importance of the cultural values, teachings, and spiritual ceremonies in strengthening everyone to endure, and the activism. I don't believe a book like this has much chance of being adopted as a NA Studies text, because so far as I can see most of NA studies is a kind of University multicultural boondoggle, designed to decoy potential allies into quietism or meaningless arguments about Indian, oops, Native American like they say in PC circles, culture, values, etc. This is Indian culture at work here; these are Indian values, survival motivates it, beauty and spiritual wholeness against the gigantic, powerful, rich, power-controlling opponents are all that keeps this struggle going. I don't think they want impressionable college kids reading books like that in their "multicultural studies" trivial little exposures to "Native American" this 'n' that. For students of either ethnicity, Native or non-Native, it's about building real working alliances that do work, or can work. This is the last thing the men of power in U.S. society want anyone at all to learn. So get this book on your own, keep it, read it carefully. Think about it. Learn from it.When time permits, I intend to write a longer review essay, and to seek other review-essays from Native people more closely involved in the Wisconsin struggles than I have been. Reviewed by Paula Giese. file ad515
Hey, what a bargain this book is! Only 50 cents more than I paid for it in 1973, seems it didn't sell too well, and hasn't been reprinted, so it costs about its original price. It's an excellent story, too. Lame Deer is funny, profound, wise, and honest. He tells of his wild young-man's life, running around, drinking, getting into and running away from trouble. His story is quite different from the kind of wooden portentious solemnity that non-Indians seems to want from spiritual people: "I had a thirst for women. Their soft moaning had something to teach me. It could also get me killed. At a dance on one reservation, I met a girl and took her to my hideout nearby. Then I noticed I'd forgotten my coat, and went back to the powwow to get it. When I got there, I ran into her husband, pawing the ground, looking ean. Of all things, he turned out to be one hell of a big policeman and he had seen me sneaking off with his wife. He had his gun out in a flash and started banging away at me, calling me some bad names at the same time. I didn't stop to listen, but jumped on the nearest horse and away I went. He didn't hit me, but one of his bullets hit the horse in the rump. Poor horse, he hadn't done a thing. In 1930, I got what I deserved. I was married by force...." "I believe that being a medicine man [wichasha wakan, holy man] is a stat of mind, a way of looking at and understanding this earth, a sense of what it's all about. Am I a wichasha wakan? I guess so. Seeing me in my patched-up, faded shirt, my down-at-heels cowboy boots, the hearing aid whistling in my ear, looking at the flimsy shack with its bad-smelling outhouse--it all doesn't add up to a white man's idea of a holy man. You've seen me drunk and broke. You've heard me curse and tell a sexy joke. You know I'm no better or wiser than other men. But I've been up on the hilltop, got my vision and my power, the rest is just trimmings. That vision never leaves me." John (accompanied by Erdoes and rdoes's family) also take part in several then-current political struggles involving the Black Hills and the gunnery lands, 200,000 acres taken from Pine Ridge during World War II for a test bombing range, promised only temporary, not returned. And in this context -- sitting on a stone president's head -- he tells Erdoes about treaties, land, and dollar-value comparisons. Near the beginning of the book -- but for me it's most important passage -- he says: "You, Richard are an artist. That is one reason we get along well. Artists are the Indians of the white world. They are called dreamers who live in the clouds, improvident people who can't hang onto their money, peopl who don't want to face 'reality'. They say the same things about Indians. How the hell do these frog-skin people know what reality is? The world in which you paint a picture in your mind, a picture which shows things different from what your eye sees, that is the world from which I get my visions. I tell you, that is the real world." Yes, I think so, yes it is. Yet had I never thought of it that way until he said it, and I read it there, it was like seeing a very big colored light all at once, lighting up dark corners. I met Lame Deer only once, during the 1974 First International Indian Treaty Conference, organized by AIM in South Dakota. I was wearily slaving on press releases (though there was essentially no press coverages), getting slapped around by FBI-CIA-Army Intelligence infiltrator Doug Durham, and feeling sorry for myself. Lame Deer, who was then around 70, came into the windowless press room and talked to me for a while. I never forgot him or what he said then, but later, this particular passage in his book was of far more importance to my personal life. (See longer review, and longer review of autobiography of John's son, Archie Fire Lame Deer. Reviewed by Paula Giese file ad516
Archie is John fire Lame Deer's son, he was born in 1935, and did not inherit that name or call himself Lame Deer until his father gave him that name on his deathbed. Archie's life story is sadder and narrower than his father's, though there are many parallels. (See Lame Deer's Autobiography.) Lame Deer had not married his mother, and the men did not really become aquainted until Archie was married with kids, fully grown. He was raised traditionally -- by his Rosebud reservation mother's father, until that grandfather died when he was 11, but it seems to have been a lonelier life. He was put into the St. Francis Boarding school, beaten for speaking Lakota and for anything that displeased the priests or nuns. He ran away and cried for loneliness, he knew thy would catch him and bring him back. The first time he saw or knew about his fathr (who had abandoned his mother before he was born) was when he was 14. John was dressed as a woman, clowning at at a rodeo. "He had chosen to do his act disguised as a woman because he was a heyoka, a Thunder Dreamer -- a forward-backward man who had to act in accordanc with his sacred clown nature." He doesn't rcognize the gangling, good-looking man who gives him some cookies and pop later. At another time, some old guys are making fun of Archie's dad laughing about how they would tell him to stop the rain at a powwow. John stops the rain, calling up a strong wind that parts the clouds (and blows down all the camp tents). "At that moment, I was proud to be his son." They didn't become close. Archie drinks with buddies, gets in some fights, and goes to (the Korean war), lying about his age to get away from his troubles on the rez and see something of the world. (John had lied about his age before World War II -- he was in his 40's -- to get in and fight at Normandy.) When Archie gets out in 1955 he begins almost 20 years of drinking -- during which time he goes to Hollywood and supports himself as a movie Injun and stunt man, drinking heavily and getting into various forms of trouble. He tells his Hollywood stories, and I have to say it: it's not up to his Dad's bad wild youth. Famous, honored historian Alvin M. Josephy says in his foreward that "Old John's horizon was that of the reservation; Archie's encompasses the whole world." Archie does tell of his involvement with Native struggles that took him to Europe, first for what eventually led to U.N. recognition of indigenous peoples, and secondly to travel and meet many supportive and spiritually yearning people there. However, mileage traveled, numbers, do not measure vision. John's is the greater vision, John sees more deeply -- into himself, into other people, into philosophical and ethical foundations of reality. Because of this depth of perception, John shows us the wider world, to my view, seeing it through the two sets of literary eyes, father and son, 20 years apart. Archie does say he has not reached the stage his father described as wichasha wakan but I think he will. He feels differently about it than John's idea of it, he emphasizes being humble, living close to the earth, and never to stop learning. He is too modest to say "and never stop helping" although the rest of his life from 1970 to the 1990's when he wrote this with Erdoes shows that part, too. I think he probably also does not share John's dangerous "experience all, everything, be both god and the devil" philosophy, which has so much potential to just be an excuse for a bad life. I most strongly recommend both these books, especially to native young men, on the edge of becoming adult. Of the two, father and son, the father's sits forever in my mind like a live thing, often laughing. It crackles with the perhaps electrical life of the Wakinyan thunder-strength that made John Fire Lame Deer heyoka. Archie's lifestory is told strong, vivid, sad, funny -- but his father's book is more like some kind of live animal or a bird that just happens to look like a book. I am glad to have found and read Archie's book, but John Fire Lame Deer's book has been and always will be something important to my own life, like a very few other special books. See long review of Archie's book. Reviewed by Paula Giese file ad517
This is an anthology of writings by Native women, with a few traditional stories that tell of women's roles in myth and legendry -- a theme Allen (Laguna Pueblo) has explored at more length elsewhere. In her introduction, she analyzes the problem that all Indian writers face, in being recognized by western aesthetics, and in beiung told (by anthros) what is and is not Indian, i.e. what they should confine themselves to writing for the anthros' ideas of authenticity. She discusses some characteristics she feels define a Native aesthetic, but says that Nativ women face a further problem: Indian women are nonexistent in history and art to the mainstream society, and to a considerable extent to the Native men who define culture today. Her book is divided into 3 major thematic sections: The Warriors explores situations -- from the viewpoint of Native women, mostly of the 19th century, both traditional (talking to anthro who is willing to record it, as Pretty Shield does) and educated (like Gertrude Bonin, Zitkala-Sa, Ella Deloria, and E. Pauline Johnson). The women warriors whose widely different stories are recounted here are fighting to save what may be saved against the white invasion and racism. Several traditional stories show the ancient values that are going down under this onslaught. In The Casualties, the onslaught is heavier, things are altogether worse. Stories here tend to be those of daily life: Mary Joe's children are taken from her (with the collaboration of her village elders); Green Blanket Feet tells how she made the mistake of loving a white man and hopes her grandaughter won't make the same mistake; a young girl who is being shunted around orphanges and foster homes almost achieves a happy family with an old Indian couple -- but is then removed by caseworkers, just as she has found love (for me the most powerful and sad story in this book). In The Resistance, there is a beginning of Native women's explorations of ways to survive physically, personally, and culturally in the white world that has rolled over and crushed their nations and continues to crush (especially) the men. This is sometimes by trickery, sometimes by a stolid-seeming survival-resistance that focuses on something very small in which a tiny spark of hope can be invested. Allen herself contributes a story where a native woman is exploited for her "color" as a token in a women's movement struggle, where white women are actually seeking power and are seen as thoroughly oppressive of other women of color. There's a broad range of themes and styles here, and the several oral tradition tales included give a necessary background and perspective on continuing values. Allen's initial long analysis, is also a valuable introduction for those not familiar with native literature. Some of the stories can be enjoyed by high-school students. Won an American Book Award in 1990. Highly recommended. Reviewed by Paula Giese file ad518
This starts with a long essay by Allen, a Laguna Pueblo writer of some Lakota ancestry and (at the time she wrote this) a professor of English at University of California, Los Angeles, on the living reality of the medicine world. The rest of the book consists of legends, traditional stories, and knowledg that Allen herself has rewritten. Most of these have ben collected by anthros and others, some quite long ago. Allen rformulates the prose so it is graceful and smooth reading. However, she has an ideological agenda: Cosmogyny, the Goddes (rather new age-y) that causes me to distrust what she may have done to the stories she knows (in traditions I do not). Because I can see what she's done to one -- Anishinaabe -- that I have learned quite a bit about. This is the story-section called "The Adeventurers", which links together a number of different stories about Matchikwewis and Oshkikwe. Allen calls them heroines in stories women tell, demigoddesses, etc. But these two female figures are not at all what she says. "Matchi" means "bad", with a context range from really evil, demonic, devilish, to just rotten like spoiled food. The other parts of the older sister's name (kwe, wis) mean she is older sister and she's a grown woman. Oshkikwe, the younger sister, has a name (oshki) that means both "young" with connotations of new and original, since there's a kwe identifying her as a grown woman, Far from being stories about woman's powers or medicine or that sort of thing, stories of these sisters are cautionary tales about what's proper and what's not for women's behavior and personalities. Matchikwewis is BAD. That's what her name means in Anishinaabemowin: Bad Woman. She is pushy, egotistical, slatternly, lazy, mouthy, greedy, rash, sexually deviant. (She is after her younger sister sexually. While some Native soceties had social roles-- winkte, berdache -- for a very small number of male homosexuals, the concept of lesbianism scarcely existed, and there was no such tolerated niche. Too, this is violative of the incest taboo, which was necessarily very strong in small, close communities.) The story-models that Allen rewrote were told by Delia Ogoshay (Lac Courte Oreilles) and Julia Badger (Lac du Flambeau) Wisconsin in 1942-44. These were published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 1977 (Victor Barnow editor), and have remained in print in paperback since. This source is among the many in her bibliography, but neither for these or any other stories-as-rewritten is there a link to published sources. I found this one because I recognized them from Barnow's collection and happen to have the book, and have heard the stories told (and explained) by a generation by others, too. Matchikwewis is pretty much wholly BAD. She's the cautionary model of all that Ojibwe women are not supposed to be. Oshkikwe isn't wholly GOOD, but she tends to be modest, persistent, is not rash to jump in blind, and is more often in trouble that her BAD sister has caused. These stories do not "instruct in spiritual development." These stories tell young women to be good, be quiet, don't push yourself forward, don't be mouthy, don't be greedy or lazy. More than anything else, they remind me of European fairy-type stories about little girls who get in trouble because they are too active, too pushy, not sweet, clean, nice. And the purpose of those stories is the same as of the Ojibwe ones: NOT sacred powers or spiritual development or anything like it, but teaching girls to be the right kind of women (that male dominated societies want, and men if they can get away with it prefer). You can even tell this from their names, if you know a little Anishinaabemowin. Also although the two particular versions Allen found in Barnow's collection were in fact told by women, Oshkikwe and Matchikwewis stories as joke or sexual humor (cautionary) tales are or were within my own lifetime told by men, similarly to seixst jokes that put down women, keep us in what is thought to be our proper place, are told by white men. Most of Allen's rewritten stories are from the southwest, where I know the cultures only from spotty reading, the languages not at all, or from Meso American sources. Without a great deal of trouble, since she does not identify sources she rewrote, I would not be able to determine if a similar ideological agenda: women's power, women's rituals, women's medicine, goddesses, women's thology -- has been applied to stories which in their original and their actual cultural context cannot support such an interpretation. The stories are still good ones, and Allen's rewritings of the ones I do have original source materials for are not drastic. I think you have to pretty much ignore all she says about female power and spirituality lessons from most of them though, or at least I must do so. When I find one I know about that has been wrenched about to fit an idological theory, I won't trust the contexts given others whose originals I don't know.I've always been attracted to the idea of the Keresan Thought Woman creatrix, the Hopi Spider grandmother, but I've also always been aware that men control Pueblo religion, and these are men's stories. Feminism can probably do no more with those ideologically than it can do with Catholic Mariolatry (Tonantzin -- made over by the Catholics into Mary, shows up here incidentally.) . I think if Native American women want a feminist theology, goddesses, etc., they are going to have to invent the religion for it, not claim they have found it, that it was there in the religious traditions. Yes, there are some female deities (generally of agriculture) but the Boss God Guys seem to be male. More important, for non-southwest religions, at least, there is a mysterious spirit or spirits that animates everything, the entire cosmos is alive and it's not a person (god, goddess) at all. This doesn't mean the book is non-recommended. I disagree with most of the theory/interpretation, but it's an interesting idea of re-interpretation. Much of it on a par, though, I'm afraid, with claims that Jesus was really a woman. Reviewed by Paula Giese file ad519
These stories were collected mostly from 5 old people at Lac du Flambeau and Lac Court Oreilles, the two largest Ojibwe reservations in Wisconsin, in the early 1940's by several anthropologists, often through an interpreter. Th stories themselves are quite intersting, and in general narration is fairly smooth, without the archaic wording and incongruous entitis ("fairies") often found in 19th century legend collections. The anthro use of them, though, is something else again. A very trivial and inaccurate description of Midewewin rites is set forth for Chippewa religion, , and all th tales are analyzed by the fad-of-the-year, then, which was Freudian psychology. "It must be significant that there is no mention of clans in any of the myths or tales," Barnouw says, and concluds from this that Chippewa society was atomistic (fragmented). Barnouw does much psychologizing about "personality patterns" on stories which ae (among other things) extended slightly dirty jokes. I had a hard time plowing through this stuff and suggest all the analysis be ignored by those who want to enjoy the tales. The tales include Wenebojo (cultur hero/trickster) origin myths from Lac du Flambeau and Lac Courte Oreilles; Matchikwewis and Oshkikwe (bad girl and good girl) stories; Windigo (cannibal) stories; stories about evil uses of spiritual powers; tales that originated as European stories that Indian storytellers put the Indian sign on -- a sort of Cinderella story with a real difference (Bear Girl). Anthros tend to despise these; I love them. And stories told as true that the anthros considered "individual fantasies." which seem to be fragmentary dreams told the anthros. I found most of the commentary and analysis obtuse and annoying, but I liked the stories a lot. Reviewed by Paula Giese file ad520
Maude Kegg is an elder of Mille Lacs reservation in Minnesota. A well known beadwork artist, she's also known as a cultural preserver. In 1970, she became Ojibwe language teacher to Nichols, then a linguistics graduate student at the University of Minnesota (who has recently completed editing an Ojibwe dictionary -- the first since that of Bishop Baraga in 1898). In this book, Maude tells many stories of her girlhood in th late 19th century. She grew up among traditional people who had almost no contact with white people. Though there are a few myths and legends here, these are stories she was told, and they are part of some daily event of her life. The stories are on facing pages in English and Ojibwe. Since the aggultinative languag is very complex and has nothing structurally in common with European languages, a large, elaborate glossary, and verb rules make up aslmost 1/4 of the book. Maude's stories are good and cast a new light on Ojibwe history, bvut in many respects this is a book for linguists and serious students of the Ojibew language. It is to be hoped that for those who just want the storis, a slimmer, less expensive, volume will be published. The stories without the linguistic apparatus would be very good for Middle school and YA readers. Still, this is mainly a technical language book, for which the stories are a tool to analyze and learn Ojibwe. Reviewed by Paula Giese ad521
This is a last chance purchase, at a reduced price, the remaining copeis of this beautiful and important book. New Society says they do not plan to reprint it. It is to be hoped that another publisher can be interestd in an updatd reprint, hopefully under the same terms of contributing 50% of the sales to the trust fund supporting continued tribal actions to gain acknowledghement from Canada and the British Crown of their traditional rights and land.
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Readings (with some explanatory materials) compiled in 1977 as a Native American Studies text (it was one of the very few to exist then), by 3 Native women from different tribal-cultural heritages. The historical excerpts and explanatory material comprise a story of the meanings, roles, and functions of sacred traditional practices and observations in Native lives of the pre-contact past. Theough there are now quite a few books on this subject, they tend to be singl-tribe or single-culture-area. These women were concerned to show the sacred center's commonalities in culture and religion -- all tribes had (have) different practices, but there is a saacred center that unites them, a common world-view quite different from anything in the Western religious traditions, as the editors show mostly by juxtapositions. Though it was compiled and puboished more than 20 years ago, it is still useful. One NA Studies prof cites it as an essential, or top-10 book he'd need teaching a NA studies intro course. Reviewed by Paula Giese file ad524
Tom Brown Jr., who runs a tracking and wilderness survival school in New Jersey, is the author of several field and survival guides, books on his mystical experiences and philosophy of nature, and his autobiographical "The Vision." His latest book details the stories his grandfather, Stalking Wolf, told him as a child. Stalking Wolf, a Lipan Apache and "coyote teacher" (one who makes a student find out answers for himself), traveled through the United States, Mexico, and Central America trying to impart his wisdom and keep from getting put on a reservation. He tried to stay away from whites and sought only "the wilderness and the spirits." Brown relates several experiences that Stalking Wolf revealed to him: his visions in which spirits give him symbolic gifts, his encouragement to pay attention to spirit voices, his ability to find perfect fossil specimens, his trek to a snowy mountain pass to escape loneliness, and his brush with death in "Death Valley." In these stories, there is a message for all - the truth will only be revealed to those who search for it, and truth is the only possession worth having. The book is recommended. Reviewed by Steve Brock file ad530
Shiprock, New Mexico is where Tapahonso, a Navajo, grew up, and it is here where she returns in these thirty-one vignettes. Memories of a pile of rocks where a baby girl was buried, learning to receive morning blessings from fireflys, Navajo cowboys with raisin eyes, or sitting alone and lonely while the rest of the family sleeps, all contain flecks of uncertainty within a mantle of strength. When the emotions rise too far to the surface, Tapahonso escapes to her native tongue. The words will escape those who don't speak Navajo, but they will still understand, as Tapahonso's spellbinding vision turns language barriers into bridges. Highly recommended. Reviewed by: Steve Brock Tapahonso is also the author of 3 other books of poetry: ONE MORE SHIPROCK NIGHT (1981); SEASONAL WOMAN (1982) and A BREEZE SWEPT THROUGH, 1987. She has co-authored a children's Navajo ABC's book for non-Navajo children. file ad529
Nequatewa, born in the early 1880s at about the same time as the Hopi reservation was established, tells Alfred F. Whiting about the first twenty-two years of his life in an account that was only recently uncovered among Whiting's papers. Recorded in the 1940s in the traditional Hopi narrative style, Nequatewa describes the katchinas and their dances, early days on Second Mesa, Spanish reprisals for the killing of their missionaries, being initiated into the One Horned Fraternity, and his experiences at the Keams Canyon and Phoenix Indian schools. There are amusing incidents, such as Nequatewa being told to go and give a Katchina a blanket. He follows the Katchina down a sacred trail, causing an uproar among those gathered to witness the dance. Most reminiscences, though, are tinged with sadness, as when the Hopis are ravaged by a smallpox epidemic. While the dates that Nequatewa recalls aren't to be relied upon, "Born a Chief" is an insightful narrative, giving glimpses into Hopi efforts to adapt to reservation life and forced education. Recommended. Reviewed by Steve Brock
The "last major battle" was at Maricopa Wells, near Phoenix, in September, 1857, when tribal members of the Maricopas and Pimas were attacked by a large group of Quechans (Yuma), Apaches, and Mojaves. Evidently, the Quechans had gotten a new chief, and he wanted to assert his authority. The attackers, however, were virtually annihilated. In this new edition of the 1987 original, Kroeber and Fontana outline both white and Indian versions of the battle, and then go on to reflect on the ritualized aggressive activities of the tribes: raiding each others camps, going on the warpath, the actions of those in different positions of authority, drawing battle plans, the arms employed, and reactions to victory and defeat. The authors then analyze settlement patterns of the tribes; they outline a history of aggressive acts, the different alliances that were formed, and the changing motives, finally concluding that the Gila massacre was "a purely traditional event." In the concluding chapters, Kroeber and Fontana attempt to differentiate between raiding and warfare, and analyze several theories of aggression. Ultimately, they conclude that Indian wars were largely the result of the domestication of plants and animals which created a place to guard, and the need for males to assert themselves in other ways (becoming a warrior) to make up for their ot being needed for hunting. There are a few leaps of faith in drawing this conclusion, but the analysis is beyond reproach and convincing. This is an important work. Recommended. Reviewed by Steve Brock
War is never a conflict of righteousness over evil, as it is frequently portrayed. It is always a last frustrated and shameful attempt to enforce one's will over another. While there may be acts of heroism, there is no humanity in causing death. This is a generally balanced narrative of conflicts over land between whites and Native Americans, from the landing of Christopher Columbus in 1492 (whose garrison, when he went back to Spain, raped and pillaged Indian settlements near La Navidad) to the Great Sioux Council of 1891, which "formally ended the Indian Wars." This detailed history of subjugation and broken treaties is outlined in chronological order with historical photographs, maps, and special essays devoted to specific people or events. The chronicle suffers, though, from its Anglo perspective, from using nomenclature developed by the U.S. Army for purposes of awarding campaign badges, to the author's use of references by principally white writers. Recommended only for very general research. Reviewed by Steve Brock
A friend and fellow classmate of mine is a mixture of white, Hispanic, and Commanche. He calls himself a "blanched Commanche." Originally published in 1991, this reissue is a complex investigation of how Commanche social identity has changed in the face of Anglo encroachment. Foster uses interviews, ethnohistories, archival materials, and observances of social gatherings in his assessment that the Commanche have retained their identity through the development of a supportive and cooperative "moral community." He outlines the social identity of the Commanche, concentrat- ing on the public gathering, during several periods: the nomadic community (where consensus was easier to achieve because there was little change in economic conditions), the reservation community (where the religious use of peyote helped maintain social cohesion), the postallotment community (characterized by a need to regulate tribal leaders through greater public involvement), and the postwar community (where the powwow has increased social significance). The key to the preservation of Commanche social identity, Foster says, is the religious significance of the public gather- ings, where the interactions are regarded as sacred rituals and whose edicts have moral force. This thoroughly-researched and intelligently presented work is a significant contribution to Commanche history as well as to Native American social analysis. Highly recommended. Reviewed by Steve Brock
These twenty-four stories capture one of the many aspects of Native American life that make it fulfilling. To many, though, these stories are all that are left of their traditions, and these, too, are fading as tribes loose the last elders who know the native language. After an introduction which describes and classifies the tribes by region, the book is divided into four parts and each story is named after an animal: making the world (crayfish, turtle, hare, etc.), adjusting the world (frog, dog, swans, etc), shaping animals (salmon, antelope, spider, etc.), and awaiting humans (buffalo, snake, etc.). Miller tries to impart the subtleties of the original language into each story, and some are more successful than others. What comes through is a rich diversity and a deep spirituality not lacking in humor. Recommended. Reviewed by: Steve Brock
Some of the most moving and lyrical passages I've read have come from anthologies and literary journals, and "Writing the Circle" is a significant contribution to a genre that is hard to crack. Perreault (an English professor at the University of Calgary) and Vance (a Canadian free-lance writer) have assembled a startlingly powerful set of stories, poems, and essays that stir the senses and warm the heart with sometimes painful honesty, at a time when the Canadian government is at a crossroads with respect to its native population. Here, with a short biography of each writer, are essays on modern versus traditional healthcare and the modern powwow, stories of a child's reaction to her mother's drinking fire-water and memories of picking cherries on a summer day, and poems of being resolute while going through change. At the center of this circle is a call for the Canadian intellectual elite to begin to pay attention to native writers. To this invitation, I heartily add my voice. Let the attention to native literary talent begin here. Reviewed by: Steve Brock
Anne Smith an ethnographer and Ute advocate in the 1930s, was interested in Ute culture prior to their contact with Europeans.These 102 tales (from Volume II of her dissertation) are divided into three groups, according to how the bands were named by Indian agencies: Unita (eastern Utah), Uncompahgre (central Colorado), and White River (Wyoming and Northwestern Colorado). The Ute tales are mainly concerned with animal activities before humans were created and many are moral stories explaining why an animal has (or is missing) certain traits, such as "Why Dog Can't Talk," or why eagle never laughs. The coyote as trickster figures prominently, as do rabbit, buffalo, bear, skunk, and water babies. The myths are related without elaboration or introduction. My favorite is called "The Anthropologist Who Went Back In Time." This story can be found on the verso of the title page (the page that has the copyright date), where it says that Smith lived from 1990-1981. Recommended. Reviewed by Steve Brock
Anne Smith (1900-1981), an ethnographer who extensively visited the Shoshone bands in western Utah (Gosiute) and eastern Nevada in 1939, relates the stories that she collected on subse- quent trips after her graduation from Yale as the first female to receive a doctorate. In 1939, there was only one large Shoshone reservation. To the Western Shoshone, storytelling ability was a highly regarded talent, as the stories were a primary method of educating the young about their culture and desired conduct within it. These 113 short tales contain elements of creation and origin, etiology (diseases or abnormalities), the trickster, competition and conquest, cannibalism, and many others. Most common (and most amusing) are the trickster tales. Smith went to great pains to attribute each story to its teller, the translator, and the place where the story was recorded. One of Smith's favorite storytellers was Anna Premo, of Owyhee, Nevada. Her daughter, Beverly Crum, adds an appropriate afterword. Recommended. Anne M. Smith wrote last year's "Ute Tales," also recommended. Reviewed by Steve Brock
Newly released in paperback, "Turtle Island Alphabet" is a selective dictionary of Native culture, from the "arrow" of a prayer flying toward the sun to the "zigzag" lightning bolt that the gods heave back as a warning, these words have many unusual manifestations. Some letters have multiple entries ("bear," "buffalo," "basket," "bead," and "blanket"), while others must, by necessity, be reached for ("Xaymaca" - now called Jamaica, one of the places where Columbus landed). This is a small, but significant, glimpse at Hausman's large collection of Native American cultural anecdotes about "Turtle Island," the earth which rides on the turtle's back. Recommended. Reviewed by Steve Brock
Vizenor, professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, has gathered an impressive and lively collection of essays that investigate several postmodern themes in Native American literature. Among the subjects analyzed are representation and translation, the interrelatedness of comic and tragic worldviews, and of course, the image of the trickster. Examined, among others, are the works of Leslie Marmon Silko ("Ceremony," "Storyteller"), Louise Erdrich ("Love Medicine"), N. Scott Momaday ("The Way to Rainy Mountain"), D'Arcy McNickle ("The Surrounded"), and Gerald Vizenor ("Darkness in Saint Louis Bearheart"). "Narrative Chance" is essential to understanding how each author has contributed to the changing landscape of postmodern Native American fiction, and is highly recommended as a textbook for classes in Native American literature. Reviewed by Steve Brock
The bulk of the material in this book -- everything about Thomas White Hawk, the American Indian Movment, essays about Indians in Rapid City and Pine Ridge, was published in 1974 in Word Arrows a University of Minnesota paperback long out of print, and beefore that gnerally in Vizenor's newspaper columns or periodicals of the early '70's. The book has been added to with a 1989 essay "Crossbloods (and bingo), republished from 1989, and with "Bone Courts ", the reprint of a 1986 essay regarding returns and reburials of skeletons from native graves, and leaving old graveyards undisturbed. "Socioacupuncture: Mythic Reversals and the Striptease in Four Scenes" (1987) is an essay in which the metaphors of striptease are used to examine euphemisms in white writings about Native America. The stylistic pyrotechnics and ironic literary flights for which Vizenor's work is literarily noted are for the most part not found here. These are good-quality journalistic opinion short pieces with a few longer, analytic essays. It is good to have the former in print again, and the latter collected in an accessible book. Reviewed by Paula Giese
Angie Debo (died 1988) was a well-known historian of Indian people, mainly concentrating on Indian histories of the "5 civilized tribes" before and after the forcible resettlements in Oklahoma. This book, first publishd in 1970, began as a textbook for teachers. In 1968, Debo conducted a 7-week intensive course for teachers of Indian students at BIA schools, mission schools and a few public schools (mostly in areas with large Indian populations). There was no suitable overall background survey textbook at the time and her students urged her to publish her course materials. Debo did so. This is the result, a survey from a Native viewpoint that was updated (just a little) in the late 1970's. The survey remains a good one for the 16th - 19th centuries. With the 20th century, Debo's academic objectivity -- or her BIA employer -- causes her to lean over backwards to be fair to thieves and political lackeys, and to fail to portray the continuing land thefts -- the policies of termination and relocation -- for what they were: genocide attempts. In fact the nearer to her own time, the more the juices of life and tragedies of death and suffering shrink to a very academic and non-Native objectivity. Events she had to have known about, involving people she worked closely with, are skated over, sketched. For example, the death of LaVerne Madigan, an activist in the defense of Alaska Native land claims, is simply passed over as "an accident." Most people familiar with the issues of these |
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IN THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSE, Peter Matthiessen, Viking Press, 40 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010; 1983 (supressed), 1992, 627 pages, index, chapter notes, 0-670-39702-4. Availabl in reissued paperback, 645 pages, $15 from The Mail Order Book Catalog, 800-695-2241