Native American Books

An excellent job of narrating the recovery of lost material from existing documentation. The footnotes are well researched. The topic is fascinating, and the insights of the editors very useful. However, I would have liked to see an additional index with entry using English terms as well as the existing index of Taino words.

In addition, in analysis of a culture so intimately linked and so knowledgeable of nature as the Tainos, one should also take into account biological reality. For instance, it seems clear to a biologist that Mácocael, "he of the lidless eyes:' page 6 of the text may well be the great rainbow boa, Epicrates spp., Ma-ja, the great snake, since this serpent, like most boas, has lidless eyes.

An excellent job of narrating the recovery of lost material from existing documentation. The footnotes are well researched. The topic is fascinating, and the insights of the editors very useful. However, I would have liked to see an additional index with entry using English terms as well as the existing index of Taino words.

In addition, in analysis of a culture so intimately linked and so knowledgeable of nature as the Tainos, one should also take into account biological reality. For instance, it seems clear to a biologist that Mácocael, "he of the lidless eyes:' page 6 of the text may well be the great rainbow boa, Epicrates spp., Ma-ja, the great snake, since this serpent, like most boas, has lidless eyes.

The continuing story of the Cherokees after their arrival in present day Oklahoma. A story of the conflicts both within and outside of the Cherokee Nation. The story of how the Cherokees battled to maintain their sovereignty and ultimately failed. Meticulously researched by McLoughlin through primary sources, an excellent history for anyone interested in Native American or Cherokee history. An typical example of what happened to all tribes in America.

This book, as far as I know, is the only one that explores the fascinating history of the Cherokees after they reached Oklohoma. We all know of the 'trail of tears' where the cherokees were removed from Georgia and forced to march to Oklohoma. This book tells the great story of their attempts ot civilize the land. How they built homes how they bought slaves and how they fought with neighbooring indians(who looked like savages to the new americanized Cherokee). The Cherokees fought in the civil war and even fought civil wars among themselves. This book details the hatred of the pure blood cherokees for their brethen who seemed more white and scottish then the others. The cherokee nation then was oborbed into the state of oklohoma when the Indian territory was aboloshed. This is an extraordinary tail of a hitherto unknown american story about one of americas most talked about, but seldom understood and studied, indian tribes, the noble civilized cultured Cherokee(who so many people claim to be descended from that a modern Indian joke goes "what do you get when you have 40 Cherokees in one room? One full blooded Indian").

This book maintains that the primary purpose of the FBI, from its inception and at least through to the late 1980s when Agents of Repression was first published, was to repress political groups and individuals who posed a threat to the status quo. The text is accompanied by heavy documentation and I was often reminded of the writing style of Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman. The focus here, however, is on the domestic crimes of the government. Churchell and Vander Wall show that the FBI was willing to use massive illegal force (including assasination) to repress political enemies and serve the interests of those in power. This is an excellent eye-opener to the true nature of the Bureau and the harsh crimes visited upon the American Indian Movement, the Black Panther Party and others such as the Puerto Rican Independence Movement. One is left wondering what activities the FBI has engaged in since the '80s and especially since 9/11. The best book I've read in some time.

The reissue of Agents of Repression is not only based on the historical significance of the book, but also the concerns expressed by co-author Ward Churchill in his lectures and writings about the direction of this nation with the advent of the Department of Homeland Security and legislative measures that have trampled over the Bill of Rights.

The book was published in 1988 based on the then ongoing litigation by some government officials against an author and publisher who had a work published concerning the illegal repression of AIM.

Agents of Repression is basically split into four sections; a history of the FBI, the government's war against the Black Panther Party, a lengthy exploration of AIM and the steps taken by a variety of government departments to destroy the grass-roots movement and how nothing has changed in the 1980s.

For readers who have explored these issues through other forums, it is an outstanding history. Readers who may be researching this era for the first time, I highly recommend the book since it takes larger topics and breaks them down into succinct chapters.

Churchill became the punching bag for the lightweight talking-heads on cable "news" shows more than a year ago due to comments he made in an academic setting concerning 9/11.

I urge a potential book-buyer to disregard that rhetoric and disinformation campaign waged against the co-author Churchill and consider that perhaps the payback for truly believing in civil rights means the attempt to silence him.

Alaska Native Art by folklorist, curator, and advocate for native peoples Susan W. Fair is an extensive examination of the venerable artistic traditions of twentieth century Alaska Natives, including Tlingit, Aleutian Islanders, Pacific Eskimo, Athabaskan, Yup'ik and Inupiaq artists. Black-and-white photographs of artists and full color photographs of their artistic creations, from spirit catchers to statues, dance masks, dolls, articles of clothing, baskets, watercolor paintings, and much more, illustrate Alaska Native Art. Each object of art has a sidebar commentary about it composition, symbolism, history, and other relevant details. The text discusses the nature of artistic tradition and cultural distinctions between different tribes of Alaska's native peoples. A treasury of heritage, beauty, and expression, especially recommended for artbook collections.

Sleek lines and minimalist features place the varied Alaska Native American art as 20th century. But the number of artists from all areas of the state, including many contemporary artists, for the most part use traditional natural materials of bone or ivory, wood, animal skins, beach grass, and others. These are often combined for a kind of "mixed media" piece; such as a model of a Northwest coast dwelling made from cedar wood, twigs, deerhide, and horsehair" among other materials. With some works, there are manufactured or synthetic materials such as masonite, commercial paint, glass beads, or brass buttons. Some, paintings especially and some of the dolls, are done in a folk art style; though with these too the superior craftsmanship is evident to mark them as modern works. Abundant visual matter (nearly 300 individual selections) including not only color photos or reduced-size reproductions of art works but also photos of artists along with the text involving historical and cultural background, customary and innovative techniques, and artist portraits offer a state-of-the-art work on the subject area. The bibliography of nearly 10 pages will also be welcomed by ones interested in developments in this regional Native American art.

This is a terrific dictionary with thousands of entries in both the Northern and Plains Cree dialects. Entries also include multiple word forms to help language learners, and there is a supplement of modern Cree words (remember, Cree is still very much a spoken language, with many people who use it as their mother tongue). Grammar and pronunciation guide are not included.

When I was a boy my uncle tryed to teach me Cree...the language of my ancestors. I can only remember his voice. But now there is this dictionary that allows me to find precise meanings for words I dont remember clearly. The book will help keep the traditions of my people alive. an excellent book...highly recomended

Outstanding documentation of the art forms created by Allan Houser. A reference treasure

This book is both beautiful and informative. It is richly illustrated with the works of this great painter and sculptor. Moreover, the text recounts Allan Houser's remarkable life, interspersed with a history of the evolution of Native American art. One does not have to be conversant with the art world to benefit from this book. Everyone should be inspired by the story of Allan Houser, the child of parents who were Chiricahua Apaches, held as prisioners of war by the United States for more than twenty years. After leaving the family farm in Oklahoma to pursue his dream of becoming an artist, Allan Houser achieved international acclaim while remaining true to his Apache heritage. You will want to read his story, and you will want to see his works.

Our standard secondary school history jumps abruptly from Jamestown and Plymouth Rock to Lexington & Concord. The intervening 150 years are barely mentioned. The Jennings trilogy examines this period. In the instant volume we see the native Americans neither as passive victims nor noble savages but as politicians, diplomats, merchants and power players. Though probably doomed from the start due to the absence of immunity to European diseases, for a period of several decades they interacted with the early colonists on a basis of near parity. The Iroquois actually attempted with some skill the become the central player that would resolve the French-English rivalry and leave them at the center and in command. Jennings shows us that though this didn't happen and though the odds may have been against it such goals were far from fantasy. It's enough to cause one to imagine that "chutzpah" is a Mohawk term. One can only wonder, if the Indians had not been devastated by disease what the political map of North America would look like today.

Francis Jennings, long associated with the Newbury Library American Indian collections has brought his vast knowledge to bear on the subject of the Iriquois as the fearsome 5 or 6 nations who independently cowed both their fellow tribes and the English and French colonists. He proves it wasn't so with so many documents of which we have never heard in our schoolbook history texts that I wonder how such material escaped notice previously. In the process he slays some American Sacred Cows such as Francis Parkman. One learns that the Indian frontier was no such thing and didn't exist but was a commonly inhabited piece of terrain, peopled by various tribes and the European invaders who traded with them. Relations were, for the most part, reasonably amicable, which accounts for the fact that during later wars the Eastern Indians frequently exhibited what we call civilized treatment of enemies and prisoners. (Of course there were the exceptions, usually well justified.) But in the beginning, the Dutch, Swedes, English and French, all found it necessary to deal with the various tribes quite diplomatically in order to survive, and use them in their wars of empire with one another. Furs in return for trade goods were king. The undoubted reality is such a vast contrast with the accepted picture of our frontier that this book, as well as Jennings others in this series, should be required reading to repair the damage done in our schools by claptrap such as Parkman and other revered historians who followed his lead, writing off the Indians as barabarians and the frontier as a clearly delineated line across which whites stepped only if they were willing to take their lives into their hands. Instead we find two cultures living amicably in common communities up until the first half of the 1700's when the balance was upset by driving out the Indians such as the Delewares and Shawnees so that they located in the Ohio country and became relatively independent. The Iriquois had a large hand in this and it was their undoing. Read the book. It is a complicated subject but well worth digesting. I recommend reading it in small doses and having an atlas nearby.

Author has great insight into American history and our language development. Excellent for anyone interested in Native Americans and how our language developed. I rate it 5 stars.

wish ,more could learn to share others worlds as well as this book is written~~the writer has insight we all can learn from and use in our every day lives!!!

This important issue of Native American genocide is covered thoughly in this book. Another book on the subject, "The Smallpox Genocide of the Odawa Tribe at L'Arbre Croche, 1763: The History of a Native American Tribe," has just been released.

A must read for anyone interested in American Indian History. It allows the lay person to understand complicated demographic issues that shaped the American Indian population in this country. Reading this will alter your perception of the world.

Great book on the involvment of Native Americans in the Civil War. I especially enjoy the chapters covering the Oklahoma Cherokees.

The American Indian in the Civil War, 1862-1865 by Annie Heloise Abel; Introduction by Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green
University of Nebraska Press
ISBN:0-8032-5919-0
The University of Nebraska Press publishes here the middle volume of the three volume series "The Slaveholding Indians" by Anne Heloise Abel . These included " The American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist" in 1915, " The American Indian as a Participant in the Civil War" in 1919, and "The American Indian under Reconstruction" in 1925. Front papers of the edition lacked this identifying tag, and it would have added a helpful placement. This edition itself, however, although in paper back, represents a complete and faithful rendition of the original text with all notes, references, bibliography , and illustrations included. It is accompanied by a helpful introduction by two University of North Carolina professors , Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, who together have published several books on North Carolina's original native peoples.
In the time span of 1862 to 1865 the participation of the American Indian, - settled only some 30 odd years in Indian Territory in present day Oklahoma by force - in a war he did not cause or desire , but could not avoid, has its own drama and tragedy. Fact on fact supports the unique solidity of this singular story . No matter what is tried it seems the inevitable will happen; and indeed we are told the American Indian suffered more than any other group from the effects of the civil war .The run of this story, simply in its telling , attests to the chaos of a civil war.
Historiography works by layering, each generation profiting by the work of the last and improving by new discovery of text and records. Thus Green and Perdue are quick to point out that Miss Abel's books is an excellent outline , a base on which to build further work in the area; work that will profit from original sources not available at the time such as the papers of Chief John Ross, pioneer diaries, and so on. Her work is not as complete a picture of the events as might be had now, moreover our attitudes and sensitivities have changed. While this is quite possibly true , it is important to note that Miss Abel's accomplishment has yet to be repeated, and in fact, yet stands quite alone.
Copies of the Abel three volume work on the Slaveholding Indians were once available in university libraries. However, they disappeared from open shelving after the 1960s. They are now most usually available only in closed, special collections and cannot be consulted at one's leisure. This fact means the University of Nebraska publication with the Perdue and Green introduction is specially important and provides an important contribution. Americana buffs, students of the civil war, the American west, or the American Indian ..... all will appreciate the opportunity to own this book.

By Sylvia Starr