Native American Books

This is one fascinating book. Every now and again I run across a book that takes me off in a direction I had not even suspected would be worth examining. Heck, this is a book I could not have even imagined. It is such a treat to be surprised and delighted.

In "Dream Catchers", Philip Jenkins guides us through the story of how the Native American (Indian?) culture has been variously (mis)interpreted, (mis)used, and (mis)adapted over the centuries. It is essential to remember that this is NOT a book about the religion or spiritual beliefs of Native Americans.

In some ways this seems strange because as I read it I had to keep reorienting myself to this fact. As I read about how White Culture found new ways to use Native American symbols as a label for issues in its own culture, I wanted to learn more about what the actual beliefs of the various North American Native cultures were. This is a topic for study in many other books (it would require a whole library of books and a lifetime of study to really grasp them in a meaningful way, I suppose).

Mr. Jenkins takes us on a lively tour through time and through changing culture and purpose. While I cannot do an adequate job of summarizing the book here, and I really want you to enjoy the surprising ride on your own, I can say that there really are three broad periods: 1) Rejection: The Indian as pagan, lost, benighted and in great need of Christianization, 2) Tolerance and Transition: the Period after the Indian Wars and particularly after WWI when Christianity and Western Culture had a great crisis of meaning. There was a huge turning to Indian culture as if it were a monolithic thing. White writers wrote supposed guides to this Spiritual "system" and ended up writing about their own beliefs as much as any insights they had to Native American spiritual systems, and 3) Acceptance: the Sixties and New Age creation of all kinds of spiritual paths that used (and almost always misused) native totems, symbols, and words and incorporated White Culture concerns with matters such as the Environment and Feminism, all the way through to UFOs and Magick (sic).

This really is a most interesting book. I was exposed to so much I did not know that I honestly did not suspect that reading this book would be such a satisfying and enlightening experience. I urge you to take the time to read this book. You will learn more about American Culture as it exists today from this one book than from a whole shelf full of less competent books.

Highly recommended.

Jenkins book is a journalistic-style account of the history of a particular type of cultural appropriation: the importation of American Indian spirituality, either in large chunks or tiny fragments, into mainstream white spiritual practices. The first part of the book is devoted to the background history of Euro-American attitudes toward Native spirituality, from the 16th through the 20th centuries. There are many "aha!" moments here, as Jenkins skillfully connects the many fascinating facts and stories from these centuries into a remarkably coherent narrative. The latter part of the book explores late-20th/early 21st century white beliefs and practices that incorporate Native symbols and ideas. It also details the industry that has grown up to feed the hunger for "authentic" spiritual products and experiences with a Native inflection.

Jenkins is clear that his book is about the images of Native Americans and their religions as imagined by the white mainstream. You will find very few Indian voices in this account and even fewer references to actual religious beliefs and practices of Indian people. There are good books by anthropologists and others that fill that niche. What Jenkins provides is something rather new -- a history and analysis of a colonial and post-colonial cultural appropriation that seems actually to be sincerely meaningful to the appropriators. Jenkins doesn't hide his discomfort with these uses and misuses of "stolen" spirituality, and he debunks a few cherished new-age myths along the way, but he ultimately presents a balanced and subtle account of a complex phenomenon.

Superbly illustrated by Irving Toddy, Dzani Yazhi Naazbaa': Little Woman Warrior Who Came Home is a bilingual picturebook written in both Navajo and English by Northern Arizona University professor Evangeline Parsons Yazzie. The story follows a young Navajo girl who was forced upon the Long Walk that attempted to resettle the Navajos in a barren land. Illness, famine, and earth that cannot yield healthy crops causes much suffering and death among the people. Yet amid the hardship, the young girl learns the steadfast significance of the clan system, the prayers and songs of her brethren, and the importance of coming together in dark times to help one another. Though many individuals would be lost and mourned, she and her people would survive the ordeal, and through her courage she would earn the name the Little Woman Warrior Who Came Home. The realistic color illustrations make the story come alive, and the text is sufficiently involved to make Dzani Yazhi Naazbaa' ideal for young readers who are just about ready to make the transition from picturebooks to chapter books.

Superbly illustrated by Irving Toddy, Dzani Yazhi Naazbaa': Little Woman Warrior Who Came Home is a bilingual picturebook written in both Navajo and English by Northern Arizona University professor Evangeline Parsons Yazzie. The story follows a young Navajo girl who was forced upon the Long Walk that attempted to resettle the Navajos in a barren land. Illness, famine, and earth that cannot yield healthy crops causes much suffering and death among the people. Yet amid the hardship, the young girl learns the steadfast significance of the clan system, the prayers and songs of her brethren, and the importance of coming together in dark times to help one another. Though many individuals would be lost and mourned, she and her people would survive the ordeal, and through her courage she would earn the name the Little Woman Warrior Who Came Home. The realistic color illustrations make the story come alive, and the text is sufficiently involved to make Dzani Yazhi Naazbaa' ideal for young readers who are just about ready to make the transition from picturebooks to chapter books.

I loved the simple, straight-forward way of presenting a complicated system of magic. Integrating the Winds with the Moons, the people and the animals of the world has laid out a basis for a lifetime of self-introspection and awareness on a universal scale.

The beautiful presentation of words and illustrations are icing on the cake.

Earth Signs is a great book and has given me a new and different perspective, I would like to wish Grey Wolf and his co-authors every success with this book, and I hope they will follow it up with other works of just as high a calibre. Julian de Burgh Astrologer.

En 1906 le photographe Edward Sheriff Curtis tenait deux dernieres expositions de ses gravures en platine, du format et de l'echelle grands, a l'Hotel Astoria de la Nouvelle York et au Club St Botolph. Car le banquier John Pierpoint Morgan venait de consentir a payer photographier la vie des peaux-rouges des Etats-Unis. Plus tard Curtis vendait ses gravures les plus grandes au Dr Charles Goddard Weld, qui a son tour faisait le don des 108 photographes au future musee Peabody Essex de Salem, dans le commonwealth de Massachusetts. Les gravures montraient a merveille les effets chiaroscuro, le focale attenue, les fonds assombris, les poses romantiques et les regards de tres pres, pour faire ressortir les caracteres forts du paysage vaste. Pour en faire tout cela Curtis se servait d'un objectif tres vieux, fabrique en Allemagne, et d'un appareil photographique lourd a porter. J'aime surtout les gravures qui me font comprendre le milieu, telle que De la foret profonde; les routines journalieres, telle que la serie Battre, vanner, arroser et secher le ble; la solidarite du peuple, telle que Dans les rues des peuples Acoma et Walpi; et la vie familiale, telle que La maison des Hava Supai.

In 1906 photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis held the last showings of his large-format, large-scale platinum exhibition prints at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel and at Boston's St Botolph Club. He had gotten banker John Pierpont Morgan to agree to help pay for a complete photographic record of Native American life. So he sold his larger exhibition prints to Dr Charles Goddard Weld, who then gave the 108 photographs to what is now the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem, Massachusetts. My sculptress mother and artist sister had already shared with me Curtis's pictorialist photography: so in my opinion THE MASTER PRINTS from these last two exhibitions are excellent examples of how the artist-photographer used chiaroscuro effects, close-ups and soft-focus lenses for dramatic and focused lighting, dark backgrounds for adding or subtracting details, and romantic poses to bring out strong personality and sweeping landscape. The book has helpful, to-the-point, well-written foreword, appreciation, afterword, and notes: I find it interesting that the prints might have been made with just an old German lens and a heavy-to-carry 14x17 view plate camera and that all the head and shoulder shots were taken in a tent lined with maroon-colored material and under lighting controlled by a skylight opening on one side. And I particularly like the prints that give a sense of place, such as the clearly photographed nature in "The Mojave water carrier," "Out of the forest depth" and "Taos water carriers"; a sense of family, such as "Hava Supai home," "Inuit hut and family," and Yakutat Indian seal hunter's hut"; a sense of community, such as Acoma and Walpi street scenes, "Apache camp" and "Apache village," "Blackfoot encampment," "Census hogan," "Estufa of San Ildefonso," "Mishongnovi," and [Tlinkit] "Council house"; and a sense of daily activity, such as "Threshing wheat," "Winnowing wheat," "Washing wheat," "Drying wheat," and "Hopi girls grinding peke bread meal." So the book's collection of photographic artistry works especially well with Shannon Lowry's NATIVES OF THE FAR NORTH, THE PLAINS INDIAN PHOTOGRAPHS, and THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN: THE COMPLETE PORTFOLIOS.

Photography is about capturing light. The way light comes to life in these photographs, and dances over and through the subjects, is truly mesmerizing. Edward S. Curtis was undeniably an artist, and he left for his fellow mankind a wonderful gift. We benefit through his sight and likewise, his INsight. With the recognition of what was quickly vanishing, even as he strove to visually preserve it, Curtis dedicated his life to telling a story. One very true and also very sad due to its cessation.

Although certainly he achieved fame, his name is not as well known as it deserves to be. Just about any of his images contained within this collection can be termed a work of art. Each scene or vista is a pathway for the eye and mind to experience. These are unforgettable and deeply enriching. A wonderful beautiful compilation.

If you read this book you will never be able to look at a Curtis photograph in exactly the same way again. Most people have seen Curtis photographs (often not attributed to anyone in particular) of Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Red Cloud and other important Indian chiefs, but he also documented the lives of ordinary Indians. I have a number of inexpensive prints of these photographs and I knew he was an important American photographer, but that was all. This biography puts him in his proper place as one of America's great photographers and photographic artists. He was a successful Seattle photographer when in about 1900 he set himself the task of documenting the vanishing culture of the American Indian. This task resulted in the production of a 20-volume set of books on the North American Indian. He supported his work (or at least tried to) by selling subscriptions for the series. At $3000 per set they available for only the most limited of audiences. (In about 1910, $3000 was worth more than $200,000 in current dollars, so these books were only purchased by the likes of J.P.Morgan and the King of England.) He originally expected to finish in a few years, instead of the 30 years that it actually took. Instead of just abandoning the project when it became clear that even at $3000 per set he could not hope to cover his costs, he felt he had an obligation to the original subscribers to provide all 20 of the promised volumes. This cost him eventual control over the project (including the engraved plates of the photographs), his photographic studio and even his marriage. Along the way he became a pioneering ethnographer, using both glass plate photographs and early motion picture technology capture Indian life. His photographs do much more than document Indians and Indian life; his composition and use of light make them great art.

There are several books currently on the market that contain more extensive collections of Curtis photographs and if this is primarily what you want they would be better choices. Buy this book if you want to find out more about the man who took them and the price he paid to do so. This book, while not an extensive biography, details all of the aspects of his life, augmented with many of his photographs. It strikes a very good balance between text and pictures. It provides some famous Curtis photographs (such as that of Chief Joseph), some of his most artistic ones (such as "The Storm" and "An Oasis in the Bad Lands"), as well as providing a very informative text.

If you're interested in Southern literature, Elizabeth Madox Roberts's THE TIME OF MAN is a rarely-discussed cornerstone of Faulkner, Welty. She makes turn-of-the-century Kentucky live on the page and the voices and characters she creates are forever memorable.
This collection of literary criticism on Roberts, along with excerpts from her unpublished journals, allow us a fresh view on the buried treasures of her work and the delicate and delectable perceptions that make her so rewarding to read. Excellent addition to any library or collection dealing seriously with Southern literature of the twentieth century.

"This volume is the first book-length collection of critical essays to deal with the life and work of Elizabeth Madox Roberts. It is also the first book of any kind, in many years, to be devoted to the study of Roberts, and it is the hope of the editors and the many contributors here that this book will serve to redress the neglect of a writer whom we believe to be one of the most important Kentucky -- and Southern and American -- writers.

"This publication coincides with the tenth anniversary of the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society, which holds its annual spring conferences at Saint Catharine College (and in Harrodsburg and Springfield, Kentucky). The work of this society has been, as the title of this volume indicates, to reassess and to reclaim a writer who, though widely known and well-regarded by her contemporaries, is little known today.

"When her first novel, The Time of Man, appeared in 1926, it was hailed by a national -- indeed international -- chorus of writers and critics as one of the finest American novels ever. Remarkably, such critical esteem was echoed by great popular success. While neither critical favor nor fame ensures any writer's canonical endurance, the way that Roberts has fallen off the literary map since her death in 1941 presents a curious case to ponder. It is to be hoped that this volume will contribute to a new cartography, a redrawn map of twentieth-century American literature with Roberts securely placed and located."

The authors have captured the combination of adventure and history into a story that will appeal to the younger reader. Their previous RACE to KITTY HAWK and most recent KIDNAPPED in KEY WEST, are excellent examples of similiar writings.....would recommend all three, great for grandchildren too.

ESCAPE TO THE EVERGLADES is the exciting and thought provoking story of Will Cypress, a fourteen-year-old Seminole boy of mixed heritage. Middle grade readers will be intrigued by his adventures when he leaves his village to fight with Osceola's warriors during the Second Seminole War. As Will treks up the Florida peninsula in 1837 to find Osceola's camp, he encounters many difficult situations along the way. Nothing, however, prepares him for the challenge he faces when he discovers a well-kept family secret.
ESCASPE TO THE EVERGLADES is an entertaining read filled with fascinating facts about Florida and describes a thrilling (and historically true) escape scene that is sure to capture the imaginations of young readers.

The author has changed my ideas of who the American Indians are. I was swept away by the descriptions and mesmerized by the spiritual life of a people who were closer to God than I ever imagined. This book should be read at schools and universities. Their history is vital to understand who all of us are.

Michael Oren Fitzgerald edits THE ESSENTIAL CHARLES EASTMAN, which revises and updates a classic edition containing the writings of the first American Indian medical doctor and co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America. He was the only American Indian author raised to young adulthood in the nomadic lifestyle of the pre-reservation area: this survey includes a biography, complete bibliography of his works, new sepia photos from his life, and more: an essential addition to any Native American or spirituality holding.

Everlasting Fire is so well researched and written, I would recommend it to anyone interested in a history of the Seminole Nation. It answers questions about how slavery played a significant role in the American's thirst to control Florida, and how it almost led to renewed conflict in Indian Territory. The book is a fresh, ground-breaking study into the forces of the times that brought to a head the Seminole need for autonomy, the threat the Seminoles posed to western expansion and military presence among the Five Civilized Tribes.

This book is amust for anyone wanting to know more about early Seminole/Southeast history. It is packed full of historical facts about early Creek and Seminole histories. It is one of the first publications about a chief by the name of Cowokochee or Wildcat who fought long and hard after Osceola to keep his people from being removed from Florida. The author spent 14 years researching from firsthand materials and sources. It also explores the bond with the Seminoles and black slaves and their fight for freedom. The book follows Wildcat from his beginnings in Florida to settlement in Oklahoma, and finally to his death in Mexico. It contains many original maps and photos. This book is a significant publication and addition to early Southeast history.

"To all appearances," wrote Richard Drinnon, "it all began innocently enough with a first victim" (Indian-Hating 35). Indeed, in Drinnon's 'Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building,'those first victims finally have the chance to tell their story through the records of their conquerors. From John Endicott's war on the Niantics and Pequots, to the horrors of the My Lai massacre, Drinnon illustrates, with passion, power and unrelenting wit, how Indian-hating in the Americas became a national pastime, and how that same hate was turned against the native populations of the Phillipines and Southeast Asia. A tremendous feat of scholarship that should not be missed.

Prompted to write about the lynching - after watching "Birth of a Nation" to be perfectly honest, I did not know where to turn - so, logically, I searched the stacks at the library. An interesting troika of books almost seemed to jump into my hands - metaphorically, of course. The link is the Imperial project. The books: (1) Lynching in America: A History in Documents edited by Christopher Waldrep; (2) Positively No Filipinos Allowed: Building Communities and Discourse edited by Antonio T. Tiongson, Jr., Edgardo V. Gutierrez, and Ricardo V. Gutierrez; finally, (3) Richard Drinnon's Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building [this one actually recommended]. Dealing with the confluence of hate on the three groups that have been the target of so much of it: Indians, African-Americans, and Filipinos are the loci of this examination.

Christopher Waldrep's edited work Lynching in America: A History in Documents is compilation of bits and pieces from source documents such as: articles from newspapers and magazines, parts of novels, transcripts of court decisions as well as congressional testimonies are the basis for the "documents" in the latter part of the title. On the trail to "discover" the origins, development, and resilience of the lynching phenomenon, this thought-provoking collection is less "history" but arguably more narrative. In this volume, Waldrep looks at various aspects such as the relationship of lynching to violence perpetuated outside the rule of law and examines in almost footnote form how these texts are mobilized by advocated of conflicting agendas. This collection of source documents is an attempt, I would argue, to bring new life, new meaning to the discourse of lynching. It starts at the very beginning - as in where did the word come from? There is no definitive and easy explanation forthcoming. The "power of the word" is arguably "a rhetorical dagger ... deployed by a host of actors in a variety of circumstances" (Waldrep xvi, xvii). So lynching then starts out the narrative - it began to grow into a different project; lynching is part of the bigger issue of discipline.

The "archive" shows that lynching is not a single dimension phenomenon - but that is certainly not a new argument - but its presentation here of the various perceptions and semantic plays on the word from the 18th to the 20th century certainly proves insightful. Waldrep explores (or uncovers) what seem to be mistaken notions only a select few slaves were lynched - when in fact it was seen as the supreme right of slave owners. In reality, several slaves were lynched - no matter how you semantically play it. Waldrep presents documents that show lynching to be beyond just a southern racial phenomenon. In this volume, Waldrep shows that the downturn of the lynching phenomenon is the confluence of "private enterprise--journalism--exposing lynching to national audiences" (Waldrep xix). What marks this volume as a deviation from conventional thinking about lynching is that instead of looking at the simplistic concept of "spectacle killings" of southern blacks lynching happened, Waldrep presents, in several venues and manifestations, persecuted diverse people, and eventually into "high-tech" with the "lynching" of Clarence Thomas (Waldrep 249). Even if the end result was not achieved - as in to come up with a definitive history and description, its complexity; I am sure Waldrep would argue, called for the very investigation he undertook. How does this tie in with Filipinos to African American and Indians who were conspicuous by their absence?

Positively No Filipinos Allowed: Building Communities and Discourse is a multi-disciplinary collection of unique writings that, of course, examines the ways in which the colonial history of the Philippines has fashioned Filipino-American character, society, and community development - this is the glue - the tie that binds. The essay that interests us for this examination is Nerissa Balce's "Filipino Bodies, Lynching, and the Language of Empire" since in this essay we started out by looking at lynching.

Balce explores the unique criticism leveled at African Americans in the 1900s by both the Filipino as well as the African American press for the commonality of their experience, "Why does the American Negro come from America to fight us when we are much friend to him, and me all the same as you. Why don't you fight those people in America that burn Negroes that made a beast of you that took the child from its mother's side and sold it?" (Quoted from a letter to the Indianapolis Freeman of 11 May 1900 - from soldier William Simms who as asked by a Filipino child)(Balce in Tiongson et al. 56-57).

Harkening to a shared sense of primitivism that, in so many words, "authorized" an "othering" that steeped in "civilizing missions" and "benevolent assimilations" continued a tradition of hate and condescension that began with slavery and the Indian wars at the start of the 17th century, continued concurrently into the Indian issue, and as far as this writing is concerned with ending at the Philippines. Balce recounts yet another story, this time from the Wisconsin Weekly Advocate of 17 May 1900, "cursed them [Filipinos] as damned niggers, steal [from] and ravish them, rob them on the street of their small change, take from the fruit vendors whatever suited their fancy, and kick the poor unfortunate if he complains, desecrate their church property, and after fighting began, looted everything in sight, burning, robbing graves..." (Balce 57-58). Balce writes that this violence perpetuated by African Americans is called to question by Filipinos. This is an epiphany of sorts and at this moment of U.S. Empire is also the origin of an African American anti-imperialist paradigm that recognizes the connection in the violence meted out to Native Americans, African Americans, and colonized peoples such as Filipinos.

Balce also links the narrative of the tactics used on the Filipinos as a progression of the same kinds of violence meted out previously to the Indians, "The allusion to the "Indian wars" recalls Amy Kaplan's idea that wars "continue each other" through cyclic discourse that generate symbolic meanings which transpose and reinterpret earlier wars. Like the U.S. frontier, the Philippines would become a conquered territory for the Union" (Balce 52). Genocide is not just the mask but almost the necessary tool to bring civilization - fighting means resisting, and resisting is futile.

Richard Drinnon's Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian Hating and Empire Building' (1980), takes us to the next level of understanding. Facing the West is a volume of American history in which he records a string of consecutive genocides dealt by white settlers against peoples of color (the "blackening" if you will) on the premise that they are "savages" in need to civilizing. Drinnon starts with the genocide of the Pequods and continues on through to the Vietnam War. Along the way, the "continuation of violence" and the "recycling of images and discourses" lands squarely in the Philippines - with ironic, disastrous, and hypocritical results. This honest take is an uplifting trajectory off the beaten path from the dominant discourses that marshal the worst and most contradictory of sentiments - `progress'.

The chapter in Drinnon that interests us is "Chapters XXI - The Strenuous Life Abroad: "Marked Severities" in the Philippines." In this chapter Drinnon alters our understanding of the debates taking place at a time of empire joining it with the lynching and violence on the mainland (Drinnon 307, Waldrep 215, and Balce 52-58). So, what "authorized" such violence against the Filipinos? "What then was the debate about? It was about whether the U.S. Empire should be hemispheric or global, and secondarily about the nature of the constitution; did that document follow the flag? On this less important issue, Senator Francis G. Newlands of Nevada put the issue succinctly on February 20, 1900: "The difference between the imperialists and the anti-imperialists... is that the imperialists wish to expand out territory and to contract our Constitution. The anti-imperialists are opposed to any expansion of territory which, as a matter of necessity, arising from the ignorance and inferiority of the people occupying it, makes free constitutional government impracticable or undesirable (Congressional Record, XXXIII, 1996)" (Drinnon 308). With the recycling of the "savage" theme, the Philippines is seen as a burden - a White Man's burden - in fact, "no better than Indians" (Drinnon 310-311). The dead in Santa Ana look jarringly similar to the dead at Wounded Knee (Drinnon 330-331). Marking for future reference that it might be even benign to say that the more things changed the more they stayed the same - when in fact, the past informed, authorized, and justified the present and maybe even the future.

As a shared burden, U.S. imperial expansion meant an increase of racial violence against emancipated blacks and a brutal war of colonization against Filipinos who had barely ended their war with Spain" (Balce 58). On the "Other" is set loose the "benevolence" of tough love and the U.S. "civilizing mission" that leaves only carnage in its wake. The "carnage" of lynching that (according to Waldrep) is constantly changing and the resilience of which is still being debated.

Miguel Llora