Synopses & Reviews
This is the first comprehensive overview of the Native people of Puget Sound, who speak a Coast Salishan language called Lushootseed. They originally lived in communal cedar plank houses clustered along rivers and bays. Their complex, continually evolving religious attitudes and rituals were woven into daily life, the cycle of seasons, and long-term activities. Despite changes brought on by modern influences and Christianity, traditional beliefs still infuse Lushootseed life.and#160;Drawing on established written sources and his own two decades of fieldwork, Miller depicts the Lushootseed people in an innovative way, building his cultural representation around the grand ritual known as the Shamanic Odyssey. In this ritual cooperating shamans journeyed together to the land of the dead to recover some kind of vitality stolen from the living. Miller sees the Shamanic Odyssey as a central lens on Lushootseed culture, epitomizing and validating in a public setting many of its important concerns and themes. In particular, the rite brought together a number of distinct aspects or "vehicles" of culture, including the cosmos, canoe, house, body, and the network of social relations radiating across the Lushootseed waterscape.
Review
andldquo;Ancestral Mounds is an excellent survey of updated information on earthworks . . . based on thorough research.andrdquo;andmdash;Blue Clark, Muscogee (Creek) Nation, author of Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock: Treaty Rights and Indian Law at the End of the Nineteenth Centuryand#160;and#160;and#160;
Review
andldquo;Jay Miller is an accomplished scholar of both traditional Native American peoples and their modern descendants. He brings fresh insights and new sense to correct old popular nonsense and outdated academic dogma regarding the profound ancestral meanings and enduring significance of earthen Indian mounds.andrdquo;andmdash;Raymond D. Fogelson, senior editor of Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 14: Southeastand#160;and#160;
Review
andldquo;Fully grounded in linguistics, archaeology, and ethnography, this exciting book rethinks the history of humans and nature.andrdquo;andmdash;Laura Dassow Walls, author of The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Shaping of Americaand#160;
Review
andldquo;Jay Miller provides a thought-provoking ethnographic interpretation of the religious nature of mound building in eastern North America. Instead of mounds as sites of political control, these sites are envisioned as places of concentrated spiritual power made available for communities driven by concerns for renewal, vitality, and security.andrdquo;andmdash;Brice Obermeyer, author of Delaware Tribe in a Cherokee Nationand#160;and#160;
Review
andldquo;Miller has a unique and valuable perspective on mounds, also known as earthen forms. I have tried to describe prehistoric mounds as fossil rituals. Miller describes them as ongoing phenomena and also broadens basic definitions.andrdquo;andmdash;Robert L. Hall, author of Archaeology of the Souland#160;
Synopsis
The Tsimshians are a Northwest Coast Native people known for their dazzling works of art and rich array of social, religious, and oral traditions that have captured the attention of scholars for over a century. Jay Miller brings together for the first time a wealth of material about the Tsimshians, presenting an unforgettable picture of their cultural universe. That universe is built around the metaphor of light, which was brought into the world by Raven; its refraction forms the chief social, religious, and symbolic institutions of Tsimshian culture. Family heraldic crests express light in one way, masks in another. Miller argues convincingly that the genius of Tsimshian culture, and one of the main reasons for its continuing vitality, is that its people are sensitive to different, and often creative, ways of capturing and embodying light.
Synopsis
Ancestral Mounds deconstructs earthen mounds and myths in examining their importance in contemporary Native communities. Two centuries of academic scholarship regarding mounds have examined who, what, where, when, and how, but no serious investigations have addressed the basic question, why? Drawing on ethnographic and archaeological studies, Jay Miller explores the wide-ranging themes and variations of mounds, from those built thousands of years ago to contemporary mounds, focusing on Native southeastern and Oklahoma towns.and#160;Native peoples continue to build and refurbish mounds each summer as part of their New Yearandrsquo;s celebrations to honor and give thanks for ripening maize and other crops and to offer public atonement. The mound is the heart of the Native community, which is sustained by song, dance, labor, and prayer. The basic purpose of mounds across North America is the same: to serve as a locus where community effort can be engaged in creating a monument of vitality and a safe haven in the volatile world.
About the Author
Jay Miller is an independent researcher and writer. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including Mourning Dove: A Salishan Autobiography (Nebraska, 1990), Lushootseed Culture and the Shamanic Odyssey: An Anchored Radiance (Nebraska, 1999), and Tsimshian Culture: A Light through the Ages (Nebraska, 1997).and#160;Alfred Berryhill was twice elected second chief of the Creek Nation, then head of the Cultural Preservation Office, Muscogee (Creek) Nation.and#160;