Synopses & Reviews
Published through the Recovering Languages and Literacies of the Americas initiative, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.and#160;
The rich storytelling traditions of the Alto Perenand#233; Arawaks of eastern Peru are showcased in this bilingual collection of traditional narratives, ethnographic accounts, womenand#8217;s autobiographical stories, songs, chants, and ritual speeches. The Alto Perenand#233; speakers are located in the colonization frontier at the foot of the eastern Andes and the western fringe of the Amazonian jungle. Unfortunately, their language has a slim chance of surviving because only about three hundred fluent speakers remain. This volume collects and preserves the power and vitality of Alto Perenand#233; oral and linguistic traditions, as told by thirty members of the Native community.
and#160;Upper Perenand#233; Arawak Narratives of History, Landscape, and Ritual covers a range of themes in the Alto Perenand#233; oral tradition, through genres such as myths, folk tales, autobiographical accounts, and ethnographic texts about customs and rituals, as well as songs, chants, and oratory. Transcribed and translated by Elena Mihas, a specialist in Northern Kampa language varieties, and grounded in the actual performances of Alto Perenand#233; speakers, this collection makes these stories available in English for the first time. Each original text in Alto Perenand#233; is accompanied by an English translation and each theme is introduced with an essay providing biographical, cultural, and linguistic information. This collection of oral literature is masterful and authoritative as well as entertaining and provocative, testifying to the power of Alto Perenand#233; storytelling.
Review
"Rich in facts and easy to read, the book details a little noticed chapter of present-day Indian politics of the USA."and#8212;AmerIndian Research
Review
“Highly recommended”—Choice Choice
Review
and#8220;For the general reader, [this book] provides a good overview of termination and its reversal and demonstrates how these factors influenced Indian identity.and#8221;and#8212;Western Historical Quarterly
Review
and#8220;Clearly laid out and very readable.and#8221;and#8212;Indian Country Today
Review
and#8220;Donald Fixico challenges scholars of American and Indian history to revise their thinking, enlarge their and#8216;seeing,and#8217; and engage in an effort to understand Native people and their communities. He constructs a convincing argument about the uniqueness of Indian history and his explanation for seeing the world through Indian lenses leads Fixico to craft a terminology that makes a great deal of sense.and#8221;and#8212;Margaret Connell Szasz, Regents Professor of Native American and Celtic History at the University of New Mexico and author of Scottish Highlanders and Native Americans: Indigenous Education in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World
Review
and#8220;Upper Perenand#233; Arawak Narratives of History, Landscape, and Ritual demonstrates a sophisticated and interesting use of discourse-centered approaches to culture and serves as a model for contemporary scholarship that integrates linguistic and sociocultural anthropology. From an ethnohistorical perspective, this work is especially valuable because it demonstrates how much cultural variability exists within and among the various indigenous communities of the Upper Amazon region. Another strength is the authorand#8217;s attention to individual narratorsand#8217; personal histories as a way of contextualizing the different narratives transcribed and translated in later sections.and#8221;and#8212;Jonathan Hill, author of Made-from-Bone: Trickster Myths, Music, and History in an Amazonian Community
Review
and#8220;Highly recommendedand#8221;and#8212;Choice
Review
and#8220;City Indian makes a substantial contribution to emerging scholarship on Native Americans and cities by providing fresh insight that helps us understand the motivations, strategies, tensions, controversies, and triumphs that have characterized the work and lives of local and national Indian leaders.and#8221;and#8212;Nicolas G. Rosenthal, author of Reimagining Indian Country: Native American Migration and Identity in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles
Review
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City Indian covers an important and timely topic. This history of Indians in urban settings is currently under considerable and probing reconsideration. With this book Rosalyn LaPier and David Beck have shown how Native peoples in Chicago have determined their destinies.andrdquo;andmdash;Brian Hosmer, H. G. Barnard Chair of Western American History and coeditor of
Tribal Worlds: Critical Studies in the History of American Indian Nation Building and#160;
Review
“Hopi Katsina Songs is a brilliant addition to literature about Hopi culture. The songs are a special introduction to the philosophy of the Hopi and their meanings are interpreted as metaphors, not symbols as is usually the approach. . . . There are no books that cover the aspects of Hopi culture that this one does. It is unique and very special. . . . This is a basic source book that has no current rival and will be an indispensable reference for generations to come.”—Richard I. Ford, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emeritus of anthropology and botany, University of Michigan
Review
andquot;[Uses of Plants by the Hidatsas of the Northern Plains is] indispensable to anyone interested in Native American life on the plains; valuable for ethnobiology and Native American studies.andquot;andmdash;E. N. Anderson, CHOICE
Review
and#8220;Every aspect of life is part of this classic ethnology, from acquisition of food to spirituality to the raising of the four sacred wooden pillars of a new Earth Lodge. . . . Editor Michael Scullin does a wonderful job of weaving the many living parts of Buffalobird-womanand#8217;s story. . . . The bookand#8217;s precisionand#8212;many specific uses for many plantsand#8212;is a pleasure to read. One gets a sense of a people who rose to the challenge of using what nature provided them to wrest a living from a demanding environment.and#8221;and#8212;Bruce Johansen, Jacob J. Isaacson Professor of Communication and Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and author of The Native Peoples of North America: A History
Review
andquot;Use of Plants by the Hidatsa is an easy, enjoyable read and a unique, valuable source of information on how people used plants.andquot;andmdash;Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology
Review
"No ethnographer has ever written so extensively on a single shaman of the northwest Amazon. . . . A monumental study!"and#8212;S. D. Glazier, Choice
Review
"What Mysteries of the Jaguar Shamans of the Northeast Amazon will be most remembered for is the essential connection between myths, religious roles, social organization, and physical places. . . . Any anthropologist interested in shamanism or animism should take note of it."and#8212;Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database
Review
"Complex, detailed, fascinating, and well-written."and#8212;Rebecca R. Stone, Journal of Anthropological Research
Review
andquot;This collection is an important addition to the canon of Native American narratives and literature and an essential volume for anyone studying Salish languages and linguistics.andquot;andmdash;SSILA
Review
andldquo;For nearly half a century Tony Mattina has been one of those extremely rare scholars to stick with the narrative legacy of a single mysterious, master storyteller, whose genius and wisdom he serves up in this career-culminating book. Working in close auspices with the Colville-Okanagan communities of Washington State and British Columbia, Mattina [has] . . . produced this stunning and original anthology of their collective imagination, as filtered through the old, old stories of the now-deceased sage, Peter Seymour. [It is] one of those quiet triumphs that took one humanistic spirit from academia to unearth, translate, and contextualize the genius of another humanistic spirit from another cultural world.andrdquo;andmdash;Peter Nabokov, author ofand#160;Where the Lightning Strikes: The Lives of American Indian Sacred Placesand#160; and#160;and#160;
Review
andquot;Mysteries of the Jaguar Shamans is a tour de force, a remarkable work of deep understanding and expressive skill that should become a classic of Amazonian ethnography.andquot;andmdash;Donald Pollock, Anthropos
Synopsis
When the U.S. government ended its relationship with dozens of Native American tribes and bands between 1953 and 1966, it was in fact engaging in a massive social experiment. Congress enacted the program, known as termination, in the name of and#8220;freeingand#8221; the Indians from government restrictions and improving their quality of life. Eliminating the federal status of more than nine dozen tribes across the country, however, plunged many of their nearly thirteen thousand members into even deeper levels of poverty and eroded the tribal peopleand#8217;s sense of Native identity. Beginning in 1973 and extending over a twenty-year period, the terminated tribes, one by one, persuaded Congress to restore their ties to the federal government. Nonetheless, so much damage had been done that even today the restored tribes struggle to overcome the problems created by those terminations more than half a century ago.
Roberta Ulrich provides a concise overview of all the terminations and restorations of Native American tribes from 1953 to 2006 and explores the enduring policy implications for Native peoples. This is the first book to consider all the terminations and restorations in the twentieth century as part of continuing policy while simultaneously detailing some of the individual tribal differences. Drawing from congressional records, interviews with tribal members, and other primary sources, Ulrich examines the causes and effects of termination and restoration from both sides.
Synopsis
In 1916 anthropologist Gilbert L. Wilson worked closely with Buffalobird-woman, a highly respected Hidatsaand#160;born in 1839 on the Fort Berthold Reservation in western North Dakota, for a study of the Hidatsasand#8217; uses of local plants. What resulted was a treasure trove of ethnobotanical information that was buried for more than seventy-five years in Wilsonand#8217;s archives, now held jointly by the Minnesota Historical Society and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Wilson recorded Buffalobird-womanand#8217;s insightful and vivid descriptions of how the nineteenth-century Hidatsa people had gathered, prepared, and used the plants and wood in their local environment for food, medicine, smoking, fiber, fuel, dye, toys, rituals, and construction.
From courtship rituals that took place while gathering Juneberries, to descriptions of how the women kept young boys from stealing wild plums as they prepared them for use, to recipes for preparing and cooking local plants, Uses of Plants by the Hidatsas of the Northern Plains provides valuable details of Hidatsa daily life during the nineteenth century.
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Synopsis
For too many years, the academic discipline of history has ignored American Indians or lacked the kind of open-minded thinking necessary to truly understand them. Most historians remain oriented toward the American experience at the expense of the Native experience. As a result, both the status and the quality of Native American history have suffered and remain marginalized within the discipline. In this impassioned work, noted historian Donald L. Fixico challenges academic historiansand#8212;and everyone elseand#8212;to change this way of thinking. Fixico argues that the current discipline and practice of American Indian history are insensitive to and inconsistent with Native peopleand#8217;s traditions, understandings, and ways of thinking about their own history. In
Call for Change, Fixico suggests how the discipline of history can improve by reconsidering its approach to Native peoples.
He offers the and#8220;Medicine Wayand#8221; as a paradigm to see both history and the current world through a Native lens. This new approach paves the way for historians to better understand Native peoples and their communities through the eyes and experiences of Indians, thus reflecting an insightful indigenous historical ethos and reality.
Synopsis
In
City Indian, Rosalyn R. LaPier and David R. M. Beck tell the engaging story of American Indian men and women who migrated to Chicago from across America. From the 1893 Worldand#8217;s Columbian Exposition to the 1934 Century of Progress Fair, American Indians in Chicago voiced their opinions about political, social, educational, and racial issues.
and#160;City Indian focuses on the privileged members of the American Indian community in Chicago who were doctors, nurses, business owners, teachers, and entertainers. During the Progressive Era, more than at any other time in the cityand#8217;s history, they could be found in the company of politicians and society leaders, at Chicagoand#8217;s major cultural venues and events, and in the press, speaking out. When Mayor and#8220;Big Billand#8221; Thompson declared that Chicago public schools teach and#8220;America First,and#8221; American Indian leaders publicly challenged him to include the true story of and#8220;First Americans.and#8221; As they struggled to reshape nostalgic perceptions of American Indians, these men and women developed new associations and organizations to help each other and to ultimately create a new place to call home in a modern American city.
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Synopsis
Peter J. Seymour was a Salish storyteller. He carried forward earlier tales of elders along with his own experiences as fewer and fewer native speakers were sharing the Colville-Okanagan language and oral literature. To thwart the demise of this language, over the course of a decade he passed along Salish stories not only to his family but also to linguist Anthony Mattina.
and#160;The Complete Seymour: Colville Storyteller includes Seymourand#8217;s tales collected in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before his death. It documents Seymourand#8217;s rich storytelling and includes detailed morphological analyses and translations of this endangered language. This collection is an important addition to the canon of Native American narratives and literature and an essential volume for anyone studying Salish languages and linguistics.
and#160;and#160;
Synopsis
Emory Sekaquaptewa dedicated most of his life to promoting Hopi literacy and creating written materials to strengthen the language and lifeway of his people. He understood how intimately cultural ideas are embedded in language, and by transcribing and translating early recordings of katsina songs he helped strengthen the continuity of Hopi religious thought and cultural practices. Sekaquaptewa believed that the advice contained in the katsina songs, some of which were recorded over a century ago, could be used by future generations as guideposts for navigating contemporary life.
Hopi Katsina Songs contains Hopi transcriptions, English translations, and detailed commentaries of 150 katsina songs, recorded throughout the twentieth century from all three Hopi mesas, as well as twenty-five recorded by Sekaquaptewa himself. To further continue the creative process of the Hopi legacy, Sekaquaptewa included song fragments with the hope that readers would remember the songs and complete them. These features make his collection an invaluable resource for preserving and teaching Hopi language and culture.
Synopsis
Mysteries of the Jaguar Shamans of the Northwest Amazon tells the life story of Mandu da Silva, the last living jaguar shaman among the Baniwa people in the northwest Amazon. In this original and engaging work, Robin M. Wright, who has known and worked with da Silva for more than thirty years, weaves the story of da Silvaand#8217;s life together with the Baniwasand#8217; society, history, mythology, cosmology, and jaguar shaman traditions. The jaguar shamans are key players in what Wright callsand#160;and#8220;a nexus of religious power and knowledgeand#8221; in which healers, sorcerers, priestly chanters, and dance-leaders exercise complementary functions that link living specialists with the deities and great spirits of the cosmos. By exploring in depth the apprenticeship of the shaman, Wright shows how jaguar shamans acquire the knowledge and power of the deities in several stages of instruction and practice.
This volume is the first mapping of the sacred geography (and#8220;mythscapeand#8221;) of the Northern Arawakand#8211;speaking people of the northwest Amazon, demonstrating direct connections between petroglyphs and other inscriptions and Baniwa sacred narratives as a whole. In eloquent and inviting analytic prose, Wright links biographic and ethnographic elements in elevating anthropological writing to a new standard of theoretically aware storytelling and analytic power.
About the Author
Emory Sekaquaptewa (1928-2007) was a Hopi educator, Hopi Court judge, artist, and research anthropologist at the University of Arizona, as well as the first American Indian to attend West Point. Kenneth C. Hill, now retired, is a former research associate at the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology and the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and is the coauthor of
Hopi Dictionary/Hopìikwa Lavàytutuveni: A Hopi-English Dictionary of the Third Mesa Dialect. Dorothy K. Washburn is a consulting scholar for the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the coauthor of
Symmetries of Culture: Theory and Practice of Plane Pattern Analysis.