Indigenous Science

Hidden in the mountains, the indigenous peoples of Mexico have kept alive the spiritual path of the ancient Toltecs, one of the most powerful Mesoamerican spiritual traditions alive today. Tracing their lineage to a time before the Aztec, the Toltecs recognize Earth as a living being, share a profound communion with their land, and demonstrate unusual powers of perception.

Taken from George Armstrong Custer's own writings, An Autobiography of General Custer is the “true story” of one of the most praised, most despised, but surely most remembered American military heroes. Indeed, few figures in our history were - in their own time, as well as in our own - so wildly cheered and so roundly hated.

Flying the notorious "hump route" between India and China in 1943, a twin-engine plane suffered mechanical failure and crashed in a dense mountain jungle. Among the passengers and crew were celebrated CBS journalist Eric Sevareid, a Soviet double agent posing as an OSS operative, and General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell's personal political adviser. Against the odds, all but one of the 21 people aboard the aircraft survived - but they fell from the frying pan into the fire.

Before Indian casinos sprouted up around the country, a few enterprising tribes got their start in gambling by opening bingo parlors. A group of women on the Oneida Indian Reservation just outside Green Bay, Wisconsin, introduced bingo in 1976 simply to pay a few bills. Bingo not only paid the light bill at the struggling civic center but was soon financing vital health and housing services for tribal elderly and poor.

In 1870, a 26-year-old Paiute, Sarah Winnemucca, wrote to an army officer requesting that Paiutes be given a chance to settle and farm their ancestral land. The eloquence of her letter was such that it made its way into Harper’s Weekly. Ten years later, as her people languished in confinement as a result of the Bannock War, she convinced Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz to grant the requests in her letter and free the Paiutes as well.

Eine deutsche Umweltschützerin entscheidet sich für die Liebe zu einem Massai – und für ein Leben in einer der patriarchalsten Kulturen der Welt. Auf einem Forschungsaufenthalt in Afrika begegnet die Biologin Stephanie Fuchs Sokoine, einem traditionell lebenden Massai. Die beiden verlieben sich, doch die Hürden sind groß, die ihrer Beziehung im Wege stehen. Schließlich geben sie ihrer Liebe eine Chance und Stephanie Fuchs zieht nach Tansania in Sokoines Dorf. Bald schon steht sie vor großen Herausforderungen: Sie muss ihren Platz in der traditionell lebenden Dorfgemeinschaft erst finden.

Charles Alexander Eastman (1858-1939) was a mixed-blood Sioux. He became one of the best known Indians of his time, receiving a bachelor of science degree from Dartmouth in 1887 and a medical degree from Boston University three years later.

El célebre visionario y curandero de los oglalas lakotas Alce Negro (1863-1950) conoció al distinguido poeta, escritor y crítico John G. Neihardt en 1930 en la reserva de Pine Ridge, en Dakota del Sur, y le pidió que compartiera su historia con el mundo. Sus desgarradoras visiones sobre la relación entre el ser humano y la tierra han convertido este libro en un clásico que atraviesa múltiples géneros.

In Loving Country, coauthors Bruce Pascoe and Vicky Shukurolgou show travellers how to see the country as herself, to know her whole and old story and to find the way to fall in love with her, our home. Listeners are encouraged to discover sacred Australia by reconsidering the accepted history and hearing diverse stories of her Indigenous people. The intention of this audiobook is to foster communication and understanding between all peoples and country, to encourage environmental and social change.

Stories define us. They tell us who we are or, at least, who we think we are. The American story of westward expansion draws upon heroic tales of courage and perseverance and the "pioneer spirit". But settlers and their descendants also spread false narratives about Indians in order to justify ruinous private and public acts. The stories we heard and the tales we hear even now give people cover to behave abominably. And this abominable behavior has economic effect.

Original Politics convincingly demonstrates how the best aspects of the founding vision of America were inspired, or directly appropriated, from living, Native American cultures: concepts such as natural rights, liberty, and egalitarian justice. Further, Parry traces the influence of Native America not only on the founding fathers, but on the ‘founding mothers’ of the nineteenth century women’s movement; as well as the nineteenth century abolitionist and modern ecological movements.

Nick Neely chronicles his 650-mile trek on foot from San Diego to San Francisco, following the route of the first overland Spanish expedition into what was soon called Alta California. Led by Gaspar de Portolá in 1769, the expedition sketched a route that would become, in part, the famous El Camino Real. It laid the foundation for the Golden State we know today, a place that remains as mythical and captivating as any in the world.

A broad range of perspectives from natives and nonnatives makes this book the most complete account and analysis of the Lakota ghost dance ever published. A revitalization movement that swept across native communities of the West in the late 1880s, the ghost dance took firm hold among the Lakotas, perplexed and alarmed government agents, sparked the intervention of the US Army and culminated in the massacre of hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee in December 1890.

It was the most godless place on earth. An island where European men could act on their every whim. Serial killers roamed the countryside accompanied by mass murderers, psychopaths, and rapists. This book introduces Americans to a hidden genocide most know nothing about. It is a horribly true story that's not for the faint of heart. It is a story of rage. It is a story of revenge. It is a story of grisly violence and of death. It is a story that demands to be told.

On a winter morning in 1990, Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota picked up the Bismarck Tribune. On the front page, a small girl gazed into the distance, shedding a tear. The headline: Foster home children beaten - and nobody's helping. Dorgan, who had been working with American Indian tribes to secure resources, was distressed. He flew to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation to meet with five-year-old Tamara and her grandfather. They became friends. Then she disappeared. And he would search for her for decades until they finally found each other again.

The Conquest of Texas is the story of the struggle between Anglos and Indians for land. Anderson tells how Scotch-Irish settlers clashed with farming tribes and then challenged the Comanches and Kiowas for their hunting grounds. Next, the decade-long conflict with Mexico merged with war against Indians. For fifty years Texas remained in a virtual state of war. Piercing the very heart of Lone Star mythology, Anderson tells how the Texas government encouraged the Texas Rangers to annihilate Indian villages, including women and children. This policy of terror succeeded.

The revolutionary Ohio Valley is often depicted as a chaotic Hobbesian dystopia, in which Indians and colonists slaughtered each other at every turn. In Unsettling the West, Rob Harper overturns this familiar story. Rather than flailing in a morass, the peoples of the revolutionary Ohio Valley actively and persistently sought to establish a new political order that would affirm their land claims, protect them against attack, and promote trade.

When the American government was founded, the Founders and Framers assumed a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. That government is dying. It is under the authority of not we, the people, but rather a small elite that is trying to snuff out the great experiment of man ruling himself - the common man - the man that within the right system of government can attain his purpose to achieve happiness.

The autobiography of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak (Black Hawk’s birth name), first published in 1833, is the autobiography of the Native American Sauk leader Black Hawk. During his time in custody following clashes with European-American settlers on ceded tribal land, Black Hawk told his story to an interpreter and journalist. This story, what would become Life of Black Hawk, went on to become the first Native American autobiography and an instant best seller. Black Hawk not only traces his own history, but that of his people, and much more.

This story is set in the village of Tirhat, a village where, in day-to-day life, you can see glimpses of the recent past and today's change. This story is a true depiction of reality - of the inequalities and the struggles the people of this village face. With memorable characters that seem to talk to you and a great story, this book will surely leave a mark on its listeners.