Native Science

When Kristin L. Hoganson arrived in Champaign, Illinois, after teaching at Harvard, studying at Yale, and living in the DC metro area with various stints overseas, she expected to find her new home, well, isolated. Even provincial. After all, she had landed in the American heartland, a place where the nation's identity exists in its pristine form. Or so we have been taught to believe.

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.

Most claims of Native American ancestry rest on the mother's ethnicity. This can be verified by a DNA test determining what type of mitochondrial DNA she passed to you. A hundred participants in DNA Consultants multi-phase Cherokee DNA Study did just that. What they had in common is they were previously rejected - by commercial firms, genealogy groups, government agencies and tribes. Their mitochondrial DNA was not classified as Native American. These are the "anomalous" Cherokee.

The first time Piper Preach died he was 10 years old. But the Anishnaabe spirits thought otherwise. Now, six year later, Piper struggles with the hard realities of life in a big city. The ancient ways of his people are a distant memory. But the spirits aren't done with him. Pulled into their bizarre world, the place the Anishnaabe call The Great Sky, he's plunged into the middle of a brutal war raging just a step away from reality. And this time there may be no escaping death - or even worse.

The hunters noticed the circling birds against the rose-tinted sky above the rim rock and saw where the flat rays of the early morning sun glinted on something that didn't belong there, and the three of them walked that way. What they find sends FBI agent Zack Tolliver and his friend Eagle Feather in pursuit of a dangerous and powerful killer.

Xeechagillapxtuurii jumps into the raging current to be carried downstream in search of his vision. He finds his vision, including the one he is looking for. But this world is totally foreign to him. Nobody understands him. Somehow he must gain her trust and communicate with them. Somehow he must get her to want to come back to his world to help him save it. Sylvia is a college student. When she sees a hippie being driven towards her truck, she responds as she always does when she sees someone in need - she opens the door and pull some blankets from the back for him to wrap up in.

This book contains two short stories, inspired by my experiences thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. The first tells of the Ugalu, a Cherokee Nation spirit-beast and how it was instrumental in the creation of the balds in the Southern Appalachians. The second is a tale of Pamola, the Penobscot Nation demon-beast who inhabits the summit of Mount Katahdin, the Northern Terminus of the Appalachian Trail in Maine.

For Riley Corbeau, moving to a small town on Superior's north shore was an opportunity for his family to find a new beginning after the death of his mother. For Gathering Cloud, living on Kitche Gumi's shore now meant it was time seek a vision and become a man. There on a beach of this legendary lake, two boys meet across time and impossibilities, brought together to face an ancient evil from Anishnabe folklore, and, in doing so, forge a friendship that defies time.

Tia and her brother have been asked to leave their village to find their father's long lost friend, TaTisho. As they near the village of TaLequa, they are trapped on a dangerous island where death awaits them.

Sandor, a peaceful but deadly martial artist, has learned the ways of Native American spirituality and shape-shifting. While learning shape-shifting, Sandor learns to project his chi power, which becomes multiplied while he is in animal forms. Combining these strengths is the only hope to defeat an evil force that could bring about the demise of humanity.

Acclaimed historians Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green paint a moving portrait of the infamous Trail of Tears. Despite protests from statesmen like Davy Crockett, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay, a dubious 1838 treaty drove 17,000 mostly Christian Cherokee from their lush Appalachian homeland to barren plains beyond the Mississippi. For 4,000, this brutal forced march lead only to their deaths.

David E. Stuart incorporates extensive new research findings through groundbreaking archaeology to explore the rise and fall of the Chaco Anasazi and how it parallels patterns throughout modern societies in this new edition.

Climate change is today's news, but it isn't a new phenomenon. Centuries-long cycles of heating and cooling are well documented for Europe and the North Atlantic. These variations in climate, including the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), AD 900 to 1300, and the early centuries of the Little Ice Age (LIA), AD 1300 to 1600, had a substantial impact on the cultural history of Europe.

Acclaimed historian Colin G. Calloway, Dartmouth professor of history and American Indian studies, is the series editor for The Penguin Library of American Indian History. Rich in detail and highly readable, this compelling narrative portrays the Shawnees' valiant struggle to maintain their way of life.

The Cherokees might be the most famous tribe in the country. If so, the person most responsible for it is Sequoyah, whose invention of the Cherokee syllabary also played a prominent role in facilitating the assimilation between the Cherokee and Americans. Sequoyah began work on devising the writing and reading system around 1809, and it was instantly popular among Cherokees, to the extent that it was being used in written publications among the tribe by the 1820s. The syllabary has been in use ever since, both within the tribe and among outsiders.

In the first book to focus on relations between Indians and emigrants on the Overland Trails, Michael L. Tate shows that such encounters were far more often characterized by cooperation than by conflict. Having combed hundreds of unpublished sources and Indian oral traditions, Tate finds Indians and Anglo-Americans continuously trading goods and news with each other, and Indians providing various forms of assistance to overlanders.

Legends that endured for centuries, endure for a reason. In the wilderness of Southeastern Alaska, the Kushtaka is one such legend. Known as the Land-Otter Man among the Tlingit Indians, the Kushtaka are shape-shifting, time bending, mythical creatures capable of taking your deepest fears and turning them into a nightmarish reality.

A treasury of imaginative tales including: the Algonquin story of how Glooskap conquered the Great Bull-Frog; "The Meeting of the Wild Animals", a Tsimshian myth; "The Bear Man", a Cherokee legend; and more.

This one-volume narrative history of American Indians in the United States traces the experiences of indigenous peoples from early colonial times to the present day. It demonstrates how Indian existence has varied and changed throughout our nation's history. Although popular opinion and standard histories often depict tribal peoples as victims of US aggression, that is only a part of their story. In this book Roger L. Nichols focuses on the ideas, beliefs, and actions of American Indian individuals and tribes.

Here's an amusing collection of Dakota-Sioux fables, often featuring the vain and mischievous imp Iktomi. Fables such as these were told to Dakota-Sioux children for entertainment but also to teach through negative example the importance of honor, modesty, manners, and other aspects of a noble Indian lifestyle.