Selected Meskwaki Books
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Art of the Red Earth People: The Mesquakie of Iowa by Call Number: E99.F7 T67 1989ISBN: 029596832XPublication Date: 1989 -
Black Eagle Child by "A consummate storyteller and writer in both Mesquakie and English, Ray A. Young Bear is a noted poet whose skills are evident in these intricate, finely woven stories that balance encounters and experiences with religion, myths, dreams, poverty, and injustice with the love and support offered by family and friends." "In Black Eagle Child Young Bear recreates his life within the fifties, sixties, and seventies circumstances of a familiar American history of racism, Vietnam, drugs, the Doors, and Castaneda's cults. But always central to these honest, imaginative vignettes are Young Bear's exits from and returns to his home on Iowa's Mesquakie Settlement, the lands his great-great-grandfather, Ma mwi wa ni ke, helped obtain on behalf of the tribe in 1856." "Through the eyes of Edgar Bearchild, a member of the Black Eagle Child Settlement, we meet such enduring characters as Ted Facepaint, Junior Pipestar, Brook Grassleggings, the Hyena family, Pat "Dirty" Red Hat ("the ugliest man in Big Valley"), and Claude Youthman ("the Cantaloupe Terrorist"). From Edgar's introduction to the faith of his tribal elders, to his childhood delight in grape Jell-O, to his years at a California university, his journey to adulthood is a fascinating one." "Like the astonishingly beautiful and intricate Mesquakie beadwork, this autobiography combines aspects of the dominant white culture with elements from Red Earth history and tradition. In Black Eagle Child Ray A. Young Bear has created a distinct and dazzling vision that will speak to all who will heed its voice."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights ReservedCall Number: Available as an ebookISBN: 9780877453567Publication Date: 1992-03-01 -
The Fox Wars: The Mesquakie Challenge to New France by This is the saga of the Fox (or Mesquakie) Indians' struggle to maintain their identity in the face of colonial New France during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The Foxes occupied central Wisconsin, where for a long time they had warred with the Sioux and, more recently, had opposed the extension of the French firearm-and-fur trade with their western enemies. Caught between the Sioux anvil and the French hammer, the Foxes enlisted other tribes' support and maintained their independence until the late 1720s. Then the French treacherously offered them peace before launching a campaign of annihilation against them. The Foxes resisted valiantly, but finally were overwhelmed and took sanctuary among the Sac Indians, with whom they are closely associated to this day.Call Number: E99.F7 E35 1993ISBN: 0806125519Publication Date: 1993 -
Manifestation Wolverine by The definitive collection from a groundbreaking Native American poet whose work traces the fault lines between past and present, real and surreal, comedy and tragedy to unveil a transcendent new vision of the world Hailed by the Bloomsbury Review as "the nation's foremost contemporary Native American poet" and by Sherman Alexie as "the best poet in Indian Country," Ray Young Bear draws on ancient Meskwaki tradition and modern popular culture to create poems that provoke, astound, and heal. This indispensable volume, which contains three previously published collections--Winter of the Salamander (1979), The Invisible Musician (1990), and The Rock Island Hiking Club (2001)--as well as Manifestation Wolverine, a brilliant series of new pieces inspired by animistic beliefs, a Lazy-Boy recliner, and the word songs Young Bear sang to his children, is a testament to the singularity of the poet's talent and the astonishing range of his voice. Call Number: LEIS PS3575 O865 M36x 2015 ; also available as an ebookISBN: 150401412XPublication Date: 2015-10-27 -
A Meskwaki-English and English-Meskwaki dictionary : based on early twentieth-century writings by native speakers by A Meskwaki-English and English-Meskwaki Dictionary, Based on Early Twentieth-Century Writings by Native Speakers, by Ives Goddard and Lucy Thomason. The vocabulary is mostly from the writings of William Jones and the extensive Truman Michelson collection of manuscript texts in the National Anthropological Archives of the Smithsonian Institution, interpreted on the basis of earlier studies by Jones, Michelson, Leonard Bloomfield, and Paul Voorhis and 15 years of recent fieldwork at the Meskwaki Settlement in Tama County, Iowa. Meskwaki is one of the most archaic members of the Algonquian language family, attesting many features that are useful in understanding its sister tongues. The dictionary includes vocabulary for traditional ways of life and mythic worlds that were ancient even at the time they were written down a century ago. There are six appendixes: for animals, birds, bodyparts, the calendar, numbers (and how to count), and kinship terminology. The introduction also includes a brief synopsis of grammar as a guide. A fully phonemic practical spelling is used. The name Meskwaki (earlier Mesquakie) replaces the historical name Fox, which has been used in many publications. The full official name of the people who speak Meskwaki is the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa.Call Number: PM1195 Z5 G63 2014ISBN: 9780990334408Publication Date: 2014 -
The Meskwaki and Anthropologists: Action Anthropology Reconsidered by The Meskwaki and Anthropologists illuminates how the University of Chicago's innovative Action Anthropology program of ethnographic fieldwork affected the Meskwaki Indians of Iowa. From 1948 to 1958, the Meskwaki community near Tama, Iowa, became effectively a testing ground for a new method of practicing anthropology proposed by anthropologists and graduate students at the University of Chicago in response to pressure from the Meskwaki. Action Anthropology, as the program was called, attempted to more evenly distribute the benefits of anthropology by way of anthropologists helping the Native communities they studied. The legacy of Action Anthropology has received limited attention, but even less is known about how the Meskwakis participated in creating it and shaping the way it functioned. Drawing on interviews and extensive archival records, Judith M. Daubenmier tells the story from the viewpoint of the Meskwaki themselves. The Meskwaki alternatively cooperated with, befriended, ignored, prodded, and collided with their scholarly visitors in trying to get them to understand that the values of reciprocity within Meskwaki culture required people to give something if they expected to get something. Daubenmier sheds light on the economic and political impact of the program on the community and how some Meskwaki manipulated the anthropologists and students through their own expectations of reciprocity and gender roles. Giving weight to the opinions, actions, and motivations of the Meskwaki, Daubenmier assesses more fully and appropriately the impact of Action Anthropology on the Meskwaki settlement and explores its legacy outside the settlement's confines. In so doing, she also encourages further consideration of the ongoing relationships between scholars and Indigenous peoples today.Call Number: E99 F7 D38 2008ISBN: 9780803217324Publication Date: 2008-10-01
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Meskwakia and the Meskwaki PeopleBy Duren J.H. Ward, published by the State Historical Society of Iowa, 1906. Digital full text version courtesy of ISU Library's HathiTrust membership.
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The Tradition of Meskwaki Ribbonwork: Cultural Meanings, Continuity, and Change, by Brenda Papakee AckermanISU Master's Thesis; available via ISU Digital Repository
Selected Books
There are many American Indian people with roots in Iowa, both historically and currently. Here are a few books by and about some of these nations.
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Blessing for a Long Time: The Sacred Pole of the Omaha Tribe by Robin Ridington and Dennis Hastings ingeniously adopt the conventions of Omaha oral narratives to tell the story and convey the significance of the Sacred Pole. Portions of classic anthropological texts (particularly Fletcher and La Flesche’s The Omaha Tribe), Omaha narratives, and other historical and contemporary accounts are repeated—each time in a different, more enlightening context—in a circle of stories seamlessly woven around Umon’hon’ti. The result is an innovative account that effortlessly glides between past and present. This unique blend of Omaha poetics, ethnography, and ethnohistory is a significant contribution to our understanding of the religious life of Native Americans.Call Number: E99.O4 R53 1997ISBN: 0803239254Publication Date: 1997-11-01 -
Dakota in Exile by Robert Hopkins was a man caught between two worlds. As a member of the Dakota Nation, he was unfairly imprisoned, accused of taking up arms against U.S. soldiers when war broke out with the Dakota in 1862. However, as a Christian convert who was also a preacher, Hopkins's allegiance was often questioned by many of his fellow Dakota as well. Without a doubt, being a convert--and a favorite of the missionaries--had its privileges. Hopkins learned to read and write in an anglicized form of Dakota, and when facing legal allegations, he and several high-ranking missionaries wrote impassioned letters in his defense. Ultimately, he was among the 300-some Dakota spared from hanging by President Lincoln, imprisoned instead at Camp Kearney in Davenport, Iowa, for several years. His wife, Sarah, and their children, meanwhile, were forced onto the barren Crow Creek reservation in Dakota Territory with the rest of the Dakota women, children, and elderly. In both places, the Dakota were treated as novelties, displayed for curious residents like zoo animals. Historian Linda Clemmons examines the surviving letters from Robert and Sarah; other Dakota language sources; and letters from missionaries, newspaper accounts, and federal documents. She blends both the personal and the historical to complicate our understanding of the development of the Midwest, while also serving as a testament to the resilience of the Dakota and other indigenous peoples who have lived in this region from time immemorial.Call Number: E83.86 .C54 2019ISBN: 9781609386337Publication Date: 2019-05-15 -
The Dakota Prisoner of War Letters by In April 1863--after the Dakota War of 1862, after the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota men in the largest mass execution in U.S. history-- some 270 Dakota men were moved from Mankato, Minnesota, to a prison at Camp McClellan in Davenport, Iowa. Separated from their wives, children, and elder relatives, with inadequate shelter, they lived there for three long, wretched years. More than 120 men died. Desperate to connect with their families, many of these prisoners of war learned to write. Their letters, mostly addressed to the missionaries Stephen R. Riggs and Thomas S. Williamson, asked for information, for assistance, and for help sending and receiving news of their loved ones. Dakota elders Clifford Canku and Michael Simon, fluent Dakota speakers, provide both the transcription and the first published translation of fifty of these letters, culled from Riggs's papers at the Minnesota Historical Society. They are a precious resource for Dakota people learning about the travails their ancestors faced, important primary source documents for historians, and a vital tool for Dakota language learners and linguists. These haunting documents present a history that has long been unrecognized in this country, in the words of the Dakota people who lived it. The dedication written by the authors, both of whom are descendants of Dakota prisoners of war, declares: "Our relatives are watching over us. / We are humbled as we honor our ancestors. / Woecon kin de unyakupi do / We accept this responsibility you gave us." Dr. Clifford Canku is an assistant professor of Dakota Studies at North Dakota State University. Michael Simon is an instructor of Dakota language for the Moorhead (Minnesota) Public Schools. Both are retired Presbyterian ministers and enrolled members of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate.Call Number: E83.86 C36 2013ISBN: 9780873518734Publication Date: 2013 -
Dakota Women's Work: Creativity, Culture, and Exile by A tiny pair of beaded deerskin moccasins, given to a baby in 1913, provides the starting point for this thoughtful examination of the work of Dakota women. Mary Eastman Faribault, born in Minnesota, made them almost four decades after the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. This and other ornately decorated objects created by Dakota women--cradleboards, clothing, animal skin containers--served more than a utilitarian function. They tell the story of colonization, genocide, and survival. Author Colette Hyman traces the changes in the lives of Dakota women, starting before the arrival of whites and covering the fur trade, the years of treaties and shrinking lands, the brutal time of removal, starvation, and shattered families after 1862--and then the transition to reservation life, when missionaries and government agents worked to turn the Dakota into Christian farmers. The decorative work of Dakota women reflected all of this: native organic dyes and quillwork gave way to beading and needlework, items traditionally decorated for family gifts were produced to sell to tourists and white collectors, work on cradleboards and animal skin bags shifted to the ornamenting of hymnals and the creation of star quilts. Through it all, the work of Dakota women proclaims and retains Dakota identity: it is a testament to the endurance of Dakota traditions, to the survival of the Dakota in exile, and--most vividly--to the role of women in that survival. Colette A. Hyman teaches history and women's studies at Winona State University. She is the author of Staging Strikes: Workers' Theatre and the American Labor Movement.Call Number: E99.D1 H96 2012ISBN: 9780873518505Publication Date: 2012-04-01 -
Enduring Nations: Native Americans in the Midwest by Enduring Nations documents how tribal peoples have adapted to cultural change while shaping midwestern history. Examining the transformation of Native American communities, which often occurred in response to shifting government policy, the contributors explore the role of women, controversial tribal enterprises and economies, social welfare practices, and native peoples' frequent displacement to locations such as reservations and urban centers. Central to both past and contemporary discussions of Native American cultural change is whether Native American identity should be determined by genetics, shared cultural values, or a combination of the two.Contributors are Bradley J. Birzer, Brenda J. Child, Thomas Burnell Colbert, Gregory Evans Dowd, R. David Edmunds, Brian Hosmer, Rebecca Kugel, James B. LaGrand, Melissa L. Meyer, Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, Alan G. Shackelford, Susan Sleeper-Smith, and Stephen Warren.Call Number: E78.M67 E63 2008ISBN: 9780252033308Publication Date: 2008-06-18 -
Fire Light: The Life of Angel De Cora, Winnebago Artist by The first biography of this important American Indian artist Artist, teacher, and Red Progressive, Angel De Cora (1869-1919) painted Fire Light to capture warm memories of her Nebraska Winnebago childhood. In this biography, Linda M. Waggoner draws on that glowing image to illuminate De Cora's life and artistry, which until now have been largely overlooked by scholars. One of the first American Indian artists to be accepted within the mainstream art world, De Cora left her childhood home on the Winnebago reservation to find success in the urban Northeast at the turn of the twentieth century. Despite scant documentary sources that elucidate De Cora's private life, Waggoner has rendered a complete picture of the woman known in her time as the first "real Indian artist." She depicts De Cora as a multifaceted individual who as a young girl took pride in her traditions, forged a bond with the land that would sustain her over great distances, and learned the role of cultural broker from her mother's Métis family. After studying with famed illustrator Howard Pyle at his first Brandywine summer school, De Cora eventually succeeded in establishing the first "Native Indian" art department at Carlisle Indian School. A founding member of the Society of American Indians, she made a significant impact on the American Arts and Crafts movement by promoting indigenous arts throughout her career. Waggoner brings her broad knowledge of Winnebago culture and history to this gracefully written book, which features more than forty illustrations. Fire Light shows us both a consummate artist and a fully realized woman, who learned how to traverse the borders of Red identity in a white man's world.Call Number: E99.W7 W34 2008ISBN: 0806139544Publication Date: 2008 -
Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe by The oral tradition of the Winnebago, or Ho-Chunk, people ranges from creation myths to Trickster stories and histories of the tribe. It is particularly strong in animal tales, as storyteller and tribal historian David Lee Smith vividly demonstrates in Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe, a collection drawn from the Smithsonian Institution and other sources, including the work of contemporaries. Smith himself contributes fourteen tales. In the book we meet relatively recent characters such as Ho-poe-kaw (Glory-of-the-Morning), the famed and formidable woman chief who battled many other tribes as well as whites, threw historic alliances into disarray, and - although she often discomfited the French - married a Frenchman. We also encounter traditional figures, Trickster, talking dogs, Eagle, Owl, and Rabbit, moving through the chronicles of these Woodland people who stemmed from the Great Lakes region. The tales incorporate both the visionary and the down-to-earth. Some are deeply moving. Some, reflecting earlier items, are full of violence.Call Number: E99.W7 S56 1997ISBN: 080612976XPublication Date: 1997-11-15 -
Fort Snelling at Bdote by A primer on the complex and contested history of Minnesota's Fort Snelling historical site.Call Number: F614 F7 D43 2016ISBN: 9781681340227Publication Date: 2016-12-01 -
A Gathering of Rivers by In A Gathering of Rivers, Lucy Eldersveld Murphy traces the histories of Indian, multiracial, and mining communities in the western Great Lakes region during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. For a century the Winnebagos (Ho-Chunks), Mesquakies (Fox), and Sauks successfully confronted waves of French and British immigration by diversifying their economies and commercializing lead mining. Focusing on personal stories and detailed community histories, Murphy charts the changed economic forces at work in the region, connecting them to shifts in gender roles and intercultural relationships. She argues that French, British, and Native peoples forged cooperative social and economic bonds expressed partly by mixed-race marriages and the emergence of multiethnic communities at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. Significantly, Native peoples in the western Great Lakes region were able to adapt successfully to the new frontier market economy until their lead mining operations became the envy of outsiders in the 1820s.Call Number: E99 W7 M87 2000 ; also available as an ebookISBN: 0803232101Publication Date: 2000-10-01 -
Ho-Chunk Powwows and the Politics of Tradition by Ho-Chunk powwows are the oldest powwows in the Midwest and among the oldest in the nation, beginning in 1902 outside Black River Falls in west-central Wisconsin. Grant Arndt examines Wisconsin Ho-Chunk powwow traditions and the meanings of cultural performances and rituals in the wake of North American settler colonialism. As early as 1908 the Ho-Chunk people began to experiment with the commercial potential of the powwows by charging white spectators an admission fee. During the 1940s the Ho-Chunk people decided to de-commercialize their powwows and rededicate dancing culture to honor their soldiers and veterans. Powwows today exist within, on the one hand, a wider commercialization of and conflict between intertribal "dance contests" and, on the other, efforts to emphasize traditional powwow culture through a focus on community values such as veteran recognition, warrior songs, and gift exchange. In Ho-Chunk Powwows and the Politics of Tradition Arndt shows that over the past two centuries the dynamism of powwows within Ho-Chunk life has changed greatly, as has the balance of tradition and modernity within community life. His book is a groundbreaking study of powwow culture that investigates how the Ho-Chunk people create cultural value through their public ceremonial performances, the significance that dance culture provides for the acquisition of power and recognition inside and outside their communities, and how the Ho-Chunk people generate concepts of the self and their society through dancing. Call Number: E99 W7 A75 2016 ; also available in Special Collections: ArchivesISBN: 9780803233522Publication Date: 2016 -
The Indians of Iowa by Many different Indian tribes have lived in Iowa, each existing as an independent nation with its own history, culture, language, and traditions. Some were residents before recorded time; some lived in Iowa for relatively short periods but played memorable roles in the state's history; others visited Iowa mostly during hunting trips or times of war. Stimulating and informative, Lance Foster's The Indians of Iowa is the only book for the general reader that covers the archaeology, history, and culture of all the different native nations that have called Iowa home from prehistory to the present. Foster begins with a history of Lewis and Clark's travels along the Missouri River adjacent to western Iowa. Next, he focuses on the tribes most connected to Iowa from prehistoric times to the present day: the Ioway, Meskwaki, Sauk, Omaha and Ponca, Otoe and Missouria, Pawnee and Arikara, Potawatomi, Illinois Confederacy, Santee and Yankton Sioux, and Winnebago. In between each tribal account, "closer look" essays provide details on Indian women in Iowa, traditional ways of life, Indian history and spirituality, languages and place-names, archaeology, arts and crafts, and houses and landscapes. Finally, Foster brings readers into the present with chapters called "Going to a Powwow," "Do You Have Indian Blood?" and "Indians in Iowa Today." The book ends with information about visiting Native American museums, historic sites, and communities in Iowa as well as tribal contacts and a selection of published and online resources. The story of the Indians of Iowa is long and complicated. Illustrated with maps and stunning original art, Lance Foster's absorbing, accessible overview of Iowa's Indian tribes celebrates the rich native legacy of the Hawkeye State. It is essential reading for students, teachers, and everyone who calls Iowa home.Call Number: E78 I6 F67 2009 ; also available as an ebookISBN: 9781587298172Publication Date: 2009-10-01 -
Inkpaduta: Dakota Leader by Leader of the Santee Sioux, Inkpaduta (1815-79) participated in some of the most decisive battles of the northern Great Plains, including Custer's defeat at the Little Bighorn. But the attack in 1857 on forty white settlers known as the Spirit Lake Massacre gave Inkpaduta the reputation of being the most brutal of all the Sioux leaders. Paul N. Beck now challenges a century and a half of bias to reassess the life and legacy of this important Dakota leader. In the most complete biography of Inkpaduta ever written, Beck draws on Indian agents' correspondence, journals, and other sources to paint a broader picture of the whole person, showing him to have been not only a courageous warrior but also a dedicated family man and tribal leader who got along reasonably well with whites for most of his life. Beck sheds new light on many poorly understood aspects of Inkpaduta's life, including his journeys in the American West after the Spirit Lake Massacre. Beck reexamines Euro-American attitudes toward Indians and the stereotypes that shaped nineteenth-century writing, showing how they persisted in portrayals of Inkpaduta well into the twentieth century, even after more generous appreciations of American Indian cultures had become commonplace. Long considered a villain whose passion was murdering white settlers, Inkpaduta is here restored to more human dimensions. Inkpaduta: Dakota Leader shatters the myths that surrounded his life for too long and provides the most extensive reassessment of this leader's life to date.Call Number: E99.D1 I357 2008ISBN: 0806139501Publication Date: 2008-10-13 -
The Ioway in Missouri by Although their ancestors came from the Great Lakes region and they now live in several midwestern states, the Ioway (Baxoje) people claim a rich history in Missouri dating back to the eighteenth century. Living alongside white settlers while retaining their traditional way of life, the tribe eventually had to make difficult choices in order to survive--choices that included unlikely alliances, resistance, and even violence. This is the first book on the Ioway to appear in thirty years and the first to focus on their role in Missouri's colonial and early statehood periods. Greg Olson tells how the Ioway were attracted to the rich land between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers as a place in which they could peacefully reside. But it was here that they ended up facing the greatest challenges to their survival as a people, with leaders like White Cloud and Great Walker rising to meet those demands. Olson draws on interviews with contemporary tribal members to convey an understanding of Ioway beliefs, practices, and history, and he incorporates reports of Indian agents and speeches of past Ioway leaders to illuminate the changes that took place in the tribe's traditional ways of life. He tells of their oral traditions and creation stories, their farming and hunting practices, and their alliances with neighboring Indians, incoming settlers, and the U.S. government. In describing these alliances, he shows that the Ioway did not always agree among themselves on the direction they should take as they navigated the crosscurrents of a changing world, and that the attempts of some Ioway leaders to adapt to white society did not prevent the tribe's descent into poverty and despair or their ultimate removal from their lands. As modern Ioway in Kansas and Oklahoma work to recover the history of their people--and as local historians recognize their important place in Missouri history--Olson's book offers a balanced account of the profound effects on the Ioway of other tribes, explorers, and settlers who began to move into their homelands after the Louisiana Purchase. Written for a general audience, it is a useful, accessible introduction to the changing fortunes of the Ioway people in the era of exploration, colonialism, and early statehood.Call Number: E99.I6 O57 2008ISBN: 9780826218247Publication Date: 2008 -
Ioway Life: Reservation and Reform, 1837-1860 by Call Number: EbookISBN: 9780806155388Publication Date: 2016 -
Life of Black Hawk, or Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak by A rediscovered, defiant work of Native American literature, presented here on the 175th anniversary of its first publication Upon its publication in 1833, this unflinching narrative by the vanquished Sauk leader Black Hawk was the first thoroughly adversarial account of frontier hostilities between white settlers and Native Americans. Black Hawk, a complex, contradictory figure, relates his life story and that of his people, who had been forced from western Illinois in what was known as the Black Hawk War. The first published account of a victim of the American war of extermination, this vivid portrait of Indian life stands as a tribute to the author and his extraordinary people, as well as an invaluable historical document. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Call Number: E83.83 B53 A3 2008 (digital version also available thru HathiTrust)ISBN: 9780143105398Publication Date: 2008-05-27 -
Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America by InMasters of Empire, the historian Michael A. McDonnell reveals the pivotal role played by the native peoples of the Great Lakes in the history of North America. Though less well known than the Iroquois or Sioux, the Anishinaabeg, who lived across Lakes Michigan and Huron, were equally influential.Masters of Empire charts the story of one group, the Odawa, who settled at the straits between those two lakes, a hub for trade and diplomacy throughout the vast country west of Montreal known as thepays dâe(tm)en haut. Highlighting the long-standing rivalries and relationships among the great Indian nations of North America, McDonnell shows how Europeans often played only a minor role in this history, and reminds us that it was native peoples who possessed intricate and far-reaching networks of commerce and kinship, of which the French and British knew little. As empire encroached upon their domain, the Anishinaabeg were often the ones doing the exploiting. By dictating terms at trading posts and frontier forts, they played a crucial part in the making of early America. Through vivid depictionsâe"all from a native perspectiveâe"of early skirmishes, the French and Indian War, and the American Revolution,Masters of Empire overturns our assumptions about colonial America. By calling attention to the Great Lakes as a crucible of culture and conflict, McDonnell reimagines the landscape of American history.Call Number: E99.O9 M36 2015ISBN: 9780809029532Publication Date: 2015-12-08 -
The Middle Ground by An acclaimed book and widely acknowledged classic, The Middle Ground steps outside the simple stories of Indian-white relations - stories of conquest and assimilation and stories of cultural persistence. It is, instead, about a search for accommodation and common meaning. It tells how Europeans and Indians met, regarding each other as alien, as other, as virtually nonhuman, and how between 1650 and 1815 they constructed a common, mutually comprehensible world in the region around the Great Lakes that the French called pays d'en haut. Here the older worlds of the Algonquians and of various Europeans overlapped, and their mixture created new systems of meaning and of exchange. Finally, the book tells of the breakdown of accommodation and common meanings and the re-creation of the Indians as alien and exotic. First published in 1991, the 20th anniversary edition includes a new preface by the author examining the impact and legacy of this study.Call Number: E99 A35 W48 2011ISBN: 9781107005624Publication Date: 2010-11-08 -
People of the Big Voice: Photographs of Ho-Chunk Families by People of the Big Voice tells the visual history of Ho-Chunk families at the turn of the twentieth century and beyond as depicted through the lens of Black River Falls, Wisconsin studio photographer, Charles Van Schaick. The family relationships between those who "sat for the photographer" are clearly visible in these images--sisters, friends, families, young couples--who appear and reappear to fill in a chronicle spanning from 1879 to 1942. Also included are candid shots of Ho-Chunk on the streets of Black River Falls, outside family dwellings, and at powwows. As author and Ho-Chunk tribal member Amy Lonetree writes, "A significant number of the images were taken just a few short years after the darkest, most devastating period for the Ho-Chunk. Invasion, diseases, warfare, forced assimilation, loss of land, and repeated forced removals from our beloved homelands left the Ho-Chunk people in a fight for their culture and their lives." The book includes three introductory essays (a biographical essay by Matthew Daniel Mason, a critical essay by Amy Lonetree, and a reflection by Tom Jones) and 300-plus duotone photographs and captions in gallery style. Unique to the project are the identifications in the captions, which were researched over many years with the help of tribal members and genealogists, and include both English and Ho-Chunk names.Call Number: E99 W7 J66 2011 ; also available as an ebookISBN: 9780870206597Publication Date: 2014-09-01 -
The People of the River's Mouth by The Missouria people were the first American Indians encountered by European explorers venturing up the Pekitanoui River--the waterway we know as the Missouri. This Indian nation called itself the Nyut^achi, which translates to "People of the River Mouth," and had been a dominant force in the Louisiana Territory of the pre-colonial era. When first described by the Europeans in 1673, they numbered in the thousands. But by 1804, when William Clark referred to them as "once the most powerful nation on the Missouri River," fewer than 400 Missouria remained. The state and Missouri River are namesakes of these historic Indians, but little of the tribe's history is known today. Michael Dickey tells the story of these indigenous Americans in The People of the River's Mouth. From rare printed sources, scattered documents, and oral tradition, Dickey has gathered the most information about the Missouria and their interactions with French, Spanish, and early American settlers that has ever been published. The People of the River's Mouth recalls their many contributions to history, such as assisting in the construction of Fort Orleans in the 1720s and the trading post of St. Louis in 1764. Many European explorers and travelers documented their interactions with the Missouria, and these accounts offer insight into the everyday lives of this Indian people. Dickey examines the Missouria's unique cultural traditions through archaeological remnants and archival resources, investigating the forces that diminished the Missouria and led to their eventual removal to Oklahoma. Today, no full-blood Missouria Indians remain, but some members of the Otoe-Missouria community of Red Rock, Oklahoma, continue to identify their lineage as Missouria. The willingness of members of the Otoe-Missouria tribe to share their knowledge contributed to this book and allowed the origin and evolution of the Missouria tribe to be analyzed in depth. Accessible to general readers, this book recovers the lost history of an important people. The People of the River's Mouth sheds light on an overlooked aspect of Missouri's past and pieces together the history of these influential Native Americans in an engaging, readable volume.Call Number: E99 M682 D53x 2011 ; also available as an ebookISBN: 9780826219145Publication Date: 2011-06-14 -
The Prairie People: Continuity and Change in Potawatomi Culture by Second revised edition of a study of the history and social evolution of the Potawatomi Indians between 1665 and 1965. It discusses intertribal politics, the religious revitalizations of the thirty years following the American Revolution and the dynamics of French-Potawatomi relations.Call Number: E99.P8 C55 1998ISBN: 0877456445Publication Date: 1998-10-01 -
Starring Red Wing! The Incredible Career of Lilian M. St. Cyr, the First Native American Film Star by The epic biography Starring Red Wing! brings the exciting career, dedicated activism, and noteworthy legacy of Ho-Chunk actress Lilian Margaret St. Cyr vividly to life. Known to film audiences as "Princess Red Wing," St. Cyr emerged as the most popular Native American actress in the pre-Hollywood and early studio-system era in the United States. Today St. Cyr is known for her portrayal of Naturich in Cecile B. DeMille's The Squaw Man (1914); although DeMille claimed to have "discovered the little Indian girl," the viewing public had already long adored her as a petite, daredevil Indian heroine. She befriended and worked with icons such as Mary Pickford, Jewell Carmen, Tom Mix, Max Sennett, and William Selig. Born on the Winnebago Reservation in 1884 and orphaned in 1888, she spent ten years in Indian boarding schools before graduating from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1902. She married James Young Johnson, and in 1907 the couple reinvented themselves as the stage personas "Princess Red Wing" and "Young Deer," performing in Wild West shows around New York and beginning their film careers. As their popularity grew, St. Cyr and Johnson decamped from the East Coast and helped establish the second motion picture company in Southern California, where Red Wing became a Native American leading lady in westerns until her career waned in 1917. After returning to the reservation to work as a housekeeper, she took her show on a two-year tour to educate the public about Native culture and lived out her life in New York, performing, educating, and crafting regalia. Starring Red Wing! is a sweeping narrative of St. Cyr's evolution as America's first Native American film star, from her childhood and performance career to her days as a respected elder of the multi-tribal New York City Indian Community. Call Number: PN2287 R26 W34 2019ISBN: 9781496215598Publication Date: 2019-11-01 -
Women Elders' Life Stories of the Omaha Tribe by Eleanor Baxter, Alice Saunsoci, and Hawate (Wenona Caramony) are female elders of the Omaha Tribe in Macy, in the northeast corner of Nebraska. All three grew up on the Omaha reservation, moved away in later life, and held careers outside the reservation. Yet all returned to their community, bringing the skills they learned in the "white world" and the knowledge they gained as children from their own elders to contribute to the well-being of the Omaha people. Eleanor Baxter was formerly the Omaha tribal chair, the first woman to serve in this capacity, and continues to be politically active; Alice Saunsoci is a language teacher at the Nebraska Indian Community Colle≥ and Hawate assists the Omaha community as an educator and language teacher. With a balanced focus on traditional culture and modern success, each of these three women guides the tribe in her own way toward a better understanding of what it means to be Omaha. In this poetic account, Wynne L. Summers presents these women's lives in their own voices, giving agency to their experiences both on and off the reservation.Call Number: E99.O4 S86 2009ISBN: 9780803225367Publication Date: 2010 -
The Worlds Between Two Rivers: Perspectives on American Indians in Iowa by Originally published in 1978, this work reflected a range of views on Native Americans in Iowa: those of the Native Americans themselves, those of Euro-Americans, of lay people and professionals. This expanded edition reflects the recent changes encountered by Native American Indians in the region.Call Number: E78 I6 W67 2000 (additional copy available in Special Collections)ISBN: 087745700XPublication Date: 2000
Your Librarian
Susan A. Vega García
Contact:
Assistant Dean, Inclusion & Equity
Associate Professor
204 Parks Library
Iowa State University
Ames IA 50011
(515) 294-4052
she | her | hers
Associate Professor
204 Parks Library
Iowa State University
Ames IA 50011
(515) 294-4052
she | her | hers
Other Contiguous States
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Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Omaha Indians by For seventy years, from about 1775 until 1845, Big Village was the principal settlement of the Omaha Indians. Situated on the Missouri River seventy-five miles above the present city of Omaha, it commanded a strategic location astride this major trade route to the northern plains. A host of traders and travelers, from Jean-Baptiste Truteau and James Mackay to Lewis and Clark and Father De Smet, left descriptions of the village. Although John Champe of the University of Nebraska carried out a comprehensive archaeological investigation of the site from 1939 to 1942 (the only intensive, systematic archaeological study of any Omaha site), the results of his work have heretofore remained unpublished. Now John M. O'Shea and John Ludwickson have combined Champe's findings with the major historical accounts of the Omahas, providing significant new insights into the course of Omaha history in the preservation period. The emphasis on material culture gives a unique view of the daily life of these people and illustrates clearly the integration of European trade items with traditional technologies. Here the fur trade is seen in a fresh perspective, that of the suppliers of furs and recipients of trade goods. An examination of Omaha demography rounds out this important new ethnohistorical sketch of the Omaha Indians.Call Number: E99.O4 .O82 1992 ; Also available as an ebookISBN: 0803235569Publication Date: 1992-05-01 -
Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden by Buffalo Bird Woman, a Hidatsa Indian born about 1839, was an expert gardener. Following centuries-old methods, she and the women of her family raised huge crops of corn, squash, beans, and sunflowers on the rich bottomlands of the Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. When she was young, her fields were near Like-a-fishhook, the earth-lodge village that the Hidatsa shared with the Mandan and Arikara. When she grew older, the families of the three tribes moved to individual allotments on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. In Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden, first published in 1917, anthropologist Gilbert L. Wilson transcribed the words of this remarkable woman, whose advice today's gardeners can still follow. She describes a year of activities, from preparing and planting the fields through cultivating, harvesting, and storing foods. She gives recipes for cooking typical Hidatsa dishes. And she tells of the stories, songs, and ceremonies that were essential to a bountiful harvest. A new introduction by anthropologist and ethnobotanist Jeffery R. Hanson describes the Hidatsa people's ecologically sound methods of gardening and Wilson's work with this traditional gardener. Praise for Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden: "A gem of a book useful for today's gardener." --Organic Gardener "One of the best gardening books around." --City Pages "Every gardener and agricultural scientist should find gems of practical wisdom in these pages, borne from an age-old tradition when sustainable agricultural practices . . . made the difference in sustaining life. Fascinating!" --Foster's Botanical & Herb Review "Historical photographs and diagrams of farming techniques, along with actual recipes and Hidatsa vegetable varieties, make this gem of a book useful for today'' gardener." --Organic GardeningCall Number: E99.H6 W337 1987ISBN: 0873512197Publication Date: 1987-10-15 -
Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong by In this sweeping work of memoir and commentary, leading cultural critic Paul Chaat Smith illustrates with dry wit and brutal honesty the contradictions of life in "the Indian business." Raised in suburban Maryland and Oklahoma, Smith dove head first into the political radicalism of the 1970s, working with the American Indian Movement until it dissolved into dysfunction and infighting. Afterward he lived in New York, the city of choice for political exiles, and eventually arrived in Washington, D.C., at the newly minted National Museum of the American Indian ("a bad idea whose time has come") as a curator. In his journey from fighting activist to federal employee, Smith tells us he has discovered at least two things: there is no one true representation of the American Indian experience, and even the best of intentions sometimes ends in catastrophe. Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong is a highly entertaining and, at times, searing critique of the deeply disputed role of American Indians in the United States. In "A Place Called Irony," Smith whizzes through his early life, showing us the ironic pop culture signposts that marked this Native American's coming of age in suburbia: "We would order Chinese food and slap a favorite video into the machine--the Grammy Awards or a Reagan press conference--and argue about Cyndi Lauper or who should coach the Knicks." In "Lost in Translation," Smith explores why American Indians are so often misunderstood and misrepresented in today's media: "We're lousy television." In "Every Picture Tells a Story," Smith remembers his Comanche grandfather as he muses on the images of American Indians as "a half-remembered presence, both comforting and dangerous, lurking just below the surface." Smith walks this tightrope between comforting and dangerous, offering unrepentant skepticism and, ultimately, empathy. "This book is called Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong, but it's a book title, folks, not to be taken literally. Of course I don't mean everything, just most things. And 'you' really means we, as in all of us."Call Number: E98.C89 S64 2009ISBN: 9780816656011Publication Date: 2009-04-14 -
Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians but Were Afraid to Ask by "I had a profoundly well-educated Princetonian ask me, 'Where is your tomahawk?' I had a beautiful woman approach me in the college gymnasium and exclaim, 'You have the most beautiful red skin.' I took a friend to see Dances with Wolves and was told, 'Your people have a beautiful culture.' . . . I made many lifelong friends at college, and they supported but also challenged me with questions like, 'Why should Indians have reservations?'" What have you always wanted to know about Indians? Do you think you should already know the answers--or suspect that your questions may be offensive? In matter-of-fact responses to over 120 questions, both thoughtful and outrageous, modern and historical, Ojibwe scholar and cultural preservationist Anton Treuer gives a frank, funny, and sometimes personal tour of what's up with Indians, anyway. --What is the real story of Thanksgiving? --Why are tribal languages important? --What do you think of that incident where people died in a sweat lodge? White/Indian relations are often characterized by guilt and anger. Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians but Were Afraid to Ask cuts through the emotion and builds a foundation for true understanding and positive action.Call Number: E77 T795 2012ISBN: 9780873518611Publication Date: 2012-05-01
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Historical Sketch of the Omaha Tribe of Indians in NebraskaBy Alice C. Fletcher, 1885; from Hathi Trust
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Indian Chiefs of Southern Minnesota: Containing Sketches of the Prominent Chieftains of the Dakota and Winnebago Tribes from 1825-1865By Thomas Hughes, 1927; available as an ebook through HathiTrust and as a physical book: E89 .H93 1969
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Life among the Indians by Alice C. Fletcher (1838-1923), one of the few women who became anthropologists in the United States during the nineteenth century, was a pioneer in the practice of participant-observation ethnography. She focused her studies over many years among the Native tribes in Nebraska and South Dakota. Life among the Indians, Fletcher's popularized autobiographical memoir written in 1886-87 about her first fieldwork among the Sioux and the Omahas during 1881-82, remained unpublished in Fletcher's archives at the Smithsonian Institution for more than one hundred years. In it Fletcher depicts the humor and hardships of her field experiences as a middle-aged woman undertaking anthropological fieldwork alone, while showing genuine respect and compassion for Native ways and beliefs that was far ahead of her time. What emerges is a complex and fascinating picture of a woman questioning the cultural and gender expectations of nineteenth-century America while insightfully portraying rapidly changing reservation life. Fletcher's account of her early fieldwork is available here for the first time, accompanied by an essay by the editors that sheds light on Fletcher's place in the development of anthropology and the role of women in the discipline.Call Number: Available as an ebookISBN: 9780803241152Publication Date: 2013-12-01 -
Ojibwe in Minnesota by With insight and candor, noted Ojibwe scholar Anton Treuer traces thousands of years of the complicated history of the Ojibwe people--their economy, culture, and clan system and how these have changed throughout time, perhaps most dramatically with the arrival of Europeans into Minnesota territory. Ojibwe in Minnesota covers the fur trade, the Iroquois Wars, and Ojibwe-Dakota relations; the treaty process and creation of reservations; and the systematic push for assimilation as seen in missionary activity, movernment policy, and boarding schools. Treuer also does not shy away from today's controversial topics, covering them frankly and with sensitivity--issues of sovereignty as they influence the running of casinos and land management; the need for reform in modern tribal government; poverty, unemployment, and drug abuse; and constitutional and educational reform. He also tackles the complicated issue of identity and details recent efforts and successes in cultural preservation and language revitalization. A personal account from the state's first female Indian lawyer, Margaret Treuer, tells her firsthand experience of much change in the community and looks ahead with renewed cultural strength and hope for the first people of Minnesota. Anton Treuer is professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University and editor of Living Our Language: Ojibwe Tales and Oral Histories, Aaniin Ekidong: Ojibwe Vocabulary Project, Omaa Akiing, and Oshkaabewis Native Journal, the only academic journal of the Ojibwe language.Call Number: E99 C6 T74 2010ISBN: 9780873517683Publication Date: 2010-03-01
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Oo-mah-ha Ta-wa-tha (Omaha City), by Fannie Reed Giffen (1898)From Hathi Trust
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Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales by Excerpt from Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales: With Notes on the Origin, Customs, and Character of the Pawnee People The Chief meditated for a while and then said, It is good and it is time. Already the old things are being lost, and those who knew the secrets are many of them dead. If we had known how to write, we would have put all these things down, and they would not have been forgotten, but we could not write, and these stories were handed down from one to another. The old men told their grandchildren, and they told their grandchildren, and so the secrets and the stories and the doings of long ago have been handed down. It may be that they have changed as they passed from father to son, and it is well that they should be put down, so that our children, when they are like the white people, can know What were their fathers' ways. Most of the material contained in this little book was collected on that visit. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.ISBN: 9781330219355Publication Date: 2015-06-26 -
The Ponca Tribe by The culture of the Ponca Indians is less well known than their misfortunes. A model of research and clarity, The Ponca Tribe is still the most complete account of these Indians who inhabited the upper central plains. Peaceably inclined and never numerous, they built earth-lodge villages, cultivated gardens, and hunted buffalo. James H. Howard considers their historic situation in present-day South Dakota and Nebraska, their trade with Europeans and relations with the U.S. government, and, finally, their loss of land along the Niobrara River and forced removal to Indian Territory. The tragic events surrounding the 1877 removal, culminating in the arrest and trial of Chief Standing Bear, are only part of the Ponca story. Howard, a respected ethnologist, traces the tribe's origins and early history. Aided by Ponca informants, he presents their way of life in his descriptions of Ponca lodgings, arts and crafts, clothing and ornaments, food, tools and weapons, dogs and horses, kinship system, governance, sexual practices, and religious ceremonies and dances. He tells what is known about a proud (and ultimately divided) tribe that was led down a "trail of tears." The Ponca Tribe was originally published in 1965 as a bulletin of the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology.Call Number: E99 P7 H6 2010ISBN: 9780803228191Publication Date: 2010-06-01 -
Societies of the Iowa, Kansa, and Ponca Indians by Call Number: Available online; from Hathi TrustISBN: 9781230407371Publication Date: 2013-09-01 -
Some Things Are Not Forgotten by The Blaine family was among the Pawnees forcibly removed to Indian Territory in 1874–75. By the early twentieth century, disease and starvation had wiped out nearly three-quarters of the reservation’s population. Government boarding schools refused to teach Pawnee customs and language, and many Pawnees found themselves without a community when their promised land was allotted to individuals and the rest sold as "surplus" to white settlers. nbsp; Where did the Blaine family find the resilience to cope with the continual assault on their dignity and way of life? In Some Things Are Not Forgotten, Martha Royce Blaine reveals the strengths of character and culture that enabled them to persevere during the reservation years. nbsp; Many memorable figures emerge: Wichita and Effie Blaine, anguished over the deaths of two young sons and driven to embrace the Ghost Dance; John Box, whose persistent attempts to farm the white man’s way are shattered in one disastrous moment by a tornado; James G. Blaine, an aspiring ballplayer whose mysterious death in jail ends his bid to join the Chicago White Sox. We also meet the young, educated James Murie, striding a conflict-ridden path between the Pawnee and white worlds. Perhaps most unforgettable are the childhood memories of Garland Blaine, the late husband of the author, who became head chief of the Pawnees in 1964.Call Number: E99.P3 B55 1997 ; also available as an ebookISBN: 9780803245273Publication Date: 2012-05-09 -
Warrior Nation by The Red Lake Nation has a unique and deeply important history. Unlike every other reservation in Minnesota, Red Lake holds its land in common--and, consequently, the tribe retains its entire reservation land base. The people of Red Lake developed the first modern indigenous democratic governance system in the United States, decades before any other tribe, but they also maintained their system of hereditary chiefs. The tribe never surrendered to state jurisdiction over crimes committed on its reservation. The reservation is also home to the highest number of Ojibwe-speaking people in the state. Warrior Nation covers four centuries of the Red Lake Nation's forceful and assertive tenure on its land. Ojibwe historian and linguist Anton Treuer conducted oral histories with elders across the Red Lake reservation, learning the stories carried by the people. And the Red Lake band has, for the first time, made available its archival collections, including the personal papers of Peter Graves, the brilliant political strategist and tribal leader of the first half of the twentieth century, which tell a startling story about the negotiations over reservation boundaries. This fascinating history offers not only a chronicle of the Red Lake Nation but also a compelling perspective on a difficult piece of U.S. history.Call Number: E99.C6 T76 2015ISBN: 9780873519632Publication Date: 2015-10-15 -
Wordarrows by With wry humor and imaginative acuity, noted writer Gerald Vizenor offers compelling glimpses of modern Native American life and the different ways that Native Americans and whites interact, fight, and resolve their conflicts. The elusive borderland between white and Native American cultures is further complicated by exchanges of money, services, language, and skills that make up what Vizenor calls the "new fur trade." When Native Americans resist dominance, they fight back incisively and creatively with humor in the strategic word wars of survivance over victimry. Vizenor illuminates the troubling encounters and distant reaches of this modernist fur trade through his creative narratives. Especially memorable is the reincarnation of General George Custer as the head of Native American programs and the mystifying play of words between charity agencies and Native Americans. Several of Vizenor's stories focus on a so-called urban reservation, Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis. In the last section Vizenor recalls his experiences and observations while reporting on the murder trial of a young Native American student, Thomas White Hawk, in South Dakota.Call Number: PS3572.I9 W6xISBN: 9780803296299Publication Date: 2003-05-01
