Author Interview: Robert J. Miller

What prompted you to write Reservation Capitalism?
I wanted to investigate some of the reasons why Indian reservations are the poorest parts of the United States and how American Indians can work to improve the quality of their lives.


What "message" do you want to communicate?
American Indians supported themselves for millennia by entrepreneurial and intelligent, hard work, and that reinvigorating business and entrepreneurial attitudes can help create viable economies on reservations and bring beneficial and sustainable economic development to Indian Country.


What was the highlight of your research?
The extent to which almost all American Indian cultures supported themselves through what was, in essence, small business activities and how tribal communities protected the private property rights thereby created.


What surprises readers/others the most about your research?
The extent to which American Indians worked diligently to support their families in a variety of occupations and were not nomadic gathering societies that just lived off the bounty of nature.

How did your research change your outlook on economic development in Indian country?
I realized that private entrepreneurial business activities are very much in accord with the cultures and histories of the vast majority of tribal peoples.


How have people reacted to your book and/or the ideas you set forth?
Most people are surprised by the ideas I have put forth because Americans have been misled into thinking that Indians existed by “accident” for thousands of years. Euro-Americans and their governments misunderstood, either by accident or on purpose, how Indians created and sustained their cultures and societies over millennia and the private rights they created and respected. I think that many settler/colonizers societies do this on purpose to justify taking these rights and resources with a clearer conscience.


What's next for you?
I have to deliver my message to both Indian and non-Indians peoples so that we can all work to help improve the economic and poverty-related social conditions that Indian tribal governments and communities face today.

Author Interview: Joy Porter on 'Land and Spirit in Native America'

Q: What prompted you to write Land and Spirit in Native America? What "message" do you want to communicate?


A: Like most books, this one started from a mixture of concern that these issues were so infrequently discussed and from a desire on the author’s part to educate herself through the process of writing. One of the nice things about creating this book was the number of colleagues from outside of my discipline who were keen to help and give backbone to its arguments- from Alaskan anthropologists to scientists working on how radioactive and other risks are evaluated by the public.


The point of the book is to make clear how different various indigenous American approaches to land and spirit have been from Euro-American ones and to argue that those ideas have a special pertinence today as we fight to overcome inertia and address the causes and consequences of climate change. The book makes a point of dispensing with “Indians-as-eco-warrior” rhetoric but it does take very seriously the Indian experience of colonialism and the long record of Indian interrelationship with land and its vital and ongoing spiritual dimensions.


Q: What was the highlight of your research? In the course of your research, what discovery surprised you the most? What surprises readers/others the most about your research?


A: A lot in this book is likely to upset certain preconceptions. For example, Indian peoples are associated with ideas about balance within wilderness environments. That connection is not without validity but the larger picture shows Indian peoples to have been at the forefront of modernity and to have been forced to cope first with the environmental despoliation that modernity has brought about. Thus Land and Spirit has a chapter that deals with American Indian forced migration so as to make way for the nation’s “wilderness” parks and a large chapter on environmental justice and the complexities of Indian life in the nuclear southwest. Rather than conflating everything Indian with some woolly sense of the ecological, the book asks that we confront revealing truths about how some of America’s most disadvantaged communities have faced environmental stress within capitalism.


In fact, it was finding out more about the history and meaning of nuclear power and nuclear weapons and their Indian connections that surprised me most when writing this book. On one level, we should all recognize that everything American owes a great deal to what was or is Indian, but I had no idea how central Indian land, Indian mining effort and Indian suffering was to the growth and perpetuation of nuclearism in terms of national power and national defense. Like quite a few Indian people, I’m not simplistically anti-nuclear, but the more one reads the more one gains a dread-filled respect for this particular tiger we have caught by the tail. For what is good about nuclear power and particularly in terms of the containment of nuclear waste, the world owes Indian peoples a great debt.


Land and Spirit is an unconventional book. It does not confine itself to the tramlines of conventional regional or thematic history, instead it leaps across time and across disciplinary boundaries linking Native American Indian art, history, literature and philosophy to mainstream histories and up-to-the-minute debates. Part of the reasoning behind writing it was to bust Native American criticism and history out of its intellectual corral. It’s hard now to write about American literature without taking on board Native American Indian writers, but too often when issues like the environment, nuclear power and the history of the life of the spirit on American soil are discussed Indian people and Indian thinking gets ignored.

Forthcoming, 2012

Q: How did your research change your outlook on this subject?


A: I learned a lot about how urgent the need for change is when it comes to the environment and a lot about why it might be that we aren’t making those changes more quickly. In a world of 7 billion plus that is increasingly being torn apart by the legacy of recent global financial mismanagement, the need for new thinking is urgent. Land and Spirit argues that we need to look at our spiritual understanding of the earth and at the sometimes ugly truths of our history in order to find a popular and sure-footed path forward. The book does not set forth prescriptive answers, but it puts aspects of Indian experience center stage and it demands that we think about what’s “wild” on this earth in a new way.


Q: How have people reacted to your book and/or the ideas you set forth? Is it what you hoped for, or is there more work to be done?


A: This interview is happening when the book is only just in production but those few who have read it have used words like fantastic and amazing. They do owe me money though, now I come to think of it…only joking! One thing is clear though, much more nuanced work needs to be done on nuclear power in Indian country across disciplines. Also, we need to wrest debate about climate change away from mostly literary environmental writers and away from scientists who communicate primarily in the language of maths. These folk are obviously pivotal but so are other voices and other understandings. I hope this book encourages other writers on Indian themes to take Native American Indian Studies in an inclusive manner into productive communion with other fields and other disciplines. Indian history and Indian thought is too valuable not to be widely thought about and debated at the interstice of today’s most pressing arguments.


Q: What's next for you?


A: I am finishing another book for The University of Toronto Press about a poet who claimed to be Iroquois and who fought in the first world war. It’s called The American Indian Poet of the First World War: Modernism and the Indian Identity of Frank “Toronto” Prewett, 1883-1962. Prewett was a fascinating character who was the lover of Seigfreid Sassoon and got published by Virginia Woolf. The project is being supported by the UK Arts & Humanities Research Board. Aside from his illustrious Bloomsbury literary connections, Prewett is interesting because of his response to war. He suffered severe shell-shock. His experience and his writing says something meaningful, I think, about modernity and about primitivism and what it meant to have voice at the beginning of the twentieth century.


After that I am working on another project, this one supported by the British Academy. It too will be a new book, The American Presidency and Tribal Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century. It addresses the most important question in twentieth-century Native American politics--how decisive were personal tribal relationships with individual American presidents? Answering that could alter fundamentally not only our existing understandings of the presidency but also how we conceptualize relationships between “small nations” and dominant powers more generally.


JOY PORTER is Senior Lecturer & Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at The University of Swansea, Wales, UK, author of To Be Indian: The Life of Seneca-Iroquois Arthur Caswell Parker, 1881-1955 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), co-editor with Professor Kenneth Roemer (University of Texas, Arlington), of The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature (University of Cambridge Press, 2005), editor of Place and Indian History, Literature & Culture for Peter Lang (2007) and coauthor of Competing Voices in Native America (2009).

The Death Knell of the Pan-Indian Confederacy

November 7, 2011, marks the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Tippecanoe. The engagement pitted some 1,000 regular and militia troops under Indiana governor William Henry Harrison against approximately 500–750 Indians led by Tenskwatawa, also known as the Shawnee Prophet. For several years previous to the battle, Tenskwatawa and his brother, Tecumseh, had worked to create a pan-Indian confederacy to oppose Anglo-American westward expansion and preserve traditional ways of life. The defeat at Tippecanoe irrevocably weakened the confederacy, which disbanded completely some two years later. This excerpt from Dr. Spencer C. Tucker's Encyclopedia of North American Indian Wars recounts the details of this historic battle.

The warriors left Prophetstown during the night, and by 4:00 a.m. on November 7 they had surrounded Harrison’s camp. One of the American sentinels, Stephen Mars, heard movement in the darkness and fired a shot or two before fleeing for the safety of the camp. He was killed before he could reach it, but his shot alerted Harrison's men. The Indians then let out war whoops and opened fire. The battle opened first on the northwest side of the camp. Unfortunately for Harrison's men, when they rose many were silhouetted against their campfires, making them easy targets. Harrison himself mounted and rode to the sound of the firing. His own white horse had broken its tether during the night, and he rode a dark one. This probably saved his life, for the natives were looking for him on a white horse. (Harrison’s aide Colonel Abraham Owen, who found and rode Harrison’s white horse, was shot and killed.) Firing then broke out on the east side of the camp, and the battle became general. During the battle, the Prophet stationed himself on a high rock to the east and chanted war songs to encourage his followers. Informed early that some of his warriors had been slain, the Prophet insisted that his followers fight on, promising an easy victory.

After two hours of fighting and when it was sufficiently light, Harrison sent out mounted men to attack the natives on their flanks. Soon the natives were in retreat. In the battle, Harrison lost 68 men killed and 126 wounded, a significant casualty rate of up to a quarter of his force. The number of Native American dead is not known for certain. Thirty-seven bodies were found at the battle site, but this did not account for those who were carried off or died later from their wounds. Native American losses are estimated at no fewer than 50 killed and 70 or more wounded.

About the author

A Senior Fellow in Military History for ABC-Clio Publishing since 2003, Dr. Spencer C. Tucker has been instrumental in establishing ABC-CLIO as the premier military history reference publisher in the country. Spence's interest in military history began while he was a student at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and was enhanced by a Fulbright Fellowship in France and while serving as a captain in military intelligence in the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. Although he concentrated on Modern European History in his graduate studies, he became interested in all periods of military history. Spence taught at the university and college level for 36 years, 30 of these at Texas Christian University and the last 6 as holder of the John Biggs Chair of Military History at VMI. Spence is particularly excited to be the editor of ABC-CLIO's award-winning series of war encyclopedias, which includes The Encyclopedia of North American Indian Wars, 1607–1890: A Political, Social, and Military History.


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The Encyclopedia of North American Indian Wars, 1607–1890: 
A Political, Social, and Military History
Edited by Spencer C. Tucker


This encyclopedia provides a broad, in-depth, and multidisciplinary look at the causes and effects of warfare between whites and Native Americans, encompassing nearly three centuries of history.

November: Revisiting Native American Heritage Month!

By Loriene Roy
(Enrolled: White Earth Reservation; Member: Minnesota Chippewa Tribe), Professor, School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin


Fall arrives with children and adults returning to schools. Those living on Turtle Island (North America) move into the season of changing weather, tree color, and harvest. As the month of November looms, families plan their homecoming, often associated with a celebration they call Thanksgiving. In the midst of menu planning and the football season, it is easy to forget that November is officially Native American Heritage Month. A year ago, I shared some ideas on how to commemorate this month by learning more about Native cultures. This year, I am revisiting this topic, adding a few more resources and ideas and providing an update on topics introduced a year ago. Remember that your first stop for assistance in locating these resources—and pursing any topic more in depth—is your local public library!


My colleagues working at the National Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian library next to the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, DC, tell me that they often over hear adult visitors to the museum telling younger visitors that “American Indians do not exist anymore.” Perhaps this speaks to the fact that most people only think of Native peoples in the context of a museum collection of artifacts. It behooves all of us to remember that there are over 500 tribal nations within the geographic borders of the United States. And, members of tribal nations live in every state; two-thirds live away from tribal homelands.


Your local community might sponsor events this fall that focus on introducing or celebrating Native cultures. In my current home town of Austin, Texas, we celebrate our powwow with dances, educational programs, and food and vendor stalls. In November, the Windsor Park Branch of the Austin Public Library is hosting a documentary film series and panel discussion featuring “We Still Live Here,” a film about language recovery among the Wampanoag Nation of Massachusetts. Check your local programming for similar events—or consider planning your own!


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Last year I shared my “Ten To Watch” list of Native authors. Today I am adding an update with some news on these authors’ more recent activities. In addition, I am highlighting recent read including those by a well-known American Indian author, and a Maori librarian’s acclaimed first picture book.


• Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur d'Alene) is now on Twitter where you can read such heart-stopping comments as, “In the library of my heart, the books are all large-print.” Sherman announces his latest publications, including the often difficult to locate poetry, on his website.

• In 2008, Louise Erdrich and her sister, Heid Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Anishinabe), founded Wiigwaas Press, a nonprofit organization that publishes books and develops programs to promote Native language revitalization. In 2010, Wiigwaas Press published Awesiinyensag, a collection of stories written in the Anishinaabemowin language for children. This fall, Awesiinyensag was selected by the Center of the Book at the Library of Congress as Minnesota’s Best Read for 2011.

• Wesleyan University Press has just published a book of interviews of Joy Harjo (Muskogee Creek). SoulTalk, Song Language is available in hardcover and as an e-book. Find out more about Harjo’s activities, including her nominations for music and book awards, at www.joyharjo.com.

• Anita Heiss’s (Wiradjuri Nation, Australia) latest chick-lit novel is Paris Dreaming, published by Random House Books Australia in January 2011. Heiss received the outstanding achievement in literature award at the 2011 Deadly Awards in September 2011. The Deadly Awards recognizes achievements by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Heiss’s blog is a hot item. Huge interest was registered with her April 23, 2011 posting, “Anita’s Black Book Challenge (BBC),” on which she posted “Anita’s 100 (less one) Black Book Choice List” of her top titles by Aboriginal writers.

• Leslie Marmon Silko’s (Pueblo of Laguna/Cherokee) latest book is her memoir, The Turquoise Ledge (New York: Penguin, 2010). You can read—or listen—to a review of this book by Alan Cheuse at NPR. 

• Cynthia Leitich Smith's (Muskogee Creek) young adult novel, Tantalize, was reissued as a graphic novel, Tantalize: Kieren’s Story (New York: Candlewick Press, 2011). Smith, who hosts a popular blog on children’s and young adult (YA) literature recently signed a three-book contract, including a novel, Smolder.

• Larry Loyie (Creek; Canada) is in the midst of writing his next YA novel, building on his autobiography, Goodbye Buffalo Bay (Oroville, Washington: Theytus Books, 2008). Loyie and his partner, Constance Brissenden, have completed over 1,200 school visits, talking with students, educators, and librarians about writing and First Nations history and issues.

• Navajo poet, Luci Tapahonso, is featured on a University of Arizona YouTube video. Her collections of poetry include Blue Horses Rush In (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997).

• Tim Tingle’s (Choctaw) latest picture book, Saltypie: A Choctaw Journey From Darkness Into Light (El Paso: Cinco Puntos Press) was selected as a 2011 Notable Book by the American Library Association. Tingle’s writing is included in the following well received anthology: Dembicki, Matt, ed. Trickster: Native American Tales: A Graphic Collection. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Books, 2010.


Finally, here are some notes about authors or writing initiatives that were not covered last year.

• Well-known Abenaki writer, Joseph Bruchac has a new YA novel: Wolf Mark. New York: Lee & Low, 2011.

• James Bartleman (Chippewa, Rama First Nation), the first First Nations Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, published his first novel, As Long as the Rivers Flow (Toronto: Random House, 2011), a story of the impact of the residential school system on one First Nations family.

• Chris Szekely (Maori librarian) has published his first work of fiction, a picture book titled, Rāhui (Wellington, New Zealand: Huia Publishers, 2011). A trailer of Rāhui is available on YouTube.

• For those seeking board books, books for the youngest readers and their caretakers, check out the series published by Native Northwest. The books feature artwork by a number of First Nations artists and includes Learn the Alphabet with Northwest Coast Native Art and Sharing Our World: Animals of the Native Northwest Coast.

• For readers interested in more academic writing, check out the First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies initiative. For those wanting to keep with politics and timely content impacting Native peoples. Check out Paul DeMain’s Native News Updates webcasts aired as “IndianCountryTV." DeMain sends alerts on Facebook when he posts new episodes.

Infinity of Nations Exhibit - Native American Art

On October 23, 2010, a permanent exhibition of Native artwork from throughout North, Central, and South America opened at the George Gustav Heye Center of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in New York City. Organized into 10 geographic regions, "Infinity of Nations: Art and History in the Collections of the National Museum of the American Indian," features 700 artifacts—including ceremonial items, pottery, jewelry, and clothing selected from the museum's collection of roughly 800,000 objects—that highlight the richness, artistry, and history of Native Americans from Antiquity to the present. The name of the exhibit originates from a phrase coined by 17th century French missionaries who described Native America as an "infinity of nations."

The assumption that art from Native American cultures is limited to categories like Kachina figures or beadwork is a mistaken one. Although traditional arts continue to be a vital, ongoing part of the culture (and are avidly being collected), there are countless Native artists creating vibrant contemporary art in media such as painting, sculpture, installation, photography, video, and performance art. Their styles run the gamut from abstract to conceptual, pop art to cartoon-based, and hyperrealist to neo-Expressionist.

The influence on an artist by his or her nation or culture area may not coincide with viewer expectations. Native artists have a variety of outlooks on the relationship between their ethnicity and their profession. Some see themselves and their work as dedicated to the preservation of their culture through its artistic traditions—although what is "traditional" may have a wide range of definitions. On the other hand, contemporary artists may not identify themselves as "Native artists," because of the risk of being categorized or stereotyped, or the desire to merely be seen as an artist without reference to ethnic identity. Still others take a position somewhere between the two.

One of the major turning points in the course of Native art came in 1932, when the Santa Fe Indian School established an institution known as "the Studio School," directed by Dorothy Dunn. It was a great step forward as the first dedicated program of formal art training for Native Americans; however, it failed miserably at encouraging individualism and experimentation.

Perhaps the exhibition of that era that had the greatest impact was "Indian Art of the United States" at MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in 1941. It contributed greatly toward shifting Native art from the status of artifact or craft to that of fine art, but was nevertheless tainted by an air of condescension that limited its effect.

Another watershed exhibition, the now famous "Decade Show," was presented in New York City in 1990. Held at three prominent institutions (the New Museum, the Studio Museum of Harlem, and the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art), the show included artists from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds, and it firmly cemented multiculturalism as a part of the larger art world. Native performance artist James Luna presented an impressive work in that show that launched his career as a contemporary artist. Nevertheless—as noted in a piercing essay on Native American art by distinguished critic Amei Wallach—what that exhibition accomplished for "African American and Latino American artists has not, for the most part, happened for Native Americans"; in other words, indigenous artists generally continued to be marginalized.

A few Native artists have become internationally known and respected in the larger, contemporary art world, including Rebecca Belmore, Thomas Joshua Cooper, Jimmie Durham, Brian Jungen, and Brad Kahlhamer. Most of them are represented by galleries of major art world stature, and others, such as Frank BigBear and Truman Lowe, have been written about in leading mainstream periodicals. In 2007, Art News, a major cultural magazine, ran a lively article on the current indigenous art scene, while an important non-Native space, the Aldrich Museum in Connecticut, exhibited contemporary work based on Native American culture (with half the participants being Native). Many observers feel that now is the moment when general audiences are starting to connect with art made by indigenous individuals.

Excerpted from the feature story "Infinity of Nations Exhibit" by Deborah Everett on The American Mosaic: The American Indian Experience. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 23 Nov. 2010.

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For more information on Native American art and artists, check out the American Indian Experience database. To sign up for a free trial, click here.

Native American Heritage Month: How We Observe and Why

How Do We Observe Native American Heritage Month and Why
By Steven L. Danver

In many ways, the idea of Native American Heritage Month is good and important. Not many would argue against the celebration of the lives and cultures of our nation’s longest inhabitants. But the larger questions of why we celebrate it and how we celebrate it are, in many ways, the themes that have guided me and my career. You see, I am a historian – a non-Native one – who studies Native American peoples. Many would call that a laudable profession and I certainly agree with that. However, there have been many non-Native people who have studied Native American history and cultures, but have used that knowledge in haphazard, or even capricious, ways. But it doesn’t take a historian to use Native cultures in offhand ways. Many members of the general public dress themselves up as “Indians” for Washington Redskins or Atlanta Braves games, ostensibly to “honor” Indian people. Just as it is easy for non-Natives to think that they’re honoring Indian people without even really thinking about the message they’re sending, it’s easy for non-Natives to study and write about Indians without considering why they’re doing what they’re doing. As Choctaw historian Devon A. Mihesuah put it when discussing teaching American Indian history to non-Natives, courses “were ‘safe’ in that never once did professors mention the terms ‘decolonization’ or ‘empowerment,’ nor did anyone ever talk about author bias, theory, or the importance of considering Native voices.” (Mihesuah 2003, 459)

I once received a book entitled America’s Fascinating Indian Heritage, and the title illustrates the point. Learning about and commemorating American Indian “heritage” can have less to do with Native peoples themselves, and more to do with celebrating a “unique” part of our shared national heritage. Native peoples, even as we celebrate them, can be little more than mascots for our national identity.

My own education on this topic began with an encounter with one of the most prominent Native scholars of the 20th century, Vine Deloria, Jr. I had just begun my doctoral work, and was interested in studying Native American history. Deloria was the keynote speaker at a symposium on Native American cultures that I was attending, and at which I was scheduled to present only my second academic paper. I had already read a number of his works, which had begun to form the basis of much of my thinking about Native American history and culture. When I worked up the courage to introduce myself to this towering figure, the first thing he asked me was what I was studying and presenting at the conference. I told him that I had presented a paper on the Sun Dance, as a religious revitalization movement among Ute Indians. His response floored me. He told me that I studied Indians because I thought they were “weird”. That I needed to study things that were “important”. Once I’d regained my sense of self-worth (after a number of my mentors who knew Deloria told me that this was just the way he was), I worked long and hard to figure out what he meant and what it meant for my own work. Certainly I didn’t think Native people were weird, but the fascination I had with Native cultures had led me to study a topic that, though “fascinating”, did not have as much of an impact on the issues that American Indian people faced today. Indian people did not need me, a non-Native, to tell them what the history of a 19th century religious movement meant to them. Rather, the topics that were really important for a non-Native historian of Native American peoples to look at were the ones that had long and interesting histories, but were of continuing significance to Native people. What this meant for me was finding a topic, water rights in my particular case, that was still of vital importance to many Native groups today. This is not to say that studying things like little-known Native religious movements is a bad thing, rather that it is vital that non-Natives, both members of the general public as well as academics, need to tread lightly when dealing with symbols and expressions of Native American cultures and religions. The potential for inadvertent damage is too great to ignore.

So, why even bother honoring, learning about, or teaching about Native American peoples if it is so difficult? Why bring up the ramifications of all of that history of warfare, intentional disease spreading, cultural and religious repression, and genocide? It is precisely because the history is so problematic that we need something like “Native American Heritage Month,” but it is also because of that history that we need to pay close attention to how and why we are celebrating it. Are we celebrating it because Native Americans are a “fascinating” part of our nation’s heritage, or is it because it is truly important to us to know about Native American lives and the issues they confront on an ongoing basis, such as poverty, diabetes and other health concerns, a lack of political recognition and sovereignty, and (as with my work) being deprived of their natural resources in order to fuel non-Native development? As Glen R. Alley and Lester B. Brown explained, “Each new person is someone who can teach us. Each one is someone who can increase our knowledge about others. Each one has qualities that we need to know about, that we need to respect, that we need to take into account as we try everyday to improve the world we live in. It is ours but it is also theirs. They have as much right to a life as qualitatively good as ours.” (Brown and Alley 2003: 130) So, what is being served by recognizing Native American Heritage Month, our own curiosity, our sense of our “national heritage”, or the issues that are truly important to Native people today?

Brown, Lester B. and Glen R. Alley. “True Colors: Are Others What We Want to See?”

American Indian Quarterly 27(1 & 2), Winter and Spring 2003, 121-131.

Mihesuah, Devon A. “Basic Empowering Strategies for the Classroom.” American Indian Quarterly 27(1 & 2), Winter and Spring 2003, 459-478.

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Dr. Steven L. Danver, PhD, is professor in the Center for Undergraduate Studies at Walden University, and is managing editor of Journal of the West. He received his doctorate in American History from the University of Utah, specializing in American Indian history. Dr. Danver has edited or coedited a number of ABC-CLIO books, including The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Thematic Encyclopedia; Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia; and Popular Controversies in World History: Investigating History's Intriguing Questions. He was recently the recipient of a Research Dissemination Award from the Center for Research Support at Walden University.

Geronimo!

It's Native American Heritage Month! Learn a few facts about the famous Apache warrior Geronimo in Geronimo: A Biography. We've given you an inside look at the book below.

PREFACE

Geronimo is a name familiar to many, but few actually know much about his life and times. At the end of the 19th century, articles about his whereabouts and his exploits filled American newspapers, and settlers in the southwestern United States lived in terror of his name. One of the last remaining bands to be confined to a reservation, Geronimo’s Apache people ranged freely throughout the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, raiding as they went. Eventually, the United States had to call on the full force of their military in order to capture Geronimo’s tiny band, and even then, they could not accomplish the task without Apache scouts to assist them. Geronimo’s ability to outwit the U.S. military for years, and his eventual capture and imprisonment, were the subjects of many newspaper and magazine articles and military memoirs of that era.

There is a large written record about Geronimo penned by his enemies, but even more interestingly, Geronimo lived long enough to have his autobiography published early in the 20th century. Such an account, of course, is central to any biography about the man. I have read and re-read his autobiography and pondered the difficulties involved in writing such an account through an interpreter, recorded by the hand of a stranger who was of the conquering culture, and published only with the permission of the U.S. military, while being held as a prisoner of war. Surely these conditions would have an effect on the words written and the truths revealed, but what kind of effect? Can we believe Geronimo’s autobiography or not? Fortunately, there are other corroborating accounts given by Apaches who were alive at the time, as well as the incomparable scholarship of Angie Debo, who published her definitive biography of Geronimo in 1976. These all tend to confirm the basic truth of Geronimo’s autobiography, albeit a truth based on his own understanding of events and that differed from other people’s truths. Factual errors were minimal, and questions arise more about that which was omitted from Geronimo’s account, rather than that which it contains.

Geronimo remains as much a mystery now as when this journey began, although there is little doubt that such an intelligent, charismatic, and complex leader would have made a mark in the historical record during any time in which he lived.

THE BIRTH OF GERONIMO

Though we will probably never know the precise date or place, sometime in the early 1820s, a boy child was born to Taklishim, son of the chief of the Bedonkohe band of Chiricahua Apaches, and Juana, an Apache of whom little is known other than her Spanish name, in a canyon near the headlands of the Gila River. A modern scholar has placed Geronimo’s birth place near the present day town of Clifton, Arizona. Geronimo’s birth date, often given as 1829, has been proven incorrect by scholars (it was earlier in the 1820s), and his birth place, which he referred to as “No-doyohn Canyon,” in Arizona, has never been located, although Geronimo most certainly knew where it was.

Traditionally, Apache children were told where they were born and knew their birthplace despite the nomadic lifestyle of the band. Whenever the band’s travels brought them back to the birthplace of a child, the child rolled on the ground toward each of the four directions. This traditional practice continued throughout the child’s life and sometimes into adulthood.  The boy child born to Taklishim and Juana was named Goyahkla, the accepted translation being “He Who Yawns.” It was an incongruous name for such an energetic man, who loomed larger than life and was probably at one time the most feared and best known American Indian in the southwestern United States.

Born into a close-knit Apache band consisting primarily of extended family members, Geronimo was probably attended by a midwife and female relatives at his birth. According to traditional custom, there would have been a cradle ceremony when he was about four days old, where a cradleboard, or tsosch, was carefully created just for him out of oak branches and sotol stalks by a shaman. Cradleboards usually had a canopy to protect the baby’s face from the sun, and special items, such as a bag of pollen or a piece of turquoise, were hung from the canopy to protect the child. The baby did not actually use the tsosch for several months, until its neck was strong enough for the child to hold up his head. But the ritual placement of the new child into his cradle and the surrounding social ceremony welcomed a new child and expressed the tribe’s hope that the child would live to occupy the cradle a few months hence.

Although he didn’t discuss it in his autobiography, it is likely that Geronimo also had a “First Moccasins” ceremony, given when a child began to walk. This event was marked with a feast of fruit and meat, and was overseen by a shaman who put pollen on the tiny ceremonial moccasins. These were placed on the child, who was usually between seven months and two years old, and with the assistance of a shaman, the young child was encouraged to walk a few steps into each of the four directions. 

Geronimo’s father, Taklishim, was the son of Mahko, a chief of some repute in the Bedonkohe Apache tribe. Geronimo probably grew up hearing stories about the great chief Mahko from his father, admiring stories of battles, of prisoners and horses taken. The stories would probably have spoken of the vast lands that Mahko and his people ranged on horseback. These stories would have been repeated to the young Geronimo, who listened to them well, but little realized that his world would become an entirely different world—one that the great Mahko would never have recognized.

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Excerpted from Geronimo: A Biography

By Mary A. Stout

Greenwood, 2009

The first biography of Geronimo aimed at the high school and undergraduate student audience, this book provides a balanced account of Geronimo’s life in the context of key historical and cultural events of his lifetime.

Chief Joseph: An Introduction

To commemorate Native American Heritage Month, here is an excerpt from the "Introduction" to the book Chief Joseph - A Biography.

The history of America would not be complete without a rendition of the exploits of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. In May 1804, accompanied by three dozen men, they set out across the still undiscovered land that would become part of the western United States in order to create maps and discover what the land held for the fledgling nation. America was still in its infancy when Lewis and Clark came across the Nez Perce Indians in the late summer of 1805. The American Revolution had concluded only a single generation earlier. In that short generation, after the United States had won its independence from Great Britain, it had suffered a depression and engendered serious doubts among European nations about whether this new experiment in republicanism would survive. However, survive it did, and it flourished. With the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, the United States became the third-largest nation on earth at the time. 

Imbued with a sense of purpose that would later be called manifest destiny, Americans set out to occupy the space between the two great oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific. Before this occupation could begin in earnest, however, Lewis and Clark were dispatched by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the nation’s newest acquisition and to chronicle their findings so the generations to follow would be prepared for the long journey ahead. Midway through their journey, a tired and bedraggled Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery stumbled upon, rather than discovered, the Nez Perce Indians. Because of the generosity shown by the Nez Perce, Lewis and Clark were able to complete their journey to the Pacific Ocean and return safely to the nation from which they had come. The chance meeting between these two peoples, the Americans and the Nez Perce, would change the story of America and introduce the growing nation to one of the most unique and farsighted leaders the land has ever produced, Chief Joseph.

His name was In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat. In the language of his people, it means “Thunder rising above lofty mountains,” and few men have been more aptly named than he. To the white population in America, however, he was known only as Joseph, chief of the Nez Perce Indians and the architect of one of the most pivotal events in the 19th century, the flight of the Nez Perce Indians in 1877. To most Americans at the time, the Nez Perce story seemed simple enough; when faced with the loss of their tribal lands and confronted by the advance of American civilization, the Indians fled. The image of these noble savages trying desperately to cling to the remnants of their dying civilization may have been the way most sympathetic whites would come to view the flight of the Nez Perce; however, their story began decades before that fateful summer in 1877. 

Unfortunately, most Americans were not interested in learning about the treaties that had divested the Indians of their land; the near impossible requests that had been made by the commander of the military forces in the region, the Civil War general Oliver Otis Howard; or even the cruel treatment they had been forced to endure at the hands of settlers. Unable to reason with General Howard, unwilling to live on a reserve of land, and unable to remain on their traditional lands, many of the Nez Perce people followed Joseph on a 1,500-mile odyssey that took them from their traditional homes in Oregon and Idaho to the windswept prairie of northern Montana in a desperate bid to reach sanctuary in Canada. During their three-and-a-half-month ordeal, the Nez Perce defeated four U.S. armies and created a legend that endures to this day. To Americans unfamiliar with tribal power structures, they could attribute the phenomenal success of the Indians to only

one person, Chief Joseph. To white America, Joseph led blistering attacks that soundly defeated the military forces of the nation and then resolutely turned to continue his journey to the north. All of that would change on October 5, 1877. 

While the image of a “Red Napoleon” had already been established in the minds of most Americans at the time, the surrender of the Nez Perce took on a romantic visage as an unbowed Joseph proudly approached Howard, presented him with his rifle, and proclaimed, “From this day forward, I will fight no more forever.” Stirring words and a panoramic scene worthy of the best Hollywood might have to offer, but the flight of the Nez Perce, their defeat of the armies of the United States, and the surrender of Joseph in the face of overwhelming odds did not happen because of or in the way that popular history remembers it.

It is perhaps because of the power of the images that grew around Joseph at the time and since that a legend was created. Like most legends, Joseph seemed almost to defy the limits of humanity. Much of what has been popularly attributed to Chief Joseph comes from newspaper reports that were dispatched from the field during that fateful summer. Later, Joseph would also recognize the power of this medium to spread the message about the plight of his people in the aftermath of their attempted escape to Canada. Forced to live in what the Nez Perce called the Eeikish Pah or the “hot place,” more than 25 percent of their people died, and it seemed they would never again see the cool meadows and mountains of their homeland. Using the newspapers and playing on American perceptions of the Indians, Joseph was able to successfully negotiate a return to the region, but not to the exact land of their ancestors. 

Throughout the years of struggle, Joseph and the Nez Perce represent the enduring spirit of humanity when faced with insurmountable odds. While our recollections are marred by ideas of how we wanted or imagined things to be, not as they actually were, the story of Joseph and the Nez Perce is no less compelling. In the case of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce, the perceptions and misunderstandings we have are the remnants of the ideas we have held for almost a century and a half.

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Excerpted from Chief Joseph: A Biography

Vanessa Gunther

Greenwood, 7/2010

This biography offers a chronological presentation of the major events in Nez Perce history and in the life of one of their greatest leaders, Joseph.

Native American Heritage Month

November is Native American Heritage Month!

- Guest Post from Dr. Loriene Roy

Twenty years ago the first Native American Heritage Month became official. Now, November is a time to recognize the histories, challenges and injustices, achievements and accomplishments, and modern-day lives of the hundreds of American Indian nations that reside within the borders of the country we know as the United States.

In this blog entry I will identify ways to commemorate this month in your community and in your home. Along the way I will provide recommendations for reading and viewing. Check in with your school or public librarian to locate these—or similar titles. 

Begin your celebration of Native American Heritage Month by discovering and participating in events that may be planned in your local community. My own town of Austin, Texas, hosts the largest one-day free powwow, attracting an audience of 50,000. (This year our powwow takes place on Saturday, November 6.) Powwows are contemporary pan-Indian, inter-tribal gatherings featuring dance, clothing and regalia, music, and often food, shopping, storytelling, art instruction, and displays of etiquette and humor. 

You might want to prepare for your powwow attendance. Three of my favorite publications about powwows are children’s picture books:

• Ancona, George. Powwow. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993.
• King, Sandra. Shannon: An Ojibway Dancer. Minneapolis: Lerner, 1993.
• Smith, Cynthia Leitich. Jingle Dancer. New York: Morrow, 2000. 

At this point you might have a number of basic questions. The most common question I hear is “What is the correct way to refer to American Indians?” I, myself, prefer the general use of the phrases, “American Indian” or “Native” to refer to indigenous peoples of the United States, while I use “First Nation” or “aboriginal” to refer to indigenous peoples in Canada, aboriginal to refer to indigenous peoples of Australia, and “indigenous” to refer to Native peoples in various areas of the world. When referring to a specific person, I use that person’s tribal affiliation. The best rule of thumb is to ask what is appropriate or what someone’s preference is. You can read an answer to this and other frequently asked questions in this book: Do All Indians Live in Tipis? Questions & Answers from the National Museum of the American Indian. New York: Collins, 2007.

A second good source to help the general public learn about tribal nations within the United States is “The American Indians and Alaska Natives in the United States Wall Map” that is available on the U.S. Bureau of the Census website.

One of my favorite sources of information about protocol, or etiquette, in working with Native communities is the many publications of the Alaska Native Knowledge Network. The “Guidelines for Respecting Cultural Knowledge” is especially useful in that it provides advice for authors and illustrators, curriculum developers and administrators, educators, researchers, and others.

Another great activity to plan in National Native American Heritage Month is to view a film about Native peoples. Check the programming schedule for your public television program. This month, KLRU, our PBS affiliate in Austin, Texas, is rebroadcasting “We Shall Remain,” the five-episode American Experience Series that first aired in late spring 2009. “We Shall Remain” tracks the themes of leadership and resistance through key events occurring from the 1600s to the 1970s. You can view the full episodes (and their transcripts) on the “We Shall Remain” website, which hosts a teacher’s guide and other content, including ReelNative. ReelNative is a collection of videos produced by Native people today. A twenty-six page library event kit for “We Shall Remain” is located here. You can use the event kit to plan activities such as storytelling events, reading circles, workshops, art contests, discussion forums, and film festivals. One of the unique features of the library event kit is the one-page “Guidelines for Evaluating Media about Native Peoples.”

This November, another film that may air on your public television station is part of the Independent Lens series. “Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian” traces the depiction of American Indians in film from the silent film area to today.

Libraries, museums, and archives might sponsor speaker events and/or exhibits during the month. Even if your community cultural heritage centers are hosting such activities, you can participate by visiting online exhibits. The online exhibits of the National Museum of the American Indian are located here. 

You can supplement these visits and viewings by reading and listening! Two national radio programs that may air live (or provide episodes in archived podcasts) are “Native America Calling: The National Electronic Talking Circle" and “Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond”. Recent topics covered on these radio programs include music, national and local elections, education issues, and an ongoing book of the month and “Native in the Spotlight” features. 

Contemporary issues are covered online in newspapers. If you are following the activities of a specific tribe, check to see if they have a tribal newspaper that has an electronic presence. For example, the Navajo Times. You might receive updates from these and other media sources through Facebook pages or electronic media lists.

Libraries will have many resources by and about American Indians. If you are looking for recommendations for young readers, you can start with the books that have received the American Indian Youth Literature Services Awards, given every other year since 2006 by the American Indian Library Association (AILA). Useful information on selecting culturally appropriate materials for you on American Indians is also found on the AILA website. The link to the “Selective Bibliography and Guide for "I" Is Not for Indian: The Portrayal of Native Americans in Books for Young People” is located here. AILA has also co-developed the “Talk Story: Sharing Stories, Sharing Culture” website with the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA). You can use content on the “Talk Story” website to plan community or family storytelling events and included are lists of recommended books. 

Finally, I would like to share my personal “Ten To Watch” list of indigenous authors whose writings I follow. The list includes authors from North America (the United States and Canada), Australia, and New Zealand.

• Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur d'Alene). Her collection of short stories and poetry was published as War Dances (New York: Grove Press, 2009).

• Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Anishinabe). Her latest novel is Shadow Tag (New York: HarperCollins, 2010).

• Patricia Grace (Maori; New Zealand). She wrote a biography of a Maori World War II soldier and his Greek bride in Ned & Katina: A True Love Story (New York: Penguin, 2009).

• Joy Harjo’s (Muskogee Creek). She published a picture book, For a Girl Becoming (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2009).

• Anita Heiss (Wiradjuri Nation, Australia). She writes chick-lit novels, the latest of which is Manhattan Dreaming (Sydney, Australia: Bantam, 2010).

• Leslie Marmon Silko’s (Pueblo of Laguna/Cherokee). Her latest book is a memoir, The Turquoise Ledge (New York: Penguin, 2010).

• Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muskogee Creek). She published a picture book, Holler Loudly (New York: Dutton, 2010).

• Larry Loyie (Creek; Canada). Larry's young adult nonfiction work is his autobiography, Goodbye Buffalo Bay (Oroville, Washington: Theytus Books, 2008).

• Luci Tapahonso (Navajo). Her collections of poetry include Blue Horses Rush In (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997).

• Tim Tingle (Choctaw). His latest picture book, Saltypie: A Choctaw Journey From Darkness Into Light (El Paso: Cinco Puntos Press) is his autobiography.

Whether you are new to powwows or public events, or new to reading, listening or viewing about Native peoples, or you have been a student for some length of time, this month is the time to join with American Indians to celebrate and commemorate their cultures. 

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Dr. Loriene Roy, PhD, is professor in the School of Information at The University of Texas, Austin, TX, and advisory editor for The American Indian Experience. She is Anishinabe, enrolled on the White Earth Reservation, and a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. She was elected to serve as the 2007-2008 president of the American Library Association. Dr. Roy is the recipient of numerous awards, including two "excellences in teaching" and two "excellences in advising" from the University of Texas at Austin and of the Equality Award from the American Library Association. She is the founder and director of "If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything," a national reading club for Native American children.

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