Encyclopedic Resources for Projects on American Indians

Many librarians and teachers write to me, asking for reliable sources on American Indian culture, history, etc. They seek these resources in order to support student research projects.

As many of you know, there are a LOT of materials available on American Indians, but, many (I'd say most) are outdated and/or biased in ways that continue to present American Indians as victims, savages, or tragic heroes.

I'm really glad people are seeking other materials. I trust they'll use these materials to write materials for teachers to use, and if you're a writer, I hope you use these materials so that you do not replicate errors and stereotypes.

So! Here's my suggestion on how to proceed.

There are two excellent encyclopedias, both published in the 90s, both infused with the work of Native scholars, and more updated viewpoints of Native peoples. Both have entries written by Native scholars, political leaders, tribal leaders. Each entry is supported with "for further reading." Order each one for your library (note on May 22, 2019: a used copy of these books is far superior to most of what you'll find available, new). When a class is doing a particular research project, look it up in both encyclopedias. See what the entry says, who wrote it, and what their sources were. Look for additional items by the author of the entry, and look for their sources, too. The two encyclopedia's are:

• Davis, Mary B. (1996) Native America in the Twentieth Century: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing Inc.
• Hoxie, Frederick E. (1996) Encyclopedia of North American Indians. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

ALSO, get these three books. They are also excellent and teachers/librarians/students will find them helpful.

• Francis, Lee. (1996) Native Time: A Historical Time Line of Native America. New York: St. Martin
• Champagne, Duane. (1994) Chronology of Native North American History. Detroit: Gale Research
• Champagne, Duane. (1994) Native America: Portrait of the Peoples. Detroit: Visible Ink Press

Using the Internet:

Go to Lisa Mitten's website. Lisa is in the American Indian Library Association, and maintains a webpage with links to homepages of Native Tribes/Nations. Those maintained BY the tribe are marked with a drum icon. Here's her page:
http://www.nativeculturelinks.com/nations.html

FINALLY, when using the web, make sure students go to Elaine Cubbins website BEFORE they start using the web to find material on American Indians. She, too, is in the American Indian Library Association. Her page is about evaluating webpages with Native content.
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~ecubbins/webcrit.html

All these resources are listed somewhere here on my blog. The encyclopedias and books are at the bottom of my recommended books list, and the websites are listed in the section of my page called "Excellent Websites about American Indians."


Update, May 8, 2008...

An excellent set of books for elementary-middle school use is called "American Indian Contributions to the World," edited by Emory Dean Keoke and Kay Marie Porterfield. There are five books in the set (the cover of one is shown above):

• Food, Farming, and Hunting
• Trade, Transportation, and Warfare
• Science and Technology
• Medicine and Health
• Buildings, Clothing, and Art

Or, you can order it in a single volume, under the title Encyclopedia of American Indian Contributions to the world: 15,000 Years of Inventions and Innovations. The single volume, also by Keoke and Porterfield, was published in 2003.

Update, April 9, 2011

Read the websites, scholarship and research of people in American Indian studies! See "Native Professional Associations and Journals" on the left (scroll down). Today (May 22, 2019) I am listing them here:

• American Indian Culture and Research Journal
• American Indian Library Association
• American Indian Quarterly
• Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures
• Journal of American Indian Education
• National Congress of American Indians
• National Indian Education Association
• Native American Journalists Association
• Wicazo Sa Review

Update, November 30, 2014

Do not use the online "Native American Encyclopedia." Wondering why? Here's my review:
Is that Native American Encyclopedia website any good?


Update, July 13, 2017

• Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An indigenous peoples' history of the United States. Beacon Press, 2014.
• Mankiller, Wilma, and Rick West. Do All Indians Live In Tipis?: Questions and Answers from the National Museum of the American Indian (2007).
• Treuer, Anton. Everything you wanted to know about Indians but were afraid to ask. Borealis Books, 2012.

"How!" is not the way American Indians say 'hello'

In old westerns, Indians are shown saying 'hello' to white people by saying "how" and raising the right hand (as if to take an oath). While most kids don't watch those old westerns, they do watch cartoons that represent this. It can be seen in an episode of the Muppet Babies, the Transcontinental Whoo-Whoo.

And, it is also seen in Disney's Peter Pan.

Teachers, parents, librarians, big brothers and sisters... If you buy Peter Pan and watch it with a child, please point out the stereotypes of American Indians shown throughout the film. Better yet, don't buy it.

Note: In an arrangement with a teacher, children wrote to me, posing questions about American Indians. I misunderstood a question that was asked by several kids. They asked what 'ho' means. I thought they were misspelling "how" but I was wrong. The students were, indeed, asking what "ho" means. Apparently, Joseph Bruchac uses that utterance to get student's attention when he does school visits. I don't think there is any Native significance to his utterance. It's just something he does, much like teachers who turn lights on and off to refocus a classroom of children. I asked librarians if they knew of books with "how" in them as a Native word for hello, and heard back from many who said they do not have books like this, but several see kids using the word on the playground. One woman told me she saw a teacher teach this word to children in her class.

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve

In 1965, the Council on Interracial Books for Children (CIBC) was founded by people involved in the Civil Rights Movement who were "appalled by the racist and sexist treatment of African Americans in the children's trade books and textbooks that were available. They were even more concerned about the lack of more suitable materials" (Banfield, 1998). The group published a newsletter to provide critical essays on children's books and textbooks that were widely used at the time. In 1969, CIBC established a writer's contest, designed to encourage unpublished writers of color to write books for children.

Among the writers they promoted was Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve. Her first book for children was Jimmy Yellow Hawk. She went on to write several works of fiction for children. Three are discussed at length in Jim Charles's article "Interrelated Themes in the Young Adolescent Novels of Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve." His article is in Volume 28, Number 2 of THE ALAN REVIEW, and is on-line here.

Sneve was born and raised on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. She is Lakota Sioux. You can go here for biographical information about her.

[Note: For more on CIBC, read Beryl Banfield's article, "Commitment to Change: The Council on Interracial Books for Children and the World of Children's Books," in African American Review,Volume 32, No. 1. ]

Children's Books on Navajo Code Talkers

[This review essay used here with permission of its author, Beverly Slapin, and may not be published elsewhere without her written permission.]

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The Navajo Code Talkers in Books for Young People

Aaseng, Nathan, Navajo Code Talkers, foreword by Roy O. Hawthorne (Diné). Walker (1992). 116 pages, b/w photos, grades 5-8

Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki), Code Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two. Dial (2005). 231 pages, grades 5-7

Hunter, Sara Hoagland, The Unbreakable Code, illustrated by Julia Miner. Rising Moon/Northland (1996). Unpaginated, color paintings, grades 3-5

Kawano, Kenji, Warriors: Navajo Code Talkers, foreword by Carl Gorman (Diné), photographs by the author. Northland (1990). 107 pages, b/w photographs, grades 6-up

Throughout World War II, Diné (Navajo) code talkers were a crucial part of the U.S. effort in the South Pacific, sending and receiving messages in an unbreakable code based on the Diné language. As Marines, they took part in every assault, from Guadalcanal in 1942 to Okinawa in 1945, experiencing some of the bloodiest fighting in the war.

For the Diné code talkers, the military experience of serving in World War II—mythologized as “the good fight”—was a chance for the young men to demonstrate their courage in the most exciting adventure of their lives. For many, it was the first time they had ever left their communities, the first time they had ever seen an ocean, the first time they had ever seen a paycheck. In the aftermath of that war and the post-traumatic shock that came with it, they found they were not allowed to discuss the top-secret nature of their work.

Although the code talkers probably saw themselves as “warriors,” referring to soldiers as “warriors” perpetuates a century-old hoax. There is a great cultural and philosophical distinction between the terms “warrior” and “soldier,” and somehow, for the Indian community, this distinction has been blurred, erased, “forgotten” and, most of all, exploited. Sacrificing their lives for the benefit of the U.S. war machine has become one of the only acceptable ways for young people today to demonstrate their courage. And the image of “warriors” protecting their lands, cultures and communities has young Indian people—in far greater proportion than anyone else—becoming cannon fodder for cynical colonialist ventures.

In the four books reviewed below—two fiction and two non-fiction—the term “Navajo” is used rather than “Diné,” the people’s self-name; this is especially noticeable in the The Unbreakable Code and Code Talker, where a grandfather talking to his grandchild(ren) would be more likely to refer to himself as “Diné” or “our people.” In all four, the extent of Japanese fatalities, including civilians, is soft-pedaled. Two (Navajo Code Talkers and Code Talker) mention the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and also discuss the legacy of the Navajo Long Walk and the Indian residential schools.

Warriors: Navajo Code Talkers

Through his long friendship with Diné elder and code talker Carl Gorman and his family, Japanese-born Kenji Kawano became the official photographer to the Navajo Code Talkers Association. Kawano’s beautiful book of historical and contemporary black-and-white photographs, coupled with the words and stories of the code talkers themselves, reflect this gifted photographer’s honoring of the people whose code baffled Japanese communicators and contributed to the World War II defeat of his own people. Here is Wilsie H. Bitsie, now an elder, telling Kenji Kawano, “Why did I kill? This has had great psychological bearing on me, and still does.” Both Gorman’s foreword and Kawano’s preface are personal and heartfelt, and Benis M. Frank’s introduction gives a historical overview from the Marine Corps perspective. Since the term “warriors” appears only in the title, one would suspect that it was a marketing decision. It was interesting to read the first-person accounts in Warriors and see how their various permutations showed up in the later-published books.

Navajo Code Talkers: America’s Secret Weapon in World War II

That Aaseng relied almost entirely on outdated and questionable-at-best sources by cultural outsiders—such as Reader’s Digest’s America’s Fascinating Indian Heritage and Scott O’Dell’s Sing Down the Moon—is reflected in his falsely authoritative and condescending writing. Especially egregious is the chapter describing how the alleged Diné belief system may have impacted the code talkers’ performance in the Pacific:

Navajos were taught not to kill snakes. Was that practical or even possible in some of the snake-infested hellholes the marines found themselves in? How would the Navajos react to a belegaana (sic) slashing a snake out of fear or simply for the fun of it? Navajos were taught never to eat a piece of food with the point of a knife stuck in it. Would this cause problems at mealtime? Navajos took care to avoid having beasts cross their paths and to stay away from any tree damaged by lightning. Would these traditional taboos clash with orders from a superior officer to take up a certain position?

Then there’s this garbled mess:

Not only did the Navajos sound like the Japanese to many marines, they also looked like them. There was no one “type” of Navajo that could be immediately recognized. Navajo men can display great differences in size, build, skin color, and facial appearance. They do, however, tend toward a number of characteristics that are more similar to the Japanese than to the belegaana (sic): dark hair, dark skin, sparse facial hair, high cheekbones, occasionally even Asian-appearing eyes.

What does this mean? I think Aaseng is probably trying to say something, but I get the feeling he’s describing a breed of horse. Actually, there were several cases in which Diné code talkers were almost killed by white Marines who mistook them for enemy infiltrators. These incidents occurred because of cultural blindness, not because Navajos and Japanese people look alike. Navajo Code Talkers is way not recommended.

The Unbreakable Code

Comforting his young grandson, distraught about having to move to Minnesota, a Diné grandfather recounts his own experiences away from home, both at an Indian boarding school and later, as a code talker: “All those years,” he remembers laughing with another young recruit, “they told us to forget Navajo, and now the government needs it to save the country!” When John excitedly asks his grandfather to tell him about the fighting, Grandfather appropriately responds, “What I saw is better left back there. I would not want to touch my home or my family with those pictures.” In this story about a close family relationship and ties to the land that tells you who you are forever, Hunter is to be forgiven for an occasional clunker (“‘You’re going to be all right,’ Grandfather said. ‘You have an unbreakable code.’”) and a somewhat contrived back-story. Miner’s softly textured oil paintings illustrate the warmth of grandfather and grandson together and the beauty of the land; and Hunter’s endnotes give young readers the original code and some code words to look at and pronounce.

Code Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two

How does one tell a historical story that is true to itself, while at the same time taking responsibility not to dredge up old prejudices for today’s young readers? This dilemma is one that I imagine Bruchac struggled with in researching and writing Code Talker.

Code Talker is essentially The Unbreakable Code expanded to a middle-reader chapter book. Here, Bruchac’s fictionalized narrator, Ned Begay, shares with his grandchildren the experience of the war and what came after. Bruchac deftly sets the story in the context of Diné history, including the forced Navajo Long Walk to Bosque Redondo and the Indian residential schools’ attempts to eradicate Native languages.

Well researched and relying on both published and oral accounts, Code Talker is related in an honest, realistic voice, one that does not hesitate to tell a funny story when the opportunity occurs: “I kept a straight face because it would have been rude to laugh at a grown-up, even a grown-up biligaana who had just said that all sheep above the age of six should be in school.” The irony of having the language beaten out of you as a child and then having that same language considered invaluable in the war effort is the focal point of the story. An overemphasis on cultural details with which Diné grandchildren would already be familiar seems to be for the benefit of the presumed audience of non-Native readers. It’s also problematic that Bruchac uses the term “warrior” interchangeably with “soldier.”

As Bruchac writes in his author’s note, all the events are real and almost all the characters are real. It’s a little unnerving, but not necessarily a bad thing, to see Carl Gorman (whom I’ve met) showing up as a young man in a historical novel. But although Diné elders share war stories with each other, it’s highly unlikely that a Diné grandfather would burden his grandchildren with the fear, pain, death and gory details of the war.

Another problem in Code Talker is Bruchac’s narrator’s demonization of the Japanese people. Although Ned Begay sometimes walks away from the racist remarks uttered by his fellow Marines and calls war “a sickness that must be cured…a time out of balance,” he also likens the Japanese people to “the monster beings in our old stories, (who) preferred to strike in the darkness” and tells his grandchildren that “[w]e must never forget, as the Japanese forgot, that all life is holy.” (Considering that U.S. forces incinerated hundreds of thousands of Japanese men, women, and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and on the Japanese-held islands in the Pacific, one might do well to ask, who else forgot that all life is holy?) And it is unfortunate that Bruchac chose to put into print the Diné code word for “Japan” as an ethnic slur that calls attention to the presumed shape of a people’s upper-eyelid folds.

For younger readers, The Unbreakable Code presents a part of history that will not be found elsewhere. For older readers, a thoughtful, critical teacher could use Code Talker paired with Warriors: Navajo Code Talkers, and lead her students in comparing the experiences of the code talkers with those of Indian young people serving in the military today. Why do Indian young people continue to go to war in far greater proportion than any other ethnic group? What other options do young people of color have to get access to education and jobs? In the context of war, colonialism and racism, what kind of philosophical and ideological mentality did the U.S. government create against the Japanese people? How is this kind of mentality fostered and demonstrated against Arab and Muslim peoples today?

Glorifying war under any circumstances is wrong; and the mutation of “warriors” into “soldiers,” “human beings” into “monsters,” and “friends” into “enemies” is an ongoing problem that needs to be addressed.

—Beverly Slapin

American Sociological Association statement on Native American nicknames, logos, and mascots

On March 6th, 2007, the American Sociological Association issued a statement about the use of Native American nicknames, logos and mascots in sports programs. Here's some excepts from the statement, which you can read in its entirety by clicking here or going to their website and putting "mascots" in the search box. Their statement is similar to the one issued last year by the American Psychological Association. (See my post about it here or in the section to the right of this page, called Posts about Stereotypical Images.)

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WHEREAS social science scholarship has demonstrated that the continued use of Native American nicknames, logos and mascots in sport reflect and reinforce misleading stereotypes of Native Americans in both past and contemporary times;

WHEREAS the stereotypes embedded in Native American nicknames, logos and mascots in sport undermine education about the lives of Native American peoples;

WHEREAS social science scholarship has demonstrated that the continued use of Native American nicknames, logos and mascots in sport harm Native American people in psychological, educational, and social ways;

And it concludes with:

AND, WHEREAS the continued use of Native American nicknames, logos and mascots in sport has been condemned by numerous reputable academic, educational and civil rights organizations, and the vast majority of Native American advocacy organizations, including but not limited to: American Anthropological Association, American Psychological Association, North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, Modern Language Association, United States Commission on Civil Rights, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Association of American Indian Affairs, National Congress of American Indians, and National Indian Education Association;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, THAT THE AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION calls for discontinuing the use of Native American nicknames, logos and mascots in sport.

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Two of my favorite Native authors have incorporated themes related to mascots into their books. They are Joseph Bruchac's The Heart of a Chief, and Cynthia Leitich Smith's Rain Is Not My Indian Name.

Getting the 'Indian' Out of the Cupboard: Using Information Literacy to Promote Critical Thinking, by Rhonda Harris Taylor and Lotsee Patterson

In the December 2000 issue of Teacher Librarian is "Getting the 'Indian' out of the Cupboard: Using Information Literacy to Promote Critical Thinking," an excellent article by two Native women at the University of Oklahoma's School of Library and Information Science, Rhonda Harris Taylor and Lotsee Patterson.

In the article, they talk about many resources that will be helpful to librarians, teachers, and parents working towards helping children learn how to recognize stereotypical or biased characterizations of American Indians. These resources include videos as well as print and on-line publications. I've added this article to my list of articles on the right-hand side of this page. UPDATE: 1/30/2011....  Teacher Librarian reconfigured their website and the article is no longer available online to the public. Anyone with access to a library that carries Teacher Librarian can get it that way, but for those who don't have that option, I've got a pdf copy of it and will send it directly to you by email. My address is dreese dot nambe at gmail dot com.

Eighth Graders Analyze SIGN OF THE BEAVER

[Note: This essay submitted by Karen, a classroom teacher, in response to my post (on March 17th) about using Caddie Woodlawn to teach about stereotypes.]

My students and I have done critical analysis much like this, years ago with Sign of the Beaver, and more recently with a history textbook's chapter on the Civil War. I was working with 8th graders in a Title I pull-out language arts and social studies class when we analyzed Sign of the Beaver. The history text analysis was done with my fifth/sixth grade class last year. We also think critically about historical events, looking at them from the perspectives of ordinary people affected by the decisions of those in power.

The one piece that I found essential to have in place before analysis of Sign of the Beaver was a thorough grounding in culturally authentic literature. Living and teaching in southern Vermont, most of my students are white. Before my students can think critically about stereotypes in literature, they need to see literature that's positive and authentic. That's equally true for the very few students who have strong Native ties or are black or Asian as for the white students.

Having said that, I think the analysis of specific chapters and passages in Sign of the Beaver was also successful because, as you suggest, we didn't read it as a novel or as literature, we just read those passages, largely comparing the ways in which Attean's speech, his grandfather's speech and that of Matt are described. The students, given to me to teach because they'd been unengaged in the "regular ed" classrooms, were vocal and articulate in their responses to Speare's depiction of Attean's speech as grunts. I can still hear their voices, 18 years later, as they "talked back" to Speare.

I don't do this more often for a couple of reasons: -first, with only so much time, I do want to make sure my students get that authentic literature. I'm reading Hidden Roots right now to my class. -second, even in snippets, literature is so powerful and can be so powerfully painful. When most of the kids are white, the possibilities of pain for others are so much greater, as my own sons (we're a multiwhateverish background family, black, white, Mi'kmaq, and mystery genes) have let me know. Thinking critically about historical events and about texts somehow doesn't hurt as much as the literature can.

Paul Chaat Smith on BROTHER EAGLE SISTER SKY and THE EDUCATION OF LITTLE TREE

Paul Chaat Smith is an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma. He and Robert Warrior wrote Like a Hurricane, the Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. Published in 1996, it ought to be used in every high school class that looks at the Civil Rights Movement. Alcatraz was occupied by American Indians in the late 1960s. It inspired Native people to take action at sites across the country in the 70s.

I’ve recently found Smith’s website, Fear of a Red Planet. It includes Exile on Main Street, which is Smith’s cyberbook. I want to draw you attention to his essay,  “Home of the Brave.” In it, he talks about some of America’s favorite books, ones that masquerade as being by or about American Indians: Susan Jeffers’s Brother Eagle Sister Sky, and Forrest Carter’s The Education of Little Tree. Here’s an excerpt from his essay:

Indians have been erased from the Master Narrative of this country, and replaced by the cartoon images that all of us know and most of us believe. At different times the narrative has said we didn't exist and the land was empty, then it was mostly empty and populated by fearsome savages, then populated by noble savages who couldn't get with the program, and on and on. Today the equation is Indian equals spiritualism and environmentalism. In twenty years it will probably be something else.

Visit his website. Read the entire essay. And, reconsider how you use Brother Eagle Sister Sky, or The Education of Little Tree.

Note: There is discussion of Brother Eagle Sister Sky in the article Jean Mendoza and I wrote for the journal, Early Childhood Research & Practice. The article is called "Examining Multicultural Picture Books for the Early Childhood Classroom: Possibilities and Pitfalls." It is listed under "ARTICLES" (right side of this page) or you can click here to get to it.

See "naked wild men" (Indians) from Little House on the Prairie at my other blog, Images of Indians in Children's Books.

Reflections on CADDIE WOODLAWN: Teaching about Stereotypes using Literature

One evening in 1999, when my daughter, Liz, (then a third-grader) was doing homework, she said "Mom, I don't get it." She’s exceptionally bright, so when she told me she didn't get it, I knew something was up. I asked her what she was reading. She held up Caddie Woodlawn.

I was well into my research by that time (study of representation of Native Americans in children's books). Given UIUC's “Chief Illiniwek,” Liz learned early on about racism, representation, and stereotyping.

By then, I was already collaborating with Beverly Slapin at Oyate. I told her about Liz’s experience reading Caddie Woodlawn. She invited Liz to dictate her experience for inclusion in A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children. Titled “Liz’s Story” here is a portion of what eight-year-old Liz said:

"And so we were reading it and when we got to the second chapter, it said, I'm not sure exactly what it said, that the Native Americans were sneaking around like dogs, and they picked up Caddie Woodlawn by her hair, and they were acting like dogs sniffing a bone. In another part it said that the Native Americans were massacring, murdering, and scalping the pioneers and made belts out of their hair and skin. They made the pioneers seem like angels and the Native Americans like inhuman monsters. I felt hurt inside, my eyes were watering, and I felt like I wanted to cry. But then I thought, there's something I can do about this."

Liz goes on to talk about how, the next day, she went to her teacher and the group to tell them how she felt about the book, and that she wanted them to stop reading it. Due to the teacher's social justice approach to teaching, Liz's group had great empathy and agreed to choose a different book.

Liz's best friend at the time was also in the group, and she said she didn't want them to pick a book that made white people look bad. In the end, I bought and donated 10 copies of Erdrich's Birchbark House. That is what they read instead. Liz went on to write a short play of one scene in the book, which her group later performed for their classmates.

This episode illustrates some of what good teachers must contend with in America’s under-funded schools.

The teacher chose this book because they were studying historical fiction, and she wanted them to read a story set in or near the midwest. She was using ‘best practice’ in that regard.

She chose that book because there were multiple copies of it available at the school.

She knew it contained derogatory content about American Indians, but, she thought it would give the students the opportunity to deconstruct stereotypical images, applying their critical thinking skills to issues of representation, etc.

As Liz’s experience documents, it didn’t work.

Back then, I called my friends and colleagues in children’s literature, asking them for ideas on what to do. One expressed disgust that an old, outdated book was still being used in the classroom. She suggested the teacher use the book, but NOT as a work of literature. Here’s her rationale:

If a book is well-written, readers will be drawn into it, identifying with characters, setting, story, etc. as they read it, cover to cover. It might be difficult, given that growing attachment to the book, to distance themselves enough to be able to critically discuss the negative representations of American Indians. Analyzing such representations is important, and using children’s books to do it is possible, but not if the book is read, first, as literature. Here’s a rough outline of what a teacher might do:

1. Assign specific chapters to different groups of children.
2. Ask each group to focus on passages about American Indians in their specific chapter. What words are used to describe them? What tone is conveyed?
3. Repeat this exercise for the non-Native characters.
4. Compare and contrast the two sets of data.
5. Engage the children in conversations about differences in these representations.
6. Talk about the period when the book was written.
7. Talk about the period itself, and how people thought about American Indians at that time.

If any of you (readers of this blog) have done something like this, please write to me. I’d like to hear how it works in practice.

Headed to NYC for NCTE's Conference on College Composition and Communication

Next week I'll be visiting New York City (for the first time), attending NCTE's Conference on College Composition and Communication. I'm speaking at a session titled "Research on Cultures of Writing."

My paper is designed to look at the process of retelling American Indian stories. I will use two children's books in my session, Penny Pollock's Turkey Girl and Kristina Rodanas Dragonfly's Tale. Both are deeply flawed.

My hope is to reach teachers who teach writing, to help them help writers approach this task in a more careful, thoughtful way. My session is on Saturday, 3:30 to 4:45.

NCTE invited Joy Harjo and Lee Marmon to speak on Thursday morning. Previously on this blog, I'm talked about her book, The Good Luck Cat. Her poetry is in a new book by Lee Marmon, called The Pueblo Imagination. You may not recognize his name, but anyone that has followed Native photography knows his signature shot of an elder Pueblo man in sneakers. That photo is featured on the cover of The Pueblo Imagination. (The photo itself is called "White Man's Moccasins.") Marmon's daughter is Leslie Marmon Silko, author of Ceremony, which is often used in high school lit classes. I'm really looking forward to their session.

My family will join me in NYC on Friday, where we'll see Mama Mia. I'm looking forward to being in NYC, and seeing a musical that draws from the songs of my teen years. It should be great fun.

Update 3/18/2007: I've spent much of this afternoon listening to Joy's CD, Native Joy for Real. She's a musician, plays sax. Go here to see her CDs.

Margaret Bruchac's MALIAN'S SONG

Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

Editor's Note: This review used here with permission of Beverly Slapin at Oyate. It may not be published elsewhere without her written permission.

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Bruchac, Margaret (Abenaki), Malian’s Song, illustrated by William Maughan. Vermont Folklife Center, 2005. Unpaginated, color illustrations, grades 4-up; Abenaki.

Malian's Song is neither myth, legend nor folktale, but a true account of the October 4, 1759, attack on the village of Odanack by Major Robert Rogers and his Rangers. Because the people were warned by one of Rogers' Mohican scouts, 32 of the villagers were killed, rather than the 200 later claimed by Rogers, but their homes were burned, and their stores of corn pillaged. This story has existed in the living traditions of Abenaki people for nearly 250 years, and Bruchac sets down this tragic event carefully and with great feeling. Young readers will see the loss and pain and sorrow, and they will also see how the people have continued, and do so still.

The illustrations are lovely. The people are dressed as they would have been in that day, in a combination of Native and English clothing. Maughan has beautifully drawn the close ties between family members and the strengths of each. The names are known: Malian was the young daughter of Simon Obomsawin; her cousin was Maliazonis. Malian's granddaughter was Mali Masadoques. In telling their story, Bruchac does them honor, and with respect for young readers.

This is Malian’s song:

"Nziwaldam, nziwaldam, anakwika ndodana

I am lonesome; I am lonesome; our village grows up to trees

Malian pihta oziwaldam, nda tomo widoba

Malian she is very lonesome; there is no friend anywhere.”

—Doris Seale

Denise Low

In the last few years, working in American Indian Studies, I've met many Native men and women at tribal colleges, research universities, Ivy League schools... Some work with literature, writing it and/or studying it. I've noted some of that work in previous posts (see, for example, my posts about LeAnne Howe). Robert Warrior (Osage) was visiting here at UIUC this week. Last week I blogged about ALCATRAZ IS NOT AN ISLAND, a documentary in which he figured prominently. His book,co-edited with Paul Chaat Smith, about American Indian activism is excellent. It is called Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. I highly recommend it as an addition to high school classes studying Civil Rights and Activism.

I have yet to meet Denise Low, but hope to do so soon. She is part Lenape (commonly known as Delaware) and Cherokee, and is a professor at Haskell Indian Nations University. She's also 2007 Poet Laureate of Kansas. You can read some of her poems on the Kansas Poets website.

On that page, I especially like "Kene: Bald Eagle."

Read her essay "The Cancer of Sprawl" on the Counterpunch website, visit her blog, and use her poems with junior/senior students in high school lit classes. They are beautiful and powerful. An interview with Denise, and list of her work is here.

Images of Indians in Children's Books

Starting a new blog, this one of images in picture books....

It is called Images of Indians in Children's Books. I'm just getting started on it, and I won't post to it as frequently as I do American Indians in Children's Books. I'm conceptualizing it as a teaching tool for courses that use, directly or indirectly, children's lit. It will also be useful for teachers, parents, and kids, too!

Here's the URL:
http://imagesofindiansinchildrensbooks.blogspot.com/

A Tlingit production of Macbeth

The first two paragraphs from an article in Indian Country Today:

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - Battles are waged to the beat of drums, witches as land otters slink across the stage and Banquo's ghost dons a raven mask in a Tlingit language adaptation of Shakespeare's brutal and bloody tale of a murderous Scottish lord.

Sprung from the rainforests of southeast Alaska, this Washington, D.C.-bound production of ''Macbeth'' marries the Elizabethan tragedy with an ancient indigenous culture - an elaborate conceit that its players say brings new life to both worlds.

Readers of this blog who live in the Washington DC area can see it performed at the National Museum of the American Indian. Below is the schedule. Tickets here: For tickets, call (202) 357-3030 or visit www.residentassociates.org

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
March 8, 9 & 10, 7:30 p.m.
March 11, 2:00 p.m.
March 14, 10:30 a.m. free student matinee for school groups
March 15, 7:30 p.m.
March 16, 10:30 a.m. free student matinee for school groups
March 16, 7:30 p.m.
March 17, 7:30 p.m.
March 18, 2:00 p.m.

Cynthia Leitich Smith's Tantalize

My dear friend, Cynthia Leitich Smith, has a new book out... It isn't like Jingle Dancer, or Indian Shoes, or Rain Is Not My Indian Name, all of which feature Native characters... Tantalize is quite a departure. It is a vampire story.

Cyn has a special knack for creating new dimensions in her books. For Rain Is Not My Indian Name, she created a companion website, rich with details that give the book greater depth.

For Tantalize, she is tapping into teen interest in vampires. This time, instead of visiting a companion website, teens can buy t-shirts, mugs, magnets, or posters with "Sanguini's" on them from Cafe Press or Printfection. The cutting board at Printfection caught my eye... Sanguini's is a restaurant that is a centerpiece in Tantalize.

While I'm not a fan of vampire stories, I can say that I was drawn into Cyn's tale. I read it a few months ago, and with great ease, can feel myself walking around inside Sanguini's. Visit Cyn's blog, Cynsations, and follow links to interviews with her about Tantalize. And get the book, too! Enjoy the menus, recipes, decor, characters...