National Geographic's Encyclopedia of American Indian History and Culture, Not Recommended, Part 2

Encyclopedia of American Indian History & Culture: Stories, Time Lines, Maps, and More
Written by Cynthia O'Brien
Published in 2019
Publisher: National Geographic
Reviewed by Jean Mendoza
Status: Not Recommended

 Debbie's review (1/4/2020) of Encyclopedia of American Indian History & Culture: Stories, Time Lines, Maps, and More focused mainly on visual images used in the book. There are enough problems with a number of the photographs and other images used to warrant not recommending the book. I reached a similar conclusion after looking at selections of the Encyclopedia's written content, and here I'll talk about that process.

My focus was on terminology and concepts relevant to Indigenous/US political history. I wanted to know what the book had to say about the Doctrine of Discovery, settler-colonialism, Manifest Destiny, Native sovereignty, the taking of Indigenous homelands, and Indigenous resistance. What words writers choose, and what they leave unsaid, reveals much about their understanding of a topic and about what they want readers to understand.

Let's start with sovereignty. The term is in the glossary, but the definition says nothing about its connection to Indigenous reality. It's not in the index, but as Debbie mentioned, the publisher's note

on p. 8 devotes about 300 words to tribal sovereignty (see image below), including a bit about the concept of "domestic dependent nations" and allusion to particular legal rights of Native nations. But readers must wade through frustrating mischaracterization of Indigenous history. "As Europeans took over more territory" leaves out the fact that the US, from the moment it was established by former Europeans, also "took over" Indigenous homelands. More about that later. And in paragraph 2, the phrase "lost their sovereignty" makes it sound like the Nations, oops, dropped it somewhere, when in fact the colonizing US government refused or failed to consistently recognize or honor Indigenous sovereignty.

The Encyclopedia misses other key opportunities to deepen readers' understanding of Indigenous history. It has no glossary/index entries for "Doctrine of Discovery" or "Manifest Destiny."  Here I'll talk about those and some related terms that should be dealt with more effectively in the book. (Debbie and I learned some things about the challenges and benefits of glossaries and indexes when we adapted An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, and we have an appreciation for how they can promote or hinder readers' understanding of a book's content.)

First, the Doctrine of Discovery. This product of collaboration between European rulers and the Roman Catholic Church laid the groundwork for European invasion and colonization of Indigenous homelands in what are currently called the Americas. The Doctrine of Discovery has ongoing influence on policies and attitudes here. (For example, in Brazil, the current elected leader denies Indigenous peoples' right to exist on their homelands, and the current resident of the White House greatly admires Andrew Jackson, proponent of "Indian Removal.") Knowing about the Doctrine of Discovery is essential to understanding the history and present circumstances of every Indigenous nation. But it's not in the glossary or index, and if it's mentioned in the text, I didn't find it.

BTW, the Encyclopedia's glossary definition of Catholicism leaves out that Church's key role in the Doctrine of Discovery. Also, "the mission years" highlighted in the book's California section means the years of Catholic missions, but that's not made clear. The textbox titled Mission Indians (see below) explicitly mentions Spanish brutality toward the Indigenous people, then says that the Spanish "also baptized as many as possible into the Catholic Church." Readers deserve to be shown more clearly how Spanish soldiers and priests together actively sought to destroy multiple Nations in what is currently called California, and how baptism was part of that. And again, here's the notion that Indigenous traditional ways were "lost." Not so. Colonizers intentionally destroyed them.

Manifest Destiny. Awareness of Manifest Destiny is basic to understanding the impact of "Western expansion" on Indigenous nations. But there's no glossary definition for it, nothing in the index, and it isn't mentioned in the definition of Western expansion, below.

Notice how the glossary definition above uses passive voice ("the name given to")?  That glosses over the fact that colonizers have named it that -- not the Indigenous people on whom Western expansion was inflicted. Also, "acquired" doesn't begin to describe the bloodshed and treachery that enabled the US government to take Indigenous lands. "Settled" conjures up images of individuals and families quietly and legally building little homes and communities for themselves (Little House Anywhere Charles Ingalls Wants to Build One) -- and leaves out the central, often coordinated, roles of governments, land speculators, militias/military, missionaries, business owners, and squatters in the takeover. "Violently and intentionally took and colonized Indigenous homelands" would be more accurate.

Some terms the Encyclopedia does include are handled in ways that leave much to be desired. The glossary definition of colonization ("settling and taking control of a place and its indigenous people") is far too mild. And colonization period -- defined here as "the time between 1607 and 1783, during which the Europeans settled in what is now the United States" has two problems. First, the US itself continued to colonize the continent, taking Indigenous homelands, long after its independence from Britain. (That's what "Western expansion" was.) Second, the US is a colonizing nation in present time (e.g., Puerto Rico, Guam). A third problem is that there's no index entry for either of those glossary terms, so you can't easily look up what else the book says about them, if anything.

As Debbie noted in her review, National Geographic has said it wants to stop its long-time racist misrepresentations of Indigenous people. Debbie mentions that several Native scholars are credited as consultants on the Encyclopedia. That's a wise move on National Geographic's part, though we know there's no guarantee that Native people's contributions were actually used. Some content and wording depart from what's typical in colonizer-centered informational/reference books about Indigenous history, which suggests some use of Indigenous input. For example, the introduction, by former US Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Northern Cheyenne), uses the term "European invaders". (But if "invaders" appears elsewhere in the book, I didn't find it.)  The Encyclopedia does refer frequently to Native nationhood, Native rights, acts and campaigns of resistance, and present-day existence. It defines words like encroachment, tribal status, federal recognition, and reparation, which Native consultants would likely push to have included.  Unfortunately, that's not enough, because those positives share space with problematic text like this photo caption:

It's better to refrain from commenting if one isn't sure why a Native person dresses
a certain way. Also, "more attractive" than what, and to whom, and why? 
Treating such cultural information as some kind of mystery is a form of Othering.

and this "In the Know" box:

The circled statement places traditional Salish beliefs in the past, when there 
may well be contemporary Salish people who share them. The wording
 also makes Salish beliefs sound "different", though in fact, a number of 
contemporary religions believe in guidance by spiritual guardians. For 
example, some Christians profess belief in guardian angels.

It would be wonderful to have a visually appealing reference book that provides young people with a cohesive, well-grounded, well-sourced, thoroughly Indigenous perspective on Indigenous nations and cultures, and their history with what is currently called the United States. National Geographic's Encyclopedia of American Indian History and Culture is not that book.

Edited on 1/12/2020: It's important to also mention that, although the Encyclopedia refers to Catholicism in the glossary and briefly in some of the text, it makes another glaring omission: there is no glossary entry or indexing for Protestantism and/or Calvinism, both of which played a considerable role in Indigenous-white relations outside of what is currently known as California. The first European colonizers in places like Plymouth and Jamestown were Protestant, as were many of those who came after. They tended to have little regard for Indigenous people's religions, and often considered them to be consorts of the devil. Much more could be said of that, and more should have been said in the NatGeo Encyclopedia.

Beverly Slapin's review of UNDEFEATED: JIM THORPE AND THE CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM by Steve Sheinkin

Editor's Note: Beverly Slapin submitted this review of Steve Sheinkin's Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team. It may not be used elsewhere without her written permission. All rights reserved. Copyright 2017. Slapin is currently the publisher/editor of De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children. I (Debbie Reese) hope to read and review this book, too. See also the review at Reading While White. 

_____________________________________________________________

Sheinkin, Steve, Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team. Roaring Brook Press, 2017; grades 6-9 (Potawatomi, Sac and Fox)

PREFACE

In “The School Days of an Indian Girl,” a chapter in American Indian Stories, [1], Zitkala-Sa (Dakota) writes of her experiences at White’s Manual Labor Institute in Wabash, Indiana:

The melancholy of those black days has left so long a shadow that it darkens the path of years that have since gone by. Perhaps my Indian nature is the moaning wind which stirs them now [2] for their present record. But, however tempestuous this is within me, it comes out as the low voice of a curiously colored seashell [3], which is only for those ears that are bent with compassion to hear it.

Zitkala-Sa devoted her life to seeking justice for her people and was one of the few early Native writers who wrote without the “aid” of a white editor, interpreter or ethnographer. While her stories describe the everyday humiliations, turmoil and pain that encompassed the Indian residential school experience, she also wrote of resistance and rebellion.

It’s my firm belief that no one could or should attempt to represent what the children experienced in the Indian residential schools without listening to the stories of their descendants, and with “ears bent with compassion to hear it.” And even Zitkala-Sa is not saying that those people are entitled to voice, much less to interpret, what they have heard.

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The 1951 movie, entitled “Jim Thorpe, All American” (starring Burt Lancaster as Jim Thorpe), begins with this hyperbole-laden voiceover:

“Jim Thorpe, All-American, the man of bronze who became the greatest athlete of all time, an Oklahoma Indian lad whose untamed spirit gave wings to his feet and carried him to immortality. Here in a mighty cavalcade of sport are all the giants who faced this champion among champions, each test adding new honors to his ever-growing fame. Here is the thrilling panorama of the Olympic Games, the nation’s praise for its returning hero, and behind the glory and glamour, colorful days at Carlisle University [sic]…” 

Stories of heroism and singlehandedly overcoming adversity are well received in European and European American children’s literature as well, and Jim Thorpe fits into this mold. He’s larger than life, a legend, almost mythic, so many stories about him—both true and false—lend themselves to the persona we know as “Jim Thorpe.”

That’s why, especially in a biography for children, it’s important to get things right. Unfortunately, Sheinkin writes through a cultural filter that objectifies Native lives, histories, and experiences, and in doing so, misleads young readers about Jim Thorpe, the real person.

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“CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL,” COVER AND BACK MATTER

Although Sheinkin refers to the “Carlisle Indian Industrial School” by its full name a few times, he then shortens the name to “Carlisle Indian School,” the name that’s reflected on the cover and front matter as well. Omitting the word “industrial” from Carlisle’s name—which Sheinkin does often in this book—belies the school’s purpose: to train its Indian students to be servants and other low-wage workers, rather than to educate them. (Referring to the school as the shortened version, “Carlisle,” after using its correct name is acceptable. Not acceptable is referring to “Carlisle Indian School” as its correct name.)

On the front cover flap—the first text the reader sees—there is this, in large print:

JIM THORPE:

SUPER ATHLETE, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST,

NATIVE AMERICAN

POP WARNER:

INDOMITABLE COACH, FOOTBALL MASTERMIND,

IVY LEAGUE GRAD

Here, Jim Thorpe is identified by his ethnicity, while Pop Warner is not. This introduction objectifies Jim Thorpe and sets the stage for much of what is to come.

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JIM THORPE AND BLACK HAWK

A caption on page 12 reads:

Young Jim’s first hero, Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, Black Sparrow Hawk, or Black Hawk. Black Hawk was a member of the Thunder Clan of the Sac and Fox, the same clan as Jim Thorpe.

This 31-word caption goes off in several confusing directions, echoed in the text that follows it. 

(1) Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak was a Sauk war leader whose name, as interpreted into English, was “Black Sparrow Hawk.”

(2) Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak was born into the Thunder Clan of the Sauk Nation. He was not a “member of the Thunder Clan of the Sac and Fox.” The Sauk and Meskwaki Nations formed a political alliance after 1732, and, although the US government referred to them as a single entity, the “Sac and Fox Confederacy,” each treaty had a separate place for Sauk and Meskwaki chiefs to sign, and the Sauk and Meskwaki remain two separate nations. As Johnathan Buffalo, Preservation Director of the Meskwaki Nation, explained to me, “We are Meskwaki. When we deal in government-to-government relations with the US, they refer to us as Sac and Fox. We’re stuck for legal reasons but not for cultural reasons.” He added, “They can terminate the Sac and Fox, but they can never terminate the Meskwaki because only our God can do that.”

A lot of people, including Jim Thorpe’s family, refer to themselves by the government name, “Sac and Fox,” or even use “Sac Fox,” and historians and biographers should note the distinction. Sheinkin did not.

(3) Since Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak was born around 1767 and Jim Thorpe was born in 1887, Thorpe’s clan citizenship was the same as that of his Sauk ancestor, not the other way around.

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THE DAWES ACT

On pages 9-10, Sheinkin briefly describes the land rush that occurred after the General Allotment Act of 1887 (Dawes Severalty Act):

Three years later, twenty thousand settlers lined the edge of what had been Sac and Fox land. A government agent fired a gun, the signal for the land rush to begin, and everyone raced on horseback or in wagons, claiming open sections of land by driving stakes into the soil…. By nightfall, the plains around the Thorpes’ farm were dotted with settlers’ tents and campfires. In just a few hours, the Sac and Fox had lost nearly 80 percent of their land. [italics mine]

In the General Allotment Act of 1887, also known as the Dawes Severalty Act, the US government seized and split up Indian reservation lands held in common and “allocated” non-adjacent tracts of 160 acres each to individual Native families, forcing them into subsistence farming. The government then sold the “excess” 86 million acres of formerly communal lands to white settlers.

The government’s intent was to break up tribal communities, which is what they did. By seizing and “redistributing” the land, the government also destroyed the ceremony, social structure, kinship, respect for elders, and community child rearing—in short, the spiritual and material foundation of traditional Native beliefs and lives. Three years later, the government-sanctioned land grab stole almost all of the rest of the land. (Both the terms “allotment” and “severalty” euphemize what was actually theft of land and culture.)

After the US government forcibly relocated people from traditional lands to reservations, and, within a generation or two, from those communal lands to individual “allotments,” the Dawes Act became the metaphorical nail in the coffin.

When your family is abruptly cut off from land, community, and culture and surrounded by a hostile foreign environment, your life changes drastically. It’s not surprising that in this cultural vacuum—exacerbated by the easy availability of the cheap alcohol that can be likened to chemical warfare—Hiram Thorpe became a mean, abusive alcoholic, regularly threatening, beating and abandoning his several wives and many children.

Jim Francis Thorpe was one of six children (later 11) born to Hiram Thorpe and Charlotte Vieux Thorpe in 1887, the same year as the Dawes Act, and just before the massive white land grab. This was the difficult life—no, turmoil—that shaped Jim’s childhood. Land theft. Culture theft. Theft of Indian children into the government schools. A violent father. A strong, protective mother. He was not left unscarred. This is a crucial part of Thorpe’s life that Sheinkin leaves out.

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WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Native babies and children are traditionally named in different ways and through different practices. Buffalo Bull Who Sits Down (“Sitting Bull”) was named “Slow.” His Horse Is Crazy (“Crazy Horse”) was named “Curly.” Some children are traditionally given names that encourage them to “throw away” their baby names. (I’m reminded here of Joe Bruchac’s excellent historical novel, Brothers of the Buffalo, in which identical Cheyenne twins are named “Too Tall” and “Too Short.”) And the baby name of a good friend of mine translates from the Ojibwe, “Maniigimoogibineyans,” as “little bird making mess by making poo.” (She remembers, she told me, that she tried her best to learn how to use the potty so that everyone would stop calling her “little poo butt.”) Sometimes babies are named by their parents, sometimes by a grandparent or by a spiritual leader enlisted for that purpose. Sometimes babies are given a clan name.

Jim Thorpe was born into the Sauk Thunder Clan, which assigned him his traditional name, Wa-tha-sko-huk, meaning “The Light After the Lightning,” a Thunder Clan name. Unfortunately, Thorpe’s birth name is often cited as “Wa-tho-huck,” and erroneously translated as “Bright Path” by his biographers. Just about all of the references to “Bright Path,” which lead back to Jim Thorpe himself, have a romantic overtone, signifying that he was destined for greatness. Here, on page 9, Sheinkin writes:

Jim would later explain that his mother, following Potawatomi custom, also gave her sons names inspired by something experienced right after childbirth. Through the window near her bed, Charlotte watched the early morning sun light the path to their cabin. She named Jim Wathohuck, translated as “Bright Path.”

In any event, both of Thorpe’s parents would have followed traditional protocol and traveled to spiritual leaders in the community who were responsible for providing names. (Potawatomi and Sauk aren’t that far apart—they’re both dialects of Anishnaabemowin.) Or they would have followed the father’s traditional protocol. Although it’s possible that some individuals might name their children in this way (and “Bright Path” could have been an endearing nickname) this “first-thing-they-saw-after-childbirth” thing is a well-worn trope. It reminds me of the movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in which the great Will Sampson’s tongue-in-cheek story ends with, “But why do you ask, Two Dogs Copulating?" [4]   

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THE “OUTING” PROGRAM

One of the more infamous programs of the Carlisle experience was the summer “outing” program, in which the young students were sent to live with white farm families, who, more often than not, mentally and physically abused them. The reasons that Pratt gave for this program was for the students to experience living in the white world while being trained for regular work. The actual purposes of the outing program were to keep the students from going home for the summer and to continue to train them as domestic servants and farm laborers while they provided an equivalent of slave labor. Sheinkin does not acknowledge any of this. Rather, on pp. 100-101, he writes:

The Outing Program was a major part of life at Carlisle. The idea was for students to live with a “civilized” family, practice English, and learn how to run a farm. “When you boys and girls go out on jobs,” Pratt told students, “you don’t go as employees. You go and become part of the family.” [italics mine]

  Sheinkin continues:

That was not Jim’s experience. Assigned to a farm near Carlisle, he was put to work mopping floors and doing laundry. He was made to eat alone in the kitchen, and paid half of what a white laborer would typically earn.

While Pratt and the school administrators had full knowledge of the rampant cruelty from the white “patrons” to their young charges, Sheinkin describes the outing program as generally beneficent.

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ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BOAT

On page 141, Sheinkin describes Gus Welch’s life with his grandmother and younger brother in the woods of northern Wisconsin:

Gus spent as much time as possible outside, hoping the cold air would keep his lungs clear. His grandmother taught the boys to paddle a birch bark canoe, to trap animals for their fur, to collect maple syrup and wild rice. Gus earned money for the family by taking furs into Duluth to sell—which is what had brought him to town the day he saw the Carlisle football poster. [italics mine]

Here, Sheinkin, in one sentence—a wildly inaccurate one at that—purports to describe everything two Indian children learned from their one grandparent. The way it’s worded, as well as what it leaves out, implies that Ojibwe (“Chippewa”) people were and are simple, primitive, nature loving, and technologically impaired. All of it absents the reasoning, the science, the skill sets, and the methods of traditional Indian education. And it absents the fact that these traditional skills—valuable pieces of Indigenous knowledge and technologies—have been handed down for thousands of years.

In terms of canoe building, maintenance and management, many stories were traditionally used as instructive mnemonic devices. My friend and colleague, Lois Beardslee, told me that children were taught everything about the physics of that canoe and all mathematical things to know about a vessel: construction, ratios of length to width, use and repair, how and where loads should be balanced. They were taught hydrodynamics (the equivalent of aerodynamics), how each of the materials the vessel is made of reacts with its environment. For instance, they were taught how and why to weigh down a canoe and store it in the water. They were taught that bark and wood fibers need humidity to swell so that they hold together; that opposing tensions hold these materials together and the caulking is spruce or pine-pitch with fat, using ash as filler. They were taught that a canoe needs the coolness of the water.

Lessons about how to trap animals for their fur were traditionally accompanied by stories about how trapping assists in keeping animal communities healthy through population control, how animals give themselves to humans and how they are to be respected, how they are thanked and quickly killed, and how the pelts are cleaned and dried and prepared. If there were any meat, it would certainly not have been wasted. (My friend, Barbara Wall, commented: “Yum—muskrat and beaver…beaver feast in midwinter!”)

Maple syrup is not collected. People obtain maple sap from the sugarbush and again, there are stories and mnemonic devices for children to understand how things are done in a certain way. Children were and are taught that, as Lois told me, “When we make the syrup, the sap is transformed. It’s all about chemistry; it happens very fast. When the first crystals are formed at a certain temperature, they are the catalyst for a massive rapid series of crystal formation. Our language describes this chemistry accurately. Outsiders could not, because they didn’t have the scientific language to describe it.”

“It takes ten gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup and six gallons of syrup to make one gallon of sugar,” Lois continued. “Earlier, we made maple sap into sugar cakes; it wasn’t until the 1950s that glass jars were affordable in the Indian community and we started making syrup instead of sugar. We’re always a generation behind, financially.”

Manoomin (“wild rice”) is not “collected,” nor is it “wild.” Anishnaabe families have harvested and processed the rice, and seeded, cared for, and protected the rice beds for thousands of years.

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CONCLUSION

On page 154, Sheinkin writes:

The Carlisle School was supposed to sever these young men from their heritage, to “Kill the Indian in them,” as Pratt had so famously said. But fans and sportswriters never let the players forget they were Indians—and there’s no evidence they wanted to forget. They did not call themselves the Carlisle Cardinals or the Carlisle Wildcats. They were the Carlisle Indians.

It was Pratt who named the team, “Carlisle Indians,” and the place they practiced, “Indian Field.” These names were certainly not the choice of the Carlisle students. The racist scorecards and the heavily altered “before-and-after” portraits that depict the students’ so-called journey from “savagery to civilization” were made into postcards and sold as souvenirs.[5]  And the stereotypic headlines (“Indians Scalp Army”) and articles (“With racial savagery and ferocity the Carlisle Indian eleven grabbed Penn’s football scalp and dragged their victim up and down Franklin field”) were written by Carlisle publicists to rake in money for the school, from which the Carlisle students did not benefit. Rather, there was an athletic slush fund diverting money from the Indian students. Although Sheinkin quotes from this material, he neither analyzes nor even questions it.

Sheinkin also fails to follow the money trail regarding letters from the Carlisle students. “Dear old Carlisle” is a phrase that shows up in virtually every student’s letters—because these were also used as fundraisers. There were many letters addressed to parents that were never sent, and there is clear evidence that students were required to turn letters over to the “outing” parents rather than sending them home. These letters were heavily censored; especially heartbreaking are the letters to “Dear old Carlisle” from students who had left, requesting the return of their belongings and the balances in their bank accounts.

In terms of what Jim Thorpe actually wrote, fact-checking material whose research is entirely based on hype is impossible; what’s available is inherently problematic and fundamentally wrong. Nothing is real or true. Jim Thorpe was encouraged to market his life, so everything he publicly said and wrote has to be viewed in this way. In searching out the truths of the Indian residential school era, it would have been necessary—and it would have been Sheinkin’s responsibility—to dig deeper. Rather, he chooses to represent “stereotypes as stereotypes” without question.

And that is the main problem with this book. Among the questions neither asked nor answered: Why is there a children’s cemetery on the school grounds with 192 headstones? Why were children sent home to die so as not to taint Carlisle’s statistics? Why was there a children’s jail on the school grounds? Why did twice as many children run away as were graduated?

Why did Sheinkin not interview descendants of the Carlisle students and especially, Jim Thorpe’s descendants? And why—when the sheer brutality that Pratt and his surrogates inflicted on his young Indian students, mentally and physically, has left generations of Indian people scarred and traumatized—does Sheinkin insist on finding “balance” in Pratt’s intentionality?

What does this say about Richard Henry Pratt and his life’s work? Was he a man who cared about the future of Native Americans at a time few other white leaders did? Was he a man who put down his rifle only to use his school as a weapon against the very people he was claiming to save? Can there be truth in both of the above? (p. 227)

The children who were in the clutches of the Carlisle teachers and administrators were parroting what they were expected to say. This is all clear from the school records—none of them document what the children actually experienced at the school. However, many first-person and descendants’ stories that relate the truths about Pratt’s “noble experiment” at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School have been passed down for future generations to know. But despite the copious research that Sheinkin conducted for this book (including 25 pages of source notes and six pages of works cited), his cultural filter as an outsider impedes his ability to tell the real story.

The purpose of this review is not to compare Undefeated with the countless other books and materials about Jim Thorpe, but it invites the questions: What if anything does Sheinkin offer here that is authentic, fresh or innovative? Is this an exceptional work?

“Nothing” and “no.” Just like the others, Sheinkin’s story only adds to the vast collection of what a friend calls “manifest mythology.” It’s no lie that Jim Thorpe was a remarkable human being. But praising only the achievements of one or two or a few Native individuals while all but ignoring the hundreds of Indian children whose lives and spirits were stolen from them in that same place is an injustice to the Carlisle students and their descendants and to both Indian and non-Indian readers as well. The forced removals and brainwashing of children, after forced relocation, after forced land theft—those are the stories whose importance is buried in the children’s cemetery, and in Sheinkin’s book. The greater win is empathy and compassion, and accomplishments and rebellions collectively shared. Whispering encouragement in Lakota to frightened younger children. Protecting little ones from being beaten for not knowing what is expected of them. Sneaking out in the middle of the night to give food to runaways. Secretly turning the children’s jail into a bonfire. Burying medicine bundles to save them from being destroyed. Pouring salt into a pot of mush or mashing the turnips with such fury that it breaks the jar. Many such stories have been told and many more are waiting to be told.

Sheinkin’s Undefeated is yet another addition to the cult of individual exception. It’s one person’s “bright path” superimposed over everyone else’s dirt road. Our Indian children deserve better.

—Beverly Slapin

3/28/17

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‘Chi miigwech to my dear friend, Barbara Wall (Citizen Potawatomi), whose grandfather was a student at Carlisle, and whose great-great grandmother on her father’s side was Jim Thorpe’s mother’s sister. You have strong shoulders and a good heart. And to my friend and colleague, Barb Landis, whose life’s work has been devoted to documenting the Indian students’ lives at “Dear Old Carlisle.” And to my friend and colleague, educator and poet Lois Beardslee (Anishnaabe), who ceaselessly speaks truth about power. And to my dear friend, Dovie Thomason (Lakota, Kiowa-Apache), for her brilliant and compassionate stream-of-consciousness telephone conversations and unwavering support. 

---

[1] Hayworth Publishing House, 1921

[2] Here, Zitkala-Sa is referring to her teachers at White’s Manual Labor Institute.

[3] Here, Zitkala-Sa, who was born of mixed parentage, describes herself as “a curiously colored seashell.”

[4] I substituted “copulating” for the actual word.

[5] These “before-and-after” portraits were made for two purposes: (1) as fundraisers for the school, and (2) as propaganda. The children’s complexions were often darkened in the “before” photos and lightened in the “after” photos. As well, children in the “before” photos were often “costumed” with props that were not theirs. For instance, on page 33, Wounded Yellow Robe and Chauncy Yellow Robe are wearing eagle feathers in their hair, standing straight up. These feathers were props.

Index of Books Reviewed (or otherwise referenced) in A BROKEN FLUTE: THE NATIVE EXPERIENCE IN BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

In 2005, one of the very best resources for critical reviews of book with American Indian content was published. The book is called A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children. Reviews in the book are by 58 different people, many of whom are American Indian.

Reviews in A Broken Flute look critically at the way that American Indians are presented. A good many children’s books with Native content receive rave reviews from mainstream journals whose primary concern is with the literary aspects of a story. Too often, little attention is paid to the accuracy of the story, or the underlying bias and ideology that casts American Indians in ways that suggest we are super- or sub-human creatures whose existence is confined to the remote past, or a mythological space and time. 

If you arrived at this webpage due to an Internet search on a specific title, I encourage you to locate a copy of A Broken Flute and read the review therein. If you already own the book, use the review to help children learn how to look critically at the ways that American Indians are presented in the book. A Broken Flute is available from Oyate.

1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving

Abiding Appalachia: Where Mountain and Atom Meet

Acorn Soup

Across the Wide River

Adaline Falling Star

Adopted by the Eagles

Adventure on Thunder Island

After and Before the Lightning

An Algonquian Year: The Year According to the Full Moon

"Amazing Indian Children" Series:

• Amee-nah: Zuni Boy Runs the Race of His Life
• Doe Sia: Bannock Girl and the Handcart Pioneers
• Kunu: Winnebago Boy Escapes
• Moho Wat: Sheepeater Boy Attempts a Rescue
• Naya Nuki: Shoshoni Girl Who Ran
• Om-kas-toe: Blackfeet Twin Captures an Elkdog
• Pathki Nana: Kootenai Girl Solves a Mystery
• Soun Tetoken: Nez Perce Boy Tames a Stallion

American Indian Myths and Legends
American Indian Mythology, Kiowa Voices, Vol. II: Myths, Legends and Folktales

American Indian Stories

American Indian Trickster Tales

America's Fascinating Indian Heritage

Amikoonse (Little Beaver)

And Still the Turtle Watched

Angela Weaves a Dream: The Story of a Young Maya Artist

Anna's Athabaskan Summer

Antelope Woman

Apache Children and Elders Talk Together

Apache Rodeo

April Raintree

Ararapikva: Creation Stories other People

Arctic Hunter

Arrow Over the Door

Arrow to the Sun: A Pueblo Indian Tale

Ashkii and His Grandfather

As Long as the Rivers Flow

Atlas of the North American Indian

Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences

Back in the Beforetime: Tales of the California Indians

Bead on an Anthill: A Lakota Childhood

Bears Make Rock Soup and other stories

Behind Closed Doors: Stories from the Kamloops Indian Residential School

Beneath the Stone: A Mexican Zapotec Tale

Best Thanksgiving Book: ABC Adventures

Bighorse the Warrior

The Big Tree and the Little Tree

Bineshinnh Dibaajmowin/Bird Talk

The Birchbark House

The Bird who Cleans the World and the Mayan Fables

The Birth of Nanbosho

The Birthday Bear

Bison for Kids

Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux

Blackfoot Children and Elders Talk Together

Black Mountain Boy: A Story of the Boyoood of John Honie

The Blizzard’s Robe

The Blue Roses

Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940

Boat Ride with Lilian Two Blossom

Bone Dance

The Book of Medicines

Boozhoo, Come Play with us

The Boxcar Children: The Mytstery of the Lost Village

A Boy Becomes a Man at Wounded Knee

The Boy Who Loved Mourning

The Boy Who Made Dragonfly

A Braid of Lives: Native American Childhood

Brave Bear and the Ghosts: A Sioux Legend

Brave Eagle’s Account of the Fetterman Fight

The Bravest Flute: A Story of Courage in the Mayan Tradition

Bring Back the Deer

Brothers in Arms

Brother Eagle, Sister Sky

Buffalo: with Selections from Native American Song-Poems illustrated with original paintings

Buffalo Before Breakfast

Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden: Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians

Buffalo Days

Buffalo Dreams

Buffalo Hunt

The Buffalo Jump

Building an Igloo

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

Caddie Woodlawn

California Missions to Cut out: Book 1

California Missions: Projects and Layouts

Caribou Song/atihko nikamon

Cherokee Sister

Cheryl Bibalhats/Cheryl’s Potlach

Chester Bear, Where Are You?

Cheyenne Again

The Chichi Hoohoo Bogeyman

Children of Clay: A Family of Pueblo Potters

Children of the First People

Children of the Great Muskeg

Children of Guatemala

Children of the Indian Boarding Schools

Children of the Midnight Sun: Young Native Voices of Alaska

Children of the Maya: A Guatemalan Odyssey

Children of Native American Today

Children of the Sierra Madre

Children of the Tlingit

Children of the Longhouse

Children of Yucatan

The Choctaw Code

Chronicles of American Indian Protest

Clambake: A Wampanoag Tradition

Clamshell Boy: A Makah Legend

Cloud Eyes

Continuum

"Council for Indian Education" Series:

• Charlie Young Bear
• The Day of the Ogre Kachinas
• Fire Mate
• From the Ashes
• Heart of Naosaqua
• Navajo Long Walk (Armstrong)
• Nesuya's Basket
• Quest for Courage

The Courage of Sarah Noble

A Coyote Columbus Story

Coyote Fights the Sun: A Shasta Indian Tale

Coyote and the Fire Stick: A Pacific Northwest Indian Tale

Coyote and the Grasshoppers: A Pomo Legend

Coyote and the Laughing Butterflies

Coyote and Little Turtle

Coyote in Love

Coyote in Love with a Star

Coyote and the Magic Words

Coyote Makes Man

Coyote Places the Stars

The Coyote Rings the Wrong Bell

Coyote Sings to the Moon

Coyote Steals the Blanket: A Ute Tale

Coyote Stories

Coyote Stories for Children

Coyote Stories of the Montana Salish Indians

Coyote Stories of the Navajo People

Coyote: A Trickster Tale from the American Southwest

Coyote the Trickster

Coyote and the Winnowing Birds

Crafts for Thanksgiving

Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas

Crazy Horse’s Vision

Crow Children and Elders Talk Together

The Crying Christmas Tree

Dakota Dreams

Dancing Drum: A Cherokee Legend

Dancing Rainbows

Dancing with the Indians

Dancing with the Wind: The ArtsReach Literary Magazine

Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road

Daughter of Suqua

Day of the Dead: A Mexican- American Celebration

The Days of Augusta

The Day Sun Was Stolen

Death of the Iron Horse

Dezbah and the Dancing Tumbleweeds

The Diary of Anne Frank

Did You Hear Wind Sing Your Name? An Oneida Song of Spring

The Dirt is Red Here

Dirt Road Home

Discovering the Inca Ice Maiden

Doe Sia: Bannock Girl and the Handcart Pioneers

Doesn’t Fall Off His Horse

Don’t Know Much About Sitting Bull

Dragonfly Kites/pijihakanisa

Dragonfly’s Tale

Dreamcatcher (Maynard)

Dreamcatcher (Osofsky)

The Dreamcatcher: Keep your happy dreams-forever!

Drumbeat, Heartbeat: A Celebration of the PowWow

Durable Breathe

Eagle Feather

Eagle Feather—An Honor

Eagle Song

Earth Daughter: Alicia of Acoma Pueblo

Earth Maker’s Lodge: Native American Folklore, Activities, and Foods

Earthmaker’s Tales: North American Indian Stories About Earth Happenings

Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928

Elderberry Flute Song: Contemporary Coyote Tales

Emma and the Trees/Emma minwaah mtigooh

Enduring Wisdon: Sayings from Native Americans

Eskimo Boy: Life in an Inupiaq Eskimo Village

The Eye of the Needle

Eyes of Darkness

False Face

Feather in the Wind

A Few More Stories: Contemporary Seneca Indian Tales of the Supernatural

Firefly Night

Fire Race: A Karuk Coyote Tale

The First American Thanksgiving

First Came the Indians

First Nations Families

First Nations Technology

The First Thanksgiving (George)

The First Thanksgiving (Hayward)

The First Thanksgiving (Jackson)

The First Thanksgiving (Rogers)

First Woman and the Strawberry: A Cherokee Legend

Five Little Katchinas

The Flute Player

Follow the Stars: A Native American Woodlands Tale

Food and Recipes of the Native Americans

Forbidden Talent

Fort Chipewyan Homecoming: A Journey to Native Canada

Fox on the Ice/mahkesis miskwamihk e-cipatapit

Fox Song

Four Seasons of Corn: A Winnebago Tradition

From Abenaki to Zuni: A Dictionary of Native American Tribes

From the Belly of the Beast

From the Deep Woods to Civilization

From the Land of the White Birch

Frozen Land: Vanishing Cultures

The Gathering: Stories for the Medicine Wheel

The Gift of the Sacred Pipe

Ghost Dance (Seale)

The Ghost Dance (McLerran)

The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890

A Gift for Ampato

Gift Horse

The Girl Who Chased Away Sorrow: The Diary of Sarah Nita, a Navajo Girl, New Mexico, 1864

Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughter: Coyote Builds North America

Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message

Gold Fever

Goodbird the Indian: His Story

The Good Luck Cat

Good News from New England: A True Relation of Things Very Remarkable at the Plantation of Plimoth in New England

The Grandchildren of the Incas

Grandchildren of the Lakota

Grandfather Drum

Grandfather Four Winds and Rising Moon

Grandmother’s Pigeon

Grandma’s Special Feeling

Grandmother Five Baskets

Grandmother’s Dreamcatcher

Grandmother’s Gift: Stories from the Anishinaabeg

The Great Buffalo Race

The Great Canoes: Revising a Northwest Coast Tradition

Green Grass, Running Water

Growing up Native American

Growing Up: Where the Partridge Drums Its Wings

Halfbreed

The Handbook of North American Indians, California

Headliner’s Island

Hands-on Latin American: Art Activities for All Ages

Hau Kola-Hello Friend

A Heart Full of Turquoise

Here Comes Tricky Rabbit!

Hiroshima No Pika

History of the Ojibway Nation

Home Country

Home to Medicine Mountain

Honour the sun

Horse Raid: An Arapaho Camp in the 1800s

House Made of Dawn

How the Birch Tree Got Its Stripes

How Chipmunk Got his Stripes

How to Draw Indian Arts and Crafts

How Eagle Got His Good Eyes

How the Indians Bought the Farm

How the Loon Lost Her Voice

How Magpie Got His Yellow Bill

How the Mouse Got Brown Teeth

How Raven Freed the Moon

How the Robin Got Its Red Breast: A Legend of the Sechelt People

How the Seasons Came: A North American Indian Folktale

How the Stars Fell Into the Sky

The Hunter and the Woodpecker

I Can’t Have Bannock but the Beaver Has a Dam

If You Were At…The First Thanksgiving

I Knew Two Metis Women

Iktomi and the Buzzard

Iktomi and the Coyote

Iktomi and the Ducks

Iktomi Loses His Eyes

I Heard the Owl Call My Name

I’ll sing ‘til the day I die: Conversations with Tyendinaga Elders

The Illustrated History of the Chippewas of Nawah

in a vast dreaming

Indian Boyhood

Indian Cartography

Indian Crafts and Activity Book

Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains

The Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

The Indians’ Book

The Indian in His Wigwam

The Indian School

Indian School Days

Indian School: Teaching the White Man’s Way

Indian Shoes

In the Fifth World: Portrait of the Navajo Nation

Ininatig’s Gift of Sugar: Traditional Native Sugarmaking

Initiation

Into the Moon: Heart, Mind, Body, Soul

In Two Words: A Yup’ik Eskimo Family

Iron Horses

Isaac’s Dreamcatcher

Ishi: America’s Last Stone Age Indian

Ishi Rediscovered

Ishi’s Journey, from the Center to the Edge of the World: A Historical Novel about the Last Wild Indian in North America

Ishi: The Last of His People

Ishi’s Tale of Lizard

Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America

Island of Los Luggage

Is My Friend at Home? Pueblo Fireside Tales

Itch Like Crazy

It Could Always Be Worse

It’s a Family Thanksgiving

Jack Pine Fish Camp

James Bay Memories

Jason and the Sea Otter

Jason’s New Dugout Canoe

Jingle Dancer

The Journal of Julia Singing Bear

Jumping Mouse and the Great Mountain: A Native American Tale

“Just Talking About Ourselves”: Voices of Our Youth

Ka-ha-si and the Loon: An Eskimo Legend

Karok Myths

"Kaya" Series:

• Changes for Kaya: A Story of Courage
• Kaya's Escape! A Survival Story
• Kaya's Hero: A Story of Giving
• Kaya and Lone Dog: A Friendship Story
• Kaya and the River Girl
• Kaya Shows the Way: A Sister Story
• Meet Kaya: An American Girl

Keepers of the Animals: Native American Stories and Wildlife Activities for Children

Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Environmental Activities for Children

Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children

The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse: Three Eyewitness Views by the Indian, Chief He Dog, the Indian-White, William Garnett, and the White Doctor, Valentine McGillycuddy

Kinaalda: A Navajo Girl Grows Up

Kokopelli and the Butterfly

Kokopelli’s Gift

Kokopelli, Drum in Belly

Kumak’s House: A Tale of the Far North

Ktunaxa Legends

Kwulasulwut: Stories from the Coast Salish

Kwulasulwut II: More Stories from the Coast Salish

Kyle’s Bath

Lakota and Dakota Animal Wisdom Stories

Lacrosse: The National Game of the Iroquois

Ladder to the Sky: How the Gift of Healing Came to the Ojibway Nation

Lakota Sioux Children and Elders Talk Together

Land of the Spotted Eagle

The Landing of the Pilgrims

Last Leaf First Snowflake to Fall

The Last Warrior

The Last Yahi: A Novel About Ishi

The Ledgerbook of Thomas Blue Eagle

The Legend of Jimmy Spoon

The Legend of Mexicatl

The Legend of the Lady Slipper

The Legend of Lady’s Slipper

The Legend of Leelanau

The Legend of the Loon

The Legend of Mackinac Island

The Legend of Sleeping Bear

The Legend of Spinoza, the Bear Who Speaks from the Heart

Legend of the White Buffalo Woman

Legends of the Iroquois

Lessons from Mother Earth

Lessons from Turtle Island: Native Curriculum in Early Childhood Classrooms

Less than Half, More than Whole

Let’s Be Indians!

Let’s Celebrate Thanksgiving

Lies to Live By

The Life and Death of Crazy Horse

The Light on the Tent Wall

Listen to the Night: Poems for the Animal Spirits of Mother Earth

Little Bear’s Vision Quest

Little Coyote Runs Away

The Little Duck/Sikhpsis

Little Eagle Lots of Owls

Little Firefly: An Algonquian Legend

A Little History of My Forest Life: An Indian-White Autobiography by Eliza Morrison

Little House on the Prairie

Little Voice

Little White Cabin

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

The Long March

Longwalker’s Journey: A Novel of the Choctaw Trail of Tears

Lord of the Animals: A Miwok Indian Creation Myth

Lost Bird of Wounded Knee: Spirit of the Lakota

The Lost Boy and the Monster

Luminaries of the Humble

Maata’s Journal

Maybe I Will Do Something: Seven Coyote Tales

Maii and Cousin Horned Toad

Mali Npnaqs: The Story of a Mean Little Old Lady

Mama, Do You Love Me?

Mama’s Little One

Manabozho’s Gifts: Three Chippewa Tales

The Manitous: The Spiritual World of the Ojibway

The Matchlock Gun

Mayers: A Yucatec Maya Family

Mayuk the Grizzly Bear

Meet Mindy: A Native Girl from the Southwest

Meet Naiche: A Native Boy from the Chesapeake bay Area

Meet Tricky Coyote!

Memory Songs

The Middle Five: Indian Schoolboys of the Omaha Tribe

Millie Cooper’s Ride: A True Story from History

Minik’s Story

Mink and Cloud

Mink and Grey Bird

Mink and Granny

Mink and Whale

Minuk: Ashes in the Pathway

The Mishomis Book: The Voice of the Ojibway

Missions of the Central Coast

Missions of the Inland Valleys

Missions of the Los Angeles Area

Missions of the Monterey Bay Area

Missions of the San Francisco Bay Area

Missions of the Southern Coast

Mohawk Trail

Montezuma and the Aztecs

Moon Mother: A Native American Creation Tale

Moonstick: The Seasons of the Sioux

The Moon, the Sun, and the Coyote

More Earthmaker’s Tales: North American Indian Stories About Earth Happenings

More Star Tales: North American Indian Stories about the Stars

Morning on the Lake

Morning Sun, Black Star: The Northern Cheyenne Indians and America’s Energy Crisis

The Morning the Sun Went Down

Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth

Murdo’s Story: A Legend from Northern Manitoba

“Mush-hole”: Memories of a Residential School

Muskrat Will Be Swimming

My Arctic 1, 2, 3

My Grandmother’s Cookie Jar

My Heart Is on the Ground: The Diary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl, Carlisle Indian School, Pennsylvania, 1880

My Indian Boyhood

My Name is Seepeetza

My Navajo Sister

My People, the Sioux

Mystery of Coyote Canyon

Mystery of the Navajo Moon

Myths of the Cherokee

Myths and Legends of the Sioux

Nanabosho Dances

Nanabosho: How the Turtle Got Its Shell

Nanabosho, Soaring Eagle, and the Great Sturgeon

Nanobosho Steals Fire

Nanabosho and the Woodpecker

Native America: Portrait of the Peoples

Native American Culture Series: Arts and Crafts

Native American Culture Series: Child Reading

Native American Culture Series: Daily Life

Native American Culture Series: The European Invasion

Native American Culture Series: Spiritual Life

Native American Culture Series: Tribal Law

A Native American Feast

Native American Gardening: Stories, Projects, and Recipes for Families

Native American Picture Books of Change: The Art of Historic Children’s Editions

Native American Testimony

Native Americans

Native Americans in Children’s Literature

Native Americans: Projects, Games and Activities for Grades K-3

Native Americans: Projects, Games and Activities for Grades 4-6

Native North American Literature

The Naughty Little Rabbit and Old Man Coyote

Navajo ABC: A Dine Alphabet Book

Navajo Coyote Tales

Navajo Creation Myth: The Story of the Emergence

Navajo Long Walk (Armstrong)

Navajo Long Walk (Bruchac)

Navajo Stories of the Long Walk Period

Navajo: Visions and Voices Across the Mesa

Night Is Gone, Day Is Still Coming: Stories and Poems by American Indian Teens and Young Adults

The Night the White Deer Died

Nishnawbe: A Story of Indians in Michigan

No Borders

No Parole Today

Northern Lights: The Soccer Trails

Northwest Coast Indians

Northwoods Cradle Song: From a Menominee Lullaby

No Time to Say Goodbye: Children’s Stories of Kuper Island Residential School

Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert

Of Mother Earth and Father Sky: A Photographic Study of Navajo Cultures

Of Plymouth Plantation

Ojibwa Texts

The Ojibway Dream

Ojibway Family Life in Minnesota

Old Bag of Bones: A Coyote Tale

Old Enough

Old Father Storyteller

The Old Hogan

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims

One More Story: Contemporary Seneca Indian Tales of the Supernatural

On Mother’s Lap

On the Trail of Elder Brother: Gous’gap Stories of the Micmac Nation

On the Trail Made of Dawn: Native American Creation Stories

Orca’s Song

The Other Side of Nowhere

Our Journey

Outfoxing Coyote

Outlaws, Renegades and Saints: Diary of a Mixed-up Halfbreed

Pablo Remembers: The Fiesta of the Day of the Dead

Pah

Partial Recall: Photographs of Native North Americans

Pasquala: The Story of a California Indian Girl

The Path of the Quiet Elk

People of the Breaking Day

People of Salmon and Cedar

The People with Five Fingers

Photographs and Poems by Sioux Children

Pia Toya: A Goshute Indian Legend

The Pilgrims and Me

The Pilgrim’s First Thanksgiving

Pipaluk and the Whales

The Place at the Edge of the Earth

Plains Indians Diorama to Cut and Assemble

Pomo Basketmaking: A supreme art for the weaver

Popul Vuh

A Portrait of Spotted Deer’s Grandfather

Potlach: A Tsimshian Celebration

Power

Powwow

Powwow Summer: A Family Celebrates the Circle of Life

The Prince and the Salmon People

Protectors of the Land: An Environmental Journey to Understanding the Conservation Ethic

Pte Oyate: Buffalo Nations, Buffalo People

Pueblo Boy: Growing Up in Two Worlds

Pueblo Girls: Growing Up in Two Worlds

Pueblo Storyteller

Quest for the Eagle Feather

Questions and Swords: Folktales of the Zapatista Revolution

A Quick Brush of Wings

Quillworker: A Cheyenne Legend

Rachel’s Children

The Rainbow Bridge

The Rainbow Bridge: A Chumash Legend

Rainbow Crow

A Rainbow at Night: The World in Words and Pictures by Navajo Children

Rain Is Not My Indian Name

Rainy’s Powwow

The Range Eternal

Raven and the Moon and The Oystercatcher: Two Haida Legends

Raven Goes Berrypicking

Raven Returns the Water

Raven and Snipe

Raven’s Gift

Raven’s Light: A Myth from the People of the Northwest Coast

The Raven Steals the Light

Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest

A Really Good Brown Girl

Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature

Red Hawk’s Account of Custer’s Last Battle

Red Hawk and the Sky Sisters: A Shawnee Legend

Red Flower Goes West

Red Indian Fair Book

Red Parka Mary

red woman with backward dyes

The Return of crazy horse

Rising Voices: Writings of Young Native Americans

A River Lost

Rolly’s Bear

The Rough-Face Girl

Runs With Horses

The Sacred Harvest: Ojibway Wild Rice Gathering

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Saanii Dahataal: The Women Are Singing

Salmon Boy

A Salmon for Simon

Salmon Summer

Sculpted Stones/Piedras Labradas

Seaman’s Journal: On the Trail with Lewis and Clark

The Sea Monster’s Secret

Searching for Chipeta: The Story of a Ute and Her People

The Second Bend in the River

The Secrets and Mysteries of the Cherokee Little People, Yunwi Tsunsdi

The Secret of the White Buffalo

Seeds of Struggle, Songs of Hope: Poetry of Emerging Youth y Sus Maestros del Movimeniento

Selu: Seeking the Corn Mother’s Wisdom

Seminole Children and Elders Talk Together

The Seven Fires: An Ojibway Prophecy

The Seven Visions of Bull Lodge as Told by His Daughter Garter Snake

Seya’s Song

Shannon: An Ojibway Dancer

Shingebiss: An Ojibwa Legend

Shooting Back from the Reservation: A Photographic View of Life by Native American Youth

The Sign of the Beaver

Sika and the Raven

Sing Down the Moon

Sing Down the Rain

The Sioux: Facts, Stories, Activities

Sitting Bull, Champion of the Sioux

Sitting Bull and His World

Skeleton Man

The Sketchbook of Thomas Blue Eagle

Skunny Wundy and other Indian Tales

SkySisters

The Snake that Lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Other Ohlone Stories

Soaring Spirits: Conversations with Native American Teens

Solar Storms

Soloman’s Tree

Son of Raven, Son of Deer: Fables of the Tse-Shaht People

Song of the Hermit Thrust: An Iroquois Legend

Song of Sedna

Songs from the Loom: A Navajo Girl Learns to Weave

Songs of Shiprock Fair

The Song Within My Heart

The Sound of Flutes

Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry

Spider Spins a Story: Fourteen Legends from Native America

Spider Woman

The Spirit Line

Spirit of the Maya: A Boy Explores His People’s Mysterious Past

Spirit of the White Bison

Spirit Transformed: A Journey from Tree to Totem

Spirit Voices of Bones

Spotted Eagle and Black Crow: A Lakota Legend

Spotted Tail’s Folk: A History of the Brule Sioux

The Spring Celebration

Squanto and the First Thanksgiving

The Star Maiden

Star Tales: North American Indian Stories about the Stars

Stories of the Road Allowance People

The Story of Blue Elk

The Story of Colors/La Historia de los Colores

A Story of the Dreamcatcher

The Story of the First Thanksgiving

The Story of Jumping Mouse: A Native American Legend

The Story of the Pilgrims

A Story to Tell: Traditions of a Tlingit Community

The Storyteller’s Sourcebook

The Story of Thanksgiving (Bartlett)

The Story of Thanksgiving (Skarmeas)

Strong Hearts: Native American Visions and Voices

The Sugar Bush

Sunflower’s Promise: A Zuni Legend

Sunpainters: Eclipse of the Navajo Sun

Supper for Crow: A Northwest Coast Indian Tale

A Symphony of Whales

T’aal: The One who Takes Bad Children

The Tale of Rabbit and Coyote

Ten Little Rabbits

Testimony: Death of a Guatemalan Village

The Thanksgiving Beast Feast

Thanksgiving Fun Activity Book

Thanksgiving Day (Gibbons)

Thanksgiving Day (Rockwell)

Thanksgiving: A Native Perspective

The Thanksgiving Story

That Tricky Coyote!

Thunderwoman: A Mythic Novel of the Pueblos

The Truth about Sacajawea

There Still are Buffalo

They Dance in the Sky: Native American Star Myths

They Were Strong and Good

This Land is My Land

Those Tiny Bits of Beans

Thunder Bear and Ko: The Buffalo Nation and Nambe Pueblo

Time Among the Navajos: Traditional Lifeways on the Reservation

Tjatjakiymatchan (Coyote): A Legend from Carmel Valley

To Kill an Indian: Indian Views on the Last Days of Crazy Horse

To Live in Two Worlds: American Indian Youth Today

Tonweya and the Eagles and Other Lakota Tales

Totem Pole

Totem Pole Carving: Bringing a Log to Life

Truth and Bright Water

The Turkey Girl: A Zuni Cinderella Story

Turkey’s, Pilgrims, and Indian Corn

Turquoise Boy: A Navajo Legend

Turtle Island: Tales of the Algonquian Nation

Turtle Lung Woman’s Granddaughter

Turtle Meat and other Stories

Turtle’s Race with Beaver

Two Bad Boys: A Very Old Cherokee Tale

Two Bear Cubs: A Miwok Legend from California’s Yosemite Valley

Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival

Two Pairs of Shoes

Urban Voices: The Bay Area Indian Community

The Upstairs room

The Vanishing Race and Other Illusions: Photographs of Indians by Edward S. Curtis

Vatos

The Very First Americans

The Very First Thanksgiving Day

Voice of the Turtle: American Indian Literature 1900-1970

Waboseg (An Ojibwe story about Rabbits’ ears)

Waheenee: An Indian Girl’s Story

Wait for Me!

Walking the Choctaw Road

Walks in Beauty

Walk Two Moons

Waleye Warriors: An Effective Alliance Against Racism and for the Earth

War of the Eagles

Waterlily

Watership Down

We Are All Related: A Celebration of Our Cultural Heritage

We Are the Many: A Picture Book of American Indians

Weaving a California Tradition: A Native American Basketweaver

Weave Little Stars Into My Sleep: Native American Lullabies

Whale Brother

Whale Girl

When Beaver Was Very Great

When the Chenoo Howls: Native American Tales of Terror

When the Moon is Full: A Lunar Year

When the Rain Sings: Poems by Young Native Americans

When the World Ended, How Hummingbird Got Fire, How People Were Made

Where Courage Is Like a Wild Horse

Where Did You Get Your Moccasins

Where Only the Elders Go—Moon Lake Loon Lake

Where There Is No Name for Art: The Art of Tewa Pueblo Children

Where the Rivers Meet

Whispers Among the Mission Trail

Whispers from the First Californians: A Story of California’s First People

White Buffalo Woman: A Storybook Based on Indian Legend

White Wolf

who will tell my brother?

Why Buffalo Roam

Wild Rice and the Ojibway People

The Winter People

Winter Thunder: Retold Tales

Wisahkecahk Flies to the Moon

The Wish Wind

WolfStar

Women of the Struggle: Portraits and Testimony of Native American Women

Word Up! Hope for Youth Poetry

The World of Manabozho: Tales of the Chippewa Indians

The Worry Stone

Wounded Knee

Writing as Witness

The Year of Miss Agnes

Yonder Mountains: A Cherokee Legend

Yudonsi: A Tale from the Canyons

A Zuni Artist Looks at Frank Hamilton Cushing

Zuni Breadstuff

Zuni Children and Elders Talk Together

The Zunis: Self-Portrayals