Indigenous Peoples in the United States

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.

As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”

As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is “a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”

Reviews
“Robin Wall Kimmerer is writer of rare grace. She writes about the natural world from a place of such abundant passion that one can never quite see the world the same way after having seen it through Kimmerer’s eyes. In Braiding Sweetgrass, she takes us on a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise. She is a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” —Elizabeth Gilbert

“Robin Wall Kimmerer has written an extraordinary book, showing how the factual, objective approach of science can be enriched by the ancient knowledge of the indigenous people. It is the way she captures beauty that I love the most—the images of giant cedars and wild strawberries, a forest in the rain and a meadow of fragrant sweetgrass will stay with you long after you read the last page.” —Jane Goodall

“I give daily thanks for Robin Wall Kimmerer for being a font of endless knowledge, both mental and spiritual.”—Richard Powers, The New York Times

“Robin Wall Kimmerer opens a sense of wonder and humility for the intelligence in all kinds of life we are used to naming and imagining as inanimate.” —Krista Tippett, host of On Being

Additional Information
112 pages | 5.00" x 7.00" | Hardcover 

The author of the award-winning memoir Red Paint returns with a razor-sharp, clear-eyed collection of essays on what it means to be a proudly queer indigenous woman in the United States today

Drawing on a rich family archive as well as the anthropological work of her late great-grandmother, Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe explores themes ranging from indigenous identity and stereotypes to cultural displacement and environmental degradation to understand what our experiences teach us about the power of community, commitment, and conscientious honesty.

Unapologetically punk, the essays in Thunder Song segue from the miraculous to the mundane, from the spiritual to the physical, as they examine the role of art—in particular music—and community in helping a new generation of indigenous people claim the strength of their heritage while defining their own path in the contemporary world.

Reviews
"Blending beautiful family history with her own personal memories, LaPointe’s writing is a ballad against amnesia, and a call to action for healing, for decolonization, for hope." —Lauren Puckett-Pope, Elle

“It’s a provocative and wonderfully crafted collection exploring cultural legacies, colonialism, and finding your own path forward.” —Susie Dumond, BookRiot

"Lyrical prose elevates LaPointe’s incisive and heartfelt personal reflections. The result is a beautifully rendered snapshot of contemporary American Indigenous life." —Publishers Weekly

"These passionate essays, adamant in their activist pleas, reflect hard-won wisdom, as well as the representative significance of the author’s experiences. Probing and poignant reflections on Indigenous America." —Kirkus Reviews

“Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe’s essays in Thunder Song are loud, bold, and startlingly majestic. None of Sasha’s examinations fail to find truth: page after page, the intersections of family, heritage, history, and music build to countless transcendental moments for the reader, which is not only the magic of this book but a clear testament to Sasha’s immense storytelling power. She is a major talent. Thunder Song is masterful and wise, and it will not be forgotten.” ––Morgan Talty, National Bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez

Additional Information
256 pages | 5.36" x 8.30" | Hardcover

Reminiscent of the works of Mary Karr and Terese Marie Mailhot, a memoir of family and survival, coming-of-age on and off the reservation, and of the frictions between mainstream American culture and Native inheritance; assimilation and reverence for tradition.

Deborah Jackson Taffa was raised to believe that some sacrifices were necessary to achieve a better life. Her grandparents—citizens of the Quechan Nation and Laguna Pueblo tribe—were sent to Indian boarding schools run by white missionaries, while her parents were encouraged to take part in governmental job training off the reservation. Assimilation meant relocation, but as Taffa matured into adulthood, she began to question the promise handed down by her elders and by American society: that if she gave up her culture, her land, and her traditions, she would not only be accepted, but would be able to achieve the “American Dream.”

Whiskey Tender traces how a mixed tribe native girl—born on the California Yuma reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico—comes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parent’s desires for her to transcend the class and “Indian” status of her birth through education, and despite the Quechan tribe’s particular traditions and beliefs regarding oral and recorded histories. Taffa’s childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression. Pan-Indian, as well as specific tribal histories and myths, blend with stories of a 1970s and 1980s childhood spent on and off the reservation.

Taffa offers a sharp and thought-provoking historical analysis laced with humor and heart. As she reflects on her past and present—the promise of assimilation and the many betrayals her family has suffered, both personal and historical; trauma passed down through generations—she reminds us of how the cultural narratives of her ancestors have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of the “melting pot” of America, revealing all that is sacrificed for the promise of acceptance.

Reviews
“We have more Native stories now, but we have not heard one like this. Whiskey Tender is unexpected and propulsive, indeed tender, but also bold, and beautifully told, like a drink you didn’t know you were thirsty for. This book, never anything less than mesmerizing, is full of family stories and vital Native history. It pulses and it aches, and it lifts, consistently. It threads together so much truth by the time we are done, what has been woven together equals a kind of completeness from brokenness, and a hope from knowing love and loss and love again by naming it so.” — Tommy Orange, National Bestselling Author of There There 

"What makes Taffa’s version exceptional is her visceral prose and sharp attunement to the tragedies of assimilation. This is a must-read."— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A warm and propulsive personal history that lucidly traces its Native and colonial legacies to draw a complex and humane portrait of a family and a pivotal political time in U.S. history. Taffa is a gifted raconteur and her memoir should be required reading for everyone in this country." — Melissa Febos, author of Body Work and Girlhood, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

Additional Information
304 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 6 Photographs | Hardcover 

Improve your well-being with Native American herbal medicine

Native American herbal medicine offers a powerful way to connect with the earth and heal naturally—and with this handbook of Native American herbs, you can learn all about herb uses and their restorative effects. Written by an Indigenous herbalist, this guide shows you how to responsibly use traditional plants to treat anxiety, colds, inflammation, and more.

This standout among books about herbs and healing will help you:
- Learn about a time-honored practice—Discover the origins and healing secrets of Native American herbalism, its traditional and modern uses, and how tools like the medicine wheel teach us about our relationship with the natural world.

- Identify the essential herbs—Explore the healing properties of medicinal herbs for wellness, from anise hyssop to yerba santa.

- Make 75 natural remedies—Ease physical and emotional ailments with Native American remedies, like Memory Support Tea, Stress-Induced Headache Tincture, and Antibacterial Healing Herb Liniment.

Tap into traditional wisdom with this Native American herbal medicine book for health and well-being.

Reviews
"A beautiful jumping-off point for anyone who is interested in practical herbalism. Angela organizes the wisdom of Native American herbalism in a way that is accessible for anyone to pick up and fold into their everyday life." —Kathleen Lee, acupuncturist, herbalist, and spiritual business mentor

"Angela is a wise and fierce protector of plant medicine and traditions of healing. Her first book, A Beginner's Guide to Native American Herbal Medicine, is a meaningful, accessible resource for readers who seek to ground themselves in understanding and build an herbal practice of integrity." —Graham Wesley

Additional Information
165 pages | 7.50" x 9.25" | full-colour photographs throughout | Paperback

The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples

Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.

With growing support for movements such as the campaign to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day and the Dakota Access Pipeline protest led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States is an essential resource providing historical threads that are crucial for understanding the present. In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: “The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them.”

Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples’ history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is a 2015 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature.

Reviews
“Meticulously documented, this thought-provoking treatise is sure to generate discussion.”—Booklist

“What is fresh about the book is its comprehensiveness. Dunbar-Ortiz brings together every indictment of white Americans that has been cast upon them over time, and she does so by raising intelligent new questions about many of the current trends of academia, such as multiculturalism. Dunbar-Ortiz’s material succeeds, but will be eye-opening to those who have not previously encountered such a perspective.”—Publishers Weekly

"Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States helped me clarify my place in this country. It confirmed what had been told to me by my ancestors: that Indigenous peoples, from the North Pole to the South, have been here since before the world was known as round. As a conquering nation, the United States has rewritten history to make people of the U.S. forget our past as natives to this land. This is especially apparent in the Mexi-phobic, immigrant-phobic policies of our time.

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (2014) helped me clarify my place in this country...This book is necessary reading if we are to move into a more humane future."—Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street

“A must-read for anyone interested in the truth behind this nation’s founding.” —Veronica E. Velarde Tiller, PhD, Jicarilla Apache author, historian, and publisher of Tiller’s Guide to Indian Country

“This may well be the most important US history book you will read in your lifetime. . . . Dunbar-Ortiz radically reframes US history, destroying all foundation myths to reveal a brutal settler-colonial structure and ideology designed to cover its bloody tracks. Here, rendered in honest, often poetic words, is the story of those tracks and the people who survived—bloodied but unbowed. Spoiler alert: the colonial era is still here, and so are the Indians.”—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams

“Dunbar Ortiz’s . . . assessment and conclusions are necessary tools for all Indigenous peoples seeking to address and remedy the legacy of US colonial domination that continues to subvert Indigenous human rights in today’s globalized world.”—Mililani B. Trask, Native Hawai‘ian international law expert on Indigenous peoples’ rights and former Kia Aina (prime minister) of Ka La Hui Hawai‘i

Additional Information
328 pages | 6.38" x 9.30" | Hardcover

A monumental gathering of more than 60 contemporary artists, photographers, musicians, writers and more, showcasing diverse approaches to Indigenous concepts, forms and mediums

This landmark volume is a gathering of Native North American contemporary artists, musicians, filmmakers, choreographers, architects, writers, photographers, designers and more. Conceived by Jeffrey Gibson, a renowned artist of Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee descent, An Indigenous Present presents an increasingly visible and expanding field of Indigenous creative practice. It centers individual practices, while acknowledging shared histories, to create a visual experience that foregrounds diverse approaches to concept, form and medium as well as connection, influence, conversation and collaboration. An Indigenous Present foregrounds transculturalism over affiliation and contemporaneity over outmoded categories.

Artists include: Neal Ambrose-Smith, Teresa Baker, Natalie Ball, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Rebecca Belmore, Andrea Carlson, Nani Chacon, Raven Chacon, Dana Claxton, Melissa Cody, Chris T. Cornelius, Lewis deSoto, Beau Dick, Demian DineYazhi’, Wally Dion, Divide and Dissolve, Korina Emmerich, Ka’ila Farrell-Smith, Yatika Starr Fields, Nicholas Galanin, Raven Halfmoon, Elisa Harkins, Luzene Hill, Anna Hoover, Sky Hopinka, Chaz John, Emily Johnson, Brian Jungen, Brad Kahlhamer, Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Adam Khalil, Zack Kahlil, Kite, Layli Long Soldier, Erica Lord, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Tanya Lukin Linklater, James Luna, Dylan McLaughlin, Meryl McMaster, Caroline Monnet, Audie Murray, New Red Order, Jamie Okuma, Laura Ortman, Katherine "KP" Paul/Black Belt Eagle Scout, Postcommodity, Wendy Red Star, Eric-Paul Riege, Cara Romero, Sara Siestreem, Rose B. Simpson, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie, Anna Tsouhlarakis, Arielle Twist, Marie Watt, Dyani White Hawk and Zoon a.k.a. Daniel Glen Monkman.

Additional Information
448 pages | 9.75" x 12.25" | 387 Illustrations | Hardcover

More than seventy delectable recipes that bring California’s Indigenous cuisines into kitchens today.

In this sumptuous cookbook, Sara Calvosa Olson (Karuk) reimagines some of the oldest foods in California for home cooks today. Meaning “Let’s eat!” in the Karuk language, Chími Nu’am shares the author’s delicious and inventive takes on Native food styles from across California. Over seventy seasonal recipes centered on a rich array of Indigenous ingredients follow the year from Fall (elk chili beans, acorn crepes) to Winter (wild boar pozole, huckleberry hand pies) to Spring (wildflower spring rolls, peppernut mole chicken) to Summer (blackberry braised smoked salmon, acorn milk freezer pops). Special sections offer guidance on acorn preparation, traditional uses of proteins, and mindful ingredient sourcing. Calvosa Olson has spent many years connecting her family’s foodways with a growing community, and these recipes, techniques, and insights invite everyone to Calvosa Olson’s table. Designed as an accessible entry for people beginning their journey toward a decolonized diet, Chími Nu’am welcomes readers in with Calvosa Olson’s politically attuned and irresistibly funny writing. With more than 100 photographs, this cookbook is a culinary gift that will add warmth and mouthwatering aromas to any kitchen.

Reviews
"This cookbook designed to uplift Indigenous California foods will delight foragers, adventurous home cooks, and those looking to connect with Native roots. It's a valuable addition to library shelves that will connect Native and non-Native Americans to the earth and its abundant gift of ingredients." —Library Journal

"With Chími Nu'am, Olson looks to encourage people to start thinking about a decolonized diet, connecting to the land and native ingredients prior to European colonization [... and] aims to make Indigenous ingredients and traditional Karuk recipes accessible to a whole range of home cooks." —Nina Friend, BBC World's Table

"Chími Nu’am is serious about taking a holistic view of reintegrating the healthfulness of traditional diets into modern lives, benefiting both personal well-being and the greater good." —Naomi Tomky, Atlas Obscura

"Calvosa Olson has written a book that will speak to multiple audiences. But whether she's guiding Indigenous readers to embrace more of their cultural foods or making recommendations for non-Indigenous readers interested in decolonizing their diets in an ethical way (hint: it's about reciprocity), her voice and philosophy come through clearly on the page." —Twilight Greenaway, Civil Eats

"To say that Chími Nu'am is just a cookbook is inaccurate. What took Calvosa Olson more than two years to write and publish is an expression of her life and an act of stewardship for the earth. [...] The author was raised to believe that if you take care of the land, the land will take care of you." —Prism

"Calvosa Olson invites readers to forage for and become more attuned to Indigenous and seasonal ingredients—nurturing a deeper connection to place and enhancing one’s role as an environmental steward." —Uprooted

"Connecting with nature is an approach to cooking that is often overlooked—but not for Sara Calvosa Olson. A native Californian raised by a Karuk mother, she is leading people on a path to decolonize their diets, one cup of manzanita flour at a time." —KCRW Good Food

"Connection to people and planet is central to both Calvosa Olson's personal approach to food as well as the message of Chími Nu'am." —Rachel Askinasi, The Messenger

"Besides being a creative, accessible cookbook, Calvosa Olson's work is a call for stewardship of the environment and an introduction to some local foods that have long been part of Native diets. It’s a terrific resource for foragers, teachers, libraries, classrooms, cooks, and anyone looking to learn more about the foodways of California's Indigenous peoples." —Edible East Bay

Additional Information
288 pages | 7.50" x 10.00" | Hardcover

Indigenous Peoples have taken physical recreational activity – sport – back from the colonizers. One of very few books to show the two edges of sport: it colonized but is now decolonizing.

Decolonizing Sport tells the stories of sport colonizing Indigenous Peoples and of Indigenous Peoples using sport to decolonize. Spanning several lands — Turtle Island, the US, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Kenya — the authors demonstrate the two sharp edges of sport in the history of colonialism. Colonizers used sport, their own and Indigenous recreational activities they appropriated, as part of the process of dispossession of land and culture. Indigenous mascots and team names, hockey at residential schools, lacrosse and many other examples show the subjugating force of sport. Yet, Indigenous Peoples used sport, playing their own games and those of the colonizers, including hockey, horse racing and fishing, and subverting colonial sport rules as liberation from colonialism. This collection stands apart from recent publications in the area of sport with its focus on Indigenous Peoples, sport and decolonization, as well as in imagining a new way forward.

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Sport, Colonialism and Decolonization (Janice Forsyth, Christine O’Bonsawin, Murray G. Phillips and Russell Field)

Section 1: Storytelling Beyond Competition: An Indigenous Perspective on Organized Sport (Brian Rice)

More Than a Mascot: How the Mascot Debate Erases Indigenous People in Sport (Natalie Welch)

Section 2: Interrogating the Archive Witnessing Painful Pasts: Understanding Images of Sports at Canadian Indian Residential Schools (Taylor McKee and Janice Forsyth)

On the Absence of Indigenous Moving Bodies: Whiteness, Decolonization and Indigenous/Indigenizing Sport History (Malcolm MacLean)

Section 3: Rights and Reconciliation # 87: Reconciliation, Sport History and Indigenous Peoples in Canada (Victoria Paraschak)

Taken at Face Value: The Legal Feasibility of Indigenous-Led Olympic Games (Christine O’Bonsawin)

Section 4: Settler Colonialism Canoe Races to Fishing Guides: Sport and Settler Colonialism in Mi’kma’ki (John Reid)

Moments of Transcending Colonialism? Rodeos and Races in Lethbridge (Robert Kossuth)

“Men Pride Themselves on Feats of Endurance”: Masculinities and Movement Cultures in Kenyan Running History (Michelle M. Sikes)

Section 5: Resistance and Activism Stealing, Drinking and Non-Cooperation: Sport, Everyday Resistance in Aboriginal Settlements in Australia (Gary Osmond)

Let’s Make Baseball! Practices of Unsettling on the Recreational Ball Diamonds of Tkaronto/Toronto (Craig Fortier and Colin Hastings)

Subjugating and Liberating at Once: Indigenous Sport History as a Double Edged Sword (Brendan Hokowhitu)

Additional Information
256 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

A 50th anniversary revised edition of the beloved classic, God is Red.

First published in 1973, Vine Deloria, Jr.’s God Is Red remains the seminal work on Native American religious views, asking the reader to think about our species and our ultimate fate in novel ways. Celebrating five decades of publication with this new edition, Deloria’s classic work reminds us to understand “that we are a part of nature, not a transcendent species with no responsibilities to the natural world.” It is time again to listen to Vine Deloria, Jr.’s powerful voice, informing us about a spiritual life that is independent of Western religion and that reveres the interconnectedness of all living things.

This new edition includes critical essays engaging with the original material by well-known Indigenous thinkers - Philip Deloria, Suzan Shown Harjo, Daniel Wildcat, and David E. Wilkins. Inside, the book covers a wide variety of topics including: the problem of creation, the origin of religion, Death, and Human personality.

“God is Red should be read and re-read by Americans who want to understand why the United States keeps losing the peace, war after war.” – Leslie Marmon Silko

Additional Information
360 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

The gripping, forgotten tale of Ira Hayes—a Native American icon and World War II legend who famously helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima but spent the latter half of his life haunted by being a war hero.

IRA HAYES tells the story of Ira Hamilton Hayes from the perspective of a Native American combat veteran of the Vietnam generation. Hayes, along with five other Marines, was captured in Joe Rosenthal’s iconic photograph of raising the stars and stripes on Mount Suribachi during the battle for the Japanese Island of Iwo Jima. The photograph was the inspiration and model for the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington.

Between the time he helped raise that flag and his death—and beyond—he was the subject of more newspaper columns than any other Native person. He was hailed as a hero and maligned as a chronic alcoholic unable to take care of himself. IRA HAYES explores these fluctuating views of Ira Hayes. It reveals that they were primarily the product of American misconceptions about Native people, the nature of combat, and even alcoholism. Like most surviving veterans of combat, Ira did not think of himself as a heroic figure. There can be no doubt that Ira suffered from PTSD, which is a compound of survivor’s guilt, the shock of seeing death, especially of one’s friends, and the isolation brought on by feeling that no one could understand what he had been through. Ira’s life has been a subject of two motion pictures and a television drama. All these dramas sympathize with him, but ultimately fail to see his binge drinking as his way of temporarily escaping the melancholy, the rage he felt, his sense of betrayal, and the sheer boredom of peacetime.

IRA HAYES breaks apart the complexities of Ira’s short life in honor of all Native veterans who have been to war in the service of the United States. This is equally their story.

Reviews
"Written with page-turning excitement, Tom Holm, a Native scholar and veteran of Vietnam, offers an Indigenous realism through the heroic life of Ira Hayes, an Akimel O’odam marine in World War II. You will re-live the life of Ira Hayes who helped to raise the American flag at Iwo Jima after the bloodiest battle in Pacific during the war and became a legend. A gifted storyteller, Holm writes with an engaging insight making the reader feel right beside Ira Hayes in boarding school, combat, and struggling with PTSD."—Donald L. Fixico (Muscogee, Seminole, Shawnee and Sac and Fox), Regents’ and Distinguished Foundation Professor of History, Arizona State University

“WWII hero Ira Hayes would have appreciated this book. Author Tom Holm uses Ira’s courage and humility as tools to dissect the historic and current fate of his Native American people. And Ira’s challenges focus light upon the tragedy of war and the horrors of PTSD. A meaningful and beautifully-researched read.”—Judy Avila, bestselling author of Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir by One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII

“Tom Holm brilliantly and respectfully offers readers a rich and long overdue account of the life and tragic death of Ira Hayes that pierces through the stereotypes and misconceptions that plagued his during his life and long after his passing. It is a sensitive work that reminds us of the enormous emotional, psychological, and cultural difficulties Hayes had to cope with throughout his life. It is a splendid and timely contribution.” —Dr. David Wilkins, E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professor in Leadership Studies and citizen of the Lumbee Nation of North Carolina

“As a historian and a veteran, Tom Holm is uniquely positioned to write this important story, the first scholarly treatment of Hayes' life and times. Holm examines Hayes' struggles with fame and illness after World War II while offering insights into a post-war America hostile to Native identity and sovereignty despite the sacrifices made by Hayes and thousands of other Native Americans.”—Paul C. Rosier, Ph.D., Professor of History at Villanova University and author of Serving Their Country: American Indian Politics and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century

"An excellent piece of scholarship; the definitive work on this Native American veteran. Carefully nuanced and rich in context, Holm transcends and dispels the stereotypes of Ira Haye’s life to show the complexity of the Akimel O’odham experience, the impacts of World War II, the social use of alcohol in 1940s America, and his personal experiences from poverty, racism, and the unwanted and unending attention following the flag raising on Mount Suribachi. As Holm concludes, 'He should be remembered for who he was rather that for what the dominant society has been led to believe about him.'"—William C. Meadows, Missouri State University

"Tom Holm deservedly looms large in the history of Indigenous peoples’ military service in the wars of the twentieth century. In his new book, IRA HAYES, Holm reintroduces us to the iconic individual in ‘The Photograph’ of the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi. Holm extricates Hayes from the trope of tragedy and the racist stereotype of the ‘drunken Indian’ into which his story was confined during his lifetime and in which it remained trapped since his death. Instead, a complex Ira Hayes comes to life in the long context of his Akimel O’odham culture and community, American colonialism and racism, his military service, and his likely suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This tour de force is, by turns, compelling, devastating, and intensely humanizing."—R. Scott Sheffield, Professor of History at University of the Fraser Valley and co-author of Indigenous Peoples and the Second World War: The Politics, Experiences and Legacies of War in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand

“A strong contribution to the literature of World War II, Native American warriors, and the unseen wounds of war.”—Kirkus Reviews

Additional Information
320 pages | 6.35" x 9.25" | Hardcover

“We need to learn and grow together, and if we are able to do this, we will create harmony,” counsels Tom Sampson, an elder of Tsartlip First Nation in British Columbia.

Dynamic and diverse, Coast Salish culture is bound together by shared values and relations that generate a resilient worldview. Jesintel—"to learn and grow together"—characterizes the spirit of this book, which brings the cultural teachings of nineteen elders to new generations.

Featuring interviews that share powerful experiences and stories, Jesintel illuminates the importance of ethical reciprocal relationships and the interconnectedness of places, land, water, and the spirit within all things. Elders offer their perspectives on language revitalization, Coast Salish family values and naming practices, salmon, sovereignty, canoe racing, and storytelling. They also share traumatic memories, including of their boarding school experiences and the epidemics that ravished their communities. Jesintel highlights the importance of maintaining relations and traditions in the face of ongoing struggles. Collaboration is at the heart of this work and informs how the editors and community came together to honor the boundless relations of Coast Salish people and their territories.

Elders Interviewed:
Tom Sampson (Tsartlip First Nation)
Virginia Cross (Muckleshoot Tribe)
Ernestine Gensaw (Lummi Nation)
Steve and Gwen Point (Stó:lō Nation)
Gene and Wendy Harry (Malahat Nation)
Claude Wilbur (Swinomish Tribe)
Richard Solomon (Lummi Nation)
Elaine Grinell (Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe)
Arvid Charlie (Cowichan Nation)
Amy George (Tsleil-Waututh Nation)
Nancy Shippentower (Nisqually Tribe)
Nolan Charles (Musqueam Indian Band)
Andy de los Angeles (Snoqualmie Tribe)
Jewell James (Lummi Nation)
Kenny Moses Sr. Family (Tulalip Tribal Nation)
Ramona Morris (Lummi Nation)

Reviews
"A beautiful sharing of thriving Coast Salish communities. Indigenous elders, cultures, and languages have so much precious wisdom to share, and Jesintel celebrates these through storytelling and photos. It is a generous gift to anyone who wants to better understand the resilience of Indigenous communities."- Michelle M. Jacob (Yakama), author of The Auntie Way: Stories Celebrating Kindness, Fierceness, and Creativity

Educator Information
Nineteen elders from Coast Salish communities in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia offer a portrait of their perspectives on language, revitalization, and Coast Salish family values. Topics include naming practices, salmon, canoe journeys and storytelling.

Additional Information
224 pages | 9.00" x 10.00" | 144 colour illustrations | 1 map | Paperback

A sweeping history of Indigenous traditions of gender, sexuality, and resistance that reveals how, despite centuries of colonialism, Two-Spirit people are reclaiming their place in Native nations.

Reclaiming Two-Spirits decolonizes the history of gender and sexuality in Native North America. It honors the generations of Indigenous people who had the foresight to take essential aspects of their cultural life and spiritual beliefs underground in order to save them.

Before 1492, hundreds of Indigenous communities across North America included people who identified as neither male nor female, but both. They went by aakíí’skassi, miati, okitcitakwe, or one of hundreds of other tribally specific identities. After European colonizers invaded Indian Country, centuries of violence and systematic persecution followed, imperiling the existence of people who today call themselves Two-Spirits, an umbrella term denoting feminine and masculine qualities in one person.

Drawing on written sources, archaeological evidence, art, and oral storytelling, Reclaiming Two-Spirits spans the centuries from Spanish invasion to the present, tracing massacres and inquisitions and revealing how the authors of colonialism’s written archives used language to both denigrate and erase Two-Spirit people from history. But as Gregory Smithers shows, the colonizers failed—and Indigenous resistance is core to this story. Reclaiming Two-Spirits amplifies their voices, reconnecting their history to Native nations in the 21st century.

Reviews
“Reclaiming Two-Spirits is by far the most compelling study to date of an evolving tradition and way of life that has always operated according to a cultural logic of its own and that we can appreciate fully only by taking that cultural logic seriously. Setting aside Anglo-American assumptions and categories, Smithers has listened closely to Two-Spirit people in the present and to traces of their voices in historical sources. This book is a major contribution to our understanding of Native American cultures and to an authentically diverse history of gender and sexuality.” —Richard Godbeer, author of Sexual Revolution in Early America

“From the onset of colonization until well into the present, the discourse and histories of Two-Spirit Indigenous peoples remains a puzzle for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people alike. Reclaiming Two-Spirits will help you solve that puzzle. Using familiar and obscure stories, Smithers skillfully reveals the centrality of Two-Spirit struggles within the matrix of settler colonial domination and the Indigenous struggle for freedom. He reveals the destructive nature of colonial violence and the possibilities of a Two-Spirit future. An original contribution to Indigenous cultural and intellectual histories, an understanding of the links between language and power, and Indigenous futures, this book will not only educate your mind, but will also touch your spirit.” —Kyle T. Mays (Black/Saginaw Chippewa), author of An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

Awards

• Winner of the 2023 Prose Award in Cultural Anthropology and Sociology
  

Additional Information
368 pages | 5.97" x 9.01" | Paperback

An Indigenous artist blends the aesthetics of punk rock with the traditional spiritual practices of the women in her lineage in this bold, contemporary journey to reclaim her heritage and unleash her power and voice while searching for a permanent home.

Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe has always longed for a sense of home. When she was a child, her family moved around frequently, often staying in barely habitable church attics and trailers, dangerous places for young Sasha.

With little more to guide her than a passion for the thriving punk scene of the Pacific Northwest and a desire to live up to the responsibility of being the namesake of her beloved great-grandmother—a linguist who helped preserve her Indigenous language of Lushootseed—Sasha throws herself headlong into the world, determined to build a better future for herself and her people.

Set against a backdrop of the breathtaking beauty of Coast Salish ancestral land and imbued with the universal spirit of punk, Red Paint is ultimately a story of the ways we learn to find our true selves while fighting for our right to claim a place of our own.

Examining what it means to be vulnerable in love and in art, Sasha offers up an unblinking reckoning with personal traumas amplified by the collective historical traumas of colonialism and genocide that continue to haunt native peoples. Red Paint is an intersectional autobiography of lineage, resilience, and, above all, the ability to heal.

Awards

• Winner of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award 

Reviews
"Red Paint is a miraculous book. Sasha LaPointe walks us through the sites of her evisceration while rebuilding a home within her body using sturdy materials: rose quartz, cedar bark, red clay, and the words of her ancestors. With each potent sentence, she shows us what access to power looks like. She shows us how to become whole.” —Elissa Washuta, author of White Magic

"As luminous as the morning sun over the fir forests, Red Paint is a story of where strength takes us. Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe goes looking to the past to help heal from terrible traumas, finding inspiration in her ancestors, the Salish people. This is a book destined to be a classic. Read it." —Rene Denfeld, bestselling author of The Child Finder

Additional Information
240 pages | 5.01" x 8.00" | Paperback

Music historian Craig Harris explores more than five hundred years of Indigenous history, religion, and cultural evolution in Rise Up! Indigenous Music in North America. More than powwow drums and wooden flutes, Indigenous music intersects with rock, blues, jazz, folk music, reggae, hip-hop, classical music, and more. Combining deep research with personal stories by nearly four dozen award-winning Indigenous musicians, Harris offers an eye-opening look at the growth of Indigenous music.

Among a host of North America’s most vital Indigenous musicians, the biographical narratives include new and well-established figures such as Mildred Bailey, Louis W. Ballard, Cody Blackbird, Donna Coane (Spirit of Thunderheart), Theresa “Bear” Fox, Robbie Robertson, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Joanne Shenandoah, DJ Shub (Dan General), Maria Tallchief, John Trudell, and Fawn Wood.

Reviews

Additional Information
344 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 40 Photos, Index | Paperback

This enriching cookbook celebrates eight important plants Native Americans introduced to the rest of the world: corn, beans, squash, chile, tomato, potato, vanilla, and cacao—with more than 100 recipes. When these eight Native American plants crossed the ocean after 1492, the world’s cuisines were changed forever. In Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky, James Beard Award-winning author and chef Lois Ellen Frank introduces the splendor and importance of this Native culinary history and pairs it with delicious, modern, plant-based recipes using Native American ingredients. Along with Native American culinary advisor Walter Whitewater, Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky shares more than 100 nutritious, plant‑based recipes organized by each of the foundational ingredients in Native American cuisine as well as a necessary discussion of food sovereignty and sustainability.

A delicious, enlightening celebration of Indigenous foods and Southwestern flavors, Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky shares recipes for dishes such as Blue Corn Hotcakes with Prickly Pear Syrup, Three Sisters Stew, and Green Chile Enchilada Lasagna, as well as essential basics like Corn Masa, Red and Green Chile Sauces, and Cacao Spice Rub. The “Magic 8” ingredients share the page—and plate—to create recipes that will transform your world.

Reviews
"Seed to Plate honors the practical side of growing Indigenous heirloom seeds to fruition. Lois demonstrates how to respect the whole life cycle of these foods by processing and cooking them with reverence, so when they end up on our plate and in our bellies, they are true medicine. This book honors Native American food wisdom and transforms the way we think about daily nourishment.” —from the foreword by Melissa K. Nelson, (Anishinaabe/Métis [Turtle Mountain Chippewa]), Professor of Indigenous Sustainability, Arizona State University; President of the Cultural Conservancy"

"Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky is more than a beautiful and empowering book. It is a landmark in the culinary world, helping us remember timeless traditions and put them to use at a time when healthful traditions are needed most. It is a treasury of historical context, key botanical information, and practical tips for the kitchen that will allow us to use the bounty of nature for health and vitality."—Neal D. Barnard, MD, FACC, adjunct professor of medicine, George Washington Univ. School of Medicine & Health Sciences, president, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

Additional Information
320 pages | 7.60" x 9.40" | 75 full colour photos | Hardcover