Indigenous Peoples in the United States

“Our identity, our sense of belonging, our understanding of being human, is all connected to our relationship with the land. And our relationship with these lands span millennia. Our grandfathers and grandmothers that came before us walked these same ridges, valleys, and trails. They fished the same lakes, streams, and rivers. They cherished memories carried in the pungent smell of the fall tundra, in wafts of spruce, cottonwood, and willow smoke. They ventured throughout these lands until their final rest. Our ancestors are literally part of this land. We are part of this land.” –Evon Peter

The North is changing at an unprecedented rate as industrial development and the climate crisis disrupt not only the environment but also long-standing relationships to the land and traditional means of livelihood. Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North explores the ways in which Indigenous peoples in the Arctic have adapted to challenging circumstances, including past cultural and environmental changes. In this beautifully illustrated volume, contributors document how Indigenous communities in Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland, and Siberia are seeking ways to maintain and strengthen their cultural identity while also embracing forces of disruption.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors bring together oral history and scholarly research from disciplines such as linguistics, archaeology, and ethnohistory. With an emphasis on Indigenous place names, this volume illuminates how the land—and the memories that are inextricably tied to it—continue to define Indigenous identity. The perspectives presented here also serve to underscore the value of Indigenous knowledge and its essential place in future studies of the Arctic.

Contributions by Vinnie Baron, Hugh Brody, Kenneth Buck, Anna Bunce, Donald Butler, Michael A. Chenlov, Aron L. Crowell, Peter C. Dawson, Martha Dowsley, Robert Drozda, Gary Holton, Colleen Hughes, Peter Jacobs, Emily Kearney-Williams, Igor Krupnik, Apayo Moore, Murielle Nagy, Mark Nuttall, Evon Peter, Louann Rank, William E. Simeone, Felix St-Aubin, and Will Stolz.

Additional Information
448 pages | 8.00" x 10.00" | 172 Colour Illustrations | Paperback

Authenticity Note: This work contains contributions from Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors. It is up to readers to determine if this is an authentic work for their purposes.

Modern Indigenous cuisine from the renowned Native foods educator and former chef of Mitsitam Native Foods Café at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian

From Freddie Bitsoie, the former executive chef at Mitsitam Native Foods Café at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, and James Beard Award–winning author James O. Fraioli, New Native Kitchen is a celebration of Indigenous cuisine. Accompanied by original artwork by Gabriella Trujillo and offering delicious dishes like Cherrystone Clam Soup from the Northeastern Wampanoag and Spice-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin from the Pueblo peoples, Bitsoie showcases the variety of flavor and culinary history on offer from coast to coast, providing modern interpretations of 100 recipes that have long fed this country.

Recipes like Chocolate Bison Chili, Prickly Pear Sweet Pork Chops, and Sumac Seared Trout with Onion and Bacon Sauce combine the old with the new, holding fast to traditions while also experimenting with modern methods. In this essential cookbook, Bitsoie shares his expertise and culinary insights into Native American cooking and suggests new approaches for every home cook. With recipes as varied as the peoples that inspired them, New Native Kitchen celebrates the Indigenous heritage of American cuisine.

Reviews
“To seek and understand Indigenous foods is to dwell in the lands of our ancestors, to taste the earth and all that grows, from roots to leaf, from field and stream, to even the birds of the sky. Freddie not only has been immersed in this knowledge but has been a true, joyous steward of Native culture through food. This is going to be a staple in my house and will be a great gift for friends, family, and colleagues! I love Freddie!” — Irene Bedard, Iñupiat, Yupik, Métis-Cree, actor, activist, storyteller

“I have always used food as my entry point to learning more about cultures both outside of and within my own—and in New Native Kitchen, Freddie Bitsoie is an exceptional guide, showing off the vibrant, regional native cooking of what is now the United States, giving context to the people who created it while showing off the beautiful ingredients of a truly exciting and diverse cuisine.” — Noah Galuten, chef and author of forthcoming The Don’t Panic Pantry Cookbook

Additional Information
288 pages | 8.00" x 10.00" | 150 Color Photos | Hardcover 

Three-term poet laureate Joy Harjo offers a vivid, lyrical, and inspiring call for love and justice in this contemplation of her trailblazing life.

Joy Harjo, the first Native American to serve as U.S. poet laureate, invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road. A musical, kaleidoscopic, and wise follow-up to Crazy Brave, Poet Warrior reveals how Harjo came to write poetry of compassion and healing, poetry with the power to unearth the truth and demand justice.

Harjo listens to stories of ancestors and family, the poetry and music that she first encountered as a child, and the messengers of a changing earth—owls heralding grief, resilient desert plants, and a smooth green snake curled up in surprise. She celebrates the influences that shaped her poetry, among them Audre Lorde, N. Scott Momaday, Walt Whitman, Muscogee stomp dance call-and-response, Navajo horse songs, rain, and sunrise. In absorbing, incantatory prose, Harjo grieves at the loss of her mother, reckons with the theft of her ancestral homeland, and sheds light on the rituals that nourish her as an artist, mother, wife, and community member.

Moving fluidly between prose, song, and poetry, Harjo recounts a luminous journey of becoming, a spiritual map that will help us all find home. Poet Warrior sings with the jazz, blues, tenderness, and bravery that we know as distinctly Joy Harjo.

Additional Information
240 pages | 5.50" x 8.25" | 10 Photographs | Hardcover 

Red Nation Rising is the first book ever to investigate and explain the violent dynamics of bordertowns. Bordertowns are white-dominated towns and cities that operate according to the same political and spatial logics as all other American towns and cities. The difference is that these settlements get their name from their location at the borders of current-day reservation boundaries, which separate the territory of sovereign Native nations from lands claimed by the United States.

Bordertowns came into existence when the first US military forts and trading posts were strategically placed along expanding imperial frontiers to extinguish indigenous resistance and incorporate captured indigenous territories into the burgeoning nation-state. To this day, the US settler state continues to wage violence on Native life and land in these spaces out of desperation to eliminate the threat of Native presence and complete its vision of national consolidation “from sea to shining sea.” This explains why some of the most important Native-led rebellions in US history originated in bordertowns and why they are zones of ongoing confrontation between Native nations and their colonial occupier, the United States.

Despite this rich and important history of political and material struggle, little has been written about bordertowns. Red Nation Rising marks the first effort to tell these entangled histories and inspire a new generation of Native freedom fighters to return to bordertowns as key front lines in the long struggle for Native liberation from US colonial control. This book is a manual for navigating the extreme violence that Native people experience in reservation bordertowns and a manifesto for indigenous liberation that builds on long traditions of Native resistance to bordertown violence.

Reviews
“The authors of this brilliant exposition on bordertown violence are no ordinary academics, although academia would benefit from having more faculty scholars such as these. They are also master organizers, a part of a network of indigenous and other community organizers in Indian Country fueling the process of decolonization of Native lands and communities. Bordertown violence is as old as US colonization of the continent itself, and it persists today in the towns and cities that border Native reservations and communities all over US-claimed territory and is replicated in even more distant cities that have large Native populations, many of whom are homeless. This may be the most important organizing manual ever produced by a social movement in the United States.”—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

“The borders racking our world are in constant motion and, like the explosive grinding of tectonic plates, the violence of this movement and resistance to it emerges most sharply at the edges. This essential volume brings together militant intellectuals to provide an accessible introduction to the violent encirclement of indigenous communities, and to provide crucial concept-weapons to deepen ongoing collective resistance.” —George Ciccariello-Maher, author of Decolonizing Dialectics

“A remarkable body of work that effectively weaves long overdue native scholarship and historical analysis of settler colonialism with direct and timely frontline reports on the continuing bordertown wars and conflicts in occupied native territories. Offers a comprehensive framework for advancing present and future indigenous resistance and liberation struggles.”—John Redhouse (Diné)

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

A new and expanded version of Gord Hill's seminal illustrated history of Indigenous struggles in the Americas. When it was first published in 2010, The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book was heralded as a groundbreaking illustrated history of Indigenous activism and resistance in the Americas over the previous 500 years, from contact to present day. Eleven years later, author and artist Gord Hill has revised and expanded the book, which is now available in colour for the first time.

The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book powerfully portrays flashpoints in history when Indigenous peoples have risen up and fought back against colonizers and other oppressors. Events depicted include the the Spanish conquest of the Aztec, Mayan and Inca empires; the 1680 Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico; the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890; the resistance of the Great Plains peoples in the 19th century; and more recently, the Idle No More protests supporting Indigenous sovereignty and rights in 2012 and 2013, and the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. Canadian events depicted include the Oka crisis in 1990, the Grand River land dispute between Six Nations and the Government of Canada in 2006, and the Wet'suwet'en anti-pipeline protests in 2020.

With strong, plain language and evocative illustrations, this revised and expanded edition of The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book reveals the tenacity and perseverance of Indigenous peoples as they endured 500-plus years of genocide, massacre, torture, rape, displacement, and assimilation: a necessary antidote to conventional histories of the Americas.

The book includes a foreword by Pamela Palmater, a Mi'kmaq lawyer, professor, and political commentator.

Reviews
"Gord Hill's goal of giving indigenous peoples a better understanding of their past so as to counter the benign version all too often taught in schools and presented in the media makes the format [of his work] the perfect vehicle for his hard-hitting message."-BC Studies

"Gord Hill has put colonial myth-makers on notice with a comic that educates and inspires." - The St'at'imc Runner

"Comics aren't always known for treating serious subjects, but Gord Hill's The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book adds a dose of reality to the genre. Hill, of the Kwakwaka'wakw nation, has taken the topics of dispossession, genocide, and the colonization of First Nations in the western hemisphere and, surprisingly, pulled off a rendering in comic book form." -Dissident Voice

"Never before have I come across a non-fiction graphic novel capable of evoking such a powerful emotional response. Dealing with such topics as genocide, oppression and assimilation the comic is sure to cause frustration and sadness in the reader. At the same time, 500 Years of Resistance is inspirational and empowering, accurately depicting the strength and nobility of Native warriors. Gord's straightforward approach to writing coupled with his iconic illustrations has created a truly groundbreaking comic book." -Redwire Media

"An excellent introduction to the tremendous historical and ongoing legacy of resistance on the part of Indigenous peoples in Canada and elsewhere in the continent against the settler colonial regimes that continue to oppress and exploit." -Popmatters. com

Educator Information
This book is available in French: 500 ans de résistance autochtone 

Additional Information
144 pages | 9.00" x 12.00" | Comic Book | Colour Illustrations Throughout 

In a world that requires knowledge and wisdom to address developing crises around us, The Gatherings shows how Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples can come together to create meaningful and lasting relationships.

Thirty years ago, in Wabanaki territory – a region encompassing the state of Maine and the Canadian Maritimes – a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals came together to explore some of the most pressing questions at the heart of Truth and Healing efforts in the United States and Canada. Meeting over several years in long-weekend gatherings, in a Wabanaki-led traditional Council format, assumptions were challenged, perspectives upended, and stereotypes shattered. Alliances and friendships were formed that endure to this day.

The Gatherings tells the moving story of these meetings in the words of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants. Reuniting to reflect on how their lives were changed by their experiences and how they continue to be impacted by them, the participants share the valuable lessons they learned.

The many voices represented in The Gatherings offer insights and strategies that can inform change at the individual, group, and systems levels. These voices affirm that authentic relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples – with their attendant anxieties, guilt, anger, embarrassments, and, with time, even laughter and mutual affection – are key to our shared futures here in North America. Now, more than ever, it is critical that we come together to reimagine.

Reviews
“Very impressive. The contributions of these men and women are noteworthy and deserve to be read and available to all persons who are interested and want to learn from them.” — The Hon. Graydon Nicholas, Chancellor and Endowed Chair in Native Studies, St. Thomas University, and Former Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick

“Shirley N. Hager’s gentle and affirming spirit shines through as she introduces the reader to this unique, collective experience. I felt so much gratitude for each participant, opening themselves to let strangers in.” — Beth Clifford, Curriculum Coordinator, Maine Indian Education

“I had intended to only take a quick look at the book and come back to it later, but once I started reading I couldn’t stop. The Gatherings is a very well-constructed book of great importance both as a cultural document and as a tool for teaching and learning.”

Educator Information
Mawopiyane
Gwen Bear
The Reverend Shirley Bowen
Alma H. Brooks/Zapawey-kwey
gkisedtanamoogk
JoAnn Hughes
Debbie Leighton
Barb Martin
Miigam’agan
T. Dana Mitchell
Wayne A. Newell
Betty Peterson
Marilyn Keyes Roper
Wesley Rothermel

Afterword by Dr. Frances Hancock

To reflect the collaborative nature of this project, the word Mawopiyane is used to describe the full group of co-authors. Mawopiyane, in Passamaquoddy, literally means "let us sit together," but the deeper meaning is of a group coming together, as in the longhouse, to struggle with a sensitive or divisive issue – but one with a very desirable outcome. It is a healing word and one that is recognizable in all Wabanaki languages.

Table of Contents
Foreword
With Gratitude
Notes on Terminology
Introduction

Gathering

The Talking Circle

Miigam’agan
Wayne
Gwen
Dana
Alma
Barb
gkisedtanamoogk
Shirley H.
Debbie
Shirley B.
Wesley
Marilyn
Betty
JoAnn

The Last Gathering
The Decision
Hindsight
The Gatherings: May 1987 to May 1993
Creating This Book

The Giveaway Blanket

The Circle and Ceremony
The Circle and Decision Making
Ceremony: Protect or Share It?

Allies, Friends, Family
Beginnings
The Women Compare Notes
The Relationship Evolves
Mutuality

How We Got Here
The Doctrine of Discovery
But What about the Treaties?
The Personal Is Political
Economic Self-Determination
Beginning to Make Amends
Some Progress ... and a Long Way to Go

How It Could Be Different
Being Here Legitimately
Acknowledging First Peoples/Honoring the Treaties
An Indigenous Worldview
The Need for Gathering Spaces
Creating a Gathering Space
Working Together on a Cause
Humility versus “White Guilt”
Non-Natives Working with Our Own People
Entering the Longhouse

Being in the Relationship: An Afterword by Dr. Frances Hancock

Appendix: How This Book Came to Be
Notes
Suggested Resources
Contributors
Map: Location of the Gatherings
Reader’s Guide
Index

Additional Information
304 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 23 illustrations

Authenticity Note: This book's contributors are Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Readers must determine if this works as an authentic Indigenous work for their purposes.

When the Red Nation released their call for a Red Deal, it generated coverage in places from Teen Vogue to Jacobin to the New Republic, was endorsed by the DSA, and has galvanized organizing and action. Now, in response to popular demand, the Red Nation expands their original statement filling in the histories and ideas that formed it and forwarding an even more powerful case for the actions it demands.

One-part visionary platform, one-part practical toolkit, the Red Deal is a platform that encompasses everyone, including non-Indigenous comrades and relatives who live on Indigenous land. We—Indigenous, Black and people of color, women and trans folks, migrants, and working people—did not create this disaster, but we have inherited it. We have barely a decade to turn back the tide of climate disaster. It is time to reclaim the life and destiny that has been stolen from us and riseup together to confront this challenge and build a world where all life can thrive. Only mass movements can do what the moment demands. Politicians may or may not follow--it is up to them--but we will design, build, and lead this movement with or without them.

The Red Deal is a call for action beyond the scope of the US colonial state. It’s a program for Indigenous liberation, life, and land—an affirmation that colonialism and capitalism must be overturned for this planet to be habitable for human and other-than-human relatives to live dignified lives. The Red Deal is not a response to the Green New Deal, or a “bargain” with the elite and powerful. It’s a deal with the humble people of the earth; a pact that we shall strive for peace and justice and a declaration that movements for justice must come from below and to the left.

Reviews
“The Red Nation has given us The Red Deal, an Indigenous Peoples’ world view and practice that leads to profound changes in existing human relations. Five hundred years of European colonialism, which produced capitalist economic and social relations, has nearly destroyed life itself. Technology can be marshaled to reverse this death march, but it will require a vision for the future and a path to follow to arrive there, and that is what The Red Deal provides.”—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

"The Red Deal is an incendiary and necessary compilation. With momentum for a Green New Deal mounting, the humble and powerful organizers of The Red Nation remind us that a Green New Deal must also be Red—socialist, committed to class struggle, internationalist in orientation, and opposed to the settler-colonial theft of Indigenous lands and resources. Redistribution also requires reparations and land back. The Red Deal is a profound call to action for us all."—Harsha Walia, author of Undoing Border Imperialism and Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism

“We really need The Red Deal because it forces open a critical conversation on how Land Back can be a platform for mass mobilization and collective struggle. The Red Deal poignantly argues that if we do not foreground decolonization and Indigenous liberation in climate justice strategies such as the Green New Deal, we will reproduce the violence of the original New Deal that dammed life-giving rivers and further dispossessed Indigenous peoples of their lands. Strategically, The Red Deal shows how, if we understand green infrastructure and economic restructuring as anticolonial struggle, as well as an anticapitalist, we can move from reforms that deny Indigenous jurisdiction towards just coalitions for repossession that radically rethink environmental policy and land protection without sacrificing Indigenous life and relations.”—Shiri Pasternak, author of Grounded Authority: The Algonquins of Barriere Lake Against the State

“The Red Deal asserts that the fight for climate justice must center Native people when it comes to the issues that disproportionately impact Native communities, but it also communicates what the Green New Deal does not — namely, that public lands are stolen lands and climate change is significantly caused by just a few industries, which the government has at worst neglected to hold accountable and at best assisted in their efforts to mine the earth for resources in a move that put profits over people.” —Teen Vogue

“For the Red Nation, living and being interdependent with Mother Nature is explicitly anticapitalist. An ethos merely hinted at in the Green New Deal, The Red Deal understands that capitalism fundamentally protects wealth, not life”—The Politic

“The Red Nation also names Black abolitionists as an inspiration for the Red Deal, citing the links between mass incarceration and detention and climate change. They further note that police departments, prisons, and the U.S. military receive billions of taxpayer dollars annually while doing irreparable harm to Native Americans, Black people, and the Earth.” —Essence

Educator Information
Excerpt from the book:

The Red Deal begins with the oldest yet often forgotten struggle on this continent: ending the occupation. While usually erased from the history of this nation, settler colonial occupation has fundamentally shaped the development of the United States and indeed the world that it dominates economically and politically. Ending the occupation links those of us in the seat of empire with those who face its weapons, soldiers, and policies around the world. Together we share the common enemy of US imperialism, and Indigenous people here have fought against it since the first settlers began to occupy our lands by force. It is important to remember that the very first act of US imperialism was the military and settler incursions on Indigenous land as the fledgling colonies expanded westward. This is why we begin with ending the occupation.

The struggle against occupation on this continent has remained strong throughout history and continues to this day. We’ve seen this in the global uprisings led by Black relatives who have been resisting the colonization of Africa and the enslavement and oppression of African people stolen to work on this continent for centuries. The uprisings during the summer of 2020, even with the global COVID-19 pandemic, built upon the decades of Black resistance to police violence and the everyday brutality of American society towards Black people, and exploded into some of the largest mobilizations in US history. The spread of uprisings throughout cities across the country was also marked by the sharpening of tactics and clarity of the roots of the issues, with images of burnt down police precincts and flipped cop cars evoking memories of Black and Indigenous resistance to slave plantations and frontier forts. Calls for abolition of police and prisons arose with renewed volume, stretching forward from a long history of abolitionist struggle.

It is important that we continue nurturing these histories and movements of struggle against occupation on these lands and continue to build relationships with others globally who face the violence of occupation. We begin with addressing those things that act as obstacles to our collective liberation: the prisons and detention centers filled with our family members; the police officers and prison guards who stand between us and the capitalist interests they defend; and the military, police, and vigilantes who murder our relatives. As we know, colonial occupation is upheld by constant threats of violence and in many instances, actual violence. It is therefore no surprise that these obstacles to our life and wellbeing that employ violence in order to maintain the occupation, receive the largest proportions of resources by the US settler state. We seek to dismantle these institutions that get in our way of living good lives, and we aim to divert resources away from them through divestment.

This is just the first step, though. It is not enough to be against any one thing, even something as big, evil, and all-encompassing as colonial occupation. Ending the occupation gives us the space to breathe and envision other possibilities that we are for, and we must be clear about what we are for. We are for Indigenous life, for the life of all human and other-than-human beings. And in order to live good lives, we must heal ourselves from the destruction caused by colonialism and capitalism by stopping what harms us and desecrates our land and begin to build what will sustain us.

Additional Information
144 pages | 5.00" x 7.00" | b&w illustrations

Authenticity Note: The Red Nation is a coalition of Native and non-Native activists, educators, students, and community organizers advocating Native liberation. The Red Deal was written collectively by members of the Red Nation and the allied movements and community members who comprised the Red Deal coalition. Everyone from youth to elders; from knowledge keepers to farmers contributed to the creation of The Red Deal. It's up to readers to determine if this title works as an authentic resource for their purposes

Throughout her life, Elissa Washuta has been surrounded by cheap facsimiles of Native spiritual tools and occult trends, “starter witch kits” of sage, rose quartz, and tarot cards packaged together in paper and plastic. Following a decade of abuse, addiction, PTSD, and heavy-duty drug treatment for a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, she felt drawn to the real spirits and powers her dispossessed and discarded ancestors knew, while she undertook necessary work to find love and meaning.

In this collection of intertwined essays, she writes about land, heartbreak, and colonization, about life without the escape hatch of intoxication, and about how she became a powerful witch. She interlaces stories from her forebears with cultural artifacts from her own life—Twin Peaks, the Oregon Trail II video game, a Claymation Satan, a YouTube video of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham—to explore questions of cultural inheritance and the particular danger, as a Native woman, of relaxing into romantic love under colonial rule.

Reviews
"A fascinating magic trick of a memoir that illuminates a woman's search for meaning." —Kirkus, Starred Review

"Washuta’s frank confrontations with, and acknowledgments of, unhealed wounds are validating. . . . evoking the sense of peeling open a letter from an estranged friend. A poignant work by a rising essayist."—Foreword Reviews, Starred Review

"Her prose is crisp and precise, and the references hit spot-on. . . . Fans of the personal essay are in for a treat."—Publishers Weekly

"Powerful. . . . Washuta’s essays refuse the mandate of a tidy resolution. Instead she circles around each subject, inspecting it as symbol, myth, metaphor, and reality, all while allowing her readers space to draw their own conclusions, or to reject the need for any conclusion at all. Like a stage magician, she asks readers to look again. White Magic is an insightful, surprising, and eloquent record of stories of magic and the magic in stories." —Booklist

"Washuta's story and struggles become a metaphor for the toll of colonialism on generations of Indigenous people like herself. Readers of recovery narratives, women's issues, and keenly observed social commentary will be rewarded here."—Library Journal

"White magic, red magic, Stevie Nicks magic—this is Elissa Washuta magic, which is a spell carved from a life, written in blood, and sealed in an honesty I can hardly fathom." —Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Only Good Indians

"White Magic is funny and wry, it’s thought-provoking and tender. It’s a sleight of hand performed by a true master of the craft. White Magic is magnificent and Elissa Washuta is spellbinding. There is no one else like her." —Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things

"These pages are windows into a black lodge where Twin Peaks and Fleetwood Mac are on repeat—sometimes forward, sometimes backwards, sometimes in blackout blur. I stand in awe of everything here. What an incredible and wounding read."—Richard van Camp, author of The Lesser Blessed

Additional Information
350 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

Apela Colorado shares her knowledge and experiences of indigenous wisdom and promotes an understanding between the indigenous and modern world perspectives. A journey back in time to preserve a connection to the ancestors, open a door to indigenous wisdom and healing and reclaim a Creation story for the future.

Inspirational world authority on indigenous wisdom Apela Colorado works internationally to preserve the wisdom of indigenous elders from around the world. In this powerful and inspirational book, she weaves together an intricate and beautiful insight into the way that indigenous people see the world.

She shares her experiences as a Native American woman growing up in rural Wisconsin, who stepped out of her tribe to become one of the first Native American women to study at Harvard. Her passion for the indigenous way of life leads her to travel the world, meeting indigenous elders and setting up projects to promote understanding between the indigenous and Western world view.

This powerful book contains a unique and magical glimpse into the minds of those elders and will inspire us all to reconnect more closely with our own ancestral wisdom.

Reviews
"Nothing is more essential for the future of the planet than an honoring and integration of indigenous wisdom in every realm. In this brilliant poignant profound superbly written book, Apela Colorado offers us the treasures of a lifetime of shamanic passion and practice as well as a practical template for all of us to start our journey’s home to celebrating and protecting the creation and ourselves. This essential book should be in the backpack of every seeker, every policy maker and all those passionately concerned for the birth of a new humanity." —Andrew Harvey 

Additional Information
288 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

The story of Native peoples’ resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions, and a call for environmentalists to learn from the Indigenous community’s rich history of activism.

Through the unique lens of “Indigenized environmental justice,” Indigenous researcher and activist Dina Gilio-Whitaker explores the fraught history of treaty violations, struggles for food and water security, and protection of sacred sites, while highlighting the important leadership of Indigenous women in this centuries-long struggle. As Long As Grass Grows gives readers an accessible history of Indigenous resistance to government and corporate incursions on their lands and offers new approaches to environmental justice activism and policy.

Throughout 2016, the Standing Rock protest put a national spotlight on Indigenous activists, but it also underscored how little Americans know about the longtime historical tensions between Native peoples and the mainstream environmental movement. Ultimately, she argues, modern environmentalists must look to the history of Indigenous resistance for wisdom and inspiration in our common fight for a just and sustainable future.

Reviews
“Highly recommended for American Indian studies and environmental justice students and scholars.” —Library Journal

“The process of genocide, which began five centuries ago with the colonization of the Americas and the extermination of indigenous people, has now spread to the planetary level, pushing two hundred species per day to extinction and threatening the entire human species. Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s As Long as Grass Grows makes these connections, holding the seeds of resistance, the seeds of freedom, and the promise of a future.” —Vandana Shiva, author of Earth Democracy

“As Long as Grass Grows honors Indigenous voices powerfully and centers Indigenous histories, values, and experiences. It tells crucial stories, both inspiring and heartrending, that will transform how readers understand environmental justice. I know many readers will come away with new ideas and actions for how they can protect our planet from forces that seek to destroy some of our most sacred relationships connecting human and nonhuman worlds—relationships that offer some of the greatest possibilities for achieving sustainability.” —Kyle Powys White, associate professor, Michigan State University

“From Standing Rock’s stand against a damaging pipeline to antinuclear and climate change activism, Indigenous peoples have always been and remain in the vanguard of the struggle for environmental justice. As Long as Grass Grows could not be of more relevance in the twenty-first century. Gilio-Whitaker has produced a sweeping history of these peoples’ fight for our fragile planet, from colonization to the present moment. There is nothing else like it. Read and heed this book.” —Jace Weaver, author of Defending Mother Earth

“In As Long as Grass Grows, Gilio-Whitaker skillfully delineates the stakes—and the distinctive character—of environmental justice for Indigenous communities. Bold, extensive, accessible, and inspiring, this book is for anyone interested in Indigenous environmental politics and the unique forms of environmentalism that arise from Native communities. Indeed, as Gilio-Whitaker shows, these topics are intertwined with a pressing issue that concerns all people: justice for the very lands we collectively inhabit.” —Clint Carroll, author of Roots of Our Renewal

“As Long as Grass Grows is a hallmark book of our time. By confronting climate change from an Indigenous perspective, not only does Gilio-Whitaker look at the history of Indigenous resistance to environmental colonization, but she points to a way forward beyond Western conceptions of environmental justice—toward decolonization as the only viable solution.” —Nick Estes, assistant professor, University of New Mexico, and author of Our History Is the Future

“As Long as Grass Grows, in the way no other study has done, brilliantly connects historic and ongoing Native American resistance to US colonialism with the movement for environmental justice. This book helps teach us the central importance of Native theory and practice to transforming the radically imbalanced world that corporate capitalism has made into a world of balance through extended kinship with the social and natural environments on which human beings are dependent for life.” —Eric Cheyfitz, professor, Cornell University, and author of The Disinformation Age: The Collapse of Liberal Democracy in the United States

“This groundbreaking new book will ignite conversations about environmentalism and environmental justice. Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s beautifully written account of environmental politics compels readers to understand how Indigenous people and the nonhuman world are caught in the gears of settler colonialism—and how an indigenized environmental justice framework can powerfully reframe our debate and our relations to one another and to the natural world around us. As Long as Grass Grows is perfectly timed to offer a fresh and captivating take on some of our most urgent issues of environmental and social justice.” —Traci Voyles, author of Wastelanding: Legacies of Uranium Mining in Navajo Country

Educator Information

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Author’s Note

INTRODUCTION
The Standing Rock Saga

CHAPTER ONE
Environmental Justice Theory and Its Limitations for Indigenous Peoples

CHAPTER TWO
Genocide by Any Other Name
A History of Indigenous Environmental Injustice

CHAPTER THREE
The Complicated Legacy of Western Expansion and the Industrial Revolution

CHAPTER FOUR
Food Is Medicine, Water Is Life
American Indian Health and the Environment

CHAPTER FIVE
(Not So) Strange Bedfellows
Indian Country’s Ambivalent Relationship with the Environmental Movement

CHAPTER SIX
Hearts Not on the Ground
Indigenous Women’s Leadership and More Cultural Clashes

CHAPTER SEVEN
Sacred Sites and Environmental Justice

CHAPTER EIGHT
Ways Forward for Environmental Justice in Indian Country

Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Additional Information
224 pages | 5.99" x 8.98" | Paperback

A magnificent testament to the earth, from Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and poet N. Scott Momaday.

One of the most distinguished voices in American letters, N. Scott Momaday has devoted much of his life to celebrating and preserving Native American culture, especially its oral tradition. A member of the Kiowa tribe who was born and grew up on Indian reservations throughout the Southwest, Momaday has an intimate connection to the land he knows well and loves deeply.

In Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land, he reflects on his native ground and its influence on his people. “When I think about my life and the lives of my ancestors, I am inevitably led to the conviction that I, and they, belong to the American land. This is a declaration of belonging. And it is an offering to the earth.” he writes.

Momaday recalls stories of his childhood, stories that have been passed down through generations, stories that reveal a profound and sacred connection to the American landscape and a reverence for the natural world.

In this moving and lyrical work, he offers an homage and a warning. Momaday reminds us that the Earth is a sacred place of wonder and beauty; a source of strength and healing that must be protected before it’s too late. As he so eloquently yet simply expresses, we must all be keepers of the Earth.

Reviews
“Poets and storytellers have always reminded us of our spiritual connections to the land and the world around us — passed along through dreams, stories, memories, and mythologies. Scott Momaday skillfully continues this tradition in Earth Keeper, from which we can all learn and benefit.”— Robert Redford

“Earth Keeper is a prayer for continuity in these days of uncertainty. I cannot tell you why I loved this book, I can only tell you I wept my way through it. Each page brought me closer to myself, a self I had lost in the pandemic. We need Scott Momaday's calm, clear prose and stories. Words are medicine. There is wisdom in sharing what one knows, especially at a time when we know so little. ‘Let me say my heart,’ he says. And he does.”— Terry Tempest Williams, author of Erosion: Essays of Undoing

"Dazzling. . . . In glittering prose, Momaday recalls stories passed down through generations, illuminating the earth as a sacrosanct place of wonder and abundance. At once a celebration and a warning, Earth Keeper is an impassioned defense of all that our endangered planet stands to lose."— Esquire

“Wonder abounds in these pages. . . . Short chapters of prose that read almost like prayers to the natural world.”— Kirkus Reviews

“Short but satisfying. . . . Using lyrical, heartfelt language, [Momaday] looks back on a life lived close to nature, and on the joy that natural wonders have given him. . . . At a time when bad news is in plentiful supply, readers will find Momaday’s words refreshing and comforting in their sincerity.”— Publishers Weekly

"A profound reflection on humanity's relationship with its terrestrial home, the planet Earth."— Booklist

“A collection of short essays as multilayered and majestic as the landscape that has been present in everything that Momaday has written. . . . [A] poetic love letter to the Earth.”— Minneapolis Star Tribune

Educator Information
From the Author's Note: "This book is a very personal account, a kind of spiritual autobiography."

Additional Information
80 pages | 5.00" x 7.12"

In myriad ways, each narrator's life has been shaped by loss, injustice, and resilience--and by the struggle of how to share space with settler nations whose essential aim is to take all that is Indigenous.

Hear from Jasilyn Charger, one of the first five people to set up camp at Standing Rock, which kickstarted a movement of Water Protectors that roused the world; Gladys Radek, a survivor of sexual violence whose niece disappeared along Canada's Highway of Tears, who became a family advocate for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls; and Marian Naranjo, herself the subject of a secret radiation test while in high school, who went on to drive Santa Clara Pueblo toward compiling an environmental impact statement on the consequences of living next to Los Alamos National Laboratory. Theirs are stories among many of the ongoing contemporary struggles to preserve Indigenous lands and lives--and of how we go home.

Reviews
“How We Go Home is a testament to modern-day Indigenous revitalization, often in the face of the direst of circumstances. Told as firsthand accounts on the frontlines of resistance and resurgence, these life stories inspire and remind that Indigenous life is all about building a community through the gifts we offer and the stories we tell.”— Niigaan Sinclair, associate professor, Department of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba and columnist, Winnipeg Free Press

“The voices of How We Go Home are singing a chorus of love and belonging alongside the heat of resistance, and the sound of Indigenous life joyfully dances off these pages.”—Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, author of As We Have Always Done

“How We Go Home confirms that we all have stories. These stories teach us history, morality, identity, connection, empathy, understanding, and self-awareness. We hear the stories of our ancestors and they tell us who we are. We hear the stories of our heroes and they tell us what we can be." —Honourable Senator Murray Sinclair

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Editor’s Notes
Introduction (Sara Sinclair)
Executive Director’s Note (Mimi Lok)
Map
Gladys Radek, Terrace, Gitxsan / Wet’suwet’en First Nations—“When Tamara went missing, it took the breath out of me.”
Jasilyn Charger, Cheyenne River Sioux—“My son’s buried by the river. . . . I vowed to him that he’s gonna be safe, that no oil was gonna touch him.”
Wizipan Little Elk, Rosebud Lakota Tribe—“On the reservation, you have the beauty of the culture and our traditional knowledge contrasted with the reality of poverty.”
Geraldine Manson, Snuneymuxw First Nation—The nurse was trying to get me to sign a paper to put our baby, Derrick, up for adoption.”
Robert Ornelas, New York City, Lipan Apache / Ysleta del Sur Pueblo—“A part of the soul sickness for me was being ashamed . . . what we were being taught about Indians was so minimal and so negative.”
Ashley Hemmers, Fort Mojave Indian Tribe—“I didn’t work my ass off to get to Yale to be called a squaw.”
Ervin Chartrand, Selkirk, Métís/Salteaux—“They said I fit the description because I looked like six other kids with leather vests and long hair who looked Indian.”
James Favel, Winnipeg, Peguis First Nation “You’re a stakeholder because you’ve got to walk these streets every day.”
Marian Naranjo, Santa Clara Pueblo—“Indigenous peoples’ reason for being is to be the caretakers of Creator’s gifts—of the air, the water, the land.”
Blaine Wilson, Tsartlip First Nation “When I was twenty-five, thirty, there was more salmon and I was fishing every other day. Now I’m lucky to go once a week.”
Althea Guiboche, Winnipeg, Métis/Ojibwe/Salteaux “I had three babies under three years old and I was homeless.”
Vera Styres, Six Nations of the Grand River, Mohawk/Tuscarora“I was a ‘scabby, dirty little Indian.’”
Glossary
Historical Timeline of Indigenous North America
Essay: 1. The Trail of Broken Promises: US and Canadian Treaties with First Nations
Essay 2: “Indigenous Perspectives on Intergenerational Trauma”: An Interview with Johnna James
Essay 3: Indigenous Resurgence
Ten Things You Can Do
Further Reading
Acknowledgements

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

Indianthusiasm refers to the European fascination with, and fantasies about, Indigenous peoples of North America, and has its roots in nineteenth-century German colonial imagination. Often manifested in romanticized representations of the past, Indianthusiasm has developed into a veritable industry in Germany and other European nations: there are Western and so-called “Indian” theme parks and a German hobbyist scene that attract people of all social backgrounds and ages to join camps and clubs that practise beading, powwow dancing, and Indigenous lifestyles.

Containing interviews with twelve Indigenous authors, artists, and scholars who comment on the German fascination with North American Indigenous Peoples, Indianthusiasm is the first collection to present Indigenous critiques and assessments of this phenomenon. The volume connects two disciplines and strands of scholarship: German Studies and Indigenous Studies, focusing on how Indianthusiam has created both barriers and opportunities for Indigenous peoples with Germans and in Germany.

Educator Information
This work speaks to concepts of representation, Indigeneity, transnationality, and politics of decolonization.  It asks critical questions about authenticity, cultural appropriation, and probes the biased and racist aspects of what is seen as simple "honoring" of Indigenous cultures.  The interviews in this work act as mythbusters but also offer a number of conflicting Indigenous perspectives.  This work explores the transatlantic connections created by Indianthusiam.

Useful for Indigenous Studies and German Studies.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction / Hartmut Lutz, Florentine Strzelczyk, and Renae Watchman

2. I thought to myself: “Well, I’ll appropriate from the people who appropriated from us” / Ahmoo Angeconeb

3. Most people can’t be informed because of the way they are being informed / Jeannette Armstrong

4. Germany is my other Heimat now; "Groan" (poem) / John Blackbird

5. The focus on remembering … a sort of superego kind of thing / Warren Cariou

6. When the gaze turns in both directions / Jo-Ann Episkenew

7. I actually never wanted to like Germany / Audrey Huntley

8. The thorn is in my side when I’m talking to Europeans, who begin lecturing me on Indianness / Thomas King

9. You can deal with stereotypes! At least you are dealing with some knowledge / David T. McNab

10. It’s been my job to not only entertain them through my dancing and singing, but also to educate them in the actual original traditional stories / Quentin Pipestem

11. I was definitely an ambassador and sort of a mythbuster in many ways / Waubgeshig Rice

12. You can’t underestimate the influence of Karl May’s Winnetou / Drew Hayden Taylor

13. They want redemption somehow / Emma Lee Warrior

Additional Information
254 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

A powerful case for the essential role of plants and environments in recognizing Indigenous Peoples' land rights around the world.

For millennia, plants and their habitats have been fundamental to the lives of Indigenous Peoples - as sources of food and nutrition, medicines, and technological materials - and central to ceremonial traditions, spiritual beliefs, narratives, and language. While the First Peoples of Canada and other parts of the world have developed deep cultural understandings of plants and their environments, this knowledge is often underrecognized in debates about land rights and title, reconciliation, treaty negotiations, and traditional territories. Plants, People, and Places argues that the time is long past due to recognize and accommodate Indigenous Peoples' relationships with plants and their ecosystems. Essays in this volume, by leading voices in philosophy, Indigenous law, and environmental sustainability, consider the critical importance of botanical and ecological knowledge to land rights and related legal and government policy, planning, and decision making in Canada, the United States, Sweden, and New Zealand. Analyzing specific cases in which Indigenous Peoples' inherent rights to the environment have been denied or restricted, this collection promotes future prosperity through more effective and just recognition of the historical use of and care for plants in Indigenous cultures. A timely book featuring Indigenous perspectives on reconciliation, environmental sustainability, and pathways toward ethnoecological restoration, Plants, People, and Places reveals how much there is to learn from the history of human relationships with nature.

Reviews
"Nancy Turner is respected at every level of the field and this book brings together many of the collaborators she has worked with throughout her career. The chapters they contribute are impressive, and as a whole they comprise the collective research and experience of over forty authors all demonstrating how Indigenous peoples, past and present, have contributed to land rights, policies, ethics, and caring for the earth." - Scott Herron, Ferris State University

Educator Information

Additional Information
554 pages | 6.25" x 9.25"

Experience the riveting, powerful story of the Native American civil rights movement and the resulting struggle for identity told through the high-flying career of West Coast rock 'n' roll pioneers Redbone.

You've heard the hit song "Come and Get Your Love" in the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, but the story of the band behind it is one of cultural, political, and social importance.

Brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas were talented Native American rock musicians that took the 1960s Sunset Strip by storm. They influenced The Doors and jammed with Jimmy Hendrix before he was "Jimi," and the idea of a band made up of all Native Americans soon followed. Determined to control their creative vision and maintain their cultural identity, they eventually signed a deal with Epic Records in 1969. But as the American Indian Movement gained momentum the band took a stand, choosing pride in their ancestry over continued commercial reward.

Created in cooperation of the Vegas family, authors Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni with artist Thibault Balahy take painstaking steps to ensure the historical accuracy of this important and often overlooked story of America's past. Part biography and part research journalism, Redbone tells a vivid story about this neglected chapter of American history.

Reviews
"Compelling reading for fans of roots rock and Native American history in middle school and up." —School Library Journal

"An entertaining, enlightening history for music fans. Balahy’s loose, energetic drawings; imaginative layouts; and playful use of color make everything pop." —Publishers Weekly

"Musicians with heart put their people before profits in an inspirational tale. Well-researched and well-paced, this book will introduce a new generation to the music and impact of Redbone." —Kirkus Reviews (Starred review)

"In some eyes, the guys in Redbone, still the most successful Native American rock band this country has produced, are indeed superheroes. Not all heroes wear capes, and some wear buckskin." —Houston Chronicle

"In the early sixties, Pat and his brother, Lolly, perform on the Sunset Strip, crossing paths with The Byrds, The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix, who gives the brothers the idea of forming 'an all Indian band. That'd make this country sit up.' The seed germinates and Redbone bursts forth. Staebler and Paoloni offer a lens onto aspects of the twentieth-century Native American struggle for civil rights and injustices like forced schooling and racist policing, as well as the 1968 birth of the American Indian Movement. Balahy's art is particularly splendid and well-varied in style for the complex subject matter." —Booklist

Additional Information
160 pages | 7.00" x 10.00"