Indigenous Peoples in the United States
Synopsis:
Discover the rich tapestry of human emotion and divine wisdom with the First Nations Version Psalms and Proverbs. The latest volume from the critically acclaimed First Nations Version translation brings the ancient Sacred Songs and Wise Sayings of the Hebrew Scriptures to life through the vibrant, poetic imagery of Native American oral storytelling.
Discover Psalms and Proverbs Reimagined Through the Poetic Language of Native Storytellers:
Father Sky is telling us the story of the shining-greatness of the One Above Us All. The starry tent above us shows the beauty that Creator’s hands have made. Day after day, the story is told, and night after night, their wisdom fills the sky. Even though the skies above have no spoken words, all creation has heard their message.Psalm 19:1-3
From the strength of your heart, put all your trust in Grandfather, and do not hold yourself up with weak human thinking. As you walk the road of life, make every step a prayer. Grandfather will then make your eyes straight and your paths safe.Proverbs 3:5-6
Whether you're seeking solace, strength, or spiritual insight, the First Nations Version Psalms and Proverbs will guide you with its profound expressions of praise and trust in the Creator. Step into the harmonious blend of ancient wisdom and indigenous tradition to discover a spiritual experience that speaks directly to your heart.
Reviews
"The First Nations Version is far and away the most creative Bible translation I've ever read. It's an exciting alternative to the boring, stodgy renderings that have dominated the English market for centuries. All readers can open the FNV and experience old passages in new lights. Talk about it with your kids. Study it in churches and classrooms. Use it in worship. The Bible becomes alive!"— Matthew Schlimm, professor of Old Testament at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary
Additional Information
192 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback
Synopsis:
“To know ourselves is the most profound and difficult endeavor. Though we are all made of the same questions, we have individual routes to the answers, or to reframing the questions. Why is there evil in the world? Why do people suffer, and some more than others? Why are we here? What are we doing here? What happens after death? Does anything mean anything at all? Who am I and what does it matter?” writes Joy Harjo, renowned poet and activist, in this profound work about the struggles, challenges, and joys of coming of age.
In her best-selling memoir Poet Warrior, Harjo led readers through her lifelong process of artistic evolution. In Girl Warrior, she speaks directly to Native girls and women, sharing stories about her own coming of age to bring renewed attention to the pivotal moments of becoming including forgiveness, failure, falling, rising up, and honoring our vast family of beings.
Informed by her own experiences and those of her ancestors, Harjo offers inspiration and insight for navigating the many challenges of maturation. She grapples with parents, friendships, love, and loss. She guides young readers toward painting, poetry, and music as powerful tools for developing their own ethical sensibility. As Harjo demonstrates, the act of making is an essential part of who we are, a means of inviting the past into the present and a critical tool young women can use to shape a more just future. Lyrical and compassionate, Harjo’s call for creativity and empathy is an urgent and necessary work.
Reviews
"Joy Harjo combines the wisdom that was here long before Europeans showed up with the challenges of a woman’s life in the present. The result is inspired by the past and a personal preparation for the future."— Gloria Steinem, feminist activist and author
"What a beautiful and brilliant call to arms. I wish I had Joy Harjo’s words when I was young. This book is a lovely ode to her own bravery and by extension, all of ours. Girl Warrior gives possibility to young people (and all people) through Joy Harjo’s own coming-of-age narrative. More than about having waded through tumultuous waters and survived to not only tell the story but thrive inside the people we become on the other side. This book is simply a balm."— Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award winner
Additional Information
176 pages | 5.37" x 8.00" | Hardcover
Synopsis:
How Indigenous currencies—including wampum and dentalium shells, beads, and the cryptocurrency MazaCoin—have long constituted a form of resistance to settler colonialism.
Indigenous Currencies follows dynamic stories of currency as a meaning-making communication technology. Settler economies regard currency as their own invention, casting Indigenous systems of value, exchange, and data stewardship as incompatible with contemporary markets. In this book, Ashley Cordes refutes such claims and describes a long history of Indigenous innovation in currencies, including wampum, dentalium, beads, and, more recently, the cryptocurrency MazaCoin. By looking closely at how currencies developed over time through intercultural communication, Cordes argues that Indigenous currencies transcend the scope of economic value, revealing the cultural, social, and political context of what it means to exchange.
The book’s two main case studies, the gold rush and the code rush, frame a deep dive into how Indigenous ways of being have shaped the use and significance of currency and vice versa. Settler currencies, which have developed in the wake of wars and through massively scaled forms of material extraction, offer a very different story of the place of currencies within settler economies of dispossession. The second part of the study asks how contemporary cryptocurrencies may play a critical role in cultivating Tribal sovereignty. The author analyzes structural properties of the polymorphic blockchain to provide key insights into how emergent digital spaces, with their attendant forms of meaning and value represented by code, NFTs, and Web 3.0, are inextricably connected to Indigenous knowledges. The book cultivates a vision of currency in which the principle of leaving some for the rest establishes a way of imagining relationships of exchange beyond their enclosure within settler-capitalist parameters of extraction and into currents of deep reciprocity.
Reviews
"Brilliantly written in the best of Coquille Nation practices, wisdom of ancestors, and traditional technologies, Indigenous Currencies is a gift guiding us through deep insights for the digital realm."—Tiara R. Na’puti, University of California, Irvine
"Indigenous Currencies is an unparalleled study of cryptocurrency's colonialism and Indigenous decolonial possibilities in this powerful space. Cordes takes Indigenous epistemologies to places previously unexamined, and she does so by grounding case studies in practices of Indigenous digital agency."—Jason Edward Black, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; author of Mascot Nation
Educator Information
226 pages | 6.06" x 9.00" | 22 b&w illustrations | Paperback
Synopsis:
A sweeping and trenchant exploration of the history of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life.
From the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their tribal communities to attend boarding schools whose stated aim was to "save the Indian" by way of assimilation. In reality, these boarding schools—sponsored by the U.S. government, but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation—were a calculated attempt to dismantle tribes by pulling apart Native families. Children were beaten for speaking their Native languages; denied food, clothing, and comfort; and forced to work menial jobs in terrible conditions, all while utterly deprived of love and affection.
Amongst those thousands of children was Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother, who was was sent to a boarding school in northern Wisconsin at age five. The trauma of her experience cast a pall over Pember's own childhood and her relationship with her mother. Highlighting both her mother's experience and the experiences of countless other students at such schools, their families, and their children, Medicine River paints a stark but hopeful portrait of communities still reckoning with the trauma of acculturation, religion, and abuse caused by the state. Through searing interviews and careful reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of Native cultures and nations in relation to the country that has been intent on eradicating them.
Reviews
“A devastating history. . . . Weaving into her narrative her own mother’s experiences . . . Pember explores the psychological ramifications the schools had on subsequent generations. She comes to many quietly ruinous insights about the emotional neglect she herself suffered at the hands of her wounded mother. . . . Concluding with a searing call for accountability, this strikes a chord.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“[Pember’s] extensive research illuminates the attempted cultural erasure by government and religious institutions. Her mother’s story provides a heartbreaking, personal focus.” —Booklist
“Elegantly weaving together her mother’s stories, those of other boarding school students, and concise accounts of federal assimilationist policies and common institutional practices, [Pember] provides an informed and unsettling perspective on the schools’ individual and collective impact. . . . A gripping, often harrowing account of the personal and communal toll of cultural genocide.”—Kirkus
"Mary Annette Pember has left it all on the line. Through her, her Ojibwe ancestors speak boldly about how the US government has treated them and every Indigenous nation in these so-called-United States. I have never read a book that has changed me so profoundly. Pember not only points to what has been done, but also offers a way forward. Everyone, absolutely everyone, should read this book." —Javier Zamora, author of Solito
“So much writing about historical trauma casts a vague, impenetrable cloud over its subjects’ lives. But with electric precision and rigorous care, Mary Annette Pember pierces through, illuminating the real mechanisms by which pain has accumulated and reverberated through generations of boarding school survivors and their descendants, as well all the beauty, love, and humor these same lives contain. In showing us how trauma is made, Pember helps us see that it can be unmade. ‘History flows through us,’ she writes, and nowhere has this idea been so well rendered as here, in this stunning, essential book.”—Sierra Crane Murdoch, author of Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country
“Pember has written a searing exploration of the multi-generational trauma visited upon Native people by the boarding school experience, as well as a brilliant account of Indigenous survivance.” —Michael Witgen, Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, author of Seeing Red
"I have a shelf full of books on the Indian boarding schools, but nothing quite like this one. Anyone who questions why the U.S. government has finally apologized for these schools and for its brutal assaults on Native children and their families should read Medicine River." —Colin G. Calloway, Professor of History and Native American Studies, Dartmouth College
"Mary Annette Pember reveals that the trauma and rage of surviving the St. Mary’s Catholic Indian Boarding School permeates through the generations. Pember has chronicled a deeply personal and first-person account of the dark legacy of incarceration at a ‘civilized’ boarding school and how the trauma of those youngsters impact their living descendants. Pember tells us that resistance and accountability is attainable, and I believe her. This is an essential read."—Devon Mihesuah, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, author of The Bone Picker
"A dauntless and visceral excavation of one family’s residential boarding school legacy. In Medicine River, we can see pain ripple through generations, eclipsed only by Mary Annette Pember's courage and her conviction that, in the search for answers, we can heal."—Anton Treuer, author of Where Wolves Don't Die
Additional Information
304 pages | 6.42" x 9.55" | Hardcover
Synopsis:
From award-winning journalist Joseph Lee, a sweeping, personal exploration of Indigenous identity and the challenges facing Indigenous people around the world.
Before Martha’s Vineyard became one of the most iconic vacation destinations in the country, it was home to the Wampanoag people. Today, as tourists flock to the idyllic beaches, the island has become increasingly unaffordable for tribal members, with nearly three-quarters now living off-island. Growing up Aquinnah Wampanoag, journalist Joseph Lee grappled with what this situation meant for his tribe, how the community can continue to grow, and more broadly, what it means to be Indigenous.
In Nothing More of This Land, Lee weaves his own story and that of his family into a panoramic narrative of Indigenous life around the world. He takes us from the beaches of Martha’s Vineyard to the icy Alaskan tundra, the smoky forests of Northern California to the halls of the United Nations, and beyond. Along the way he meets activists fighting to protect their land, families clashing with their own tribal leaders, and communities working to reclaim tradition.
Together, these stories reject stereotypes to show the diversity of Indigenous people today and chart a way past the stubborn legacy of colonialism.
Reviews
"Nothing More Of This Land is a stark, beautifully rendered reminder of all that had to occur for the happening of our existences to take place, and all who lived and fought against their own erasure to maintain a semblance of a legacy. This is a profound, and moving book, a powerful indictment of the colonial mindset that firmly balances an ode to people, to place, to remaining."—Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There's Always This Year
"A forcefully illuminating and utterly compelling blend of personal narrative and vivid reportage, Joseph Lee’s Nothing More of this Land is a triumph of complexity and insight. We follow Lee from the red clay cliffs of Aquinnah to the halls of the UN, from the Klamath River basin to a feast of muktuk and tundra greens in Bethel, Alaska; and very early on I realized I’d follow him anywhere. Lee has given us a timely reckoning with Native sovereignty and community that is adroitly committed to the mess and nuance of lived experience, rather than sentimentalized accounts of victimhood or resilience. Nothing More of this Land is tender, ferocious, surprising, and tenaciously thoughtful; its existence makes the world a bigger and truer place."—Leslie Jamison, bestselling author of The Empathy Exams
Additional Information
256 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Hardcover
Synopsis:
This guide:
- Highlights 70-plus edible species including seaweeds, beach vegetables, shellfish, mushrooms, berries, trees, ferns, and wild and weedy greens
- Includes more than 60 recipes, plus tips for enjoying this natural abundance
- Includes key sections describe sustainable harvesting practices
Pacific Harvest, written by expert forager and guide Jennifer Hahn, introduces both novice and more experienced foragers to the Pacific Coast’s ample and diverse edible species. Recognizing your local edible berries, flowers, greens, roots, tree parts, mushrooms, seaweeds, beach vegetables, and shellfish is a passport to a comforting sense of place. Hahn shares immersive descriptions of her foraging adventures as well as full-color photos to make identifying these species easy and enjoyable. Each featured food listing includes common names, taxonomy, primary location, description, harvesting details, and culinary tips for transition from the wild to the kitchen table. Select listings call out notable nutrition and wellness benefits, along with contemporary research on conservation status.
This coastal foraging guide highlights authentic Indigenous harvesting practices including profiles of Indigenous leaders in the traditional foods movement. Hahn emphasizes a sustainable approach to foraging, reminding readers what other beings also depend on these plants and animals as food and shelter sources.
Pacific Harvest includes dozens of recipes featuring foraged foods, ranging from no-fuss delights like Salal Berry Scones and Kelp-Wrapped Salmon to comfort foods like Fiddlehead Quiche and Horse Clam Stir-Fry.
Additional Information
360 pages | 6.00" x 8.50" | 175 Color Photos | Paperback
Synopsis:
Join the dance of North American Indigenous interpretations of Christian Scripture
In Reading the Bible on Turtle Island, Indigenous scholars Chris Hoklotubbe and Danny Zacharias explore what it means to read the Bible from the lens of Indigenous peoples in North America. Exploring the intersection of Scripture, Cultural Traditions, Hearts and Minds, and Creation, they affirm Creator's presence with Indigenous people since the beginning. By recovering these rich histories, this book offers a fresh reading of Scripture that celebrates the assets, blessings, and insights of Indigenous interpretation.
Indigenous culture has often been dismissed or deemed problematic within Western Christian circles, and historical practices have often communicated that Indigenous worldviews have little to offer the church or its understanding of Scripture. Hoklotubbe and Zacharias challenge this perspective, reasserting the dignity of these cultures that were condemned through colonial practices and showing how Indigenous interpretations bring invaluable insights to all of God’s people.
In Reading the Bible on Turtle Island, Hoklotubbe and Zacharias
- Affirm the dignity and value of Indigenous cultures and their contributions to hermeneutics.
- Explore the intersection of the Bible with Indigenous traditions.
- Delve deeply into the stories of Scripture alongside the complex histories of Indigenous communities in North America.
- Celebrate the unique blessings and insights of Indigenous interpretation.
- Offer a fresh, transformative reading of the Bible that speaks to all of God’s people.
Reading the Bible on Turtle Island is a vital resource for scholars who are interested in the intersection of biblical studies and social location, who are seeking to explore Scripture through an Indigenous hermeneutic, or who desire to learn more about the contributions of Indigenous worldviews to Biblical interpretation.
Reviews
"We have been waiting for a book like this—one that presents indigenous biblical interpretation. T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and Daniel Zacharias call their approach to biblical interpretation Turtle Island Hermeneutics. I call it groundbreaking, urgent, and necessary at this present moment. Now students studying the Bible in seminary or college will have a text that will help them do what few books on interpretation can do—take the dirt, the water, the air, our animal kin, and of course, indigenous thought and life seriously. We are now in a new day for biblical scholarship." — William James Jennings, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale University Divinity School
"Some years ago, I was told that Indigenous contributions to biblical scholarship would, at best, be superficial. The real work, after all, had already been done by European scholars. Reading the Bible on Turtle Island justifies my contention that this was not so. T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and Daniel Zacharias unpack Indigenous understandings of the biblical narrative for us in profoundly earthy and culturally complex ways. For the first time ever, many Indigenous people have read themselves into the biblical story and, together with the authors, have answered Lamin Sanneh's 2003 question, 'Whose religion is Christianity?' 'It's ours,' they have said!"— Terry LeBlanc, director emeritus and elder in residence of NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community
"Reading the Bible on Turtle Island introduces us to the riches of Indigenous interpretation of Scripture and invites us to gather around the council fire and learn from the ongoing discussion Indigenous disciples of Jesus are having about how to 'seek Creator in the Good Medicine Way of Jesus.' T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zacharias not only create a dialogue between biblical scholarship, Indigenous history and wisdom, and ongoing debates about how to relate the gospel to culture, they do so in a way that is simultaneously accessible, deeply moving, gracious enough to create room for disagreement and ongoing debate, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. Yet the book also offers a challenge, that the path to the healing of the nations and the Western church includes learning from Indigenous disciples who bear witness to the good word of Creator-made-flesh."— Michael J. Rhodes, author of Just Discipleship and lecturer in Old Testament at Carey Baptist College
"How we read ourselves into the Bible shapes the theology we develop. This book offers all Christians another reading, a reading that takes our stories seriously and provides an opportunity to develop an Indigenous theology rather than simply reconciling ourselves to a theology rooted in European priorities." — Patty Krawec, author of Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future and Bad Indians Book Club: Reading at the Edge of a Thousand Worlds
Additional Information
240 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback
Synopsis:
Next Level Chef winner Pyet De Spain celebrates her Mexican and Native American heritage in this collection of mouthwatering recipes, a vibrant fusion that ties us to the land and to one another.
Star chef Pyet DeSpain rose to prominence as the first winner of Gordon Ramsey’s Fox television show Next Level Chef. Now, in her debut cookbook, she shares the joy of cooking fueled by her burning passion for Native American and Mexican American cuisine. Rooted in Fire: A Celebration of Native American and Mexican Cooking is a tribute to her dual heritage—a gorgeously crafted celebration of the diversity of food and the stories, traditions, culture, and profound philosophies of Indigenous people that season each meal.
Pyet shows you how to incorporate a delicious range of key ingredients—from venison, dandelion greens, to sunchokes, bison, and native berries—into more than sixty fusion dishes. Family and friends will be excited to gather around the table to enjoy sweet and savory food such as:
- Three Sisters Salad
- Bison and Sweet Corn Soup
- Fry Bread
- Mexican Chocolate & Mezcal Cake
- Corn Silk and Honey Tea
- Wojapi BBQ Sauce
In addition to her inventive and palate pleasing recipes, Pyet invites home cooks to honor the seasons on our beautiful Earth and connect with essential foodways. “This is more than just a cookbook,” Pyet writes. “It’s giving a voice to Indigenous people, while also highlighting the fusion of my two cultures with fire and purpose.”
Reviews
"Pyet's talent is evident in every recipe in this book. The way she weaves her heritage into her dishes is extraordinary and I've seen it every day since the first time I tasted her work on Next Level Chef. Trust me, you're in for an absolute treat." — Gordon Ramsay
Pyet’s Rooted in Fire beautifully honors her Prairie Band of Potawatomi and Mexican heritage through food storytelling that is both personal and powerful. Her voice is heartfelt, her vision and dedication are clear, and her talent within the Indigenous food movement is undeniable. I’m so proud to see her shining as a modern-day Indigenous food warrior—this book marks an important chapter in her growing legacy." — Sean Sherman, Founder of The Sioux Chef/NATIFS.org and Author of The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen and Turtle Island
Additional Information
288 pages | 7.38" x 9.12" | 128 four color food photographs | Hardcover
Synopsis:
For the first time, over a dozen respected Indigenous elders from around the world have united to share their timeless wisdom beyond their lands and lineages.
Aniwa’s Council of Elders includes some of the globe’s most renowned Indigenous Wisdom Keepers. In a time fraught with ecological, social, political, and mental health crises, they share a mission to unite people of all races, colors, and creeds to promote healing and a deeper reciprocal relationship with our planet. Sacred Ceremony for a Sacred Earth brings together their profound teachings, stories, sacred ceremonies, and healing practices, amplifying the voices of Indigenous healers from diverse traditions.
In their worldview, we are all children of Mother Earth, destined to return to her embrace. This extraordinary book serves as a guiding light, beckoning humanity back to ancestral wisdom and restoring forgotten bonds with nature and self through ceremonies and practices.
Embark on a journey of self-discovery, unveiling the purpose of your soul and reclaiming your intrinsic relationship with Mother Earth, through ancient practices such as:
- Use of Feathers to Bless Yourself and Relieve Pain
- Pagamento for Trees
- Hopi Message of Comfort to Say Good-Bye to Loved Ones Who Have Passed
- Practices for Conscious Conception
- Create a Spiritual House for Your Inner Child
- The Feagaiga (Sacred Promise or Covenant) with Mother Earth
- Connect with Your Ancestors
Sacred Ceremony for a Sacred Earth calls upon us to awaken and rekindle the flame of connection with our roots and the natural world. Let the eternal wisdom of elders guide you toward healing, growth, and a profound reconnection with nature.
Reviews
"An essential guide to begin understanding culture, nature, and yourself."—Oona Chaplin, actress
"Beautifully and profusely illustrated throughout with full color photography of indigenous people, rituals, events, Sacred Ceremony for a Sacred Earth is informative, fascinating, insightful, and unreservedly recommended."—Midwest Book Review
Educator Information
Discover rituals and wisdom from Indigenous communities across the globe that, until now, have only been passed down orally and taught within closed circles.
Additional Information
224 pages | 8.30" x 10.25" | Hardcover
Synopsis:
The pelt of a dog named “Mutton” languished in a drawer at the Smithsonian for 150 years until it was discovered, almost accidentally, by an amateur archivist. This book tells Mutton's story and explores what it can teach us about Coast Salish Woolly Dogs and their cultural significance.
Until now, there has been very little written about the enigmatic Coast Salish Woolly Dog, or sqʷəmey̓ in the Hul'q'umi'num language. According to Indigenous Oral Histories of the Pacific Northwest, this small dog was bred for thousands of years for its woolly fibres, which were woven into traditional blankets, robes and regalia. Although the dogs were carefully protected by Coast Salish peoples, by the 1900s, the Woolly Dog had become so rare it is now considered extinct.
Co-authored with weavers, Knowledge Keepers, and Elders, The Teachings of Mutton interweaves perspectives from Musqueam, Squamish, Stó:lō, Suquamish, Cowichan, Katzie, Snuneymuxw, and Skokomish cultures with narratives of science, post-contact history, and the lasting and devastating impacts of colonization. Binding it all together is Mutton's story—a tale of research, reawakening, and resurgence.
Reviews
“What a compelling story, reflecting a way of life, practical knowledge, artistry and change in the Pacific Northwest! Mutton, the domesticated woolly dog, represents so much more than a museum collection or a source of weaving material. Generations of breeding, learning and sharing, caring and trading are mirrored in the discovery of his pelt in a drawer at the Smithsonian. Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa and her respected Salishan co-authors and Knowledge Keepers have brought Mutton into the present, and in doing so, have given us a new and unique perspective on the complex history of this region and on the meaning of Truth and Reconciliation. The book is clearly and thoughtfully written, and supplemented with excellent illustrations. It is a ‘must read’ for anyone wishing to know more about weaving arts, dog breeds, Indigenous cultures and/or history in northwestern North America.” — Nancy J. Turner, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of Victoria
“Conscientious and accessible, The Teachings of Mutton weaves a charming and informative history, walking through the discovery of his pelt in a museum drawer to the modern science that reveals the shape of this dog’s life. Highlighting and correcting generations of non-Indigenous misinterpretation, the intertwined histories provided by Salish knowledge keepers reveal the nuanced Indigenous sciences of dog husbandry, spinning, weaving, and the cultural significance of Woolly Dogs while telling a lively story.” — Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, PhD, curator of Northwest Native art and director of the Bill Holm Center for
Additional Information
264 pages | 8.00" x 10.00"
Synopsis:
Growing up in Montana, Chris La Tray always identified as Indian. Despite the fact that his father fiercely denied any connection, he found Indigenous people alluring, often recalling his grandmother’s consistent mention of their Chippewa heritage.
When La Tray attended his grandfather’s funeral as a young man, he finally found himself surrounded by relatives who obviously were Indigenous. “Who were they?” he wondered, and “Why was I never allowed to know them?” Combining diligent research and compelling conversations with authors, activists, elders, and historians, La Tray embarks on a journey into his family’s past, discovering along the way a larger story of the complicated history of Indigenous communities—as well as the devastating effects of colonialism that continue to ripple through surviving generations. And as he comes to embrace his full identity, he eventually seeks enrollment with the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, joining their 158-year-long struggle for federal recognition.
Both personal and historical, Becoming Little Shell is a testament to the power of storytelling, to family and legacy, and to finding home. Infused with candor, heart, wisdom, and an abiding love for a place and a people, Chris La Tray’s remarkable journey is both revelatory and redemptive.
Reviews
“La Tray’s pride and conviction will have readers eager not only to learn more, but to take action. A brilliant contribution to the canon of Native American literature.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“[A] gripping debut memoir. [. . .] La Tray’s crystalline prose and palpable passion for spreading Indigenous history bolster his account. Readers will be fascinated.”—Publishers Weekly
"Heartbreaking, infuriating, and remarkable, Becoming Little Shell is a memoir that’s packed with historical details,transcending and amplifying a personal quest to understand a family’s past."—Foreword Reviews, starred review
“Smart, emotional, and bracingly honest, La Tray is a powerful storyteller who should have significant appeal.”—Booklist
“I’m in awe of Chris La Tray’s storytelling. Becoming Little Shell creates a multilayered narrative from threads of personal, family, community, tribal, and national histories. Together they make a story as strong and beautiful as a Metis sash—a story of identity, kinship, and the journey toward justice.”—Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass
“Chris La Tray is a powerful voice—a force of nature, really—to guide us through the swirling confluence of Native and white worlds, both past and present. Becoming Little Shell is the American story of our era—tracing the arc of its author brought up in the white world before discovering his roots as an original inhabitant of this continent.”—Peter Stark, author of Gallop Toward the Sun
“Indigenous identity can be complicated, and Becoming Little Shell compels us into the thick of it—Native people dispossessed of not just land but recognition; blood quantum laws originally crafted to complete a genocide and still wreaking havoc in identity debates today; racism that drove many Native people to disassociate from their families; and descendants, like La Tray, who have found their way back, fighting for the reconnection of their communities and for the observance of their very existence. La Tray is a loving, discerning, curious, funny, and generous guide. This is a beautiful, big-hearted book.”—Sierra Crane Murdoch, author of Yellow Bird
“Becoming Little Shell is a moving, deeply felt, and incredibly detailed account of Chris La Tray’s search for his origins among the Métis, Pembina, and Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Combining memoir, history, interviews, and travel, La Tray gives us nothing less than the history of a people in the form of an absorbing and emotionally searing memoir. This book will, without a doubt, become a classic in Native American literature. Must read.”—David Treuer, author of The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee
“What I appreciate so much about Chris La Tray’s writing on Indigenous identity and history is the wit, clarity, and integrity embodied in every word. Becoming Little Shell beautifully encompasses a journey that we can all learn from, a journey toward asking better questions about land, belonging, and connection, and through this book La Tray epitomizes historian, poet, and teacher. Full of Indigenous history, personal stories, and the complex dance between the two, La Tray reminds us that the journey of finding ourselves and making sense of the way colonialism plays out around us is an essential part of being human. Please read this book. You’ll be so glad you did.”—Kaitlin B. Curtice, author of Living Resistance
Additional Information
320 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Hardcover
Synopsis:
A powerful work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation’s earliest days, and a small-town murder in the ‘90s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land over a century later.
Before 2020, American Indian reservations made up roughly 55 million acres of land in the United States. Nearly 200 million acres are reserved for National Forests—in the emergence of this great nation, our government set aside more land for trees than for Indigenous peoples. That changed on July 9, 2020, when a high-profile Supreme Court case—which originated with a small-town murder two decades earlier—affirmed the reservation of Muscogee Nation. The ruling resulted in the largest restoration of tribal land in U.S. history, merely because the Court chose to follow the law.
In the 1830s Muscogee people were rounded by the US military at gunpoint and forced into exile halfway across the continent. At the time, they were promised this new land would be theirs for as long as the grass grew and the waters ran. But that promise was not kept. When Oklahoma was create on top of their land, the new state claimed their reservation no longer existed. Over a century later, when a Muscogee citizen was sentenced to death for murdering another Muscogee citizen, his defense attorneys argued the murder occurred on the reservation of his tribe, and therefore Oklahoma didn’t have the jurisdiction to execute him. Oklahoma argued that reservation no longer existed. In the summer of 2020, the Supreme Court said: no more; a ruling that would ultimately underpin multiple reservations covering half the land in Oklahoma, including Nagle’s own Cherokee Nation.
Here Rebecca Nagle tells the story of the generations-long fight for tribal land and sovereignty in Eastern Oklahoma. By chronicling both the contemporary legal battle and historic acts of Indigenous resistance, By the Fire We Carry stands as a landmark work of American history. The story it tells exposes both the wrongs that our nation has committed in its long history of greed, corruption and lawlessness, and the Native battle for the right to be here that has shaped our country.
Educator Information
By the Fire We Carry is hard-hitting American history that expands on the nation's story. It tells of the treatment of Native Americans, their removal and displacement, and the genocide committed against them by the US government from their viewpoint.
Additional Information
352 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 23 b/w photographs and maps | Hardcover
Synopsis:
We clothed the royals. We fed the worker. We guided the traveler. We abetted the soldier. We are not afraid to love. So begins Carl Gawboy's groundbreaking graphic history of the Fur Trade Era. From 1650 to 1850, the Ojibwe Nation was the epicenter of the first global trading network. Trade goods from Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America flowed into the Great Lakes region, floating along Ojibwe waterways in birchbark canoes paddled by mixed-race Voyageurs. Gawboy offers a fresh perspective on the fur trade era, placing Ojibwe technology, kinship systems, cultural paradigms, and women at the heart of this remarkable era, where they have always belonged.
Additional Information
202 pages | 8.25" x 11.00" | Hardcover
Synopsis:
The only book on award-winning Indigenous basket maker Jeremy Frey, accompanying his first major traveling exhibition.
Frey (Passamaquoddy) is one of the most respected Indigenous basket makers working today. Descended from a long line of basket makers, his work is known for its intricate design and exquisite artistry, which reflect both traditional techniques and his own creative vision.
This catalogue considers his work from a variety of perspectives. Secord, whom Frey credits for guiding his career as the founder of Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, contributes a detailed biographical essay. DeSimone situates Frey’s work in the broader field of contemporary art, with a specific focus on the new video work he is making for the exhibition. Hoska focuses on Frey’s art in the broader context of Native basket and fiber arts. And Mize considers the ways in which his expanding practice registers ecological knowledge, time, and the impact of climate change.
Additional Information
160 pages | 8.85" x 11.91" | Hardcover
Synopsis:
Rooted in ten Indigenous values, this thoughtful, holistic book-written by Randy Woodley, a Cherokee descendant recognized by the Keetoowah Band, and Edith Woodley, an Eastern Shoshone tribal member-helps readers learn lifeways that lead to true wholeness, well-being, justice, and harmony.
The pursuit of happiness, as defined by settlers and enshrined in the American Dream, has brought us to the brink: emotionally, spiritually, socially, and as a species. We stand on a precipice, the future unknown. But Indigenous people carry forward the values that humans need to survive and thrive. In Journey to Eloheh, Randy and Edith Woodley help readers transform their worldviews and lifestyles by learning the ten values of the Harmony Way. These ten values, held in common across at least forty-five Indigenous tribes and nations, can lead us toward true well-being: harmony, respect, accountability, history, humor, authenticity, equality, friendship, generosity, and balance. By learning, converting to, and cultivating everyday practices of Eloheh--a Cherokee word meaning harmony and peace--we have a chance at building well-being and a sustainable culture.
In this riveting account of their own journeys toward deepening their indigeneity and embodying harmony, Edith, an activist-farmer, and Randy, a scholar, author, teacher, and wisdom-keeper, help readers learn the lifeways of the Harmony Way. The journey to Eloheh holds promise for all of us, Indigenous or not.
We know the Western worldview is at odds with a sustainable Earth, a just common life, and personal well-being. Together we can convert to another way of living--one that recognizes the Earth as sacred, sees all creation as related, and offers ancestral values as the way forward to a shared future.
Reviews
"Edith and Randy Woodley's passion and persistence to create spaces of community and care are inspiring. A blend of storytelling, theology, and guidance harvested directly through Indigenous wisdom, Journey to Eloheh reminds us to stay true to the path of kinship and belonging, and to never give up on justice and peacemaking in the world. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is searching for a way to be a better relative on this earth or to fight for a better reality for future generations. This book will help you get there." --Kaitlin B. Curtice, award-winning author of Native and Living Resistance
"Spiritual journey as autobiography: like a Navajo weaver, Journey to Eloheh skillfully connects Native American theology and personal experience into a way of life. If you are looking for your own path, Edith and Randy Woodley's story is a good place to begin." --Steven Charleston, author of Ladder to the Light, Spirit Wheel, and We Survived the End of the World
"There is so much we can all learn from the wisdom of Indigenous culture. In this book, Randy and Edith Woodley invite us to join them on a journey of learning a different way of living that leads to wholeness, abundance, and peace. They generously share their life experience and spiritual insights to show us a better path toward harmony with the whole of creation. I highly recommend it!" --Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil, author of Becoming Brave and Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0
"A practical antidote to despair, hopelessness, and aimless consumption, this book offers a robust and healing path to well-being for all of us. The Woodleys are wise and trustworthy guides for restoration and embodied goodness within the community of creation." --Sarah Bessey, author of Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith
"Randy and Edith Woodley write with insight and wisdom from their years of experience. They have prophetic voices that draw attention to the needs of all of our relatives. Their voices rise out of difficult situations in which they have done more than survive; they are showing how to flourish in an ever-changing world." --Ray Aldred, director of the Indigenous Studies Program, Vancouver School of Theology
"For many years, I have considered Randy Woodley one of my teachers. His books, lectures, and personal conversations--together with his humble, yet bold, spirit as a teacher--have enriched and challenged me. His new book, co-written with his wise and eloquent wife, Edith, is a masterpiece, a book I would recommend to anyone and everyone. It beautifully combines the sharing of their life-story with the essence of their lifeway, articulated in ten powerful Indigenous values that are as deeply spiritual as they are deeply practical." --Brian McLaren, author, teacher, and activist
Educator Information
Keywords / Themes: Well-Being; the Harmony Way (Eloheh); Ten Eloheh Values; Indigenous Knowledge, Indigenous Values; Personal Growth.
Additional Information
264 pages | 5.75" x 8.75" | Hardcover