These nine essays blend documentary history, oral history, and ethnographic observation to shed light on the complex world of grandmothering in Native America. The cultural and emotional resources of their ethnic traditions help grandmothers grapple with the myriad social, economic, cultural, and political challenges they faced in the late twentieth century. Indian grandmothers are almost universally occupied with child care and child rearing at some time, but such variables as lineal descent, clan membership, kinship patterns, individual behavior, and cultural ideology change the definition, role, and status of a grandmother from tribe to tribe. Although late-twentieth-century society often impoverishes and marginalizes them, many Indian grandmothers provide grandchildren with social stability and a cultural link to native indentity, history and wisdom. The contributors' case studies explore grandmothering among Navajos, Puget Sound Salish, Tewas, Hopis, Otoes, Choctaws, and Sioux. In addition to Marjorie Schweitzer, volume contributors include Karen Ritts Benally, Ann Lane Hedlund, Pamela Amoss, Bruce G. Miller, Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Alice Schlegel, Joan Weibel-Orlando, and Pat McCabe. The royalties from this book are donated to the Native American Scholarship Fund, Inc., based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
A memoir expresses the poverty, personal hardships, and prejudice of the author's life growing up as a second generation Crow Indian on a reservation, and the bond she formed with her grandmother, a medicine woman.
?Once in a blue moon (which means a fairly long cycle in my case) one who deals professionally with new books comes upon something that seems to him truly noteworthy and memorable-a reading experience which he will cherish for the rest of his life. And when this book is original and, indeed, unique-when it achieves something that has never been done before-one's impulse is to rent a billboard, to hire a hall, in some way to underline and emphasize the excitement and enthusiasm of his discovery, so that other readers may share his pleasure. "This has been my experience with The Ten Grandmothers, by Alice Marriott. It was the custom of certain tribes of Indians of the Great Plains to keep a 'winter count,' or calendar, of important events. Each year an officially designated scribe or historian of the tribe inscribed on a specially selected and prepared buffalo hide (which was a sacred tribal possession) a colored pictograph commemorating the most noteworthy event of the year-the happening or circumstance for which the year would be remembered in the oral literature and traditions of the tribe. "Miss Marriott's book is based upon such a tribal history of the Kiowas, an important and tenacious nation of the southern Great Plains, for more than a hundred years. She has taken representative incidents from this story and built each into a unified narrative of personal experience, concrete and dramatic. The thirty-three narratives fall into four groups reflecting the major phases of Kiowa history in the last century; they are called, since Kiowa .economy was based on the buffalo, The Time When There Were Plenty of Buffalo; The Time When Buffalo Were Going; The Time When Buffalo Were Gone; and Modern Times. Since the same characters appear recurringly, the book has the effect of a loosely constructed novel. "Miss Marriott is an ethnologist. Her book is based on eight years of work with the Kiowas?work that certainly consisted of much more than superficial interviews with aged Indians. There is evidence everywhere, not only of accurate scientific knowledge of the material to be presented, but of profound human insight and understanding. "Miss Marriott is also a creative artist of extraordinary powers. Her book has abundant humor, drama and melodrama, beauty and sordidness, pathos and tragedy: all presented sharply, objectively, with economy, restraint, and dignity. The narrative of the long journey of Wooden Lance, to see for himself and for his tribe whether the leader of the Ghost Dance movement (that inspired the last desperate, irrational struggle of the plains Indians against the whites) had 'true power is unforgettable in its simplicity and reality. The story of the Kiowa girl Leah's return from her years at a boarding school in the East to her family on the reservation is as true and socially significant as it is poignant and dramatic. "The great achievement of Miss Marriott's book is that it makes accessible to the reader of today the essence of a culture, a way of life and thought, now almost vanished from the earth. "We have an uneasy feeling that some special meaning and value for Americans of today and tomorrow must lie in the older cultures of our continent which our own has so largely displaced. American writers from Longfellow on have tried with varying degrees of success to capture that meaning for us. "Miss Marriott's book shows that our feeling was justified. No discerning reader will fail to find in the men and women who are so vivid in its pages-Sitting Bear and Eagle Plume, old Quanah and Spear Woman, and the Kiowa boys riding in their jeep to enlist for the present World War-in their vision and knowledge of life and their essential experience, abundant meaning for today."
A young Native American woman creates a hauntingly beautiful tribute to an age-old way of life in this fascinating portrait of the women of the Blackfoot Indians. A captivating tapestry of personal and tribal history, legends and myths, and the wisdom passed down through generations of women, this extraordinary book is also a priceless record of the traditional skills and ways of an ancient culture that is vanishing all too fast. Including many rare photographs, The Ways of My Grandmothers is an authentic contribution to our knowledge and understanding of Native American lore -- and a classic that will speak to women everywhere.
12. Poems by Joseph R. Hillaire and Pauline R. Hillaire -- 13. History in the Time of the Treaty of Point Elliott -- Afterword -- Appendix 1 -- Appendix 2 -- Appendix 3 -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Pauline R. Hillaire -- About Gregory P. Fields -- Series List -- Illustrations
Indian Annie was a young child in the northern hills of Alabama, when Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal law forced Native Americans to leave the south. Her family decided not to leave their sacred homeland, but to hide in the mountains, speak English, and blend into the rural farming population. They called their young child, "Indian Annie" because she declared herself proud to be Indian. Annie tells her family's story of surviving in what became known as Freedom Hills, through the hardships of the 19th century, including the starving years of the Civil War. Indian Annie, a Grandmother's Story is historical fiction, based on real history, told in first-person by an imagined woman of those times.
The four oral histories presented in this attractive volume pay homage to elder women who quietly serve as community and political activists within the Lakota-Dakota Nation. . . Recommended.--Library Journal
Bloomfield Academy was founded in 1852 by the Chickasaw Nation in conjunction with missionaries. It remained open for nearly a century, offering Chickasaw girls one of the finest educations in the West. After being forcibly relocated toøIndian Territory, the Chickasaws viewed education as instrumental to their survival in a rapidly changing world. Bloomfield became their way to prepare emerging generations of Chickasaw girls for new challenges and opportunities. Amanda J. Cobb became interested in Bloomfield Academy because of her grandmother, Ida Mae Pratt Cobb, an alumna from the 1920s. Drawing on letters, reports, interviews with students, and school programs, Cobb recounts the academy?s success story. In stark contrast to the federally run off-reservation boarding schools in operation at the time, Bloomfield represents a rare instance of tribal control in education. For the Chickasaw Nation, Bloomfield?a tool of assimilation?became an important method of self-preservation.
A fascinating compilation of original sources recounting the history, culture, and societies of Native American groups of the Great Columbia Plateau. Edited and annotated by award-winning writer Clifford E. Trafzer, this is a magnificent collection of oral stories of the Yakama, Nez Perce, Whisram, Klickitat, as well as several other tribes. Rich in detail, the stories form the basis for Plateau Indian history, offering readers traditional native narratives that allow people to enter a sacred world of words and stories. At the beginning of time -- for all times -- these stories were told and retold for generations by all the Grandmothers and Grandfathers. These stories set animals, plants, and places in motion, and they help spin the cosmos into being. They keep the traditions alive and recreate the world with each telling. This unique collection is representative of oral traditions that are still much a part of Plateau Indian culture today. Trafzer provides a provocative introduction that ties the oral traditions of the people to their history and culture, inviting readers to use the stories as windows that will offer a better understanding of Native Americans and their relationship with the natural world. Trafzer simply asks readers to enter the Native American world through the teachings and tellings of the Wahteetash, the first peoples.
An encounter with a pheasant (which may or may not be sleeping) takes a surprising turn in this sweetly serious and funny story of a Native American boy and his grandma "Pull over, Grandma! Hurry!” Johnny says. Grandma does, and Johnny runs to show her what he spotted near the ditch: a sleeping pheasant. What Grandma sees is a small feathery hump. When Johnny wants to take it home, Grandma tries to tell him that the pheasant might have been hit by a car. But maybe she could use the feathers for her craftwork? So home with Grandma and Johnny the pheasant goes . . . It’s hard to say who is most surprised by what happens next—Grandma, Johnny, or the pheasant. But no one will be more delighted than the reader at this lesson about patience and kindness and respect for nature, imparted by Grandma’s gentle humor, Johnny’s happy hooting, and all the quiet wisdom found in Cheryl Minnema’s stories of Native life and Julie Flett’s remarkably evocative and beautiful illustrations.
