Introduces the various Native American tribes of the Great Basin region, discussing their history, dwellings, artwork, religious beliefs, clothing, food, and other aspects of their way of life.
In this ambitious book that ranges across the Great Basin, Blackhawk places Native peoples at the center of a dynamic story as he chronicles two centuries of Indian and imperial history that shaped the American West. This book is a passionate reminder of the high costs that the making of American history occasioned for many indigenous peoples.
Noel Justice adds another regional guide to his series of important reference works that survey, describe, and categorize the projectile point and cutting tools used in prehistory by Native American peoples. This volume addresses the region of California and the Great Basin. Written for archaeologists and amateur collectors alike, the book describes over 50 types of stone arrowhead and spear points according to period, culture, and region. With the knowledge of someone trained to fashion projectile points with techniques used by the Indians, Justice describes how the points were made, used, and re-sharpened. His detailed drawings illustrate the way the Indians shaped their tools, what styles were peculiar to which regions, and how the various types can best be identified. There are hundreds of drawings, organized by type cluster and other identifying characteristics. The book also includes distribution maps and color plates that will further aid the researcher or collector in identifying specific periods, cultures, and projectile types.
"Complete with compelling stories told by tribal members and customs passed down through the ages, historical milestones, and profiles of prominent, modern-day leaders, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN INDIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE is a richly illustrated and authoritative family reference." -- page 4 of cover.
Written to appeal to professional archaeologists, students, and the interested public alike, this book is a long overdue introduction to the ancient peoples of the Great Basin and northern Colorado Plateau. Through detailed syntheses, the reader is drawn into the story of the habitation of the Great Basin from the entry of the first Native Americans through the arrival of Europeans. Ancient Peoples is a major contribution to Great Basin archaeology and anthropology, as well as the general study of foraging societies.
This book is a joint project of the Utah Division of Indian Affairs and the Utah State Historical Society. It is distributed to the book trade by Utah State University Press. The valleys, mountains, and deserts of Utah have been home to native peoples for thousands of years. Like peoples around the word, Utah's native inhabitants organized themselves in family units, groups, bands, clans, and tribes. Today, six Indian tribes in Utah are recognized as official entities. They include the Northwestern Shoshone, the Goshutes, the Paiutes, the Utes, the White Mesa or Southern Utes, and the Navajos (Dineh). Each tribe has its own government. Tribe members are citizens of Utah and the United States; however, lines of distinction both within the tribes and with the greater society at large have not always been clear. Migration, interaction, war, trade, intermarriage, common threats, and challenges have made relationships and affiliations more fluid than might be expected. In this volume, the editor and authors endeavor to write the history of Utah's first residents from an Indian perspective. An introductory chapter provides an overview of Utah's American Indians and a concluding chapter summarizes the issues and concerns of contemporary Indians and their leaders. Chapters on each of the six tribes look at origin stories, religion, politics, education, folkways, family life, social activities, economic issues, and important events. They provide an introduction to the rich heritage of Utah's native peoples. This book includes chapters by David Begay, Dennis Defa, Clifford Duncan, Ronald Holt, Nancy Maryboy, Robert McPherson, Mae Parry, Gary Tom, and Mary Jane Yazzie. Forrest Cuch was born and raised on the Uintah and Ouray Ute Indian Reservation in northeastern Utah. He graduated from Westminster College in 1973 with a bachelor of arts degree in behavioral sciences. He served as education director for the Ute Indian Tribe from 1973 to 1988. From 1988 to 1994 he was employed by the Wampanoag Tribe in Gay Head, Massachusetts, first as a planner and then as tribal administrator. Since October 1997 he has been director of the Utah Division of Indian Affairs.
A chronicle of American indigenous life, this guide captures the history of the complex societies that lived in North America when European explorers first appeared on the continent. Not only a history of tribal nations, this exploration also includes profiles of famous Native Americans and their many contributions--from early leaders to superstar athletes, dancers, astronauts, authors, and actors. Readers will learn about Indian culture through hands-on activities, such as planting a Three Sisters Garden, making beef jerky in a low-temperature oven, weaving a basket out of folded newspaper strips, deciphering a World War II Navajo Code Talker message, and playing Ball-and-Triangle. An important look at life before the settlers until present day, this resource shows that Native American history is the history of all Americans.
Detailing the role of women in aviation, from the very first days of flight to the present, this rich exploration of the subject profiles 26 women pilots who sought out and met challenges both in the sky and on the ground. Divided into six chronologically arranged sections, this book composes a minihistory of aviation. Learn about pioneers such as Katherine Wright, called by many the "Third Wright Brother," and Baroness Raymonde de Laroche of France, the first woman awarded a license to fly. Read about barnstormers like Bessie Coleman and racers like Louise Thaden, who bested Amelia Earhart to win the 1929 Women's Air Derby. Additional short biography sidebars for other key figures and lists of supplemental resources for delving deeper into the history of the subject are also included.
Native Americans who populated the various ranchos of Mexican California as laborers are people frequently lost to history. The "rancho period" was a critical time for California Indians, as many were drawn into labor pools for the flourishing ranchos following the 1834 dismantlement of the mission system, but they are practically absent from the documentary record and from popular histories. This study focuses on Rancho Petaluma north of San Francisco Bay, a large livestock, agricultural, and manufacturing operation on which several hundredÑperhaps as many as two thousandÑNative Americans worked as field hands, cowboys, artisans, cooks, and servants. One of the largest ranchos in the region, it was owned from 1834 to 1857 by Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, one of the most prominent political figures of Mexican California. While historians have studied Vallejo, few have considered the Native Americans he controlled, so we know little of what their lives were like or how they adjusted to the colonial labor regime. Because VallejoÕs Petaluma Adobe is now a state historic park and one of the most well-protected rancho sites in California, this site offers unparalleled opportunities to investigate nineteenth-century rancho life via archaeology. Using the Vallejo rancho as a case study, Stephen Silliman examines this California rancho with a particular eye toward Native American participation. Through the archaeological recordÑtools and implements, containers, beads, bone and shell artifacts, food remainsÑhe reconstructs the daily practices of Native peoples at Rancho Petaluma and the labor relations that structured indigenous participation in and experience of rancho life. This research enables him to expose the multi-ethnic nature of colonialism, counterbalancing popular misconceptions of Native Americans as either non-participants in the ranchos or passive workers with little to contribute to history. Lost Laborers in Colonial California draws on archaeological data, material studies, and archival research, and meshes them with theoretical issues of labor, gender, and social practice to examine not only how colonial worlds controlled indigenous peoples and practices but also how Native Americans lived through and often resisted those impositions. The book fills a gap in the regional archaeological and historical literature as it makes a unique contribution to colonial and contact-period studies in the Spanish/Mexican borderlands and beyond.