Native American History: Northern Plains Tribes

THE ARIKARA WAR: The First Plains Indian War, 1823
by William R. Nester. B&W photos and era artwork illustrate. Condition: NEW 2001 Mountain Press Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: Reviewer: "The first military encounter between the fledgling United States government and western Indian tribes was the Arikara War. In 1823, at the height of the fur trade, Arikara warriors attacked an American trapping expedition on the Missouri River in what is now South Dakota. 230 solders, 50 aggrieved trappers, and 750 Sioux allies retaliated against the Arikara under the command of Colonel Henry Leavenworth. The result was the defeat of the Arikara and a debate between Americans advocating the firm subjugation of the Native Americans and those who held to more pacific and accommodationist philosophies. The Arikara War: The First Plains Indian War, 1823 offers both white and Indian perspectives as it examines causes and effects of this little, time-lost war. William Nester's informative, engaging text is enhanced for students of Native American history with paintings by Bodmer, Catlin, Miller, and other period artists." [1 copy available]
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CHEYENNE AUTUMN (An American Epic)
by Mari Sandoz. Condition: Gently pre-read c. 1971 Discus paperback, 8th printing. Spine crease with small edgewear. Interior clean & tight but tanning. Not collectible but a good reading copy. Content: In the autumn of 1878 a band of Cheyenne Indians set out from Indian Territory, where they had been sent by the U.S. government, to return to their homeland in Yellowstone country. Mari Sandoz tells the saga of their heartbreaking fifteen-hundred-mile flight. One of the worst episodes in US history. The 1964 movie was directed by John Ford (many surmise that this was his "appology" for portraying Native Americans in a poor light over his career). It starred Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, Sal Mineo, Dolores del Rio, Ricardo Montalban, Pat Wayne, Gilbert Roland, Edward G. Robinson, Jimmy Stewart (in an interesting aside as Wyatt Earp), and Bing Russell (Kurt's dad). This is a good and powerful movie, but I would love to see a remake with today's extraordinary Native American actors. [1 copy available]
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THE CROW INDIANS
by Robert H. Lowie. Sensational B&W drawings and era photos illustrate. Condition: Gently pre-read, IF at all, 1980 Irvington Publishers Trade Paperback, no printing given. Light edge wear with a pale spine crease - which I think is a binding error, but . . . Content: For nearly ten years between 1907 and 1931, anthropologist Robert H. Lowie lived among the Crow Indians, listening to the old men and women tell of times gone forever. Lowie learned much about what had been, and still was, a society remarkable for its variability and cohesion, and for its resistance to the encroachments of white civilization. Written with clarity and vigor, Lowie's study makes instantly accessible what had taken him years to discover. He sacrificed neither personal sensitivity nor narrative skill to scientific scruples, but brought his scientific work to life. Crow religion, ceremonies, taboos, kinship bonds, tribal organization, division of labor, codes of honor, and rites of courtship and wedlock receive their due. The Crow Indians is a masterpiece of ethnography, foremost for Lowie's portrayal of the different personalities he encountered: Gray-bull and his marital troubles; the great visionary Medicine-crow; Yellow-brow, the gifted storyteller; and many more. [1 copy available]
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THE CROW INDIANS
by Robert H. Lowie. Sensational B&W drawings and era photos illustrate. Condition: UNREAD, but not perfect, 1983 Bison trade paperback, revised edition, second printing. Problem: poorly shelved (no, I didn't do it) with some "bending" (not creased) of some pages. Light edge wear. Content: For nearly ten years between 1907 and 1931, anthropologist Robert H. Lowie lived among the Crow Indians, listening to the old men and women tell of times gone forever. Lowie learned much about what had been, and still was, a society remarkable for its variability and cohesion, and for its resistance to the encroachments of white civilization. Written with clarity and vigor, Lowie's study makes instantly accessible what had taken him years to discover. He sacrificed neither personal sensitivity nor narrative skill to scientific scruples, but brought his scientific work to life. Crow religion, ceremonies, taboos, kinship bonds, tribal organization, division of labor, codes of honor, and rites of courtship and wedlock receive their due. The Crow Indians is a masterpiece of ethnography, foremost for Lowie's portrayal of the different personalities he encountered: Gray-bull and his marital troubles; the great visionary Medicine-crow; Yellow-brow, the gifted storyteller; and many more. [1 copy available]
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THE PAWENEE MYTHOLOGY (Sources of American Indian Oral Literature series)
by George Dorsey. Beautiful cover art by Paul Pletka - "Star Lookers." Condition: NEW 1997 Univ. of Nebraska Bison Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: The Pawnee Mythology, originally published in 1906, preserves 148 tales of the Pawnee Indians, who farmed and hunted and lived in earth-covered lodges along the Platte River in Nebraska. The stories, collected from surviving members of four bands—Skidi, Pitahauirat, Kitkehahki, and Chaui— were generally told during intermissions of sacred ceremonies. Many were accompanied by music. George A. Dorsey (1868 - 1931) recorded these Pawnee myths early in the twentieth century after the tribe’s traumatic removal from their ancestral homeland to Oklahoma. He included stories of instruction concerning supernatural beings, the importance of revering such gifts as the buffalo and corn, and the results of violating nature. Hero tales, forming another group, usually centered on a poor boy who overcame all odds to benefit the tribe. Other tales invited good fortune, recognized wonderful beings like the witch women and spider women, and explained the origin of medicine powers. Coyote tales were meant to amuse while teaching ethics. [2 copies available]
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PEOPLE OF THE RED EARTH: American Indians of Colorado
by Sally Crum. Faith DeLong cover illustration. B&W era photos, maps, and drawings plus petroglyphs illustrate. Condition: NEW 1996 Ancient City Press (Santa Fe) lare soft cover, first printing. Content: For at least 12,000 years, Native Americans laid claim to the land that, with the coming of the Europeans, came to be called Colorado. From paleolithic hunters to contemporary Arapahoe, Ute, and Shoshone peoples, Native Americans have adapted again and again to the demands of this unpredictable land, its climate and its invaders. Their history and tenacity are revealed in Colorado archaeologist Sally Crum's People Of The Red Earth. Lively, accessible, authoritative, and exceptionally well written for the non-specialist general reader, People Of The Red Earth explains how the earliest agriculturists kept their fields green despite long droughts, how hunters knapped tools and points so precise they can barely be duplicated, and how features announced a warrior's reputation. Each culture (from the Anasazi to the Arapahoes) has its own medicinal herbs, shaman's powers, women's dress styles, children's games, lovesongs, battles and truces. Crum's research and archaeological experience brings all this rich heritage to life again. Crum also shows how the story of Colorado's earliest inhabitants continues to be rewritten through new techniques in excavation, lab research, and dating tests. Organized by era and region, People Of The Red Earth is also a comprehensive guide to recommended archaeological sites, museums, and cultural centers. Crum's informative text is further enhanced by numerous maps, drawings and historic photographs. A splendid work of exemplary scholarship. [1 copy available]
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SPIRIT MOVES: The Story of Six Generations of Native Women
by Loree Boyd. Beautiful cover art by Silversong. Condition: NEW 1996 New World Library large Trade Paperback, first printing. Tiny shelfwear. Content: In this autobiographical memoir, Boyd, a Cree/Blackfoot Metis American, comes to terms with her childhood by portraying six generations of her family. Her evocative stories about the lives of her great-grandmother, Margaret; her grandmother, Anne; and her mother, Silversong, are poetic and thought-provoking. Boyd tells about prejudice against Native Americans, physical abuse, and the cultural destruction of her people. While researching this work, she discovered that both her grandmother and mother had sworn vows of silence to protect her. Her stories about the endurance of these women give readers a strong model of a family determined to survive. Questions welcome. [3 copies available]
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THE SUN CAME DOWN: The History of the World as My Blackfeet Elders Told It
by Percy Bullchild. B&W drawings by the Author. Condition: UNREAD, but not perfect, 1990 Harper & Row Trade Paperback, second printing. Light shelf wear to edges of cover with pale diagonal crease bottom front cover corner. Interior clean & tight. Content: At the age of sixty-seven, Percy Bullchild (1915–1986), a Blackfeet Indian from Browning, Montana, with little formal education in English, set out to put the oral traditions and history of his people into a permanent written record. He regarded this undertaking—to “write the Indian version of our own true ways in our history and legends,” as he puts it—as both a corrective and an instructive tool. Bullchild culled this remarkable collection of historical legends from his memory of the oral history as it was passed down to him by his elders and by seeking out the oral traditions of other tribes. These stories, like all legends, Bullchild reminds us, “may sound a little foolish, but they are very true. And they have much influence over all of the people of this world, even now as we all live.” Reviewer: "[This book] shares a major body of North American religious myths as handed down by such Blackfeet tribal elders as Yellow Kidney, Shoots First and Bullchild's own grandmother, Catches Last. With the same vividness that has kept these stories alive for centuries, Bullchild retells the legendary history of Creator Sun, who made the earth by spitting on a ball of dust; of Napi, a Coyote figure who is both humananity's bane and helper; and Ku-toeyis, the hero the Sun sent to undo Napi's mischief. In the final chapter, "Honoring Creator Sun," Bullchild recounts the origina and cultural importance of Plains Indian ceremonies, including the Sun Dance. These legends, some familiar, most unknown, capture the raw force of the original oral traditions. With robust energy, flashes of raucous humor, and lyricism, these legends expose a culture rich in spirituality and humor. This is a rare sampling of the spirituality, mythology, and psychology of the Native American." Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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TWO LEGGINGS: The Making of A Crow Warrior
by Peter Nabokov. Foreword by John Ewers. B&W era photo section. Condition: Gently pre-read 1982 Bison Trade Paperback, 4th printing. Pale crease bottom front cover edge, spine crease. Interior clean. Remainder mark bottom edges. Content: This book is based on a field manuscript prepared by William Wildschut for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. Two Leggings ...was one of the last Crow Warriors. From 1919 to 1923, he told his story of Crow life and wars to William Wildschut, an ethnologist with the Museum of the American Indian ...This is the poignant story of the end of traditional Crow life and attitudes, which Two Leggings saw ending with the last warfare rather than the death of the buffalo'. 'This is the story of Two Leggings' desire for fame, his rise as a warrior, and his efforts to achieve a spiritual vision. He takes us along on buffalo hunts, war parties against the Piegans, and horse stealing raids against the Piegans and Sioux. His obsession to become a chief and famous warrior drove him to repeated forays against enemy tribes for scalps and horses. He relates the religious relationship between vision fasts, medicine bundles, and a war raid's outcome, sun dances in which performers pierced their breast muscles with wooden skewers, and wife stealing between rival warrior societies...It is a remarkable story'. .'This is a rare piece of Americana - a first-person account of the psychological, religious, and social life of a nineteenth century Indian. The dramatic recital is a real contribution to our native biography, history, and ethnology, and an important treatise in a fascinating but curiously neglected field'. 'Two Leggings" lifts the curtain on a kind of life it is almost impossible to imagine anywhere in the United States during the second half of the last century. Mr. Nabokov has preserved a priceless document not only for ethnologists bur for plain readers as well. His narrative lays open, as by a surgeon's knife, the inner world of Indian religion and morality'. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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WARRIORS OF THE PLAINS (The Library of Native Peoples series)
by Thomas E Mails. B&W drawings by the Author. Condition: NEW 1997 Council Oaks Books Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: This books has been "culled" from Mails' Mystic Warriors of the Plains. A specialist in Northern Plains culture, Mails is known for large-format works, made especially distinctive by his own illustrations, which are now collected as art items and have also been reissued in paperback. As short, handy treatments of the Plains Indian culture for general readers, these four slim texts - the first in a series - are good compilations of accurate information on art, anthropology, religion, and history. Those who most appreciate Mails's previous work for its beautifully crafted art displayed in a generous format will be disappointed by these books (despite the instructive black-and-white illustrations - smaller format and smaller number from the large works of his), but sensitivity, accuracy, thoroughness, and even enthusiasm for the interesting lives of Native peoples survive. Mails' collection is a treasure trove of information on Plains Indians. The books detail all aspects of Plains Indian life -- ceremonial and spiritual practices, honor codes, warrior training, family and community customs, arts and crafts, and more. Each book contains 35 black and white illustrations. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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NATIVE AMERICAN PONY BOOKPLATES
art by Deviney. Condition: NEW package of 12 bookplates made by pacaritambo books. The peel-off label stock is heavier than most bookplate materials and is matte and not glossy. They are as perfect as possible, and we feel the subject matter is much different than you can get at a big store. 3.0 wide x 4.00 high. Content: Prancing Indian Pony decked out in feathers with his portrait above. We can personalize your bookplate (the font is Enviro D) - just email us the name. Any questions, click here to email us.
$ 4.00 + $ 2.85 first class shipping. International shipping available.