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Type: educational

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Status: I recommend

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Authors: Peter N. Jones Marie L. McLaughlin Zitkala-Sa

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Tags: american native legends indian myths lakota oral Sioux traditions

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Description: Oral traditions and myths have long been an integral part of Native American cosmology. NotOral traditions and myths have long been an integral part of Native American cosmology. Not only have they been – and continue to be – an essential part of handing down Native American customs, norms, beliefs, and cultural histories, but they also form a communal mythic discourse. This discourse is not a “fixed text,” but rather a dynamic process of interactive relations that are developed over generations of experience, and passed from relation to relation and generation to generation. In this sense, the traditional structures of mythic discourse serve an integrative function: to form a coherent basis for communal identity in terms of a shared set of fundamental ideas and beliefs expressed in multiple forms.

The oral traditions and myths recorded in this book are part of the communal mythic discourse of the Lakota Sioux people. Originally collected and recorded at the close of the nineteenth century by two Native language speakers – Marie L. McLaughlin and Zitkala Sa – these oral traditions provide some of the least distorted or colonially disrupted examples of the Lakota Sioux communal mythic discourse. Containing over 40 oral traditions, Lakota Sioux Legends and Myths brings together into a single volume these remarkable myths and legends.

Edited and with a forward by Peter N. Jones, Ph.D., Lakota Sioux Legends and Myths is a welcome and refreshing addition to the literature. Once again the beauty, depth, and knowledge contained within the Lakota Sioux oral traditions can speak for themselves....

2009-06-11

 

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Type: fiction

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Status: favorite

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Author: George Sylvester Viereck

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Tags: classic horror vampire noir scary blood

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Description: One of the first psychic vampire novels of its time - where the vampire feeds off of more thanOne of the first psychic vampire novels of its time - where the vampire feeds off of more than just blood - The House of the Vampire is an early classic in its genre. Republished in this new edition, this Victorian novel operates in the continuum of life and death. What has been can be again, though often terribly transformed. ...

2008-11-02

 

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Type: fiction

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Status: favorite

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Authors: Linton Robinson Ana Maria Corona

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Tags: stories fiction magic sex cooking food short mexico culinary border

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Description: National borders are abstract lines that take root as physical barricades and divides. CulturalNational borders are abstract lines that take root as physical barricades and divides. Cultural differences create people whose differences from others stem entirely from their minds. Lovers, societies and families are bound together with bonds as fragile and ephemeral as the mooring lines of great ships. And inside each person is a map or similar boundaries, frontiers, and alliances. This book turns the visible differences at the border of two nations into a mirror, a metaphor for the human condition.

When these stories first appeared in San Diego periodicals, Baja Week and Harpers, they were acclaimed as more than just "border fiction" by writer friends: critics praised the blending of Linton Robinson's craftsmanship and transparent style with Ana Maria Corona's clear-eyed witness and charming voice. Now they are collected in book format for readers outside of the border area... but within the eternal no-man's land of their humanity....

2008-08-31

 

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Type: fiction

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Status: favorite

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Author: William Hood

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Tags: wilderness enlightenment transformation hiking mountains backpacking Colorado

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Description: In his book, Searching for a Perfect State of Colorado, author William Hood takes us alongIn his book, Searching for a Perfect State of Colorado, author William Hood takes us along on his own harrowing journey as he attempts to cross the Weminuche Wilderness Area, by himself, in September of 2002. He would complete this one hundred mile trek in just nine days as backpacking across the San Juan mountains transcends from a physical challenge, to a mental test, to ultimately a spiritual enlightenment....

2008-06-01

 

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Type: fiction

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Status: I recommend

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Author: Andrew Wice

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Tags: fiction texas terrorism water new novel mexico oppression

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Description: To the Last Drop follows five characters through the course of a war between Texas and NewTo the Last Drop follows five characters through the course of a war between Texas and New Mexico. The novel begins with the accidental discovery of water in the arid southeast corner of New Mexico. Texas and New Mexico become tangled in a bitter legal dispute over the rights to that water. A series of increasingly aggressive border skirmishes leads to an invasion by the Texas State Guard.

The Texas militia sweeps aside the paltry resistance and occupies New Mexico. The conquered territory is renamed New Texas. The Military Governor exploits New Texas for its water while forcing it to pay for the cost of its own occupation.

Resistance to the Texas occupation begins in isolated pockets strung together by a pirate radio station. Censorship and brutality by Texas leads to violent reprisals by a growing insurgency. The rebellion burns in the city streets, on the internet and throughout the remote desert mountains.

The Texas State Guard overextends itself trying to guard against both the insurgency and the troublesome Mexican border. The Mexican Army invades, toppling the New Texas government. In the aftermath, the many sectarian factions gather to claim their water rights, exposing an uncertain and troubled future....

2008-05-01

 

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Type: educational

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Status: liked

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Author: Melinda Gelder

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Tags: diplomacy, activism, two citizen grass iwakuni, Japan, roots, track

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Description: What would you do if you suddenly you found yourself part of a community you had always thoughtWhat would you do if you suddenly you found yourself part of a community you had always thought you would never be associated with? What if this happened in a foreign country, where everyone automatically thought you were part of that group? In Meeting the Enemy, Becoming a Friend Dr. Gelder talks about her personal transformation from outspoken critic of the U.S. military to a global citizen that worked with military personnel and Japanese citizens in cultural exchanges. A strong social and environmental activist, Dr. Gelder recounts how she had to come to terms with military actions in a foreign country and how those actions were reflected back on her for her association with the military. Overcoming her initial bias against the military, Dr. Gelder took it upon herself to become a global citizen and enhance the relations between military personnel stationed in Japan, and the Japanese people located around the military base. Through a variety of actions, Dr. Gelder worked to build a positive relationship between the U.S. military and the local Japanese citizens and their communities. In Meeting the Enemy, Becoming a Friend, Dr. Gelder shows how it is possible to be a citizen in a global world and to respond with positive actions towards the people and places encountered, while also positively representing the places and people you come from. ...

2007-11-25

 

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Type: scientific

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Status: I recommend

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Author: Peter N. Jones

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Tags: american great native spirit americans, indians, basin, cave, clovis, folsom holocene, indigenous, kennewick man, nez paiute, perce, plateau, pleistocene, yakama,

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Description: In this eagerly awaited book, the cultural anthropologist Peter N. Jones brings fifteen yearsIn this eagerly awaited book, the cultural anthropologist Peter N. Jones brings fifteen years and over twenty-five projects to bear on one of the more controversial questions in contemporary American anthropology and American Indian studies. Are contemporary American Indian tribes of the American West culturally affiliated with the people who crossed over from Asia over 10,000 years ago? Have American Indians in the Plateau and Great Basin lived in their homeland for thousands of years as their oral traditions affirm? These are some of the questions he considers in Respect for the Ancestors.

In 1996 on the banks of the Columbia River a 9,300-year old skeleton was found that would become the impetus for the first legal assault on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The Kennewick Man, as it came to be called, put to test whether the American Indian tribes of the area were culturally affiliated with the skeleton as they claim and their oral traditions affirm, or whether the skeleton was affiliated with a people who are no longer present. At the same time, another 9,000-year old skeleton was found in the storage facility of the Nevada State Museum, where it had gone unnoticed for the past 50 years. Like the Kennewick Man, the Spirit Cave Mummy also brought to fore the question of cultural affiliation between contemporary American Indian tribes of the western Great Basin and those people who resided in the area during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene.

Cultural anthropologist Peter N. Jones tackles these contentious questions in this landmark study, Respect for the Ancestors. For the first time in a single work, the question of cultural affiliation between the present-day American Indians of the American West and the people of the distant past is examined using multiple lines of evidence. Out of this comprehensive study, a picture of continuous cultural evolution and adaptation between the peoples of the ancient past and those of the present-day emerges from the evidence. Further, important implications for the field of anthropology are discussed as a result of this benchmark study.

Anyone working in the American West or with American Indians and other indigenous cultures will benefit from this book....

2007-11-25