Native Americans

Information on indigenous peoples

See also Category: Native Americans and Environmental Justice

Overviews and Research Resources

Indigenous Environmental Network ***

Yes magazine coverage includes Idle No More, a native occupy/spring.

Profiles and information about California's indigenous Native American Tribes.

Lists Native American tribes in California and provides descriptions of their location and diet.

Native American news quarterly also AlterNative

Nativeamericans.com

International Indian Treaty Council works on food sovereignty, climate etc.

A brief history of Native Americans in California

Ohlone tribe

History of Ohlone tribe

Ethnic NewsWatch: Full-text newspaper and journal articles focusing on news, culture and history from the ethnic, minority and native press. (university login).

Native American Studies

News

Idle No More: Indigenous-Led Protests Sweep Canada for Native Sovereignty and Environmental Justice, also in Oakland 1/13 Bill McKibben's take. Update and background 1/13.

Rebecca Solnit reflects on 2012: Who foresaw that the silly misinterpretations of Mayan prophesy would be overtaken by the Mayan Zapatistas, who rose once again last Friday? (Meanwhile, Canada's Native people started a dynamic movement around indigenous rights and the environment that has led to everything from flash-mob dances in an Edmonton Mall to demonstrations in Ottawa.)

Tribes take on coal 10/12. why it matters (video).

Action on climate change: Congressional testimony, PBS NewsHour video part 1 part 2 on Northwest coast salmon. 7.12

Lakotas block the XL Pipeline 3/12 Canadians too. Lakota Hunger Strike4/12

Louisiana tribe loses land to sea level rise 6/12

Caroline Cannon has won the prestigious Goldman Award for bringing the voice and perspective of her Inupiat community in Point Hope to the battle to keep Arctic waters safe from offshore oil and gas drilling, and successfully halted numerous oil and gas leases in the region.(audio) transcript.

Arboretum celebrates partnership with Amah Mutsun tribe on native plants.

Native tribe challenges Keystone XL pipeline 12/11

Eagle controversy 3/12.

Uranium mining and Native people.

More than ten percent of the potential for clean energy in the US sits on land owned by Indian tribes.

Video

Quileute 'Twilight' Tribe Deals With Rising Sea Levels That Threaten Way of Life Nov. 26, 2012 PBS Newshour.

Sacred Poison shows the devastating toll past uranium mining has had on the Navajo people and discusses the potential risks posed by a renewal of uranium mining. It lays out the complex and conflicting economic, political, environmental and spiritual issues involved. However, this documentary in no way portrays the Navajo as victims of outside forces, but rather agents of change within their community and beyond. Yvonne Latty 2011. excerpt) Related article

The Moapa Band of Paiutes continues to fight the pollution from the nearby Reid Gardner coal plant in Southern Nevada, and the Sierra Club stands with them. Today, we are releasing this powerful new video that features members of the tribe telling moving personal stories about the devastating effects of pollution from Reid Gardner. 6/12

We Shall Remain, a provocative PBS multi-media project that establishes Native history as an essential part of American history.

Audio

Bay Native Circle KPFA 2 pm Weds. Hosts Janeen Antoine, Lakota Harden, Mark Anquoe, Ras K'Dee and Morning Star Gali bring you today's Native issues, people, culture & events.Bay Area Native Community Calendar.

An indigenous tribe in the Amazon is trying to protect its forest by selling carbon credits on the voluntary carbon market. 9/12.

Non-fiction Books

The Sacred Headwaters by Wade Davis.

Literature

List of writers

Sherman Alexie is a younger writer whose stories about the Rez are darkly funny. Smoke Signals (1998) is a film of his screenplay based on "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven".

Paula Gunn Allen is a great poet, Feminist and scholar.

Louise Erdrich's novels include Love Medicine (1984), The Beet Queen (1986), Tracks (1988).

Joy Harjo Muscogee (Creek) Nation, is a great poet (and plays sax too Eagle Song). A new autobiography Crazy Brave is about the dreams, visions and heartache that led her to find her voice as a poet and musician.(audio interview).

N. Scott Momaday, a Native American author of Kiowa decent. His work House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969, is considered the founding author in what critic Kenneth Lincoln has coined the Native American Renaissance.

Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony and Almanac of the Dead are cultural critiques that have environmental aspects.

History

Readings

Cronon, William Changes in the Land documents how Native Americans related to nature, and what happened when the market was introduced. Ch. 8 is the summary/conclusion.

Charles Mann, author of 1491(book exploration on how Native Americans used the land) has also written about interactions between colonists and Native peoples. Charles C. Mann (1491) discusses the voyage of Christopher Columbus and the birth of globalization in terms of world trade and ecological collision. Charles Mann, "Living in the Homogenocene: The First 500 Years" (video) LongNow 2012 talk.

Another account of megafauna extinctions.

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown video excerpt.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen is more recent history.

Vine Deloria, Jr. wrote Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto