November is Native American Heritage Month

Did you know that there are at least 562 federally recognized tribal nations in the U.S.?

“In 1990 President George H. W. Bush approved a joint resolution designating November 1990 “National American Indian Heritage Month.”
– NativeAmericanHeritageMonth.gov

You can learn more about the lives and history of Native Americans with these books and films. And check out our collections just for kids and teens.

 

Biographical Dictionary of American Indian History to 1900
by Carl Waldman

2001 revised edition of “Who Was Who in Native American History.”

 

 

 

The Powhatan: A Confederacy of Native American Tribes
by Tracey Boraas

Provides an overview of the past and present lives of the Powhatan people, tracing their customs, family life, history, culture, and relations with the United States government.

 

 

Skinwalkers
DVD [2002]

The Navajo Tribal Police investigate the murder of a medicine man. At the crime scene is a partially completed pictograph. One clue sends a chill through a young officer: the arrow used in the killing has a tip of human bone, a sign that a Navajo spirit – a “skinwalker” – is at work. Based on the book by Tony Hillerman.

 

 

Native American Architecture
by Peter Nabokov

For many people, Native American architecture calls to mind the wigwam, tipi, iglu, and pueblo. Yet the richly diverse building traditions of Native Americans includes specific structures for sleeping, working, worshipping, meditating, playing, and much more.

 

 

The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History
by Linwood “Little Bear” Custalow and Angela L. Daniel “Silver Star”

A written account of the oral history of Pocahontas, as passed down from her family and friends to present day Mattaponi (one of the tribes of the Powhatan nation).

 

 

 

Citizens Creek: A Novel
by Lalita Tademy

The author re-imagines the true story of an African American Creek Indian family. Cow Tom, an Alabama-born black slave owned by a Creek chief, serves as a translator during the Indian wars. Once he is dismissed from service, the slave undertakes the long journey to find his wife, children, and tribe. His travels westward take him through the camps where Indian tribes have been forcefully relocated, and finally to Oklahoma. Eventually Cow Tom is able to purchase his own freedom, as well as that of his family, and they go on to prosper despite major setbacks over many years.

 

 

Crazy Horse
by Judith St. George

A biography of the legendary Oglala Sioux warrior who defeated General Custer at Little Bighorn: angered by broken promises and the destruction of his world, Crazy Horse battled to save his people, their way of life, and their land.

 

 

 

Killing the Indian Maiden: Images of Native American Women in Film
by M. Elise Marubbio

Through discussion of thirty-four Hollywood films from the silent period to the present, Marubbio examines the sacrificial role of what she terms the “Celluloid Maiden” – a young Native woman who allies herself with a white male hero and dies as a result of that choice.

 

 

 

True Whispers: The Story of the Navajo Code Talkers
DVD [2007]

Explores from the Native point of view the complex story of the role that the Native American code talkers and the Navajo language played in secret communications during World War II. No cryptography system proved as effective during the war as did the use of Navajo code talkers using their tribal language to transmit military communiques.

 

 

 

 

Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491
by Charles C. Mann

This study of Native American societies is adapted for younger readers from Charles C. Mann’s best-selling “1491.” Turning conventional wisdom on its head, the book argues that the people of North and South America lived in enormous cities, raised pyramids hundreds of years before the Egyptians did, engineered corn, and farmed the rainforests.

 

 

Trickster: Native American Tales
edited by Matt Dembicki

These 21 folktales, created by pairing Native storytellers with a variety of artists, feature creatures explaining how things came to be, like islands or stars, or animals playing tricks on one another. the stories vary in emotional tone, matching the ever-shifting appearance and character of the trickster himself and the lessons he teaches and learns.