Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing by and about Indigenous Peoples

Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing by and about Indigenous Peoples

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Elements of Indigenous Style offers Indigenous writers and editors--and everyone creating works about Indigenous Peoples--the first published guide to common questions and issues of style and process. Everyone working in words or other media needs to read this important new reference, and to keep it nearby while they're working.

This guide features:

  • Twenty-two succinct style principles.
  • Advice on culturally appropriate publishing practices, including how to collaborate with Indigenous Peoples, when and how to seek the advice of Elders, and how to respect Indigenous Oral Traditions and Traditional Knowledge.
  • Terminology to use and to avoid.
  • Advice on specific editing issues, such as biased language, capitalization, and quoting from historical sources and archives.
  • Case studies of projects that illustrate best practices.
  • Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Indians

    Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Indians

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    A revised and updated edition of a modern classic offers answers to nearly 200 essential and thought-provoking questions about the Native people of North America.

    What have you always wanted to know about Indians? Do you feel like you should already know the answers--or are concerned that your questions may be offensive? For more than a decade, Anton Treuer's clear, candid, and informative book has answered questions for tens of thousands of readers. This revised edition both revisits old questions from a new perspective and expands on topics that have become increasingly relevant over the past decade, including activism and tribal enrollment; truth and reconciliation efforts; gender roles and identities in Indigenous communities; the status of Alaskan Natives and Canadian First Nations; and much more.


    Treuer, an Ojibwe scholar and cultural preservationist, addresses nearly 200 questions on a range of topics--questions that are thoughtful and outrageous, modern and historical, and always interesting.

    --What are we supposed to call North America's first people?

    --Can white people dance at powwows?

    --What's the point of land acknowledgments?

    --Does tribal sovereignty mean that tribes can offer abortion services in states where it is now otherwise illegal?


    With frank, funny, and sometimes personal prose, this book cuts through myths, guilt, and anger and builds a foundation for true understanding and positive action.

    Everything You Wanted to Know

    Everything You Wanted to Know

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    From the acclaimed Ojibwe author and professor Anton Treuer comes an essential book of questions and answers for Native and non-Native young readers alike.

    Ranging from "Why is there such a fuss about nonnative people wearing Indian costumes for Halloween?" to "Why is it called a 'traditional Indian fry bread taco'?" to "What's it like for natives who don't look native?" to "Why are Indians so often imagined rather than understood?", and beyond, Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask (Young Readers Edition) does exactly what its title says for young readers, in a style consistently thoughtful, personal, and engaging.

    Updated and expanded to include:

    * Dozens of New Questions and New Sections--including a social activism section that explores the Dakota Access Pipeline, racism, identity, politics, and more!
    * Over 50 new Photos
    * Adapted text for broad appeal

    P R A I S E
    GOLDEN KITE AWARD WINNER
    CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY'S BEST OF THE BEST
    KIRKUS' BEST OF THE YEAR
    ABC GROUP BEST BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
    TLA'S 2022 TEXAS TOPAZ READING LIST
    CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY'S BEST TEEN BOOK COVERS OF THE YEAR
    ILLUMINATIVE CHILDREN'S BOOK GIFT GUIDE
    AICL'S BEST BOOKS OF 2021
    A JUNIOR LIBRARY GUILD SELECTION
    2022 TEXAS TOPAZ SELECTION
    CYBILS AWARDS FINALIST
    CCBC CHOICES

    "A wide-ranging compendium of provocative questions and satisfying answers. Perfect for browsing or a deep dive."--San Francisco Chronicle
    ★ "Wise, well-researched, and not to be missed. This collection of short essays about Native Americans is comprehensive, equitable, and generous."--Kirkus (starred)
    ★ "Reading this book is like enjoying a talk with a close relative who wants you to learn, grow, and continue to ask questions. This book is an important resource about contemporary North American Indigenous peoples. Recommend for all libraries."--School Library Journal (starred)
    "A personal, reflective, yet thoroughly grounded take on the present as well as the past, and it's a great starting place for young readers beginning to ask these exact questions." --The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
    "A comprehensive and stimulating read."--Shelf-Awareness
    "An excellent resource that should be in every middle and high school."--School Library Connection
    "This would be a good resource for readers to begin learning about Native American histories, lives, and cultures."--Horn Book
    "Treuer imbues his research and cultural commentary with both humanity and style. An astonishing depth of knowledge and insight complements his conversational writing voice. Treuer's latest release should be on every American bookshelf - and in every American history classroom." --Cowboys and Indians
    "This is a thoughtful, useful book. If every middle school kid in the country knew its contents, the upcoming generation of Indians and non-Indians could live side-by-side with far more ease."--The Circle News

    From Daniel Boone to Captain America

    From Daniel Boone to Captain America

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    From nineteenth-century American art and literature to comic books of the twentieth century and afterwards, Chad A. Barbour examines in From Daniel Boone to Captain America the transmission of the ideals and myths of the frontier and playing Indian in American culture. In the nineteenth century, American art and literature developed images of the Indian and the frontiersman that exemplified ideals of heroism, bravery, and manhood, as well as embodying fears of betrayal, loss of civilization, and weakness.

    In the twentieth century, comic books, among other popular forms of media, would inherit these images. The Western genre of comic books participated fully in the common conventions, replicating and perpetuating the myths and ideals long associated with the frontier in the United States. A fascination with Native Americans also emerged in comic books devoted to depicting the Indian past of the US In such stories, the Indian remains a figure of the past, romanticized as a lost segment of US history, ignoring contemporary and actual Native peoples.

    Playing Indian occupies a definite subgenre of Western comics, especially during the postwar period when a host of comics featuring a "white Indian" as the hero were being published. Playing Indian migrates into superhero comics, a phenomenon that heightens and amplifies the notions of heroism, bravery, and manhood already attached to the white Indian trope. Instances of superheroes like Batman and Superman playing Indian correspond with depictions found in the strictly Western comics. The superhero as Indian returned in the twenty-first century via Captain America, attesting to the continuing power of this ideal and image.

    From Warriors to Soldiers: A History of American Indian Service in the U.S. Military

    From Warriors to Soldiers: A History of American Indian Service in the U.S. Military

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    Kirkus Review called this "a concise, moving history of American Indian military service." The book opens with a burning, difficult question that both enlivens and haunts the pages that follow: "Why have American Indians served, and why do they continue to serve, a government that has betrayed and broken promises to native peoples for multiple generations?" Robinson & Lucas let their question breathe, all allow the actions of this story's heroes-from Geronimo and Chief Joseph to the late Lori Ann Piestewa, a Hopi soldier killed in Iraq in 2003-speak for themselves. These narratives form an amazing record of self-discovery and political courage, one in which people forcibly divested of their land and traditions continue to look for their place in the sometimes violent, sometimes hopeful history of the United States. The book's authors initially intended for their project to be a television documentary, and it is easy to imaging the work as a smart hour of public television. Robinson and Lucas are not academically trained, and military historians and scholars won't find much here that is new (although the authors do provide an extensive bibliography). Interested readers, however, will find a wonderful and compendious account of American Indian military service from the colonial period to the present. The book is a nice, engaging read. Recommended reading for anyone curious about American military and Native American history.

    God Is Red: A Native View of Religion

    God Is Red: A Native View of Religion

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    A 50th anniversary revised edition of the beloved classic, God is Red.

    First published in 1973, Vine Deloria, Jr.'s God Is Red remains the seminal work on Native American religious views, asking the reader to think about our species and our ultimate fate in novel ways. Celebrating five decades of publication with this new edition, Deloria's classic work reminds us to understand "that we are a part of nature, not a transcendent species with no responsibilities to the natural world." It is time again to listen to Vine Deloria, Jr.'s powerful voice, informing us about a spiritual life that is independent of Western religion and that reveres the interconnectedness of all living things.

    This new edition includes critical essays engaging with the original material by well-known Indigenous thinkers - Philip Deloria, Suzan Shown Harjo, Daniel Wildcat, and David E. Wilkins. Inside, the book covers a wide variety of topics including: the problem of creation, the origin of religion, Death, and Human personality.

    "God is Red should be read and re-read by Americans who want to understand why the United States keeps losing the peace, war after war." - Leslie Marmon Silko

    Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (Young Readers Adaptation): Life in Native America

    Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (Young Readers Adaptation): Life in Native America

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    The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is a story of Native American resilience and reinvention, adapted for young adults from the adult nonfiction book of the same name.

    Since the late 1800s, it has been believed that Native American civilization has been wiped from the United States. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee argues that Native American culture is far from defeated--if anything, it is thriving as much today as it was one hundred years ago.

    The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee looks at Native American culture as it exists today--and the fight to preserve language and traditions.

    Adapted for young readers, this important young adult nonfiction book is perfect educational material for children and adults alike.

    Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present

    Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present

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    FINALIST FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

    LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE

    A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

    Named a best book of 2019 by The New York Times, TIME, The Washington Post, NPR, Hudson Booksellers, The New York Public Library, The Dallas Morning News, and Library Journal.

    "Chapter after chapter, it's like one shattered myth after another." - NPR

    "An informed, moving and kaleidoscopic portrait... Treuer's powerful book suggests the need for soul-searching about the meanings of American history and the stories we tell ourselves about this nation's past.." - New York Times Book Review, front page

    A sweeping history--and counter-narrative--of Native American life from the Wounded Knee massacre to the present.

    The received idea of Native American history--as promulgated by books like Dee Brown's mega-bestselling 1970 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee--has been that American Indian history essentially ended with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Not only did one hundred fifty Sioux die at the hands of the U. S. Cavalry, the sense was, but Native civilization did as well.

    Growing up Ojibwe on a reservation in Minnesota, training as an anthropologist, and researching Native life past and present for his nonfiction and novels, David Treuer has uncovered a different narrative. Because they did not disappear--and not despite but rather because of their intense struggles to preserve their language, their traditions, their families, and their very existence--the story of American Indians since the end of the nineteenth century to the present is one of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention.

    In The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Treuer melds history with reportage and memoir. Tracing the tribes' distinctive cultures from first contact, he explores how the depredations of each era spawned new modes of survival. The devastating seizures of land gave rise to increasingly sophisticated legal and political maneuvering that put the lie to the myth that Indians don't know or care about property. The forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools incubated a unifying Native identity. Conscription in the US military and the pull of urban life brought Indians into the mainstream and modern times, even as it steered the emerging shape of self-rule and spawned a new generation of resistance. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is the essential, intimate story of a resilient people in a transformative era.

    Heartbeat, Warble, and the Electric Powwow: American Indian Music

    Heartbeat, Warble, and the Electric Powwow: American Indian Music

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    Despite centuries of suppression and oppression, American Indian music survives today as a profound cultural force. Heartbeat, Warble, and the Electric Powwow celebrates in depth the vibrant soundscape of Native North America, from the "heartbeat" of intertribal drums and "warble" of Native flutes to contemporary rock, hip-hop, and electronic music. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews with musicians, producers, ethnographers, and record-label owners, author and musician Craig Harris conjures an aural tapestry in which powwow drums and end-blown woodwinds resound alongside operatic and symphonic strains, jazz and reggae, country music, and blues.

    Harris begins with an exploration of the powwow, from sacred ceremonies to intertribal gatherings. He examines the traditions of the Native American flute and its revival with artists such as two-time Grammy winners R. Carlos Nakai and Mary Youngblood. Singers and songwriters, including Buffy Sainte-Marie, Keith Secola, and Joanne Shenandoah, provide insights into their music and their lives as American Indians. Harris also traces American Indian rock, reggae, punk, and pop over four decades, punctuating his survey with commentary from such artists as Tom Bee, founder of Native America's first rock band, XIT. Grammy-winner Taj Mahal recalls influential guitarist Jesse Ed Davis; ex-bandmates reflect on Rock Hall of Fame inductee Redbone; Robbie Robertson, Pura Fe, and Rita Coolidge describe how their groundbreaking 1993 album, Music for the Native Americans, evolved; and DJs A Tribe Called Red discuss their melding of archival powwow recordings into fiery dance music.

    The many voices and sounds that weave throughout Harris's engaging, accessible account portray a sonic landscape that defies stereotyping and continues to expand. Heartbeat, Warble, and the Electric Powwow is the story--told by those who live it--of resisting a half-millennium of cultural suppression to create new sounds while preserving old roots.

    Listen in! Visit this book's page on the oupress.com website for a link to the book's Spotify playlist.

    Hey, June

    Hey, June

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    When 17-year-old June wakes up alone and confused on a hill after-well, she can't really remember-she quickly finds herself unable to leave. While exploring the boundaries of her new reality, people from her life arrive, reintroducing June to memories she's forgotten. When it becomes clear that something bad has happened, June must come to terms with everything left unsaid before time runs out while making a monumental decision: stay or go.


    In Cree's debut novel, a story of loss, grief, love, and everything in between is woven together with threads of Métis Cree storytelling and teachings to craft a narrative celebrating life. With this Indigenous story from Indigenous hands, Cree aims to introduce a new look into death and the beyond through characters you can't help but count as new friends.