What to Read for Native American Heritage Month
To celebrate Native American Heritage Month, we’ve put together a reading list highlighting books by and about Indigenous individuals and communities. With these books from Chicago and our distributed client presses, you can explore the work of boundary-breaking sculptor Edmonia Lewis, follow a residential school survivor’s journey to escape a cycle of violence and reclaim her life, discover the power of storytelling as a tool for intergenerational healing and teaching, and much more.
Use the code UCPNEW to take 30% off the full list of books below when you order directly from us.
By Jeffrey Richmond-Moll and Shawnya L. Harris
Edmonia Lewis (1844–1907) broke international, racial, and gender barriers as a young artist who traveled to Rome in 1866 to join the leading American sculptors of her generation. She created acclaimed figurative works in marble and achieved great success, but her status as a Black woman of Indigenous (Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation) descent complicated the critical reception of her oeuvre.
Sins of the Shovel: Looting, Murder and the Evolution of American Archaeology
By Rachel Morgan
“An insightful examination of the colorful and controversial history of American archaeology. . . This animated account combines the saga of hardscrabble cowboy archaeologists with serious reflection on the incalculable damage of their activities. It’s an entertaining and informative study.” –Publishers Weekly
By David Myer Temin
“Termin reconstructs the North American tradition of Indigenous political thought in such a way as to think from the decolonial Indigenous proposals that have long been overlooked in the field.” –Perspectives on Politics
Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture
By Chip Colwell
“Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits is a sobering peek into the controversy that surrounds tribal artifacts and human remains found in museums throughout the United States. His eloquent narration details several unique cases of repatriation. . . Colwell has a unique perspective. He provides readers with a firsthand look at the repatriation process, sympathetically including tribal perspectives—something that few museum directors have sought to do when writing on this subject in the past.” –Science
From Hirmer Publishers:
Indigenous Identities: Here, Now and Always
Edited by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
Indigenous Identities: Here, Now & Always marks the largest editorial endeavor in the late artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s career and emphasizes her pivotal role in bringing forth a living Native Art history. This publication reproduces over one hundred works from a range of media and is a breathtaking celebration of contemporary Native American art.
Native Studio Art Since the 1920s: The Healey Collection
Edited by Alexander Brier Marr
Native modern studio art represents a critical yet often overlooked history. This publication sheds light on the remarkable, intergenerational story of modern Indigenous painters and sculptors who first developed then revolutionized the movement for Native American fine art.
Edited by Julie Decker
In her work, Alaskan artist Sonya Kelliher-Combs offers a chronicle of the ongoing struggle for self-definition and identity in the Alaskan context. Her combination of shared iconography with intensely personal imagery demonstrates the generative power that each vocabulary has over the other.
From University of British Columbia Press:
Drumming Our Way Home: Intergenerational Learning, Teaching, and Indigenous Ways of Knowing
By Georgina Martin
“Georgina Martin’s voice, hand drumming, and ideas about individual and collective cultural identity, intergenerational learning and healing, and reconciliation are vibrant, far-reaching, and need to be shared widely. . . [Drumming Our Way Home] offers hope and possibility for finding one’s way to a meaningful concept of home and for contributing to concrete actions of reconciliation.” –From the foreword by Jo-ann Archibald, author of Indigenous Storywork: Educating the Heart, Mind, Body, and Spirit
One Second at a Time: My Story of Pain and Reclamation
By Diane Morrisseau
“Diane Morrisseau has overcome a lifetime of abuse, from her time in a residential school to a violent husband of 18 years. The cause of the most trauma remains the colonial systems that maintain oppression and refuse to protect her. In spite of it all, she’s been able to use her experiences to help other women heal.” –Ms. Magazine
Signs of the Time: Nlaka’pamux Resistance through Rock Art
By Chris Arnett
Archaeologist Chris Arnett draws on extensive research and decades of work with Nlaka’pamux people to document the variability and similarity of practices. Through a blend of Western records and Indigenous oral histories and tradition, rock art is revealed as communication between the spirit and physical worlds, information for later generations, and powerful protection against challenges to a people, land, and culture.
Indigiqueerness: A Conversation about Storytelling
By Joshua Whitehead
“Reflecting on memories of youth, Indigiqueerness is a combination of memoir and collage in conversation with writer Angie Abdou. Through his storytelling, the book contemplates the nuance and beauty of Indigenous language, queer identity, theory and childhood.” –CBC
From Omnidawn Publishing:
Call This Mutiny: [uncollected poems]
By Craig Santos Perez
“The thrilling latest by Perez gathers previously uncollected poems in a powerhouse package of decolonial Indigenous insight. A Chamoru poet native to Guam, he confronts the ongoing legacies of European settler colonialism and past injustices across Pacific islands to the U.S. mainland and beyond. . . This rousing and expansive collection points the way toward a more just future.” –Publishers Weekly starred review
From Reaktion Books:
Tales of the Earth: Native North American Creation Mythology
By David Leeming
“Designed as an introductory folklore text for a popular audience, this book identifies four character types in creation narratives: the male Great Spirit, the trickster, the goddess, and the hero. Using decontextualized motifs, Leeming tries to argue that these characters can be associated with environmental stewardship and communalism as opposed to American individualism… Recommended.” –Choice