North American Indian Thought and Culture. This online compilation is dedicated to telling the life stories of both the well-known historical figures such as Pocahontas and Sitting Bull, and also the lesser-known men and women whose day-to-day experiences give an equally valuable portrayal of Indian culture....The collection is comprised of material that covers the entire history of North America; from 17th century accounts of the first encounters involving Indians and European colonists to the stories of aboriginals living in a 21st century world. Every stage of life is represented—birth, adolescence, adulthood, and death....The collection presents the entire spectrum of native peoples' experiences from their own point of view. Firsthand accounts reveal how Indians lived, thought, and fought to protect their interests; how the tribes interacted with each other and the white invaders; how they reacted to the constantly changing and challenging situations they faced; and how they struggled to maintain their cultures while living in a society that often expects them to abandon it for acculturation. Many of the biographies are about Indians pursuing their everyday lives and reflecting on what was happening to them. These accounts offer a direct window on Indian attitudes toward the earliest European settlers and the resultant transformations that took place, first as trade was established and later as displacement forced tribes into unfamiliar territories....North American Indian Thought and Culture integrates these writings, images, and oral histories for the first time, providing a comprehensive representation of key events as described by the people directly involved. As such, it is an essential resource for all those interested in serious, scholarly research into the history of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Canadian First Peoples....Still expanding, this compilation now includes 112 volumes from the Indian Pioneer History Collection compiled by the U.S. Works Progress Administration. New and current full-length biographies include works on Quanah Parker, Dennis Banks, Susan La Flesche Picotte, Cochise, Jim Thorpe, Crowfoot, Peter Pitchlynn, Sacajawea, Geronimo, Hosteen Klah, Black Elk, Pocahontas, George Washington Grayson, Standing Buffalo, and many more. More than twenty volumes covering chiefs of various nations are now included, as well as a modern edition of the collected speeches of Sitting Bull. The Center for Indigenous Arts & Cultures' five-volume encyclopedia on American Indian Artists has been added ("American Indian Art Series"), and the recent publication,American Indian Biographies (Salem Press, 2005) also adds many contemporary names to the collection. Other recently added materials include the complete volumes of Edward Curtis's The North American Indian and the McKenney-Hall History of the Indian Tribes of North America volumes, and J. Norman Heard's five volumes of theHandbook of the American Frontier. Virtually all North American regions and groups will be represented in depth, including the Eskimos and Inuit of the Arctic; the sub-Arctic Cree; the Pacific Coastal Salish; the Ojibwa, Cheyenne, and Sioux of the Plains; the Luiseno, Pomo, and Miwok of California; the Apache, Navajo, and Hopi of the Southwest; the Creek and Cherokee of the Southeast; the Peqout, Iroquois, and Seneca of the Northeast; the Metis and Nez Perce of the Great Plateau; and peoples of other regions. Nearly 500 nations are represented in all.
Note : access restricted to the MSU community and other subscribers. Visitors can access the database at the Main Library.
