American Indian Prayers & Poetry


Book Description

A collection of poetry and prayers reflecting the beliefs of the American Indians which have been handed down for many generations.




Native American Prayers, Poems, and Legends


Book Description

This is a book of spiritual writings from Native Americans. It contains Native American prayers, poems, and tribal legends. I have compiled and edited these selections from a vast collection of American Indian writings. I hope this special edition gives you insights into the spirit and culture of Native America.




Walking With Spirits Native American Myths, Legends, And Folklore


Book Description

Before the time of books, computers, tablets and recording devices, the history of many cultures was passed down, from person to person, by word of mouth. The rich histories of so many people were told in songs, chants, poems and stories. This was the way of Native American tribes. Each in its own way enriching their stories with their own experiences. By reliving these stories and songs, we have the opportunity to bring life back to the ancient spirits that created them. We have a chance to walk with the spirits of the past.  Being there were so many different tribes with countless beliefs and customs, the only way to understand their ways is through understanding their stories. In this book you will understand the Native American people a little better and see where they have come from and what they can offer the world. By exploring these stories offered you will get a glimpse into an often forgotten past. These stories are given to you, to carry forward for younger generations to explore and learn. Included in Volume One are the stories: Origin of the Pleiades, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, Grandmother Spider Steals the Fire, White Bead Woman, The Origin of Corn, The Hunter and Selu, Myth of the White Buffalo Woman, The Origin of Eternal Death, How Coyote Stole Fire, The Lame Warrior, The Story of Hungry Wolf, Origin of the Sweat Lodge, The Legend of the Cherokee Rose, Contents of the Medicine Bag, Raven's Medicine, The First Fire, Origin Of Disease And Medicine, The Daughter Of The Sun, The Journey To The Sunrise, Why The Mole Lives Underground, The Terrapin's Escape From The Wolves, Origin Of The Groundhog Dance, The Haunted Whirlpool, The Man In The Stump, The Mother Bear's Song and many, many more. You are invited to go Walking With Spirits.




Meditations with the Navajo


Book Description

A collection of stories, poems, and meditations that illuminate the spiritual world of the Navajo. • Explores the Navajo's fundamental belief in the importance of harmony and balance in the world. • Shares Navajo healing ways that have been handed down for generations. • Includes meditations following each story or poem. Navajo myths are among the most poetic in the world, full of dazzling word imagery. For the Navajo, who call themselves the Dine (literally, "the People"), the story of emergence--their creation myth--lies at the heart of their beliefs. In it, all the world is created together, both gods and human beings, embodying the idea that change comes from within rather than without. Poet and author Gerald Hausman collects this and other stories with meditations that together capture the essence of the Navajo people's way of life and their understanding of the world. Here are myths of the Holy People, of Changing Woman who teaches the People how to live, and of the trickster Coyote; stories of healings performed by stargazers and hand tremblers; and songs of love, marriage, homecoming, and growing old. These and the meditations that follow each story reveal a world--our world--that thrives only on harmony and balance and shares the Dine belief that the most important point on the circle that has no beginning or end is where we stand at the moment.




American Poets and Poetry [2 volumes]


Book Description

The ethnically diverse scope, broad chronological coverage, and mix of biographical, critical, historical, political, and cultural entries make this the most useful and exciting poetry reference of its kind for students today. American poetry springs up out of all walks of life; its poems are "maternal as well as paternal...stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine," as Walt Whitman wrote, adding "Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion." Written for high school and undergraduate students, this two-volume encyclopedia covers U.S. poetry from the Colonial era to the present, offering full treatments of hundreds of key poets of the American canon. What sets this reference apart is that it also discusses events, movements, schools, and poetic approaches, placing poets in their social, historical, political, cultural, and critical contexts and showing how their works mirror the eras in which they were written. Readers will learn about surrealism, ekphrastic poetry, pastoral elegy, the Black Mountain poets, and "language" poetry. There are long and rich entries on modernism and postmodernism as well as entries related to the formal and technical dimensions of American poetry. Particular attention is paid to women poets and poets from various ethnic groups. Poets such as Amiri Baraka, Nathaniel Mackey, Natasha Trethewey, and Tracy Smith are featured. The encyclopedia also contains entries on a wide selection of Latino and Native American poets and substantial coverage of the avant-garde and experimental movements and provides sidebars that illuminate key points.




Golden UFOs


Book Description

In 1898 Tahirassawichi went to Washington "only to speak about religion" (as he told the American government) only to preserve the prayers. And the Capitol did not impress him." --from "Tahirassawichi in Washington" Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaraguan poet, priest, and revolutionary, foresees a new order for humanity. Here in his Indian poems, Father Cardenal interweaves myth, legend, history, and contemporary reality to speak to many subjects, including the assaults on the Iroquois Nation, the political and cultural life of ancient Mexico, the Ghost Dance movement, the disappearance of the buffalo, U.S. policy during the Vietnam War, and human rights in Central America. Each text is rich with history, poetry, and spiritual insight. This bilingual edition is the only complete collection of Father Cardenal's Indian poems in either Spanish or English. Cardenal has checked and approved the translations and the glossary of cultural and historical referents. "Of epic proportions... The literal translation conveys the epigrammic style and didactic, political message.... Of timely interest." --Library Journal "Priest and Nicaraguan revolutionary as well as poet, Cardenal epitomizes what makes literature live in Central America today. His poems are both sonorous and accessible, political and mystical." --Booklist "... a spectacular work..." --Books of the South West




The Invention of Native American Literature


Book Description

In an original, widely researched, and accessibly written book, Robert Dale Parker helps redefine the study of Native American literature by focusing on issues of gender and literary form. Among the writers Parker highlights are Thomas King, John Joseph Mathews, D'Arcy McNickle, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Ray A. Young Bear, some of whom have previously received little scholarly attention.Parker proposes a new history of Native American literature by reinterpreting its concerns with poetry, orality, and Indian notions of authority. He also addresses representations of Indian masculinity, uncovering Native literature's recurring fascination with restless young men who have nothing to do, or who suspect or feel pressured to believe that they have nothing to do. The Invention of Native American Literature reads Native writing through a wide variety of shifting historical contexts. In its commitment to historicizing Native writing and identity, Parker's work parallels developments in scholarship on other minority literatures and is sure to provoke controversy.




Yaqui Myths and Legends


Book Description

Sixty-one tales narrated by Yaquis reflect this people's sense of the sacred and material value of their territory.







The Continuum Encyclopedia of Children's Literature


Book Description

Provides articles covering children's literature from around the world as well as biographical and critical reviews of authors including Avi, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, and Anno Mitsumasa.