Tribes on the Hill


Book Description

A revealing, witty, and altogether fascinating story of the tribal customs and rituals that help shape our nation's laws. The Washingtonian Sharp, funny and ultimately disquieting. The Washington Book Review




Strangers in Their Own Land


Book Description

Harsh "racial" segregation during the Jim Crow era prevented South Carolina's Indian groups from assimilating. Due to their three-fold genetic admixture, they were labeled with such fanciful names as Red Bones, Brass Ankles, Croatans, Turks, and "not real Indians at all." For generations, South Carolina's remaining Indians struggled to avoid reduction to the oppressed social status of "Negroes." Their desperation eventually fostered anti-Black sentiment within some of the groups, an affliction that still infects a few of the older community members. Generations have passed since the Jim Crow era. Today, the Palmetto State's Indians focus less on imagined "racial purity" and more on the welfare of their communities, preserving their customs, and honoring their ancient traditions. Much work remains to be done by and for all of the tribal groups of South Carolina. The tribes strive to convert state recognition, which now serves only as a morale booster, into a true vehicle to promote tribal educational, economic, and healthcare improvement. South Carolina's state-recognized tribes are now hard at work to accomplish this goal. "When the author has spent many years traveling to Indian communities around the Southeast and talking to Indian elders, as Pony Hill has done, he must be admired not only for his authenticity, but also for his scholarship. This book, then, is where an authentic perspective is enhanced by thorough scholarship." -- John H. Moore, Ph.D, Anthropology Department, University of Florida. S. Pony Hill: was born in Jackson County, Florida. He holds a degree in Criminal Justice from Keiser University, Dean's List, Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society member. He was previously a contract researcher for federal recognition grants under Administration for Native Americans and for members of the United Ketowah Band, Cherokee Nation and Sumter Band of Cheraw, specializing in Southeastern Indian documentation. He is the author of "Patriot Chiefs and Loyal Braves" available online. Mr. Hill currently lives in San Antonio, Texas.




Peoples of the Golden Triangle


Book Description

For centuries the mysterious region of Southeast Asia known as the Golden Triangle has exerted a powerful hold over the Western imagination. Today it continues to figure in world news because of the infamous traffic in opium and heroin. Yet this fascinating area is also of considerable interest for a different reason: within it live six culturally distinct peoples - the Karen, Hmong, Mien, Lahu, Akha and Lisu - struggling to maintain the integrity of their beliefs and way of life against all the pressures of the rapidly changing society around them.




Encounters at the Heart of the World


Book Description

This Pulitzer Prize–winning work pieces together the lost history of the Mandan Native Americans and their thriving society on the Upper Missouri River. The Mandan people’s bustling towns in present-day North Dakota were at the center of the North American universe for centuries. Yet their history has been nearly forgotten, maintained in fragmentary documents and the journals of white visitors such as Lewis and Clark. In this extraordinary book, Elizabeth A. Fenn pieces together those fragments along with important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science. The result is a bold new perspective on early American history, a new interpretation of the American past. By 1500, more than twelve thousand Mandans were established on the northern Plains, and their commercial prowess, agricultural skills, and reputation for hospitality became famous. Recent archaeological discoveries show how they thrived—and how they collapsed. The damage wrought by imported diseases like smallpox and the havoc caused by the arrival of horses and steamboats were tragic for the Mandans, yet, as Fenn makes clear, their sense of themselves as a people with distinctive traditions endured.




The Lakotas and the Black Hills


Book Description

A concise and engrossing account of the Lakota and the battle to regain their homeland. The Lakota Indians made their home in the majestic Black Hills mountain range during the last millennium, drawing on the hills' endless bounty for physical and spiritual sustenance. Yet the arrival of white settlers brought the Lakotas into inexorable conflict with the changing world, at a time when their tribe would produce some of the most famous Native Americans in history, including Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse. Jeffrey Ostler's powerful history of the Lakotas' struggle captures the heart of a people whose deep relationship with their homeland would compel them to fight for it against overwhelming odds, on battlefields as varied as the Little Bighorn and the chambers of U.S. Supreme Court.




BLOOD QUANTUM QUANDARIES


Book Description

"I have been painted and painted others with the deep blood-red earth paint, which is the symbol of life. We call this paint ma etom, which is a derivative of the word for blood, ma e. Ma e, blood, is essential for life." Dr. Henrietta Mann, from the foreword A person's blood quantum is defined as the percentage of their ancestors who are documented as full-blood Native Americans. The U.S. federal government uses a blood quantum minimum as a measure of "Indian" identity to manage tribal enrollments and access to cultural and social services. Evidence suggests that if current demographic trends continue, within a few generations tribes will legally disappear. The forces of modern intermarriage and urbanization are resulting in fewer individuals who can legally meet blood quantum requirements. Through essays, personal stories, case studies, satire, and poetry, a lauded collection of international contributors will explore blood quantum as biology and as cultural metaphor. They will explain the history of the law and how it may result in the devastation of tribal culture and the perpetuation of tribal discrimination in the U.S. and beyond. Featuring diverse and talented Native voices representing different generations, backgrounds and literary styles, Blood Quantum Quandaries: Who Are We? seeks answers to the most critical issue facing Native Americans and all indigenous populations in the 21st century and hopes to redefine the meaning of cultural citizenship. "







Black Hills White Justice


Book Description

Black Hills/White Justice tells of the longest active legal battle in United States history: the century-long effort by the Sioux nations to receive compensation for the seizure of the Black Hills. Edward Lazarus, son of one of the lawyers involved in the case, traces the tangled web of laws, wars, and treaties that led to the wresting of the Black Hills from the Sioux and their subsequent efforts to receive compensation for the loss. His account covers the Sioux nations? success in winning the largest financial award ever offered to an Indian tribe and their decision to turn it down and demand nothing less than the return of the land.




We Have Overcome


Book Description

It has been more than fifty years since the Civil Rights Act enshrined equality under the law for all Americans. Since that time, America has enjoyed an era of unprecedented prosperity, domestic and international peace, and technological advancement. It’s almost as if removing the shackles of enforced racial discrimination has liberated Americans of all races and ethnicities to become their better selves, and to work toward common goals in ways that our ancestors would have envied. But the dominant narrative, repeated in the media and from the angry mouths of politicians and activists, is the exact opposite of the reality. They paint a portrait of an America rife with racial and ethnic division, where minorities are mired in a poverty worse than slavery, and white people stand at the top of an unfairly stacked pyramid of privilege. Jason D. Hill corrects the narrative in this powerfully eloquent book. Dr. Hill came to this country at the age of twenty from Jamaica and, rather than being faced with intractable racial bigotry, Hill found a land of bountiful opportunity—a place where he could get a college education, earn a doctorate in philosophy, and eventually become a tenured professor at a top university, an internationally recognized scholar, and the author of several respected books in his field. Throughout his experiences, it wasn’t a racist establishment that sought to keep him down. Instead, Hill recounts, he faced constant naysaying from so-called liberals of all races. His academic colleagues did not celebrate the success of a black immigrant but chose to denigrate them because this particular black immigrant did not embrace their ideology of victimization. Part memoir, part exhortation to his fellow Americans, and, above all, a paean to the American Dream and the magnificent country that makes it possible, We Have Overcome is the most important and provocative book about race relations to be published in this century.




Plants and People of the Golden Triangle


Book Description

For the half million people living in the remote mountains of Northern Thailand, survival is dependent upon the forest. This study, based on extended field research, identifies more than 1,000 plant species, with particular emphasis on medicinal plants and their uses. This book is only available through print on demand. All interior art is black and white.