1 comments about Singing an Indian Song: A Biography of D'Arcy McNickle (American Indian Lives).

1. I first became familiar with D'Arcy McNickle through his two novels-The Surrounded and Wind from an Enemy Sky. I did not know that despite his lack of a college degree, he was also a respected anthropologist; he was the right-hand-man to John Collier during his tenure as head of the BIA; he was asked to chair the new Anthropology Dept. at a University; and he was instrumental in organizing some of the programs which led to the pan-Indian movement and activism of the seventies.

   Dorothy Parker does a very good job of covering the life of this fascinating and highly respected man. While she had ample information to draw from regarding his professional life, there was scant information regarding his personal life. Even though McNickle kept a diary and wrote many letters during his lifetime, he made little reference to his personal relationships. Happily Parker respects this. Certainly a life that included two failed marriages and a possible affair, not to mention estrangement from his nuclear family, might have led other authors to go "digging for dirt." Instead Parker engages in some slight speculation, simply to flesh things out, but she does not dwell on these aspects.

   If there is a fault here, however, it is that Parker perhaps focuses too much on the positive. For example, one would wonder why a person who tried to represent Indians in a White world would not have had some doubts regarding the Indian Reorganiztion Act, or some questions as to the way it was implemented. Also, while McNickle became known as an authority on Indian issues, he actually spent very little time living as an Indian. He basically went from the boarding school into a life of government work, and spent very little time on the reservation. While this does not necessarily detract from his accomplishments, I would have liked Parker to address these issues more.

   Over all,however, this is a book worth reading, both for the way it is written, and the person it is about.

2 comments about Bernie Whitebear: An Urban Indian's Quest for Justice.

1. I knew Bernie Whitebear while I was a teenager in Seattle and he was the first Urban Indian leader I had met. Over the course of time, I found him to be a person who mentored youth and he was a visionary in a very enlightening period for Urban Indians in Seattle. His perseverance and dedication is a testament to his character and reading the book written by Lawney, his brother, about their upbringing makes all the pieces in the puzzle fit and make sense. He came from a humble background (perhaps "poor" as far as wealth) but also one that was rich in morals, values, traditions and culture. This book was a very good read.



2. The author is justly proud of his brother "Bernie Whitebear". The book provides many facts and stories of Whitebear's accomplishments in fighting for Indian rights. Many of these facts can be be authenticated by going on-line and reading newspaper articles from that time.

No comments about Completing the Circle (North American Indian Prose Award).

No comments about Mary Wells (Alive in Four Fascinating Books).

3 comments about Native Heart: An American Indian Odyssey.

1. 'Native Heart' for me offered great depth of insight into Native Amercian spirituality, and the difficulties faced in modern US society preserving that culture. It also highlighted the bigotry Native peoples face here, and the misguided sterotypes other Americans may often work from when dealing with Native Americans.

   Read after Gabriel Horn's second book - 'Contemplations of a Primal Mind (****), this was the perfect reading sequence for me, as one led directly into the other.

   I would strongly recommend this book to ALL Americans (and non-Americans), as a way to dispel the 'John Wayne' type sterotypes created about Native Americans, and to really understand them as a people, their culture and enlightening spirituality.




2. Gabe Horn's Native Heart is written in the voice of a man who walks his path with clear eyes and a loving heart. He does not hesitate to speak the truth, but does so in a way that clearly respects our need as real human beings to accept past (and current) injustices, learn from them and move on to a brotherhood of working together for the good of the People and the Land. Plan to have a highlighting pen near when reading this book to capture the wisdom and burn it into your heart. Once having read the true history of our nation and the continuing bias against any culture which defers from the one in power, there is no excuse for inaction. My personal library of books regarding american indian history, culture and spirit is extensive, and Native Heart now holds a place on honor. I am privileged to be the first person to write a review for this inspired offering and plan to purchase additional copies for my loved ones. We are indeed all related. Walk in Balance. Marsha Anisoquili (Many Ponies) Raymond -



3. As a sociologist with a specialization in power relations and most particularly racial and ethnic relations in the United States, I should probably have been aware of Gabriel Horn's books a long time ago. That I wasn't is a testimony to the door our culture shuts in the face of its history and continued treatment of and attitude toward indigenous people, including the native nations of North America. That I came across Mr. Horn's work now-finally-is a function, I believe, of being in the right place at the right time thinking the right thoughts to put me in touch with an increasing level of important Truth. Native Heart is a story of survival, strength, and glory in the face of odds that have been truly insurmountable physically, but powerless spiritually. It is also a poem to and about Gabriel Horn's people. It holds back nothing, baring the core of his Being in a way that must have been painful, indeed. I am immensely grateful to have been allowed to walk the earth with Mr. Horn and those he introduces us to-past and present-in his books. If you're at all like me, you will be greatly saddened by Native Heart, but quieted, too, in the ultimate knowledge that where there is life, there is, in fact, hope for all who seek it. And if you, like I did, finish Native Heart with a yen for a second helping, Contemplations of a Primal Mind continues both the story and the reader's education.

5 comments about Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo.

1. Storyline is very intriguing, but the writing is a bit droll. It is also longer than necessary.



2. Kenn Harper has managed to bring together an amazing story through detailed research. Minik, the Polar Eskimo child, was brought to the US by Robert Peary and essentially placed on display. The story of his disconnected life is full of pathos and sorrow. Yet Harper weaves the story with life.

   Peary's behaviors were simply egotistic and reprehensible. He treated the Eskimos as his property. He placed their lives in harms' way by bringing them to a culture and location that assaulted their senses and immune systems. Minik was the price paid for that deed.

   I did get bogged down in names from time to time, especially as Harper recounted the financial misdealings of Wallace, who had taken responsibility for Minik. But overall, the story is entertaining and enlightening. It speaks to the ethnocentrism of Peary's generation and to the isolation of the Polar Eskimos. It took me a long time to read and absorb this book but it was rewarding in the end... to see and feel a culture so far away.




3. Kenn Harper's Give Me My Father's Body is undeniably and superbly researched; easily the book's crowning achievement. Occasionally though, I was annoyed with the "what if" scenarios. At least twice in the book Harper says what would have happened if things had gone another way. In one instance, the book describes Minik's plan to return to the Greenland and to lead a group of Inuit to the North Pole. He hoped to attain international honour for his people. Harper made the declaration that even had Minik tried, there was no way that he would have been successful. He further added that Minik's desire to prove the superiority of his race was an ethnocentric idea no doubt learned from the white people of New York, that the Greenland Inuit would balk at such ideas and that, with nothing to gain but glory for their people, they would surely refuse to help Minik. Even if Harper's learned ethnocentrism theory is correct, Harper has no way of ever knowing what Minik could have accomplished had he tried. If Minik had learned such ideas from white people, who's to say the Greenland Inuit wouldn't in turn learn such ideas from Minik? The point is, no one knows what would have happened and it is futile to guess (even for the well-informed). Also, the edition of the book that I have, has included discussion questions at the end for readers groups. These are very laughable. To paraphrase a typical question, "Kenn Harper lives among the people that he writes about and is therefore the greatest historian and writer to ever write about Northern peoples. Discuss how his portrayal of Eskimos is the most accurate description ever to be put on paper." But despite the embarrassing readers club guide at the end and the occasional subjective statement from Harper, the book is eye-opening about the victims of science and was a pleasurable read.



4. This book is a must-read. The reader must come into it ready to make his or her own conclusions about the material, though, as it is written to persuade a certain viewpoint. With no other viewpoints offered to compare this one to, it is difficult to say for certain if this one is correct. The story is one that anyone interested in humanity, globalization, anthropology or just an interesting story should read.



5. Poor Minik, captured by white traders and brought to Manhattan to be a freak! It was the age of freaks, when everyone who was different was first taken away from their home, and then put on display. Minik found out that his beloved father had been stuffed and mounted for all to jeer at the New York Museum of Natural History.
   
   Author Harper has been through the files of the Museum and what he has come up with will convince even people who love the Museum, that reparations are in order. Eskimo people are not the only ones outraged at the long ago disposition of native relics. It is still worthy of outrage. What puzzles me is actor Kevin Spacey's interest in this affair. His preface to the book is well-written, not that I believe he actually put pen to paper to write it up, but clearly he has an emotional investment in this material and, from what I understand, he is planning to play Minik himself once his duties as Lex Luthor are finished in the new Superman movie. But why not let a native actor play the part? My in-laws who know Kenn Harper by reputation, and who have seen him speak in public, say that Spacey is part Inuit and hgas had a long interest in Peary's expeditions.
   
   Peary himself emerges from Harper's well-researched book as a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand he showed true courage in surmounting obstacles and sub zero temperatures. On the other hand he was not particular gifted in solving human personnel difficulties, and seems to have grown impatient if his will was crossed by others (or by the hand of God). We have all known men like Peary--impetuous, self-assured, and gifted. But few of us have known the crushing tragedy of Minik of Qaanaaq, of Greenland's icy shores.

2 comments about Indian Boyhood.

1. This book is a great compilation of the story of a young Indianboy who grows up to learn the traditions of his family. It was veryinformative and a great read. It would also be beneficial for people intereted in Native American history or just those wanting to read a good novel.



2. This is a most excellent book because it is "AUTHENTIC" and not one that speaks of prejudice and the horrors of the Native American experience; instead, it allows you to catch a glimpse of what is now lost, a world of beauty and wonder. I highly recommend it to anyone: young or old; red, white, brown, or yellow -- a book that should be preserved and revered.

No comments about Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains.

5 comments about Sacajawea : Her True Story.

1. SACAJAWEA: Her True Story is a brilliant, thought-provoking biography of Sacajawea, America's most memorialized female. The sheer tenderness of the author's affection for his subject contrasts sharply with his rebukes of her perceived antagonists -- including her adopted state of Wyoming for not embracing her properly and noted historians such as Steven Ambrose for claiming she died in 1812 in South Dakota. The author's documentation that Sacajawea died in 1884 and is buried in Wyoming seems quite convincing, pending better documentation than Ambrose and others have provided regarding the 1812 South Dakota theory. The fact that the U. S. Government, which funded an investigation, and her own Shoshoni people agree with Mr. Haney is also quite persuasive, as is the fact that the only Sacajawea tombstone, listing her death as April 9th, 1884, is on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation. I'd like to see that grave, unless Ambrose can convince me that it's not there or that it's inaccurate. Simply awesome!



2. The Year 2000 Golden Dollar Coin rekindled my interest in Sacajawea and in discussing it with a friend I was informed of Rich Haney's new book entitled SACAJAWEA: Her True Story. I exerted some effort to secure a copy and I now prize it like no other. Beautifully written and superbly documented, I believe it is a vastly important book that, to my satisfaction, delineates 1884 and the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming as the time and place of Sacajawea's death, and the time and place of her burial. I had been skeptical of claims by noted historians such as Steven Ambrose and Ken Burns that Sacajawea died in 1812 in South Dakota, and Rich Haney does the best job of challening that fallacy. And whether Sacajawea died in 1812 or in 1884, and where she is buried, is, I think vastly important. After all, she was already by far the most memorialized female in American history, even prior to the Year 2000 Golden Dollar Coin that will forever bear her image. This little book is a treasure for both Sacajawea and history buffs, like me.



3. The Sunday, August 13th, 2000, Denver Post had a review of SACAJAWEA: Her True Story by its Nonfiction Editor Sandra Dallas. Ms. Dallas wrote: "Every now and then, a book comes along that challenges historical 'fact' and does it well enough to make you wonder. Did Butch Cassidy die in Bolivia, or did he wind up as a dentist in Seattle? Was Billy the Kid really shot by Sheriff Pat Garrett, or did he die an old man in a little town in New Mexico? Now comes Rich Haney who claims in SACAJAWEA: Her True Story that the Lewis and Clark guide did not die at Fort Manuel in 1812, as most historians claim, but married an Indian named Jirk Meat, lived until 1884 and is buried on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Haney makes a compelling case, citing a number of Indian sources. The 'Snake squaw' (as she was described) who died in 1812 was indeed the wife of Charbonneau, Sacajawea's husband. But he had several wives. The dead woman was Otter Woman, another wife, Haney says. That makes sense. A one-time Virginia television sportscaster, Haney is passionate about his subject. He has a credible argument...



4. While the premise of Rich Haney's book "Sacajawea" is interesting - he is concerned with proving that she died in 1884 on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and not in 1812 at Fort Mandan in South Dakota - this entire book of 128 pages could and should be condensed into an essay of much shorter length. The material is unbelievably badly organized and repetitive; one never knows where one is in the chronology of events, either the author's or Sacajawea's. A good editor would hopefully have made sense out of this chaos, done away with some of the jargon that seems so out of place (such as saying that Sacajawea "was not too bent out of shape whan a rival tribe mauled her village and took her captive" or "Ken Burns and Steven Ambrose consented to be interviewed only so the 'news' networks or the 'news'papers would pimp both their new projects") and straightened out the rough grammar. Mr. Haney is obviously an amateur historian with a cause, and I congratulate him for his loyalty to and admiration of his Indian subject. However, I wish I hadn't had to spend four hours reading what should have taken me one.



5. I've been enchanted with Sacajawea for forty years, all my adult life. I am now enchanted with Rich Haney's book SACAJAWEA: Her True Story, which I think is the definitive book regarding the very important questions of when she died and where she is buried. Most people, it seems, agree with me and with Mr. Haney's conclusions that she died in 1884 and is buried on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and that is was another Shoshoni, Otter Woman, that died in 1812 in South Dakota...[T]he very first two sentences of Mr. Haney's book, the Prologue, states very plainly: "This in not an attempt to tell Sacajawea's story in chronological order, because the basic facts have been enumerated many times across two centuries. Rather, I endeavor to elaborate on the reasons many white historians erroneously maintain that she died in 1812 at Fort Manuel in South Dakota, although her Shoshoni people rightfully claim she died in 1884 on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation, her final resting place." With that defining parameter, Mr. Haney successfully separates his book from all other Sacajawea books, most of which have merely added to the mystery as to when Sacajawea died and where she is buried. Mr. Haney, better than any other Sacajawea biographer, clears up that mystery by starkly corroborating the Oral/Traditional History of the Shoshones with a plethora of documentation from the white world, including the testimony of people such as the U. S. Government's investigator, Dr. Charles Eastman; John Roberts, the preacher who knew her and buried her; Mormons who interacted closely with the Shoshones; and a bevy of white people who lived and/or worked on the Wind River Reservation during the years Sacajawea lived and died there. At the same time, Mr. Haney minutely points out how and why many white historians, including Stephen Ambrose, mistook Otter Woman's death at Fort Manuel in 1812 as being the death of Sacajawea. To pull this off, Mr. Haney, as he outlined in the Prologue, reviewed various accounts of Sacajawea's life, explaining where those accounts were similar and where they differed and then discussing the nuances before proving that, essentially, the Shoshones themselves have been totally correct in unwaveringly mandating Sacajawea's life and death. The "repetitive" style, complete with an astute explanation of how the nuances agreed or disagreed with the Shoshones, is exactly what convinced me that Sacajawea's own people indeed know exactly when she died -- April 9th, 1884 -- and exactly where she is buried, on the Wind River Reservation. ...Mr. Haney vividly explains the cultures of the Plains Indians -- which included repeated raids by rival tribes to raid Shoshoni villages for the express purpose of capturing Shoshoni girls... Mr. Haney's version of Sacajawea's reaction to being captured precisely parallels the views of the Plains Indians, as he documents. ...I've read the book three times and ...discovered... only beautifully written, markedly lucid sentences. By contrast, any "editor" would find Anonymous's sentences replete with "rough grammar" and misspelled words. Anonymous, for example, spells "when" as "whan." Also, Anonymous obviously doesn't know much about Sacajawea. He/she, for example, confuses "Fort Mandan" with Fort Manuel concerning where Otter Woman died. Well, Mr. Haney obviously does know more than a little bit about Sacajawea, including when she died and where she is buried. I believe...Mr. Haney's refreshing and insightful biography of America's most memorialized female. ...I am not Anonymous in Jacksonville, Florida.

2 comments about Te Ata: Chickasaw Storyteller, American Treasure.

1. Richard Green has captured the spirit of independence and the Native American in this fabulous collection of pages from Te Ata's diary and notes from her husband Clyde Fisher.



2. This book was an outstanding read! I had never heard of Te Ata before, and knew very little about Chickasaws. I heard about this book from several of my colleagues and I was captivated by it. Richard Green does an exceptional job writing of the life of an american princess!