Flight of the Seventh Moon

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Janet Riehecky

An overview of the past and present lives of the Cree, including a description of their homes, clothing, family life, religion, and government.

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Mary Ann Wells

"Before I had heard of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or even Jesus, I knew who William Weatherford was. He was Red Eagle, the icon implanted in my heart as an example of what a truly noble human being should be," Mary Ann Wells says of her distant kinsman. Red Eagle, the child of a Scottish trader and a mixed-blood Muscogean mother, became a notable leader among the Red Stick Creeks and was the unyielding adversary of the American government during the Creek War of 1813-14. He stands accused in traditional accounts of having masterminded one of the worst massacres of whites in American history. This book, for the first time, gives an Indian perspective to the narrative. To find the real Red Eagle, Wells has probed the published records and combined them with stories she had heard from family members. Her true encounter with Red Eagle occurs, however, in mystic experiences. She finds him not in the processes of linear thought of European history but through the thought world of Native American narrative. Wells, who identifies herself both as a mystic and a revisionist, acknowledges that she has inherited both Billy Weatherford's bloodline and his ethnic identity. Shifting between historical episodes and the present, Wells pursues the true story. Her suspenseful prose gives a visceral sense of how Indians felt as victims of the American government and of how they had no recourse but to fight.

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Verne Dusenberry

The Montana Cree is a study of religion as a sustaining force in American Indian life. On the small Rocky Boy reservation in northern Montana, the Cree Indians provide an example of how a people transplanted and persecuted throughout their history can maintain and develop a tribal identity and unity through the continuance of their religious values.

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Joseph Epes Brown with Emily Cousins

Publisher description: Teaching Spirits offers a thematic approach to Native American religious traditions. Within the great multiplicity of Native American cultures, Joseph Epes Brown has perceived certain common themes that resonate within many Native traditions. He demonstrates how themes within native traditions connect with each other, at the same time upholding the integrity of individual traditions. Brown illustrates each of these themes with in-depth explorations of specific native cultures including Lakota, Navajo, Apache, Koyukon, and Ojibwe. Brown demonstrates how Native American values provide an alternative metaphysics that stand opposed to modern materialism. He shows how these spiritual values provide material for a serious rethinking of modern attitudes - especially toward the environment - as well as how they may help non-native peoples develop a more sensitive response to native concerns. Throughout, he draws on his extensive personal experience with Black Elk, who came to symbolize for many the greatness of the imperiled native cultures.