Thunder Rides a Black Horse

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Charles Collins

In Apache Nightmare, Charles Collins tells the story of the Battle at Cibecue Creek, a pivotal event in the Apache Wars. On August 28, 1881, Col. Eugene Asa Carr left Fort Apache, Arizona Territory, with two cavalry troops and a company of Indian scouts. Their aim was to arrest a Cibecue Apache medicine man, Nock-ay-det-klinne, rumored to be inciting his followers against whites in the area. The arrest at Cibecue Creek was uneventful, but as Carr's forces returned to Fort Apache, the medicine man's followers attacked. The Apaches were soon joined by the Indian scouts, marking the skirmish as the only wholesale mutiny of an Indian scout company in U.S. military history. Basing his account on extensive primary sources, including testimony from Apaches themselves, Collins describes the events leading up to the incident, recreates the battle, and analyzes its aftermath.

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Molly H. Bassett

"Following their first contact in 1519, accounts of Aztecs identifying Spaniards as gods proliferated. But what exactly did the Aztecs mean by a 'god' (teotl), and how could human beings become gods or take on godlike properties? This sophisticated, interdisciplinary study analyzes three concepts that are foundational to Aztec religion--teotl (god), teixiptla (localized embodiment of a god), and tlaquimilolli (sacred bundles containing precious objects)--to shed new light on the Aztec understanding of how spiritual beings take on form and agency in the material world. In The fate of earthly things, Molly Bassett draws on ethnographic fieldwork, linguistic analyses, visual culture, and ritual studies to explore what ritual practices such as human sacrifice and the manufacture of deity embodiments (including humans who became gods), material effigies, and sacred bundles meant to the Aztecs. She analyzes the Aztec belief that wearing the flayed skin of a sacrificial victim during a sacred rite could transform a priest into an embodiment of a god or goddess, as well as how figurines and sacred bundles could become localized embodiments of gods. Without arguing for unbroken continuity between the Aztecs and modern speakers of Nahuatl, Bassett also describes contemporary rituals in which indigenous Mexicans who preserve costumbres (traditions) incorporate totiotzin (gods) made from paper into their daily lives. This research allows us to understand a religious imagination that found life in death and believed that deity embodiments became animate through the ritual binding of blood, skin, and bone"--

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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.

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Ronald L. Grimes

"The work of a major scholar who has spent years writing and teaching about ritual, Deeply into the Bone instigates a conversation in which readers can fruitfully reflect on their own experiences of passage. Covering the significant life events of birth, initiation, marriage, and death, each chapter includes first-person stories told by individuals who have undergone rites of passage, accounts of practices from around the world, brief histories of selected ritual traditions, and critical reflections probing popular assumptions about ritual. The book also explores innovative rites for other important events such as beginning school, same-sex commitment ceremonies, abortion, becoming seriously ill, divorce and retirement."--BOOK JACKET.