Native American

The silent stories of our ancient land and its native peoples are given voice in reverential prose poems and radiant paintings.

"How should we approach The History of the Five Indian Nations today? The book's information--rich as it is--should be critically interrogated and placed in social, political, and cultural context. The book reflects the outlook of a colonial British agent and, in a more general sense, of early modern European and Euro-American culture. Its claims of empirical objectivity should be historicized."--John M. Dixon, "Imperial Politics, Enlightenment Philosophy, and Transatlantic Print Culture"

"The History of the Five Indian Nations remains an invaluable font of information for understanding the Iroquois during the decades before European invaders began to pour into the Longhouse. Colden's account of Iroquois military and diplomatic exploits is studded with fascinating details. It illuminates internal and external political dynamics as well as the extent and limits of European colonial power. Colden did not necessarily comprehend the cultural logic that guided Iroquois people, but he appreciated them as agents--remarkably audacious ones--in the affairs of all of eastern North America."--Karim M. Tiro, "Iroquois Ways of War and Peace"

Cadwallader Colden's History of the Five Indian Nations Depending on the Province of New-York in America, originally published in 1727 and revised in 1747, is one of the most important intellectual works published in eighteenth-century British America. Colden was among the most learned American men of his time, and his history of the Iroquois tribes makes fascinating reading. The author discusses the religion, manners, customs, laws, and forms of government of the confederacy of tribes composed of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas (and, later, the Tuscaroras), and gives accounts of battles, treaties, and trade with these Indians up to 1697.

Since Cornell University Press first reprinted Colden's History in 1958, the book has served as an invaluable resource for scholars and students interested in Iroquois history and culture, Enlightenment attitudes toward Native Americans, early American intellectual life, and Anglo-French imperial contests over North America. The new Critical Edition features materials not previously included, such as the 1747 introduction, which contains rich and detailed descriptions of Iroquois culture, government, economy, and society. New essays by John M. Dixon and Karim M. Tiro place The History of the Five Indian Nations Depending on the Province of New-York in America in historical and cultural context and provide a balanced introduction to the historic culture of the Iroquois, as well as their relationship to other Native people.

Beginning in 1907, the anthropologist Robert H. Lowie visited the Crow Indians at their reservation in Montana. He listened to tales that for many generations had been told around campfires in winter. Vivid tales of Old-Man-Coyote in his various guises; heroic accounts of Lodge-Boy and the Thunderbirds; supernatural stories about Raven-Face and the Spurned Lover; and other tales involving the Bear-Woman, the Offended Turtle, the Skeptical Husband--all these were recorded by Lowie. They were originally published in 1918 in an Anthropological Paper by the American Museum of Natural History. Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians is now reprinted with a new introduction by Peter Nabokov. These concretely detailed accounts served the Crow Indians as entertainers, moral lessons, cultural records, and guides to the workings of the universe. Robert H. Lowie studied anthropology with Franz Boas at Columbia University, did fieldwork among the western Indian tribes from 1906 to 1931, and taught at the University of California, Berkeley, for three decades. His many publications include The Crow Indians and Indians of the Plains, available as Bison Books. Peter Nabokov, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is the author of Two Leggings: The Making of a Crow Warrior (1982), also a Bison Book, and editor of Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian and White Relations from Prophecy to the Present(1991).

If you want to know why American Indians have the highest rates of poverty of any racial group, why suicide is the leading cause of death among Indian men, why native women are two and a half times more likely to be raped than the national average and why gang violence affects American Indian youth more than any other group, do not look to history. There is no doubt that white settlers devastated Indian communities in the 19th, and early 20th centuries. But it is our policies today--denying Indians ownership of their land, refusing them access to the free market and failing to provide the police and legal protections due to them as American citizens--that have turned reservations into small third-world countries in the middle of the richest and freest nation on earth.

The tragedy of our Indian policies demands reexamination immediately--not only because they make the lives of millions of American citizens harder and more dangerous--but also because they represent a microcosm of everything that has gone wrong with modern liberalism. They are the result of decades of politicians and bureaucrats showering a victimized people with money and cultural sensitivity instead of what they truly need--the education, the legal protections and the autonomy to improve their own situation.

If we are really ready to have a conversation about American Indians, it is time to stop bickering about the names of football teams and institute real reforms that will bring to an end this ongoing national shame.