The first silent feature film with an "all Indian" cast and a surviving original orchestral score, Edward Curtis's 1914 "In the Land of the Head Hunters" was a landmark of early cinema. Influential but often neglected in historical accounts, this spectacular melodrama was an intercultural product of Curtis's encounter and collaboration with the Kwakwaka'wakw of British Columbia.

In recognition of the film's centennial, and alongside the release of a restored version, "Return to the Land of the Head Hunters" brings together leading anthropologists, Native American authorities, artists, musicians, literary scholars, and film historians to reassess the film and its legacy. The volume offers unique Kwakwaka'wakw perspectives on the film, accounts of its production and subsequent circulation, and evaluations of its depictions of cultural practice.Like his photographs, Curtis's motion picture was meant to document a supposedly vanishing race. But as this collection shows, the film is not simply an artifact of colonialist nostalgia. Resituated within film history and informed by a legacy of Kwakwaka'wakw participation and response, the movie offers dynamic evidence of ongoing cultural survival and transformation under shared conditions of modernity.Brad Evans is an associate professor of English at Rutgers University. Aaron Glass is an assistant professor of Anthropology at the Bard Graduate Center.

"Lively and inspiring . . . a comprehensive and completely original cross-disciplinary collection that offers a model of how new work on older cultural materials can take place." - Faye Ginsburg, director of the Center for Media, Culture, and History, New York University

"A highly original collection of essays that offers a theoretically sophisticated understanding . . . Exemplifies collaboration between indigenous communities, scholars, and artists." - Pauline Turner Strong, author of "American Indians and the American Imaginary: Cultural Representation Across the Centuries"

"Curtis's epic melodrama of the precontact Kwakwaka'wakw world has been given a new life, with the advantages of the discovery of a surviving bit of original film, the revival of the orchestral score originally composed for the motion picture, the expertise of film historians and musicians, the use of advanced film-reconstruction technology and modern concepts of restoration. It is a new chapter in the story of Edward S. Curtis in the land of the head hunters." - From the foreword by Bill Holm

The 50th anniversary edition of this classic work on the art of Northwest Coast Indians now offers color illustrations for a new generation of readers along with reflections from contemporary Northwest Coast artists about the impact of this book. The masterworks of Northwest Coast Native artists are admired today as among the great achievements of the world’s artists. The painted and carved wooden screens, chests and boxes, rattles, crest hats, and other artworks display the complex and sophisticated northern Northwest Coast style of art that is the visual language used to illustrate inherited crests and tell family stories. In the 1950s Bill Holm, a graduate student of Dr. Erna Gunther, former Director of the Burke Museum, began a systematic study of northern Northwest Coast art. In 1965, after studying hundreds of bentwood boxes and chests, he published Northwest Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of Form. This book is a foundational reference on northern Northwest Coast Native art. Through his careful studies, Bill Holm described this visual language using new terminology that has become part of the established vocabulary that allows us to talk about works like these and understand changes in style both through time and between individual artists’ styles. Holm examines how these pieces, although varied in origin, material, size, and purpose, are related to a surprising degree in the organization and form of their two-dimensional surface decoration. The author presents an incisive analysis of the use of color, line, and texture; the organization of space; and such typical forms as ovoids, eyelids, U forms, and hands and feet. The evidence upon which he bases his conclusions constitutes a repository of valuable information for all succeeding researchers in the field. Replaces ISBN 9780295951027

"Sherri Gerbert Fuller provides us with a rare look at Chinese immigrant lives and aspirations in Minnesota, proudly reclaiming their voices as part of our great American heritage. I was delighted to read this book."--Iris Chang, author of "The Chinese in America
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Minnesota's first Chinese settlers, fleeing racial violence in California, established scores of businesses after they arrived in the late 1870s. Newspapers eagerly published reports of their activities, including New Year's festivities, marriages, and restaurant and laundry openings. Beginning in 1882 federal laws banning Chinese immigration and denying citizenship put particular pressure on the community. Sherri Gebert Fuller relates the story of the Chinese from these early days to the 1960s when a new wave of immigrants, including students, businessmen, and professionals from China and Taiwan, began to bring new energy and issues to the community and a flourishing of ties between Minnesota and China.

-- This book of travel and imagination invites readers to forsake continental life and visit islands

Bill Holm, often called "the bard of the Midwest", takes readers on an excursion to islands both real and symbolic. He journeys to five physical islands: Iceland, Madagascar, Molokai, Isla Mujeres, and Mallard Island. Writing with the mind-set of a 19th-century traveler for whom the journey is as important as the destination, Holm appeals to the traveler and the philosopher in everyone.

Growing up, Bill Holm knew what failure was: "to die in Minneota". But after returning to his hometown ("a very small dot on an ocean of grass") after 20 years' absence, he wasn't so sure. Finding pleasure in the customs and characters of small-town life, in The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth he writes with affection about the town elders, seen by those in the outside world as misfits and losers. "They taught me what to value, what to ignore, what to embrace, and what to resist". In his trek through the heartland, Holm covers a satisfyingly wide emotional terrain, from scandalous affairs in the 1950s to his aunt's touching attempts to transcend poverty with perfume and movie-star airs.

Photographer Edward Curtis's 1914 orchestrally scored melodrama In the Land of the Head Hunters was one of the first US films to feature an Indigenous cast. This landmark of early silent cinema was an intercultural product of Curtis's collaboration with the Kwakwa ka 'wakw of British Columbia-meant, like Curtis's photographs, to document a supposedly vanishing race. But as this collection shows, the epic film is not simply an artifact of colonialist nostalgia. In recognition of the film's centennial, and the release of a restored version, Return to the Land of the Head Hunters brings together leading anthropologists, Native American authorities, artists, musicians, literary scholars, and film historians to reassess the film and its legacy. The volume offers unique Kwakwa ka 'wakw perspectives on the film, accounts of its production and subsequent circulation, and evaluations of its depictions of cultural practice. Resituated within film history and informed by a legacy of Kwakwa ka 'wakw participation and response, the movie offers dynamic evidence of ongoing cultural survival and transformation under shared conditions of modernity.

A concise history of Germans in Minesota including immigration pattern, the Catholic and Lutheran churches, cultural organizations, business and politics especially in the World War 1 year. Minnesota is often associated with its Scandinavian heritage, but in fact Germans are the largest single immigrant group in Minnesota history and were the largest ancestry group in the 2000 census. Author Kathleen Neils conzen tells the story of German Americans and their profound influence on Minnesota history and culture. Conzen recounts their triumphs and struggles over the last 150 years in a clear and concise narrative. Landing in poverty, Germans transformed acres of wilderness into productive farms and brought to America their love of art, music and sociability. Immigrants came to America intent on creating in the words of one agent, "an earthly paradise of this Minnesota "and" a new Germany" soon rose in Stearns Country. Conzen explores not only the well known enclaves in Brown and stearns Countries but also looks at the smaller communities of Winona, on the Iron Range, and along the North Shore, as well as in the Twin Cities. In recent times, a renewed interest in German heritage can be seen in towns like New Ulm, home to the thirty-two-foot statue of Hermann the German, hero of the wars against the ancient Roman legions, and Heritagefest, the ethnic heritage festival that occurs every summer. Germans in Minnesota is the fifth book in The People of Minnesota, a new series dedicated to telling the history of the state through the stories of its ethnic groups in accessible and illustrated paperbacks. Future volumes include Chinese in Minnesota (due Fall 2003), Mexicans in Minnesota (due Spring2004, Swedes in Minnesota (due Spring 2004), Poles in Minnesota (due Fall 2004), Ojibwe in Minnesota, Dakota in Minnesota, and Hmong in Minnesota.

While making up a smaller percentage of Minnesota's population compared to national averages, African Americans have had a profound influence on the history and culture of the state from its earliest days to the present.

Author David Taylor chronicles the rich history of Blacks in the state through careful analysis of census and housing records, newspaper records, and first-person accounts. He recounts the triumphs and struggles of African Americans in Minnesota over the past 200 years in a clear and concise narrative.

Major themes covered include settlement by Blacks during the territorial and early statehood periods; the development of urban Black communities in St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Duluth; Blacks in rural areas; the emergence of Black community organizations and leaders in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries; and Black communities in transition during the turbulent last half of the twentieth century.

Taylor also introduces influential and notable African Americans: George Bonga, the first African American born in the region during the fur trade era; Harriet and Dred Scott, whose two-year residence at Fort Snelling in the 1830s later led to a famous, though unsuccessful, legal challenge to the institution of slavery; John Quincy Adams, publisher of the state's first Black newspaper; Fredrick L. McGhee, the state's first Black lawyer; community leaders, politicians, and civil servants including James Griffin, Sharon Sayles Belton, Alan Page, Jean Harris, and Dr. Richard Green; and nationally influential artists including August Wilson, Lou Bellamy, Prince, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis.

African Americans in Minnesota is the fourth book in The People ofMinnesota, a new series dedicated to telling the history of the state through the stories of its ethnic groups in accessible and illustrated paperbacks.

“The finest poems Holm has ever written.� —MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE In this collection of poems, Bill Holm—like a modern-day Walt Whitman bestriding America and the world—comments on the waywardness and promise of the human species. Playing the Black Piano reflects Holm’s time in Iceland (his ancestral home), his ongoing love affair with music, a friend’s death from AIDS, and his bold reactions to the world around him. Moving from Oregon forests to the deserts around Tuscon, from the endless marketing of long-distance telephone service to the experience of undergoing an MRI, these poems speak of Holm’s full embrace of the world and his passion for living well. This is a wise, musical collection from one of Minnesota’s most treasured poets.

Arranged by letter of the alphabet, with at least one entry per letter, these short pieces capture the variety of daily life in contemporary China. Writing about traditions that endure in rural areas as well as the absurdities of bureaucracy experienced by an American teacher and traveler in the 1980s, the essays cover such topics as dumpling making, bound feet, Chinglish, night soil, and banking. A new afterword reacts to recent changes in China.

Ever since she was a small child, Helma Swan, the daughter of a Northwest Coast chief, loved and learned the music of her people. As an adult she began to sing, even though traditionally Makah singers had been men. How did such a situation develop? In her own words, Helma Swan tells the unusual story of her life, her music, and how she became a singer. An excellent storyteller, she speaks of both musical and non-musical activities and events. In addition to discussing song ownership and other Makah musical concepts, she describes songs, dances, and potlatch ceremonies; proper care of masks and costumes; and changing views of Native music education. More generally, she speaks of cultural changes that have had profound effects on contemporary Makah life. Drawing on more than twenty years of research and oral history interviews, Linda J. Goodman in Singing the Songs of My Ancestors presents a somewhat different point of view-that of the anthropologist/ethnomusicologist interested in Makah culture and history as well as the changing musical and ceremonial roles of Makah men and women. Her information provides a context for Helma Swan's stories and songs. Taken together, the two perspectives allow the reader to embark on a vivid and absorbing journey through Makah life, music, and ceremony spanning most of the twentieth century. Studies of American Indian women musicians are rare; this is the first to focus on a Northwest Coast woman who is an outstanding singer and storyteller as well as a conservator of her tribe's cultural traditions.