"A rediscovered novel portrays Cherokees in transition"

John Milton Oskison was a mixed-blood Cherokee known for his writing and his activism on behalf of Indian causes. "The Singing Bird," never before published, is quite possibly the first historical novel written by a Cherokee.

Set in the 1840s and '50s, when conflict erupted between the Eastern and Western Cherokees after their removal to Indian Territory, "The Singing Bird" relates the adventures and tangled relationships of missionaries to the Cherokees, including the promiscuous, selfish Ellen, the "Singing Bird" of the title. The fictional characters mingle with such historical figures as Sequoyah and Sam Houston, embedding the novel in actual events.

"The Singing Bird" is a vivid account of the Cherokees' genius for survival and celebrates Native American cultural complexity and revitalization.

A Norton original in the Reacting to the Past series, Red Clay, 1835: Cherokee Removal and the Meaning of Sovereignty envelops students in the treaty negotiations between the Cherokee National Council and representatives of the United States at Red Clay, Tennessee. As pressure mounts on the Cherokee to accept treaty terms, students must confront issues such as nationhood, westward expansion, and cultural change. Reacting to the Past is an award-winning series of immersive role-playing games that actively engage students in their own learning. Students assume the roles of historical characters and practice critical thinking, primary source analysis, and argument, both written and spoken. Reacting games are flexible enough to be used across the curriculum, from first-year general education classes and discussion sections of lecture classes to capstone experiences and honors programs.

In this book Jace Weaver takes Native American literature as a resource for reflection on Native American values and spirituality. In one of the broadest critical readings of Native American literature to date, Weaver examines 17 Native American authors, ranging in time from 1768 to the present, in terms of their relationship to Native American community, cultures, and religious traditions. He sees in their work an activist commitment to the survival of Native community that sets their writings apart from the national literature of the United States.

Special Limited Edition leatherbound hardcoverThe author of numerous plays and film scripts, including Green Grow the Lilacs, later made into the hit musical Oklahoma!, Lynn Riggs (18991954) is recognized as one of America's most engaging dramatists and was the only active American Indian dramatist during the first half of the twentieth century. An elegant leatherbound collector's edition, The Cherokee Night and Other Plays, features his never-before-published play Out of Dust, as well as The Cherokee Night and Green Grow the Lilacs. A mixed-blood Cherokee, Riggs wrote about the people, places, and events of the Oklahoma he knew so well. A cattle rancher's son, Riggs was born in the Verdigris Valley south of Claremore in Indian Territory. He first gained recognition as a poet in the early 1920s while attending the University of Oklahoma and later moved to New York, where he worked on and around Broadway. In 1927 Riggs was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship, and while in France on that fellowship, he began writing Green Grow the Lilacs, which Rodgers and Hammerstein made into the Broadway musical Oklahoma! in 1943. By the end of his life, Riggs had written some thirty plays and scripts for fourteen films produced between 1930 and 1955. In their 1939 Handbook of Oklahoma Writers, Mary Hays Marable and Elaine Boylan observe: ""Lynn Riggs hitched his wagon to Pegasus and rode into the theatre with an output of poetic and regional plays that has brought him outstanding success.""

Red Clay, 1835 envelops students in the treaty negotiations between the Cherokee National Council and representatives of the United States at Red Clay, Tennessee. As pressure mounts on the Cherokee to accept treaty terms, students must confront issues such as nationhood, westward expansion, and culture change. This game book includes vital materials on the game's historical background, rules, procedures, and assignments, as well as core texts by figures such as Andrew Jackson, John Ross, and Elias Boudinot.

From the earliest moments of European contact, Native Americans have played a pivotal role in the Atlantic experience, yet they often have been relegated to the margins of the region's historical record. The Red Atlantic, Jace Weaver's sweeping and highly readable survey of history and literature, synthesizes scholarship to place indigenous people of the Americas at the center of our understanding of the Atlantic world. Weaver illuminates their willing and unwilling travels through the region, revealing how they changed the course of world history. Indigenous Americans, Weaver shows, crossed the Atlantic as royal dignitaries, diplomats, slaves, laborers, soldiers, performers, and tourists. And they carried resources and knowledge that shaped world civilization--from chocolate, tobacco, and potatoes to terrace farming and suspension bridges. Weaver makes clear that indigenous travelers were cosmopolitan agents of international change whose engagement with other societies gave them the tools to advocate for their own sovereignty even as it was challenged by colonialism.

Crow Christianity speaks in many voices, and in the pages of Crow Jesus, these voices tell a complex story of Christian faith and Native tradition combining and reshaping each other to create a new and richly varied religious identity. In this collection of narratives, fifteen members of the Apsaalooke (Crow) Nation in southeastern Montana and three non-Native missionaries to the reservation describe how Christianity has shaped their lives, their families, and their community through the years. Among the speakers are elders and young people, women and men, pastors and laypeople, devout traditionalists and skeptics of the indigenous cultural way. Taken together, the narratives reveal the startling variety and sharp contradictions that exist in Native Christian devotion among Crows today, from Pentecostal Peyotists to Sun-Dancing Catholics to tongues-speaking Baptists in the sweat lodge. Editor Mark Clatterbuck also offers a historical overview of Christianity's arrival, growth, and ongoing influence in Crow Country, with special attention to Christianity's relationship to traditional ceremonies and indigenous ways of seeing the world. In Crow Jesus, Clatterbuck explores contemporary Native Christianity by listening as indigenous voices narrate their own stories on their own terms. His collection tells the larger story of a tribe that has adopted Christian beliefs and practices in such a way that simple, unqualified designations of religious belonging - whether ""Christian"" or ""Sun Dancer"" or ""Peyotist"" - are seldom, if ever, adequate.

In a contentious field characterized by divergence of opinion, "American Indian Literary Nationalism" intervenes in recent controversial debates on the role of hybridity, suggesting common sense strategies rooted in the material realities of various communities. These essays deal with issues the authors have been wrestling with throughout their careers.

Jace Weaver, Craig Womack, and Robert Warrior, assert being a "nationalist" is a legitimate perspective from which to approach Native American literature and criticism. They consider such a methodology not only defensible but also crucial to supporting Native national sovereignty and self-determination, an important goal of Native American studies, generally.

However, the authors do not believe the nationalism suggested in "American Indian Literary Nationalism" is the only possible approach to Native literature. Each invites Natives and non-Native allies who support tribal national sovereignty and nationalist readings of Native literature to join the discussion.

With this writing, each author acknowledges and honors the foundational contribution of Simon Ortiz in his 1981 "MELUS" essay, "Towards a National Indian Literature: Cultural Authenticity in Nationalism." It has been over thirty-five years since academe has accepted the legitimacy of American Indian literature. Weaver, Warrior, and Womack now call for more Native voices to articulate literary criticism and for clearer thinking about what links the literature to Native communities.

Drawing on the traditional ways of Anishinaabe storytelling, acclaimed poet Gerald Vizenor illuminates the 1898 battle at Sugar Point in Minnesota in this epic poem. Fought between the Pillagers of the Leech Lake Reservation (one of the original five clans of the Anishinaabe tribe) and U.S. soldiers, the battle marked a turning point in relations between the government and Native Americans. Although out-numbered by more than three to one, the Pillager fighters won convincingly.
Weaving together strands of myth, memory, legend, and history, "Bear Island" lyrically conveys a historical event that has been forgotten not only by the majority culture but also by some Anishinaabe people--bringing back to light a key moment in Minnesota's history with clarity of vision and emotional resonance.
Gerald Vizenor is professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico. He is a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation. His previous books include "The People Named the Chippewa" and "Griever," for which he won an American Book Award.
Jace Weaver is professor and director of the Institute of Native American Studies at the University of Georgia.