Spring 1997 Newsletter Vol. V No.1
	University Libraries Arizona State University Box 871006 Tempe, Arizona 85287-1006 Patricia.Etter@asu.edu Patricia A. Etter, Curator

Labriola recommends the American Indian Library Association Home Page, produced by its President, Lisa A Mitten. It includes current information provided by the various Indian Nations, directories, links to library collections and resource centers, and more. The address is: http://www.pitt.edu/~lmitten/aila.html

Back to Contents

In addition, Associate Professor, Rebecca Tsosie has been named executive director of the Indian Legal Program, a nationally recognized program that recruits and provides support services for Indian students in the College of Law.

Octaviana Trujillo is the new interim director of the Center for Indian Education, replacing Karen Swisher, who accepted a position at the Haskell Indian Nation University in Lawrence, Kansas. The Center conducts research on Indian education and provides teacher training and administrative leadership to tribal communities and schools (Abstracted from ASUInsight 10/25/96).

Back to Contents

In the meantime, authors Ancita Benally and Kathy Kingfisher continue to add interesting "firsts" to the expanding list. For example, they learned that the Cherokee started the first co-educational public school system in 1839 in the world. They discovered that the prehistoric Hohokam of Arizona created the first etching process on shell, which pre-dated the European technique, and more. The book promises to be an important and interesting addition to library collections.

Back to Contents

Covering more than 150 tribes, the CD-ROM chronicles locations, migrations, contacts with Europeans, wars, social structures, houses, tools, agriculture, clothing, arts and crafts, transportation, religion and world view, and more. There are over 1,000 biographies, full text of some 250 documents, 100 legends from 60 tribes, historical societies and museums. All drawings, photographs, and text can be downloaded to disc or printed on paper. There is something for everyone here. It is a specially good tool for undergrads.

Ethnic Newswatch (Softline Information, Inc. and updated every four months). The database features complete newspaper articles from some 125 titles from Native American, Hispanic, African-American, Arab-American, Jewish and other culture groups. The database covers newspapers from 1990 to date and offers a directory of the indexed periodicals.

Native American titles include: Au-Authm Action News (Arizona); Char-Koosta News (Montana); Cherokee Advocate (Oklahoma); The Circle (Minnesota); Fort Apache Scout (Arizona); Indian Country Today (South Dakota); Native Nevadan (Nevada); Navajo Nation Today (Arizona); News From Indian Country (Wisconsin); Seminole Tribune (Florida); Sho-Ban News (Idaho); Tundra Times (Alaska); and Wind River (Wyoming).

Recent additions include Akwesasne Notes: A Journal for Native and Natural People. It is the official publication of the Mohawk Nation Council and is a news journal dedicated to reporting the issues and concerns of Native peoples. Coverage goes back to 1978.

Native Americas--Akwe:kon's Journal of Indigenous Issues has been published since 1984 at Cornell University with an intent to establish a forum at a major American Institution for the expression of Native perspectives.

Whispering Wind Magazine has been published since 1967 and is dedicated to preserving the traditions of the American Indian both past and present. Articles include analyses of various regional and tribal clothing, decorative arts, lifestyle, and culture.

Back to Contents

Rodgerick Begay, also of Justice Studies, produced Navajo Bibliography for Beginners during the Spring 1996 semester. It is available in print from the Labriola Center and on the Labriola Web Site.

Back to Contents

Tewa Dancers from the north will perform the White Buffalo, Butterfly and Eagle Dancers. The 1997 World Championship Hoop Dance finalists will also make an appearance. In addition, the museum galleries will be open, promising a delightful day for all.

11th Annual Arizona State University Spring Competition Powwow, April 18-20, 1997 on campus. There will be numerous activities including dances along with lots of frybread.

Back to Contents

• Did you know that 60 % of the foods eaten in the world today were first harvested by Native Americans?
  
• What tuber from the Andes was for a time the novelty food of the rich in Europe and staved off starvation in Ireland? And did you know that Andean farmers cultivated over 3000 different varieties?
  
• What product indigenous to the Americas transformed spagetti?
  
• What berry did New England Indians teach the settlers to serve with turkey?
  
• What fruit was originally cultivated in Latin America that today is mashed with lime and garlic and used as a dip for chips?
  
• What syrup did the Indians of northeast Canada and United States process from the maple tree?
  
• Indian farmers produced "trail mix" from what seeds?
  
• Name six ways Native Americans prepared corn.
  
• What three common garden vegetables are called the "three sisters" or the "American Triumvirate"?
  
• What plant produced a sweet, tasty, and hot drink and is used today to create a traditional box of valentine candy?
  
• What popular method of cooking food originated in the United States?
  

Back to Contents

House Made of Dawn, and The Names, by N. Scott Momaday (University of Arizona Press, 1996). House is the story of a young American Indian struggling to reconcile traditional ways with the demands of the twentieth century. Names is Momaday's memoir of his boyhood on the Oklahoma Plains and among the Navajo and pueblo people of the Southwest.

White Man's Wicked Water: The Alcohol Trade and Prohibition in Indian Country, 1802-1892. By William E. Unrau (University Press of Kansas, 1996). An analysis ot the impact of alcohol upon Native American communities in the nineteenth century. It also looks at the impact of Native American drinking patterns on the development and implementation of American Indian policy.

Reading Beyond Words: Contexts for Native History, edited by Jennifer S. H. Brown and Elizabeth Vibert (Broadview Press, 1996). The book reproduces a number of studies that emphasize the importance of "reading beyond" the words and images in the historical documents we consult in the study of Native history. Each study sheds new light on old stories, personalities, and events.

Song of the Turtle: American Indian Literature, 1974-1994, edited by Paula Gunn Allen (Ballantine Books, 1996). The author gathers together the best Native writing from the last two decades. In more than thirty stories, American Indian writers explore the ways in which spirituality, ritual, and identity infuse and define the contemporary Native world.

Stone, Bone, Antler & Shell: Artifacts of the Northwest Coast, by Hilary Stewart (University of Washington Press, 1996). First published in 1973, this new edition is revised and completely rewritten. Hilary Stewart has taken artifacts out of isolation and puts them in context of the daily life of early people of the Northwest Coast.

Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds: The Confrontation of Indians, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540-1795, by Elizabeth A. John, 2nd ed. (University of Oklahoma Press, 1996). The book has won numerous awards as a landmark work. Here is a view of Indian peoples and Spanish and French intruders in the early Southwest. This second edition includes a new preface and afterward in which the author discusses current research issues.

Surviving as Indians: The Challenge of Self-Government, by Monno Boldt (University of Toronto Press, 1993). This book is about a future for Indians in Canada. It examines the roots of injustice to Indians, and then analyzes Canadian Indian policies, Indian leadership, culture, and economy.

Where There is no Name for Art: Art of Tewa Pueblo Children, by Bruce Hucko (School of American Research, 1996). Photographer and "art coach," Bruce Hucko, introduces us to some of his Tewa Pueblo students through their drawings, paintings, and words and through his photographs of them at work and at play.

Native People of Southern New England, 1500-1650, by Kathleen J. Bragdon (University of Oklahoma Press, 1996). Here is the first comprehensive study of American Indians of southern New England. The book focuses on the Natives rather than on their relationship with Europeans.

American Indians and Christian Missions: Studies in Culural Conflict, by Henry Warner Bowden (The University of Chicago Press, 1981). The author presents us with an absorbing history of the encounters between Native Americans and evangelizing whites from the period of exploration and colonization to the present.

Indians and Indian Agents: The Origins of the Reservation System in California, 1849-1852, by George Harwood Phillips (University of Oklahoma Press, 1997). The Gold Rush of 1849 drastically changed the lives of the Indians of the interior of California. Some Indians fought the intruders, and when they did, the Federal Government dispatched agents to settle disputes. Phillips challenges the conventional interpretation of this period, which holds that the Indians offered weak resistance to the miners.

Back to Contents

Labriola National American Indian Data Center
Arizona State University Libraries
Department of Archives and Manuscripts
Last updated: June 30th, 1998
Send questions or comments to archives@mainex1.asu.edu