New Books May 2010

Gabriel Dumont: Souvenirs d resistance d'un immortel de l'Ouest, Denis Combet, Les editions Cornc, 2009. Dafoe FC 3217.1 D85 G33 2009.

The Hero and the Historians: Historiography and the uses of jacques Cartier, Alan Gordon, UBC Press, 2010. Dafoe E 133 C3 G67 2010.

Inuit Shamanism and Christianity: Transitions and Transformations in the Twentieth Century, Frederic B. Laugrand, McGill Queen's University Press, 2010. Dafoe E99 E7 L3895 2010.

Traditional Inuit Stories from Arviat, Mark Kalluak, Nunavut Arctic College, 2009. Dafoe E 99 E7 K35 2009.

Faking Ancient Mesoamerica, Nancy L. Kelker, Left Coast Press, 2010. Dafoe F 1219.3 A7 K455 2010.

New Books November 24, 2009

Greg Gillespie, Hunting for Empire: Narratives of Sport in Rupert's Land 1840 - 70. UBC Press, 2007. Dafoe SK 151 G54 2007.



Gillespie, who teaches at Brock University, has written an intellectual history of big game hunting on the Canadian prairie as practised by British tourists and army officers. Using the published accounts written by the hunters he examines their attitudes toward nature as they found it and toward the indigenous people who often worked for them as guides. The book provides many insights into the mentality of the colonizers as they blasted their way across the plains.


Joel Pfister, The Yale Indian, Duke University Press, 2009, Dafoe E90 C48 P45 2009.

A biography of Henry Roe Cloud 1884-1950, the first Native American to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees at Yale. Cloud was one of the founders of the Society of American Indians, founded a preperatory school for indian students and while working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs was a "catalyst for the Indian New Deal." (from the book cover).


Shari Huhndorf, Mapping the Americas: The Transnational Politics of Contemporary Native Culture. Cornell University Press, 2009. Dafoe E98 E85 H84 2009.


A collection of essays on modern indigenous culture which focuses on the transnational nature of that culture.



Alexandra Harmon, ed., The Power of Promises, University of Washington Press, 2008. Dafoe E 78 N77 P68 2008.



A collection of essays about treaties which grew out of a conference in 2004, Pacific Northwest Indian Treaties in National and International Historical Perspective. Canadian and American writers look at different aspects of the Treaty process in "...some of the finest work on treaties currently available in the literature." (from the Forward).

New Books November 2, 2009

Todd Leahy and Raymond Wilson, Historical Dictionary of Native American Movements, Scarecrow Press, 2008. Dafoe Reference E93 L43 2008.

This useful reference book, with introductory essay and bibliography by two Kansas academics, contains entries on the political, economic and social movements through which Native Americans have attempted to accomodate themselves to the ongoing pressures of the European invasion of their land.

Dewi Ball and Joy Porter, Competing Voices from Native America, Greenwood Press, 2009. dafoe E77 C743 2009.

Part of the "Fighting Words" series this book presents a collection of first hand accounts and documents dealing with controversial subjects in Native American relations with whites. Differing points of view are represented in original accounts, newspaper stories, letters etc. and the sources are chosen to encourage discussion and further research in high school and University classrooms.





Norman Hallendy, Tukiliit: The Stone People Who Live in the Wind, An introduction to Inuksuit and Other Stone Figures of the North. Douglas and McIntyre, 2009. Dafoe E99 E7 H255 2009.


Hallendy, a former senior civil servant, has travelled extensively in the Arctic and has photographed a huge array of stone figures, both inuksuit and others less familiar. All have meaning as memorials, markers for good fishing, sacred places or guides for important trails. The book is a collection of his photographs with captions and explanations.

Lance Foster, The Indians of Iowa, University of Iowa Press, 2009.

Dafoe E78 I6 F67 2009.

Foster, a member of the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, has written a dictionary style account of the various First Nations cultures in Iowa.












Diane Payment, The Free People - Li Gens Libres: A History of the Metis Community of Batoche, Saskatchewan, University of Calgary Press, 2009.
Dafoe E99 M47 P38 2009.


Payment, an historian with Parks Canada who has written extensively on the Metis gives us a revised and updated edition of her 1990 study. "Her inquiry draws on a range of written historical sources, both Metis and non-Metis, as well as more recent oral history narratives and personal observations". (from the book cover.)

New Books October 23, 2009

Nicholas Evans, Dying Words: Endangered Languages and What they have to Tell Us. Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Dafoe P 40.5E53 E93 2009.

" A fascinating and colorful view of what we are losing as languages die, by a linguist who understands the significance of our loss more deeply than most." from the book cover.

Steven L. Grafe, editor, Lanterns on the Prairie: The Blackfeet Photographs of Walter Mcclintock. University of Oklahoma Press, 2009. Dafoe E99 S54 L34 2009.


A beautiful collection of photos of Blackfoot people taken between 1904 and 1912 by Walter McClintock. Most have never been published before.











J.R. Miller, Compact, Contract, Covenant: Aboriginal Treaty Making in Canada. University of Toronto Press, 2009. Dafoe E92 M5427 2009.


J.R. Miller, who teaches history at University of Saskatchewan has written many books on First Nations issues in Canada. This book is described as "...the first successful comprehensive analysis of the treaty making process and its rationale in Canada."













Gordon Rakita, Ancestors and Elites: Emergent Complexity and ritual practices in the Cases Grandes Polity. Altamira Press, 2009. Dafoe E99 C23 R35 2009.

This book "...examines the prehispanic ritual behaviors of the Cases Grandes region of Chihuahua Mexico." The author explores "...the complex reciprocal relationship between ritual practices and developing social complexity at Paquime, one of the best documented arhaeological sites in the region." from the book cover







Lorne Dufour, Jacob's Prayer, Caitlin Press, 2009, Dafoe E99 S45 D84 2009.

"This book centres around one tragic Halloween evening at Alkali Lake in 1975 when two men lose their lives and another is saved by a friend who chooses not to be destroyed by his own tragedy and devastating loss. Set during the time when the community was struggling to overcome its legacy of colonialism, Jacob's Prayer is the haunting and poetic story of a community's suffering, loss and eventual healing. "
publisher's web site.

McNally, Michael, Honoring Elders: Aging Authority and Ojibwe Religion, Columbia U.P., 2009, Dafoe E99 C6 M346 2009
"Ojibwe people esteem the wisdom, authority, and religious significance of old age...this respect ... is the fruit of hard work, rooted in narrative traditions, moral vision, and ritualized practices of decorum that are comparable in sophistication to those of Confucianism. ... Ojibwe and other Anishinaabe communities have been resolute and resourceful in their disciplined respect for elders. Indeed, the challenges of colonization have served to accentuate eldership in new ways." publisher's web site.


Mi'sel Joe: An Aboriginal Chief's JourneyEdited By Raoul R. Andersen and John K. Crellin. Flanker Press, 2009, Dafoe E 99 M6 J62 2009

"Mi’sel Joe: An Aboriginal Chief’s Journey chronicles both the life of an individual and that of his people. Mi’sel Joe is the traditional and administrative chief of Newfoundland’s Conne River Mi’kmaq Reserve. Through a series of taped interviews with Raoul Andersen and John Crellin, Mi’sel Joe tells his life story..." Publisher's web site.




Northern Exposure: peoples, powers and prospects in Canada's North, Leslie Seidle and France St. Hilaire, Institute for Research on Public Policy, 2009. Dafoe JC 11 A78 v. 4.

"The North is an increasingly important focal point of public policy as melting polar ice transforms the Arctic into the epicentre of new global economic and geopolitical interests. This multidisciplinary edited volume explores how the dramatic changes in Canada's North will affect its peoples, its governments, and the social, economic and political future of northerners." from publisher's web site.


Henderson, James Youngblood, Indigenous Diplomacy and the rights of peoples: achieving UN recognition, Purich Publishing, 2008. Dafoe K 3247 H45 2008.


Dowie, Mark, Conservation RefugeesThe Hundred-Year Conflict between Global Conservation and Native Peoples, MIT Press 2009, Dafoe GF 50 D69 2009

"Since 1900, more than 108,000 officially protected conservation areas have been established worldwide, largely at the urging of five international conservation organizations. About half of these areas were occupied or regularly used by indigenous peoples. Millions who had been living sustainably on their land for generations were displaced in the interests of conservation. In Conservation Refugees, Mark Dowie tells this story."


Geniusz, Wendy Djinn. Our knowledge is not primitive : decolonizing botanical Anishinaabe teachings, Syracuse University Press, 2009. Dafoe E 99 C6 G647 2009








LaRue, Frank, Finding Carrie George, Totem Pole Books, 2009. Dafoe PS 8623 A784 F56 2009










LeBeau, Patrick Russell, Term paper resource guide to American Indian history, Greenwood Press, 2009. Dafoe E 76.6 L334 2009

New Books October 1, 2009

These books are on the New Book Shelf in Dafoe Library. You place a request on them in the Libraries Catalogue and they will be put aside for you when the display period is over.

Want to write a review. Send your review to the comments section and I will post it.

Maggie Wilson, Rainy River Lives: Stories told by Maggie Wilson, University of Nebraska Press, 2009, Dafoe E99 C6 W64 2009.

This is a collection of stories told to anthropologist Ruth Landes by Maggie Wilson, 1879 to 1940, an Ojibwe woman who lived on the Manitou Rapids Reserve on the border of Ontario and Minnesota. The transcriptions of the stories were lost when they were misfiled at the Smithsonian Institute and they are presented in here in a new edition by Concordia University anthropologist Sally Cole. The stories recount every day events but are a rich resource for understanding Ojibwe cultural beliefs.

Charles Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus, Alfred Knopf, 2005, Dafoe E61 M266 2005.

Mann, an award winning science writer who publishes in Science and the Atlantic Monthly, uses recent research results to paint a picture of the cultures of the Americas in 1491. Many of the discoveries and speculations that he reports on differ from the conventional wisdom about indigenous America. The population of the Americas may well have been larger than that of Europe; Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, was not only larger than any European city but cleaner and healthier to live in. An interesting and readable addition to the ever-growing literature on pre 1492 America.

Kathryn Derounian-Stodola, The War in Words: Reading the Dakota Conflict through the Captivity Literature, University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

Dafoe E83.86 D47 2009.

This book is a study of 24 of the many accounts of the war between whites and the Dakota in 1862. A Professor of English at the University of Arkansas, Dr. Derounian-Stodola gives the reader an "ethnography of representative Dakota Conflict narratives and an analysis of the war's historiography." from the cover.

Margaret Jacobs, White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940. University of Nebraska Press, 2009. Dafoe E98 C89 J32 2009.

Jacobs is a History professor at University of Nebraska. In this work she contrasts the role of white women in implementing the policy of removing indigenous children from their families and communities in Australia and the U.S..

New Books September 11, 2009

These books are now on display in Dafoe. If you wish to request one of them use the Request This Book link in BISON.

Why not write a review? If you want to write a review of any of the titles in this blog send it to me as a comment and I will post it.


Patricia Roberts Clark, Tribal Names of the Americas: Spelling Variants and Alternative Forms Cross Referenced. McFarland and company, 2009. Dafoe Reference E54.5 C55 2009.

This book is a useful reference tool that you might only use a few times in your life but it will be nice to have when you need it. There are 22 entries for variations of the name Ojibwa alone. It encompasses North Central and South American cultures.

Ruth M. Van Dyke, The Chaco Experience, School for Advanced Research Press, 2007. Dafoe E99 C37 V35 2007.

Archaeologist Van Dyke has produced a "...unique volume that does what no other...North American archaeology book does -- develop a phenomenological argument by literally walking us into Chaco" from the cover.




Barbara Perry, Policing Race and Place in Indian Country: Over and Under- Enforcement, Lexington Books, 2009. Dafoe E 98 C87 P44 2009.

Dr. Perry is a professor of criminology at U of Ontario Institute of Technology. This is the first study of how Native American communities are policed in ways that "...perpetuate both the criminalization and the victimization of Native Americans as nations and as individuals."

David J. Meltzer, First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America, University of California Press, 2009. Dafoe E77.9 M45 2009.

"In a remarkably comprehensive and lucid fashion, David Meltzer sythesizes the complex and commonly conflicting evidence of the earliest human presence in the Americas and provides an honestly told lesson about the workings of scientific thought." David Thomas, author of Skull Wars.


Robert G. Doucette, The Archival Resource Guide for Aboriginal Issues, Gabriel Dumont Institute, 2009. Dafoe E 97.9 D 69, 2009.

The current President of the Metis Nation-Saskatchewan, Robert Doucette has produced a comprehensive listing of resources about Saskatechewan Metis and First Nations communities held in the Saskatchewan Archives Board's large aboriginal collection. This is the first time an archival institution has cooperated with a private researcher to create such a guide.

New Books August 24, 2009

These books are now on display in Dafoe. If you wish to request one of them use the Request This Book link in BISON.

Why not write a review? If you want to write a review of any of the titles in this blog send it to me as a comment and I will post it.

Yale Belanger, Ways of Knowing: An Introduction to Native Studies in Canada, Nelson, 2010. Dafoe E78 C2 B45 2010.

This new introductory text is the work of Yale Belanger who teaches Native Studies at Lethbridge University. In his introduction he explains that it is the product of a number of years of teaching introductory courses at U of Manitoba, Brandon University, Keewatin Community College, Trent University and Lethbridge. When students asked for more information about certain topics or wanted something new covered Professor Belanger added it to his notebook of ideas and the text is the eventual result. He notes that it is the first textbook produced by a Native Studies student/graduate in Canada.


William W. Warren, History of the Ojibway People, second ed., introduction by Theresa Schenk, Minnesota Historical Society, 2009. Dafoe E99 C6 W32 2009.

William Warren, the son of a white fur trader and an Ojibway mother grew up speaking only Ojibway. Then he went to New York state to the home of his paternal grandfather and received a grammar school education. When he went home to Lake Superior he bacame a translator and began to collect the traditional stories of the Ojibway. Eventually he wrote the history presented here using the notes he had made talking to his maternal grandfather and other elders. He was one of the first writers to recognize the importance of oral traditions and he based his history on the Ojibway's own stories. This is the third time the Historical Society has published the history and this edition has a 24 page introduction by Professor Theresa Schenck, who teaches American Indian Studies at University of Wisconsin and is Warren's biographer.


Eugene Hunn, A Zapotec Natural History: Trees, Herbs and Flowers, Birds, Beasts and Bugs in the Life of the San Juan Gbee, University of Arizona Press, 2008. Dafoe F 1221 Z3 H86, 2008.

The Indian community of San Juan Gbee is located in Oaxaca State in Mexico and this book is the author's account of the profound knowledge of the local environment possessed by the inhabitants. An anthropologist who taught at University of Washington, Hunn made many trips to Oaxaca over the years and he records here the "...nomenclature and classification of the local biological taxonomy, the use of plants for treating illnesses and the ritual and decoratifve uses of flowers." (from the dust jacket). The book includes a CD ROM which expands on the text.

Terry Rugeley, Rebellion Now and Forever: Mayas Hispanics and Caste War Violence in Yucatan, 1800 - 1880. Dafoe F 1435.3 W2 R837 2009.

Rugeley, who teaches history at University of Oklahoma and has written about the Caste War before, in this volume places the war in the larger context of Mexican and Mayan history.