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Native American Books - BookMarcs Bookstore
| Native American Books and Authors
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The history and culture of the Maine Indian provides both a contrast to and a confirmation of the experience of the New England tribes as a whole. The Wabanaki (People of the Dawn), comprising the Abenaki, Penobscot, Pasamaquoddy, Maliseet and Micmac tribes created a woodland culture characterized by a close co-existence with the creatures of the northern forest and a perfection of the birch bark canoe for both travel and trade. Recently, a number of books, both scholarly and popular, have been published exploring hitherto undocumented aspects of the Maine Indian experience. You're invited to browse the new and featured books below or see a list of our other .
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NEW AND FEATURED TITLES |
Indians in Eden: Wabanakis and Rusticators on Maine's Mt. Desert Island by Bunny McBride and Harald Prins
Paperback, $16.95
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Like Native American populations elsewhere, Maine Wabanaki Indians were forced to adapt to tremendous change after they were moved to reservations. In the days when the Bar Harbor area was known as Eden, they proved their resourcefulness by catering to the burgeoning tourist market.
This engaging, richly illustrated, and meticulously researched book chronicles the intersecting lives of Maine Wabanaki Indians and wealthy summer rusticators on Mount Desert Island during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At a time when some of America's most noted wealthy citizens built sumptuous summer cottages in this vacationer's Eden, the Wabanakis interacted with them by selling Native crafts, practicing traditional medicine, offering guide services and producing Indian shows.
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North by Northeast: Wabanaki, Akwesasne Mohawk, and Tuscarora Traditional Arts by Kathleen Mundell
Paperback, $20.00
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For generations, Native American traditional artists in the Northeast have passed on their culture through beadwork, basketry, canoe making, wood carving, and quilting. Through the work and words of over thirty-five traditional artists living and working primarily in Maine and New York, North by Northeast explores these artists' connection to place, tradition, and cultural identity. A tribute to the resourcefulness and creativity of contemporary practicing artists from the Wabanaki, Akwesasne Mohawk, and Tuscarora tribes, the book is beautifully illustrated with the work of photographers Cedric Chatterley, Peggy McKenna, Jere DeWaters, and Peter Dembski.
Folklorist Kathleen Mundell has been working with Native American traditional artists for over fifteen years. Her collaboration with Maine's Native American basketmakers resulted in a multi-tribal effort to preserve the ash basketry tradition and in the creation of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance. North by Northeast also includes contributions by Salli Benedict (Mohawk), Sue Ellen Herne (Mohawk), Theresa Secord (Penobscot), Jennifer Neptune (Penobscot), and Lynne Williamson (Mohawk heritage).
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Notes on a Lost Flute: A Field Guide to the Wabanaki Nature by Kerry Hardy
Paperback, $21.95
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Without realizing it, we in Maine still travel on routes where native peoples and the earliest European traders once walked. We still call some places by versions of their traditional names, without knowing what the names mean. We speed past stands of nut trees and food crops still growing where generations of Wabanaki people once gatherd in seasonal villages. This book shows us how much we've been missing.
Hardy brings together his expertise in forestry, horticulture, and environmental science, along with his fascination with language and history, to tell us about New England when its primary inhabitants were the native Wabanaki tribes. With experience in teaching adults and children, Hardy has written this book in an entertaining and accessible style, making it of interest and useful to adults and students alike. Amply illustrated with photos, drawings, or maps on nearly every page.
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A Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Dictionary (Peskotomuhkati Wolastoqewi Latuwewakon) by David A. Francis and Robert M. Leavitt
Hardcover, $45.00
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The Passamaquoddy and Maliseet have lived in the region which now includes eastern Maine (United States) and western New Brunswick (Canada) for thousands of years. Among the first Native peoples to have contact with European voyagers to North America, the Passamaquoddy greeted Samuel de Champlain at the mouth of the St. Croix River in 1604. Passamaquoddy territory embraced the watershed of this river, which today forms the easternmost segment of the U.S.-Canadian border. Maliseet territory consisted of the adjacent St. John River watershed, to the east, and extended northward into present-day Quebec. The two peoples' names for themselves indicate their origins in these territories: the Passamaquoddy are peskotomuhkatiyik "people who spear pollock," a fish abundant in coastal waters; the Maliseet are wolastoqewiyik "people of the St. John River." Today there are Passamaquoddy and Maliseet communities on both sides of the border. Although they share a common language, the two peoples are distinct political entities.
This dictionary of Passamaquoddy-Maliseet is the result of more than thirty years' collaboration among native speakers, educators, and linguists. The 18,000 entries illustrate speakers' detailed knowledge of the physical, intellectual, social, spiritual, and emotional environments in which they live. Sample sentences in the entries, taken from both oral tradition and contemporary conversation, present details of Passamaquoddy-Maliseet thought and culture, personal attitudes, humor, and linguistic ingenuity.
A comprehensive English side helps users of the dictionary discover shades of meaning and patterns of word formation in Passamaquoddy-Maliseet. The dictionary also contains a brief grammatical sketch of the language, pronunciation key, and guides to noun forms and verb conjugations.
1,214 pages, 8.5 x 11, approximately 18,000 Passamaquoddy-Maliseet entries and corresponding English side, with historical and technical introduction, noun forms, verb conjugations, regional map, and pronunciation key.
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An Upriver Passamaquoddy by Allen J. Sockabasin
Paperback, $15.00
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Drawing on his memories and an oral tradition, Allen Sockabasin returns to his Passamaquoddy village of Mud-doc-mig-goog, or Peter Dana Point, near Princeton, Maine. When Allen was a child in the 1940s and 1950s, his village was isolated and depended largely on subsistence hunting and fishing, working in the woods, and seasonal harvesting work for its survival. Passamaquoddy was its first language, and the tribal traditions of sharing and helping one another ensured the survival of the group.
To the outside world, they lived in poverty, but Allen remembers a life that was rich and rewarding in many ways. He recalls the storytellers, tribal leaders, craftsmen, basketmakers, hunters, musicians, and elders who are still his heroes, and he explains why preserving the Passamaquoddy traditions and language is so critical to his people's survival in modern times. Many rare photographs illustrate this fascinating memoir.
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Above The Gravel Bar by David Cook
Paperback, $12.95
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David Cook takes the us on a birchbark canoe journey through the landscape in the context of Northeastern geological development and Indian prehistoric culture. On rivers, lakes, over carries, and through coastal routes, we follow the archaeological and historical record, informed by accounts of early explorers.
First attempted in the nineteenth century, the publication of these ancient canoe routes, in daily use for millennia, is finally accomplished and in its third edition, with translations of Indian place names, a thorough index, notes and bibliography.
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Muskrat Stew and Other Tales of a Penobscot Life: The Life Story of Fred Ranco by Fred Ranco with Tara Marvel
Paperback, $9.95
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Fred Ranco, a citizen of the United States and the Penobscot Indian Nation, tells the story of his life growing up during the Great Depression on a small Indian reservation in Maine. His stories relate the good and the bad, the fun and the hard times. He remembers fondly how his father taught him to hunt. Fred loves hunting. He remembers his grandparents who spoke to him in his native tongue and taught him to make baskets and canoes and various handicrafts for trade. He also recalls prejudice, racism, and economic hardship.
This little book provides a glimpse into the life of an ordinary man living extraordinary circumstances. It reveals the strength of the human spirit and the healing power of human love.
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The Life And Traditions Of The Red Man by Joseph Nicolar
Paperback, $23.95
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Joseph Nicolar's The Life and Traditions of the Red Man tells the story of his people from the first moments of creation to the earliest arrivals and eventual settlement of Europeans. Self-published by Nicolar in 1893, this is one of the few sustained narratives in English composed by a member of an Eastern Algonquian-speaking people during the nineteenth century. At a time when Native Americans' ability to exist as Natives was imperiled, Nicolar wrote his book in an urgent effort to pass on Penobscot cultural heritage to subsequent generations of the tribe and to reclaim Native Americans' right to self-representation.
This extraordinary work weaves together stories of Penobscot history, precontact material culture, feats of shamanism, and ancient prophecies about the coming of the white man. An elder of the Penobscot Nation in Maine and the grandson of the Penobscots' most famous shaman-leader, Old John Neptune, Nicolar brought to his task a wealth of traditional knowledge.
The Life and Traditions of the Red Man has not been widely available until now, largely because Nicolar passed away just a few months after the printing of the book was completed, and shortly afterwards most of the few hundred copies that had been printed were lost in a fire. This new edition has been prepared with the assistance of Nicolar's descendants and members of the Penobscot Nation. It includes a summary history of the tribe; an introduction that illuminates the book's narrative strategies, the aims of its author, and its key themes; and annotations providing historical context and explaining unfamiliar words and phrases. The book also contains a preface by Nicolar's grandson, Charles Norman Shay, and an afterword by Bonnie D. Newsom, former Director of the Penobscot Nation's Department of Cultural and Historic Preservation. The Life and Traditions of the Red Man is a remarkable narrative of Native American culture, spirituality, and literary daring.
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