Edmund Wilson's personal and informative study on the plight of the Native American Indians, Apologies to the Iroquois As Wilson writes, “[In August 1975] I discovered in the New YorkTimes what seemed to me a very queer story. A band of Mohawk Indians, under the leadership of a chief called Standing Arrow, had moved in on some land on Schoharie Creek, a little river that flows into the Mohawk not far from Amsterdam, New York, and established a settlement there. Their claim was that the land they were occupying had been assigned them by the United States in a treaty of 1784. The Times ran a map of the tract which had at that time been recognized by our government as the territory of the Iroquois people, who included the Mohawks, the Senecas, the Onondagas, the Oneidas, the Cayugas and the Tuscaroras, and were known as the Six Nations. The tract was sixty miles wide, and it extended almost from Buffalo to Albany. "I had already known about this agreement as the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (now Rome, New York), which had first made it possible for white people to settle in upper New York State without danger of molestation by its original inhabitants; but I had not known what the terms of this treaty were, and I was surprised to discover that my property, acquired at the end of the eighteenth century by the family from which it had come to me, seemed to lie either inside or just outside the northern boundary. Having thus been brought to realize my ignorance of our local relations with the Indians and continuing to read in the papers of the insistence of Standing Arrow that the Mohawks had some legal right to the land on which they were camping, I paid a visit, in the middle of October, to their village on Schoharie Creek . . . .”

"James Ruppert explores the bicultural nature of Indian writers and discusses strategies they employ in addressing several audiences at once: their tribe, other Indians, and other Americans. Helen Jaskoski analyzes the genre of autoethnography, or Indian historical writing, in an Ottawa writer's account of a smallpox epidemic. Kimberly Blaeser, a Chippewa, writes about how Indian writers reappropriate their history and stories of their land and people. Robert Allen Warrior, an Osage, examines the ideas of the leading Indian philosopher in America, Vine Deloria, Jr., who calls for a return to traditional tribal religions. Robert Berner exposes the incomplete myths and false legends pervading Indian views of American history. Alan Velie discusses the issue of historical objectivity in two Indian historical novels, James Welch's Fools Crow and Gerald Vizenor's The Heirs of Columbus. Kurt M. Peters relates how Laguna Indians retained their culture and identity while living in the boxcars of the Santa Fe Railroad Indian Village at Richmond, California. Juana Maria Rodriguez examines power relations in Gerald Vizenor's narrative of a Dakota Indian accused of murder in 1967, "Thomas White Hawk." Finally, Gerald Vizenor, a Chippewa, discusses Indian conceptions of identity in contemporary America, including simulations he calls "postindian identity."".

Annemarie Anrod Shimony's classic work clearly shows the contemporary cultural and religious crises that face the Longhouse Iroquois at the Six Nations Reserve, Ontario. Shimony presents a lucid and eloquent account of the survival of the Native American tradition, which is struggling to maintain political and cultural autonomy in an ever-changing modern world. Based on original field work dating from 1953 to 1961, and supplemented by new material describing changes during the last thirty years, Shimony's work is once again the most comprehensive ethnography of the largest extant traditional Iroquoian community. Some of the material discussed includes the social organization, the system of hereditary chiefs, the beliefs and practices of the Longhouse religion, the events of the Iroquoian life cycle, and the extensive medicinal and witchcraft aspects of the culture. Additional areas of focus include the rituals of the agricultural calendar and Iroquois conceptions of death and burial rituals. As Elizabeth Tooker wrote in Indians of the Northeast, Shimony's monograph is, "next to Morgan's League, the most important general description of the Iroquois." With its new material added, Conservatism among the Iroquois is once again required reading for anyone interested in Native American culture.

The last of Edmund Wilson's posthumously published journals turned out to be one of his major books, The Sixties: the Last Journal, 1960–1972--a personal history that is also brilliant social comedy and an anatomy of the times. Wilson catches the flavor of an international elite -- Stravinsky, Auden, Andre Malraux, and Isaiah Berlin -- as well as the New York literati and the Kennedy White House, but he never strays too far from the common life, whether noting the routines of his normal neighbors or the struggle of his own aging. "Candor and intelligence come through on every page--in this always absorbing journal by perhaps the last great man of American letters." - Kirkus Reviews

From World War II onward, the Iroquois, one of the largest groups of Native Americans in North America, have confronted a series of crises threatening their continued existence. From the New York-Pennsylvania border, where the Army Corps of Engineers engulfed a vast tract of Seneca homeland with the Kinzua Dam, from the ambition of Robert Moses and the New York State Power Authority to develop the hydroelectric power of the Niagara Frontier (which eroded the land base of the Tuscaroras), from the construction of the Saint Lawrence Seaway (which took land from the Mohawks and still affects their fishing industry), to the present-day battles over the Oneida land claims in New York State and the Onondaga efforts to repatriate their wampum—Laurence Hauptman documents the bitter struggles of proud people to maintain their independence and strength in the modern world. Out of these battles came a renewed sense of Iroquois nationalism and nationwide Iroquois leadership in American Indian politics. Hauptman examines events leading to the emergence of the contemporary Iroquois, concluding with the takeover at Wounded Knee in the winter-spring of 1973 and the Supreme Court's Oneida decision in 1974. His research is based on historical documents, published materials, and interviews and fieldwork in every Iroquois community in the United States and several in Canada.

For the Seneca Iroquois Indians, song is a crucial means of renewing both medicine and heritage. Two or three times a year, the Little Water Medicine Society of western New York meets to renew the potency of its medicine bundles through singing. These bundles have been inherited from eighteenth century Iroquois war parties, handed down from generation to generation. In this long-awaited book, William N. Fenton describes the remarkable ceremonies of one of the least recorded but most significant medicine societies of the Iroquois Indians. Most of the Senecas who were members of the Little Water Society, or Society of Shamans, have passed away, and their knowledge of ceremonial healing and spiritual renewal is fading. Fenton has written this book to preserve knowledge of the ceremonies and songs for the Iroquois people and as a contribution to anthropology, folklore, ethnomusicology, and American Indian studies. In The Little Water Medicine Society of the Senecas, he presents his original 1933 fieldwork, along with details from the published and unpublished works of other researchers, to describe rituals, poetry, and songs drawn from his more than six decades of research among the Six Nations.

Over the twentieth century, American Indians fought for their right to be both American and Indian. In an illuminating book, Paul C. Rosier traces how Indians defined democracy, citizenship, and patriotism in both domestic and international contexts. Battles over the place of Indians in the fabric of American life took place on reservations, in wartime service, in cold war rhetoric, and in the courtroom. The Society of American Indians, founded in 1911, asserted that America needed Indian cultural and spiritual values. In World War II, Indians fought for their ancestral homelands and for the United States. The domestic struggle of Indian nations to defend their cultures intersected with the international cold war stand against terminationÑthe attempt by the federal government to end the reservation system. Native Americans seized on the ideals of freedom and self-determination to convince the government to preserve reservations as places of cultural strength. Red Power activists in the 1960s and 1970s drew on Third World independence movements to assert an ethnic nationalism that erupted in a series of protestsÑin Iroquois country, in the Pacific Northwest, during the occupation of Alcatraz Island, and at Wounded Knee. Believing in an empire of liberty for all, Native Americans pressed the United States to honor its obligations at home and abroad. Like African Americans, twentieth-century Native Americans served as a visible symbol of an America searching for rights and justice. American history is incomplete without their story.

Chief Chapman Scanandoah (1870–1953) was a decorated Navy veteran who served in the Spanish-American War, a skilled mechanic, and a prize-winning agronomist who helped develop the Iroquois Village at the New York State Fair. He was also a historian, linguist, philosopher, and early leader of the Oneida land claims movement. However, his fame among the Oneida people and among many of his Hodinöhsö:ni’ contemporaries today rests with his career as an inventor. In the era of Thomas Edison, Scanandoah challenged the stereotypes of the day that too often portrayed Native Americans as primitive, pre-technological, and removed from modernity. In An Oneida Indian in Foreign Waters, Hauptman draws from Scanandoah’s own letters; his court, legislative, and congressional testimony; military records; and forty years of fieldwork experience to chronicle his remarkable life and understand the vital influence Scanandoah had on the fate of his people. Despite being away from his homeland for much of his life, Scanandoah fought tirelessly in federal courts to prevent the loss of the last remaining Oneida lands in New York State. Without Scanandoah and his extended Hanyoust family, Oneida existence in New York might have been permanently extinguished. Hauptman’s biography not only illuminates the extraordinary life of Scanandoah but also sheds new light on the struggle to maintain tribal identity in the face of an increasingly diminished homeland.

Perfect for readers of the bestselling Outlander novels—and don’t miss The Outlandish Companion Volume Two! #1 New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon has captivated millions of readers with her critically acclaimed Outlander novels, the inspiration for the Starz original series. From the moment Claire Randall stepped through a standing stone circle and was thrown back in time to the year 1743—and into a world that threatens life, limb, loyalty, heart, soul, and everything else Claire has—readers have been hungry to know everything about this world and its inhabitants, particularly a Scottish soldier named Jamie Fraser. In this beautifully illustrated compendium of all things Outlandish, Gabaldon covers the first four novels of the main series, including: • full synopses of Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, and Drums of Autumn • a complete listing of the characters (fictional and historical) in the first four novels in the series, as well as family trees and genealogical notes • a comprehensive glossary and pronunciation guide to Gaelic terms and usage • The Gabaldon Theory of Time Travel, explained • frequently asked questions to the author and her (sometimes surprising) answers • an annotated bibliography • essays about medicine and magic in the eighteenth century, researching historical fiction, creating characters, and more • professionally cast horoscopes for Jamie and Claire • the making of the TV series: how we got there from here, and what happened next (including “My Brief Career as a TV Actor”) • behind-the-scenes photos from the Outlander TV series set For anyone who wants to spend more time with the Outlander characters and the world they inhabit, Diana Gabaldon here opens a door through the standing stones and offers a guided tour of what lies within.

For more than a decade scholars have debated the question of whether American Indian confederacies, primarily the Iroquois, helped influence the formation of U.S. basic law. The idea has sparked lively debate in the public arena as well, with Canadian diplomat Durling Voyce-Jones contending it shows a paradigm shift in our thinking, Patrick Buchanan calling it idiocy, and George Will saying it's fiction. For the first time, this bibliography brings together some 450 citations on the debate. The work describes the debate in the words of one of its major participants, Bruce E. Johansen, author of three other books on the subject. The bibliography also takes the reader back to suggestions of the idea long before the contemporary debate. Lakota author Charles Eastman brought up the subject in 1919, Mohawk teacher Ray Fadden developed it in the 1940s, and John F. Kennedy touched on it in 1960. Bringing the debate to its full flower in the present day, the bibliography illustrates both fervent support and equally emphatic denial in the academy and the public press. The book is both a scholarly tool and a lively exploration of issues bearing on the study of history and multiculturalism.