Old School Indian

Old School Indian by Aaron John Curtis

I originally thought this book would be about Asian Indians. It didn't take long to realize it was about Native American Indians. The main character has some rare disease. He has had various life struggles and goes back to the reservation to meet with his ancestral identity. There were various anecdotes about Indian life and identity. It rambled on a until it reached some sort of conclusion.

We Survived the Night

We Survived the Night by Julian Brave NoiseCat

This is an autobiography of the author that includes a history of his family, tribe and other NorthWest Indians. His father was prone to outbursts and left him and his mother when he was young. His mother was attracted to Indians and later helped introduce him to his tribe and parents. He spent time on the 'res with other Indians and became a part of his culture. He wants to marry another Indian due to the legal regulations in Canada. He travels between the US and Canada (Indians have rights to travel between the two.) The Indian schools were a negative experience in the life of the tribes that tried to suck the "indian" out of the Indians. Luckily some of the language and culture survived. Life is still not easy for those that remain on the tribe. He had a conflicting experience with his dad. He was at time, the greatest and at other times the worst. He was able to use his Indian heritage to obtain opportunities, but also suffered. He rare refers to himself as "native american". It is usually Indian or the specific tribe. He is leftist, but is primarily interested in Indian rights. Indians tend to focus more on their needs, which cross party lines. They want the government to back off, which aligns with Republicans. However, they also want support for their land and culture, which aligns more with Democrats. They have advocates in both parties, but still struggle to be heard. The book provided great insight into the needs of the first inhabitants of the Americas through an interesting (if not fully typical) life story.

Song of Hiawatha

The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow composed an epic poem about Native Americans. The poem is filled with romantic imagery. There is a story in there also, but I had trouble grasping what was going on. The narration of this audiobook was also well done.

The Inca: Lost Civilizations

The Inca: Lost Civilizations by Kevin Lane

The Inca are an intriguing population. They had built up a great empire that only seemed to last a short time before it succumbed to the Spaniard guns and germs. The Inca had very little intercourse with other populations (in part due to their geography). Thus they developed many of the hallmarks of humanity (such as writing) in their own fashion. With the vast elevation changes in an equatorial region, they had a variety of climatic regions in a small geographic area.

This book on the Inca is written from a very academic style. Anthropologists and archeologists are given abundant credit for their insights. There is little concrete narrative on the life of Inca, but rather a scientific dissection of the various aspects of their society. This leads to some repetition with parts that fit in multiple categorizations.

Some areas that I found interesting included the fact that the Inca empire was relatively short lived. There were other civilizations that had grown up before. The Inca unified some close regions and had a strong empire for only a few generations. They also used means of moving people around to keep them in order. Road networks were fairly well established as was agriculture (especially potatoes).  The religion seems to not be very well understood, but it did include some human sacrifice. Dynastic leadership was quite complex with multiple aspects of inheritance and old clans "hanging on".

Inca Apocalypse: The Spanish Conquest and the Transformation of the Andean World

The history of the contact between the Spanish and the natives on the American continent has been heavily colored by the conquerors. The Spanish had thought of their Christian culture as superior to others. They had recently expelled the Muslims from the Iberian peninsula and continued to use this righteous zeal in new areas. As part of these, they amplified the negatives of the others and the positives of themselves. Islamic society continued in other nearby parts of the world, so there are alternate historical sources to consider. In the new world, much of the historical record and oral traditions have been lost. Thus, the narrative of the conquerors dominates.

The Inca had a substantive civilization that was not without conflicts. The Spanish conquistadores were not among the noblest of people, yet they were able to conquer and rule. At times, the previous Inca aristocracy were given elevated positions, while at other times they were treated together with the rabble. There was intermarriage and adoption of Spanish norms. The result was a new civilization that differed from either before.

There was also a concept of "race" introduced with many justifications made. White Europeans were superior. The Inca were suited for certain tasks, especially when there was work to do at high elevations. Imported African slaves also had their role. The people of this combined society would later unite for their freedom from the Spanish.

I was hoping for more of a book about the history of the pre-Spanish Inca. This book, however, focussed on teasing out the details of the post contact experience. Many of the records we have were written many years after the fact, and colored by the current times when they were written. Trying to understand the true on-the-ground experience is challenging and has value. It was just not what I was looking for. 

River Woman, River Demon: A Novel

 This book just showed up as something to read from Overdrive. It wasn't bad. It focuses on a woman who lived with her university professor husband and children in New Mexico. Then weird things happen. He goes down to the river near their home and finds a family friend dead. They all the police and he is arrested. This brings back memories for the woman from her past. She had been swimming with a friend when the friend drowned. She didn't think that she did it, but worries that she might have done something supernatural.

The story then unfolds as a crime drama with supernatural elements. The family members are all involved in some supernatural arts. We are not sure who had commited the murder. Was it something supernatural? Did the wife do it out of jealousy? Or the husband? There are many twists and turns and a few affairs before it finally comes to the unexpected conclusion. Multiple drownings and attempted drownings are all connected.

Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America

Indigenous Continent tells the story of Native Americans in North America during the time since European contact. It paints a broad picture of all the different indigenous groups and their interaction with the various European groups. Key events in US history only appear in passing, as they are often of minimal importance to the natives. The various tribes had similarities as well as differences. They had adapted to the situations and made treaties, only to have those treaties disrespected by the white settlers when there was a new need for the land. 

Various parts of history are better understood from the context of the indigenous people. Texas had an Indian problem and wanted United States help. The settlers that moved in west of the original 13 colonies had a strong independent streak and would have formed their own countries if they could. However, the land was also occupied by natives, and they needed help. Most large Indian reservations are in the west because settlers had pushed the Indians out of the eastern areas.

There was a time when the indigenous people were treated as "real people". Treaties were made and each party was respected to some extent. However, the Europeans had a very different political system and had difficulty understanding the family-based political structure of the natives. They wanted to "civilize" them to be like Europeans. This seems to be a common theme down to this day. Whatever the dominant culture accepts is assumed to be "the best" and others are encouraged to join this "civilization" regardless of whether they want to or not. Even when natives did assimilate (such as slave-holding Indian plantation owners), they were still not respected. Reconstruction hit the Indians much harder than it hit the white southerners. The interaction of Europeans and the Native Americans has been sad indeed.

There There: A Novel

A listened to the entire audiobook without paying attention to the "A novel" portion of the title. I thought it was a work covering people in real life. There were a few random coincidences. However, those would be the ones that would end up the most interesting when distilling hours of interviews. Only after completing it did I realize it was a novel.

There There describes the ordinary lives of urban Indians in Oakland. They understand their "Indianness" in various ways. There are struggles in both integrating with society and accepting their unique identity. Many of them do not live pleasant lives. They have struggled both individually and collectively. Alcohol ends up being the cheapest medication. Alas, it creates its own problems. And alcohol is just one of the many struggles of the urban Indians. The Pow Wow is something of a unifying event for a disparate group of people that have been lumped together. However, even that creates its own type of conflict.

Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs

The Aztecs are intriguing. This book has potential. However, it gets bogged down by details. In the audiobook, the native words are pronounced and then spelled out. This just seems to slow down the narrative. There is also too much time spent explaining the details instead of providing a narrative. The book attempts to be "popular", yet gets a little too stuck in academic detail.

The history also makes few attempts to go very far back in time. The focus is on the history that can be easily documented. Thus, it does not go very far back before the Spanish encounter. A great deal of the book focuses on the interactions with the Spaniards. There is an attempt to get at the "true" history, as opposed to what are likely many false impressions between the two societies that did not understand each other. There is also the challenging of teasing out the truth from narratives that were made to advance particular positions.

There is some coverage of the human sacrifice and heart extraction. The view in this book is that it was a fairly complex issue. Some of those sacrificed were essentially given a death penalty due to infractions (or being an enemy.) Later is became ritualistic and their became a demand for people to sacrifice to ensure positive outcomes (such as victory in war.) 

The Aztecs were of the Nahua culture and had a complicated relationship with the other people around. There were shufflings of leadership and migrations of peoples to the city. There was also plenty of intermarriage with plenty of love and hate to go around. The Spanish were able to find allies in their conquest. They also had the benefit of advanced technology and germs without immunity.

"All the Real Indians Died Off": And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans

What could be a good book gets too bogged down in the contradictions of racial studies propaganda. They assume there is a monolithic "White supremacist" culture that seeks to oppress everyone else. All aspects of this "white" culture oppress the non-white victims. However, they make this argument in the context of "white" academia, and "white" culture. The arguments vacillate between identifying "Indian" concerns and concerns of individual tribes.
The authors even argue that the English developed their colonial oppression methods through the colonization of Ireland. Yet, now the Irish are grouped in the "white" group of oppressors. Huh? Why were they able to assimilate, but the Indians were not? And why can we get away with having "Fighting Irish" mascots, but not "Fighting Sioux". Is this justified because there are a good number of Irish catholics that got to Notre Dame? What about Spartans? Has San Jose or Michigan received permission of the Greeks? Or do they not need to do it because they are all "white"?
There were plenty of wrongs and treaty violation committed against the Indians by the colonizers. However, there were also many wrongs committed against "white" groups also. Trying to focus on us vs. them based on skin color may sell well in racial studies academic circles, but doesn't help in society at large. The irony is that racial studies invokes a very conservative view of the culture in question in a very liberal environment. They expect a majority culture to sacrifice their cultural beliefs and norms so that the minority culture can cling to a very conservative way of life in their culture.
The "indigenous" argument also echos "NIMBY" arguments seen in many communities today. People want a community to remain the same as it was when they moved there. What is not clearly explained is how long the American Indian culture had lasted in its present form before the European colonization. Were some tribes and cultures only recently formed? Had some lived the same way for thousands of years before? Were there some tribes that had annihilated other tribes, only to be decimated by the Europeans. Have some tribal cultures existed longer as minority cultures in a European world than they did originally on their own. These would all be great topics of exploration. Alas, that is not the topic of the book.
The myths here focus more on the "agenda". Some times the arguments are fairly clear. Indian casinos do make great amounts of money for a small number of tribes. However, most tribes barely break even. The government does provide health care for Indians as part of a treaty obligation. However, the funding is quite low.
Other arguments get muddled. The "myth of the drunken Indian" acknowledges that alcohol related crime is high among Indians. However, this is justified as something forced upon Indians by the Europeans. And then arguments are given to say that Indians are not more susceptible to alcohol. There are also discussions about "victimhood" and "wards of the state". The authors try to refute these misconceptions, even as the theme of the book seems to say otherwise.
Pan-Indian identity also gets conflated with tribal identity. Indians rightfully cringe when others attempt to mimic their sacred ceremonies. However, what if another tribe takes it? Tribal identity was said to be fluid in Indian cultures, with those from one tribe being adopted into others. Yet, now there are strict blood limits. And what about adoption into mainstream American culture?
There is a great challenge to keep minority cultures alive. However, the "Racist" approach ends up marginalizing many cultures due to their skin colors. There are many cultures among the "whites" and many among the "Indians". There is a lot we could learn from all of them.

Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power (The Lamar Series in Western History)

Lakota America narrates the history of the Lokata people from early 15th century until today, with a strong emphasis on the century from the birth of the US in 1776 until the battle of Little Big Horn in 1876. The terminology can get confusing, in part because people were confused in how they identified each other. They were part of the Sioux, but they were also their own. They reinvented themselves to thrive in remote lands as buffalo hunters. They were a fairly strong nation, and may have had their own country if not for the hunger of white America to settle the lands and build the railroads. They defended their rights both with word and dead. Custer's Last Stand was both their crowning achievement and the end of the line. After their grand victory, the government could now use them as the "evil" to fight against. They ended up confined to a reservation like other native groups. Could the colonist have peacefully coexisted with the native groups? Or was the land grab just too appealing. Perhaps things would have been different if disease and guns didn't have such a strong impact. (Ironically, disease actually helped the Lakota as they would often have greater immunity than other tribes.) What allowed the tribes we have today to survive as long as they did?