University of Nebraska Press

UNP books in the media

This past week, two UNP books were reviewed by Necessary Fiction and the Omaha World-Herald.

In Necessary Fiction, Steve Himmer reviewed Bohemian Girl by Terese Svoboda. He said that “…self-invention and renewal it offered is at the heart of Bohemian Girl.”

Click here to read the full review.

 

 

And in the Omaha World-Herald, David Hendee called Atlas of the Great Plains by Stephen J. Lavin, Fred M. Shelley, and J. Clark Archer  a tool that could “…help save your life.”

The Atlas of the Great Plains has more than three hundred original full-color maps, accompanied by extended explanatory text and it chronicles the history of the Great Plains, including political and social developments.

As Hendee said, “it could help keep your car from being stolen, if you choose places in the Great Plains with low rates of vehicle theft.  It could even help win a bet on whether Nebraska or Texas has more natives per capita in the National Football League.”

Read the full story here.

And later this week on Thursday, journalist and author Catherine Robbins will be discussing her book, All Indians Do Not Live in Teepees (or Casinos) on the radio show, Native American Calling at 11:00 a.m. MST.

Click here to stream the discussion live.

Off the Shelf: All Indians Do Not Live in Teepees (or Casinos) by Catherine C. Robbins

Read the beginning of the Introduction, "Flying Together" from All Indians Do Not Live in Teepees (or Casinos) by Catherine C. Robbins:

"In 2006 the twelve bands of the Kumeyaay-Diegueño Nation raised a new national flag—their own—at Cabrillo National Monument on San Diego’s Point Loma. For the first time, their flag took its place alongside the banners of the nations that had invaded and gained control of their land: Portugal, Spain, Mexico, and the United States. Those had flown regularly for years over historic Point Loma during an annual ceremony marking the European American arrival that had begun five centuries before. Now a Native American nation that has called the area home for millennia hoisted its own standard. The Kumeyaay-Diegueño flag flew firmly in a stiff breeze that day, a signal of the love and sacredness that American Indians attach to an occupied and besieged homeland. It also demonstrated the return of Kumeyaays to a place where historians estimate they had first set foot between eleven thousand and thirty thousand years ago. With energy and dedication plus the inspiration of one of their respected elders, Jane Dumas, they had circled back to a place they had never really left.^1*

Off the Shelf: Up from These Hills: Memories of a Cherokee Boyhood

Read the beginning of "Forethoughts" from Up from These Hills: Memories of a Cherokee Boyhood by Leonard Carson Lambert Jr. As told to Michael Lambert:

"When I was young my father, Leonard Carson Lambert Jr., told us “poor stories” about his experiences growing up as an Indian on and near the reservation of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in the mountains of western North Carolina. He told these stories to contrast the conditions in which he was raised with our comparatively comfortable upbringing. I caught glimpses of the world of his youth during our annual visits to my grandparents who lived on the reservation. I still remember visiting their house in Birdtown in the early 1960s. It was an old small house nestled on a hillside just above the main road. I remember dodging chickens as I walked along a narrow path that went over a stream to the outhouse. I also remember the cove where my grandfather built the family home in the 1930s. It was still standing in the late 1990s, and every so often we would trek over the Oconuluftee River and follow the road up the mountainside to see it. Despite the fact that over the years additions had been made to the original house, it remained a modest structure until it was taken down in the late 1990s, essentially the same as the one my father knew when he was a boy. The home was nestled at the foot of a small cove that gently rose behind the house up the mountainside. You could still see the garden beds that once nourished my father’s family. I could easily imagine my father and his siblings playing on the mountainside while my grandfather tended to cattle in the barn and my grandmother washed clothes in a washbasin in the back of the house.

Ulrich speaks out

Roberta Ulrich, author of American Indian Nations from Termination to Restoration 1953-2006, wrote the following guest blog about a recent proposal to abolish the Bureau of Indian Affairs. For more information, visit the book's page on the Universityof Nebraska Press website.

More than most issues, Indian policy seems subject to those twin adages: "Those who cannot remember the pastare condemned to repeat it" and "The more things change the morethey stay the same."

The occasion for this observation is the recent proposal by Senator Rand Paul to abolish the Bureau of Indian Affairs.That would, in effect, put an end to most government Indian programs. The Kentucky Republican would have no reason to remember the disastrous termination policy of the mid-Twentieth Century; he was three years old in 1966, the year that the Poncas of Nebraska became the last tribe terminated under the 1950s policy. It was also a time when both Congress and the Administration were realizing that termination had been a huge mistake. By the time Senator Paul was 30 most of the tribes had been restored to federal recognition and, from the outside, perhaps appeared no different from tribes that had not been terminated. However, some of those tribes still struggle to make up for the dozen to thirty years of lost programs and organization.

As I wrote in American Indian Nations from Termination to Restoration 1953-2006 (University of Nebraska Press, 2010) the termination program of the 1950s and 1960s was just another name for the continuing policy of the United States government from its beginning: get rid of Indians. Like the other policies, termination failed to get rid of Indians. It did make many of them poorer, sicker and afflicted witha variety of problems. Restoration has put those terminated tribes backon the path to healthy societies.

Paul’s proposal already is raising alarms in Indian Country - as well it should. indiancountrytodaymedia network carried an extended story on the issue Feb. 12 under the headline "Sen. Rand Paul Set to Ignore Treaty Obligations to Indians."

The story, by Rob Capriccioso, quoted Tol Foster, a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at ChapelHill, as saying, "Selective amnesia - as in the 1950s and early 1960s-can be a powerful weapon, particularly because Native Americans are such a very small percentage of the overall population ..."

Those who cannot remember the past ...

Off the Shelf: Muscogee Daughter: My Sojourn to the Miss America Pageant by Susan Supernaw

Read from Chapter 3, "Bozo" from Muscogee Daughter: My Sojourn to the Miss America Pageant by Susan Supernaw:

"On Saturday nights we often visited Jonesy, an old family friend who had a color TV. One night Mom saw the Lennon Sisters perform on The Lawrence Welk Show. That convinced her to make us into a family act. Mom sang soprano in the church choir and understood basic harmony and vocal arrangements. She taught Louise and Judy to sing first and second soprano parts, while Kathy and I, with lower voices, sang the alto parts. A song called “Whispering Hope” was supposed to be our big debut. Instead it was my biggest disaster. We wore blue dresses with a small lace yoke in the front. Another member of the congregation owned a beauty salon and volunteered to give matching haircuts and perms to the Supernaw Sisters. When it came time to perform, my sisters all looked great, with their matching hairstyles and dresses. Although my dress matched the others, however, my hair did not. My baby-fine, thin hair couldn’t handle the chemicals, so the same perm that looked great on them burned my hair, breaking it off and frizzing what remained, turning it a funny orangey color. Hiding my hair under a red baseball cap in embarrassment, I was aghast when Mom said, “You must take off that awful hat. We’re going to sing, you can’t wear it. You must remove it. It doesn’t matter how you look, it’s how you sing.”

Off the Shelf: Searching for My Destiny by George Blue Spruce Jr.

Read from "Creighton Years" in Searching for My Destiny by George Blue Spruce Jr. as told to Deanne Durrett:

"Many years before my high school graduation and the Elks banquet, my parents had vowed that their children would go to college. They acted on faith that there would be a way for me to achieve a college degree and began making definite plans for my education during my junior year of high school. Knowing of my strong desire to become a dentist, the Christian Brothers at St. Michael’s spoke to my parents and recommended Creighton University, a Roman Catholic university with a dental school. In the Brothers’ opinion, there were no better educators than the Jesuit priests. Daddy had great respect for the Christian Brothers, and once they had made their recommendation no other colleges were considered. I was going to Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.

The backstory of Rainy River Lives

Today is the official release of Rainy River Lives, the text of which was written nearly 100 years ago, and which almost never saw publication.

In 1932 anthropologist Ruth Landes arrived at the Manitou Rapids Reserve on the Rainy River, which flows along the Ontario-Minnesota border, to conduct her doctoral research. There, Landes met Maggie Wilson, who became both a friend and an invaluable source. Wilson, a traditional Ojibwe storyteller, described to Landes what life was like on the reservation during the early 20th century, as the Ojibwes were being relocated and forced to assimilate. After Landes left the reservation, she and Wilson continued to correspond, and Wilson sent her many letters describing her life and the lives of her neighbors on Rainy River.

Landes carefully filed and saved the letters, but somehow, they got lost. Decades later, they were discovered in the basement of the Smithsonian Institute, where they had been misfiled with the papers of another anthropologist. Rainy River Lives, published, obviously, by the University of Nebraska Press, collects those stories for the first time.

An aside: Landes finished her doctorate in 1935 and became a well-known anthropologist, particularly in the fields of race and gender studies. Her 1947 book, City of Women, about women who adhered to the candomble religion in Brazil, is still in print.

Another week, an award and a podcast

Welcome back to the work week. I hope you’re enjoying the warm (yet rainy weather), and perhaps have the good fortune of being able to spend the day curled up with a good book. If not, here’s a bit of reading to tide you over.

Remember how on Friday I mentioned that University of Nebraska Press author John Turnbull (The Global Game) would appear on NPR’s Only a Game? Well, he did, on Saturday, and you can listen to him and fellow editor Alon Raab discuss soccer with host Bill Littlefield here.

In other news, UNP author William L. Ramsey has received the 2008 George C. Rogers award for his book, The Yamasee War. The award is presented annually by the South Carolina Historical Society to the author of the best book of South Carolina history published during the preceding calendar year. Ramsey was honored on Saturday during the annual meeting of the South Carolina Historical Society in Charleston.

The Yamasee War, by the way, tells the story of the violent conflict between southeastern American Indian tribes and English colonists in South Carolina from 1715 to 1718. In the book, Ramsey argues the war was a pivotal event in the formation of the Old South.

Tuesday Trivia: January 27, 2009

New this month from the University of Nebraska Press: Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apache Wars Memoir by Charles B. Gatewood, edited and with additional text by Louis Kraft.

Lt. Charles B. Gatewood (1853–1896), an educated Virginian, served in the Sixth U.S. Cavalry as the commander of Indian scouts. Gatewood was largely accepted by the Native peoples with whom he worked because of his efforts to understand their cultures. It was this connection that Gatewood formed with the Indians, and with Geronimo and Naiche in particular, that led to his involvement in the last Apache war and his work for Indian rights.

Realizing that he had more experience dealing with Native peoples than other lieutenants serving on the frontier, Gatewood decided to record his experiences. Although he died before he completed his project, the work he left behind remains an important firsthand account of his life as a commander of Apache scouts and as a military commandant of the White Mountain Indian Reservation.

This week’s installment of Tuesday Trivia is about the Apache Indians. Ready?

1. The word “Apachean” describes Indian groups language and culture are similar to that of the Apache. Name another major Apachean Native American group.

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve at the Great Plains Art Museum

University of Nebraska Press author Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve will read from some of her many books at the Great Plains Art Museum (1155 Q Street, Hewit Place, Lincoln) from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 27.

Sneve is a well-known Lakota writer and a recipient of the 2000 National Humanities Medal. She is the author of Lana’s Lakota Moons, Grandpa Was a Cowboy and an Indian and Other Stories, Chichi Hoohoo Bogeyman and many other children’s books. Her memoir, Completing the Circle, won the North American Indian Prose Award. The event is free and open to the public.