New Releases by Richard Erdoes

Hellraiser, philosopher, sheepherder, sheriff, rodeo clown, lover, medicine man--Lame Deer was all of these and in this one-man play adapted from his book of memoirs, the Lakota Sioux holy man and sage recounts his life in a series of wry, wise, humorous and always entertaining anecdotes.

“Quando mio padre fu sul punto di morire, mi afferrò la mano. Sentii il suo potere fluire dentro di me, fino a riempire tutto il mio essere. In quell’istante la mia vita cambiò completamente: il mio futuro divenne qualcosa che potevo solo intuire vagamente, come una catena montuosa in lontananza, avvolta in una foschia azzurra. In quel preciso istante, l’uomo che ero stato morì e un uomo nuovo ne prese il posto”. Così Archie Fire Lame Deer, ubriacone inveterato, piantagrane e cascatore di Hollywood venne riportato – recalcitrante – al suo destino, al compito per il quale suo nonno l’aveva preparato, diventando un grande uomo-medicina (o, come egli stesso si definiva, un “uomo spirituale”) della tribù Lakota, detentore di una tradizione millenaria e famoso in tutto il mondo. Proprio grazie ai suoi trascorsi burrascosi, ha potuto di comprendere e aiutare tutti, perché un uomo-medicina “deve strisciare più in basso di un verme e volare più in alto di un’aquila”.

The bestselling memoir of a Native American woman''s struggles and the life she found in activism: "courageous, impassioned, poetic and inspirational" ( Publishers Weekly). Mary Brave Bird grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota in a one-room cabin without running water or electricity. With her white father gone, she was left to endure "half-breed" status amid the violence, machismo, and aimless drinking of life on the reservation. Rebelling against all this—as well as a punishing Catholic missionary school—she became a teenage runaway. Mary was eighteen and pregnant when the rebellion at Wounded Knee happened in 1973. Inspired to take action, she joined the American Indian Movement to fight for the rights of her people. Later, she married Leonard Crow Dog, the AIM''s chief medicine man, who revived the sacred but outlawed Ghost Dance. Originally published in 1990, Lakota Woman was a national bestseller and winner of the American Book Award. It is a story of determination against all odds, of the cruelties perpetuated against American Indians, and of the Native American struggle for rights. Working with Richard Erdoes, one of the twentieth century''s leading writers on Native American affairs, Brave Bird recounts her difficult upbringing and the path of her fascinating life.

More than 160 tales from eighty tribal groups present a rich and lively panorama of the Native American mythic heritage. From across the continent comes tales of creation and love; heroes and war; animals, tricksters, and the end of the world. “This fine, valuable new gathering of ... tales is truly alive, mysterious, and wonderful—overflowing, that is, with wonder, mystery and life" (National Book Award Winner Peter Matthiessen). In addition to mining the best folkloric sources of the nineteenth century, the editors have also included a broad selection of contemporary Native American voices.

From Davy Crockett, Wild Bill Hickok, and Calamity Jane to Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, and Frank and Jesse James, here are more than 130 colorful stories of the pioneers, cowboys, outlaws, gamblers, prospectors, and lawmen who settled the wild west, creating a uniquely American hero and an enduringly fascinating folk mythology. In this wonderfully boisterous treasury of tall tales, everyone and everything is larger than life and bragging is elevated into an art form. Many of these stories are of real people and real events; more than a few, however, grew taller and funnier as they made their rounds from wagon train to campfire to rodeo to miners'' quarters. But even if it is far from established that Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett were able to kill three men with one bullet or subdue ferocious grizzly bears with their fists, they come vividly to life here as beloved characters who have become part of the fabric of the American imagination. With black-and white illustrations throughout Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

Biography, autobiography, and memoir is among the best ways to teach students to appreciate nonfiction reading.

The dramatic, brutally honest, and ultimately triumphant sequel to the bestselling American Book Award winner Lakota Woman, this book continues Mary Brave Bird''s courageous story of life as a Native American in a white-dominated society.

Stamp collecting.

Born in 1937 and raised by his grandparents on the Leach Lake reservation in Minnesota, Dennis Banks grew up learning traditional Ojibwa lifeways. As a young child he was torn from his home and forced to attend a government boarding school designed to assimilate Indian children into white culture. After years of being "white man-ized" in these repressive schools, Banks enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, shipping out to Japan when he was only seventeen years old. After returning to the states, Banks lived in poverty in the Indian slums of Minnesota until he was arrested for stealing groceries to feed his growing family. Although his white accomplice was freed on probation, Banks was sent to prison. There he became determined to educate himself. Hearing about the African American struggle for civil rights, he recognized that American Indians must take up a similar fight. Upon his release, Banks became a founder of AIM, the American Indian Movement, which soon inspired Indians from many tribes to join the fight for American Indian rights. Through AIM, Banks sought to confront racism with activism rooted deeply in Native religion and culture. Ojibwa Warrior relates Dennis Banks''s inspiring life story and the story of the rise of AIM - from the 1972 "Trail of Broken Treaties" march to Washington, D.C., which ended in the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building, to the 1973 standoff at Wounded Knee, when Lakota Indians and AIM activists from all over the country occupied the site of the infamous 1890 massacre of three hundred Sioux men, women, and children to protest the bloodshed and corruption at the Pine Ridge Lakota reservation. Banks tells the inside story of the seventy-one-day siege, his unlikely nighttime escape and interstate flight, and his eventual shootout with authorities at an FBI roadblock in Oregon. Pursued and hunted, he managed to reach California. There, authorities refused to extradite him to South Dakota, where the attorney general had declared that the best thing to do with Dennis Banks was to "put a bullet through his head." Years later, after a change in state govenment, Banks gave himself up to South Dakota authorities. Sentenced to two years in prison, he was paroled after serving one year to teach students Indian history at the Lone Man school Pine Ridge. Since then, Dennis Banks has organized "Scared Runs" for young people, teaching American Indian ways, religion, and philosophy worldwide. Now operating a successful business on the reservation, he continues the fight for Indian rights.

Ce livre souhaite montrer le monde tel que le voient les Indiens. La plupart des portraits sont ceux d'amis très proches. Quelques vieux Indiens de tradition spirituelle ont insisté pour que je prenne une série complète de clichés durant certaines cérémonies rarement célébrées, afin qu'après leur mort il reste un témoignage de la façon dont les rites étaient accomplis. Moi qui ai toujours respecté les lois des tribus interdisant de prendre des photographies pendant les danses sacrées et autres réunions religieuses, je me suis senti un peu intimidé, avec l'impression de transgresser un interdit... Les photographies et les légendes ont été agencées en fonction des thèmes traités, mais l'ensemble du livre trouve son unité derrière le concept plus large de Cercle Sacré.

Of all the characters in myths and legends told around the world, it''s the wily trickster who provides the real spark in the action, causing trouble wherever he goes. This figure shows up time and again in Native American folklore, where he takes many forms, from the irascible Coyote of the Southwest, to Iktomi, the amorphous spider man of the Lakota tribe. This dazzling collection of American Indian trickster tales, compiled by an eminent anthropologist and a master storyteller, serves as the perfect companion to their previous masterwork, American Indian Myths and Legends. American Indian Trickster Tales includes more than one hundred stories from sixty tribes--many recorded from living storytellers—which are illustrated with lively and evocative drawings. These entertaining tales can be read aloud and enjoyed by readers of any age, and will entrance folklorists, anthropologists, lovers of Native American literature, and fans of both Joseph Campbell and the Brothers Grimm.

Tracing the career of brilliant visionary Pope Sylvester II, Richard Erdoes has composed a vivid tapestry of a century frighteningly similar to our present one. --publisher description.

" J'étais seul au sommet de la colline, j'étais assis dans la fosse de voyance, un trou creuse dans le sol, les genoux entre les mains... " C'est ainsi que le Sioux Tahca Ushte commence l'histoire de sa vie mouvementée. Son itinéraire, sa quête du savoir, dans ce " Tristes Tropiques " sioux, passent par les montagnes sacrées où la parole du Grand Esprit Wakan Tanka est inscrite dans le roc, telles les tables de la loi. Le voyant-guérisseur décèle les aberrations de la société occidentale et raille la médiocrité des temps nouveaux, symbolisés par le dollar, cette " peau de grenouille verte ". Initiés au plus profond du sacré, aux rites, à la voyance, au nombre d'or, à la médecine, les Indiens, affirme Tahca Ushte, de la naissance à la mort, sont pris dans les plis des symboles comme dans une couverture. Tahca Ushte n'écrit pas seulement un livre sur le passé. Il nous confie ici des Mémoires d'avenir, un livre de vie et de sagesse puisé aux sources résurgentes de la tradition amérindienne.

Explains how American Indians view our place in the world, looks at their history and culture, and shares the comments of individual Indians

Text and illustrations describe the history, land, culture, and present-day life of the Pueblo Indians.

Traces the history of the Pueblo Indians and discusses their present government, customs, art, way of life, and relationship to the white man and his government.

The personal narrative of a Sioux medicine man reveals his way of life and beliefs about the white man.

Traces the history of musicians from the first prehistoric musicians of Africa to the rock musicians of the present day.

Describes peddlers who traveled from village to town in olden days, and tells about vendors we see in the market places today: Irish tinkers, gypsy fiddlers, German Weisswurst sellers, Paris bird sellers, chimney sweeps of Luxembourg, and many others.