Indigenous Science

Navajo myths are among the most poetic in the world, full of dazzling word imagery. For the Navajo, who call themselves the Dine (literally, "the People"), the story of emergence—their creation myth—lies at the heart of their beliefs. In it, all the world is created together, both gods and human beings, embodying the idea that change comes from within rather than without. Poet and author Gerald Hausman collects this and other stories with meditations that together capture the essence of the Navajo people's way of life and their understanding of the world.

Tiki is a God who in the dim long ago helped to build the world, and the whose carved image is now supporting the middle pillar of the house. His eyes of pawa-shell, which once commanded in the Ten Heavens and were full of fire and wisdom, glisten out of the silent twilight; they stare far, far into the Darkness, which Hine-nui-te-po is slowly spreading over the world; Hine-nui-te-po, the Great Mother of Night, who at one time was young and beautiful, and gave Life to Nature.

Settler capitalism has been so effective that the very identities of Indigenous people have been usurped, misconstrued, and weaponized. In Who Gets to Be Indian?, scholar and writer Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) explores how ethnic fraud and the commodification of Indianness has resulted in mass confusion about what it means to be Indigenous in the United States.

“I love food” Nakkiah Lui says, and in the next breath whispers “so give us back our land”. In First Eat, a confrontational, raw and highly personal exploration of food politics, power and body sovereignty, Nakkiah Lui asks how our meals would look different if First Nations people owned the land from which the food came. First Eat is about more than just food, it’s an aural feast for a rich future.

Charles Alexander Eastman (1858-1939), an educated and well-known Sioux, saw both sides of the great divide between Indians and whites, and he wrote 11 books attempting to reconcile the two cultures. This book is his illumination of Indian spiritual beliefs and practices. A convert to Christianity, Eastman never lost his sense of the wholeness and beauty of the Indian's relation to his existence and to the natural world.

Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noe Álvarez worked at an apple-packing plant alongside his mother. A university scholarship offered escape, but as a first-generation Latino college-goer, Álvarez struggled to fit in. At 19, he learned about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across North America. He dropped out of school and joined a group runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings. Telling their stories and his own, Álvarez writes about a four-month-long journey from Canada to Guatemala.

In this book, Frid tackles the big questions: Who, or what, represents our essential selves, and what stories might allow us to shift the collective psyche of industrial civilization in time to avert the worst of the climate and biodiversity crises? In seeking the answers, he draws from a deep well of personal experience and that of indigenous colleagues, finding a glimmer of hope in indigenous cultures that, despite the ravishes of colonialism, have for thousands of years developed intentional and socially complex practices for resource management that epitomize sustainability.

Capture the beauty, power, and wisdom of the Native American oral tradition with this superlative collection of readings taken from the writings and speeches of people from many different tribes. The collection offers insights into Native American ways of living, learning, and dying, and helps us to feel a reconnection with the land and ourselves. The words of Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Ohiyesa, Black Elk, and others create a powerful listening experience.

In 1963 – a year of agitation for civil rights worldwide – the Yolŋu of northeast Arnhem Land created the Yirrkala Bark Petitions: Näku Dhäruk. ‘The land grew a tongue’ and the land-rights movement was born. Näku Dhäruk is the story of a founding document in Australian democracy and the trailblazers who made it. It is also a pulsating picture of the ancient and enduring culture of Australia’s first peoples. And it is a masterful, groundbreaking history.

Recognized as a master yachak, don Alberto Taxo was a celebrated spiritual elder, shaman, and healer of the pre-Inca Atik (Kichwa) people from the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. He shared ancient Andean shamanic wisdom and practices in the United States for more than 20 years—his personal quest to fulfill the Andean prophecy that the Eagle and the Condor will fly together in the same sky in harmony.

From the ancient indigenous narratives of "The Dreamtime" in Australia to the classical founding tales of some of the greatest empires of Western antiquity, these accounts are at once creative works of art as well as valuable sources of early history and sociology. Terri-ann White has brought together a range of fascinating stories from around the world. Each reflects familiar and universal themes such as humor, fear, lust, familial love, romantic love, mortality, a reverence for the divine, and a preoccupation with the meaning of life.

Serviceberry, The \ Los frutos del guillomo (Spanish edition) has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

Dr. Jessica Hernandez offers listeners an Indigenous, Global-South lens on the climate crisis, delivering a compelling and urgent exploration of its causes—and its costs. She shares how the impacts of colonial climate catastrophe—from warming oceans to forced displacement of settler ontologies—can only be addressed at the root if we reorient toward Indigenous science and follow the lead of Indigenous peoples and communities.

The Five Blessings of Ifá explores how Black communities across the diaspora draw strength from ancestral wisdom, family, community care, and mutual aid, using the principles of Ifá—a West African spiritual tradition—as a guiding framework. Gabrielle Felder provides a blueprint for living a more fulfilled and abundant life through the blessings of Aiku (longevity), Aje (wealth), Aya and Oko (relationships), Omo (children), and Isegun (victory over negative forces), providing practical examples of how Black folks have built resilience and learned to thrive in the face of oppression.

This volume will revise the way we look at the modern populations of Latin America and North America by providing a totally new view of the history of Native-American and African-American peoples throughout the hemisphere. Africans and Native Americans explores key issues relating to the evolution of racial terminology and European colonialists' perceptions of color, analyzing the development of color classification systems and the specific evolution of key terms such as black, mulatto, and mestizo, which no longer carry their original meanings.

Speaking from the cultural viewpoint of the Lakota of the northern Plains, the author discusses the evolution of native cultures to fit within the environment and adapt to it, as opposed to changing it drastically or wholesale to fit human needs and comforts. He suggests that changing our contemporary thinking in relating to the earth in a less harmful way does not mean a drastic change in lifestyles....

In November 2022, the first annual Alchemy Lecture took place at York University in Toronto, bringing four deep and agile writers from different geographies and disciplines into vibrant conversation on a topic of urgent relevance: humans and borders. Now, in this book, that conversation is captured and expanded in insightful, passionate ways.

In the autumn of 1878, a band of Cheyenne Indians set out from Indian Territory, where they had been sent by the US government, to return to their homeland in Yellowstone country. Mari Sandoz tells the saga of their heartbreaking fifteen-hundred-mile flight.

Meeting in racial affinity groups is a common practice in anti-racist, social justice, diversity, and similar educational endeavors. These groups provide a structured space in which participants can explore how racism personally impacts them, process specific experiences of racism, receive validation and support from their peers, heal, and strategize next steps for challenging racism. In A Space for Us, Michelle Cassandra Johnson brings her over twenty years of experience leading dismantling-racism work to provide the first affinity-group guide made for BIPOC communities.

Drawing on her more than 20 years’ experience working with present-day Mesoamerican curanderos/as and the ancient shamanic healing traditions of the Mexica and Maya, Erika Buenaflor, MA, JD, provides a step-by-step guide for the curanderismo practice of soul retrieval. She explains how the soul is a form of sacred energy that can escape when someone experiences trauma or is threatened by challenging and stressful situations. Its absence can be responsible for a host of negative conditions including physical ailments, depression, insomnia, and dysfunctional behavior patterns.