Native American Month

T

he history and the present reality of Native America is one of heartbreak and resilience.  November is Native American Heritage Month, and it is wise to reflect on what has passed, but it is also important to recognize what is happening in contemporary Native America. 

Wounded Knee Memorial, South Dakota

Wounded Knee was the site of a massacre of Sioux, the victims being primarily women and children.  Dee Brown’s classic Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee delves into the history, the act, and the aftermath of the actions of the U.S. military in the Winter of 1890.  Read about the controversial world of collecting, specifically Native American artifacts and human remains that are considered sacred to the tribes they originate from.  Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits explores the balance of repatriation of artifacts and maintaining museum collections that share with the greater public. 

Poet Laureate Joy Harjo

Read the contemporary stories of Sherman Alexie, a Coeur d’Alene Native American author who pulls no punches in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.  A collection of stories from one of America’s most honest writers, Alexie is unafraid to look at modern day Native America and tell it like it is.  Poet Laureate Joy Harjo of the Muscogee Nation has been a prominent poet for over thirty years.  Harjo delves into her childhood with her abusive stepfather and how her imagination helped her escape her circumstances from a young age in her memoir Crazy Brave. 

Take some time to read and reflect on Native American heritage and present-day struggles and triumphs.