Does anyone have good book recommendations to learn about the native people of North America?

[meimengtian]

Does anyone have good book recommendations to learn about the native people of North America? Specifically their dress and folklore. I know it's a broad group, please bear with me!

 

[Murffy]

Indigenous Continent by Pekka Hämäläinen is a good general look at the history, incorporating a lot of recent scholarship. I'm not too familiar with works on dress and folklore, but I'm guessing you'd want to be more specific because these things varied tremendously.

 

[Mathias]

Does anyone have good book recommendations to learn about the native people of North America? Specifically their dress and folklore. I know it's a broad group, please bear with me!

Ignorant as I am, I have only read one. It is a good one, tho. White boy kidnapped by the natives, first hand account. Went on to fully embrace their way of Life. Sets things in perspective.

 

[deaf tuner]

Personally, I would say the best source coming to native Americans folklore remains the Library of Congress. It's a gold mine.

For example:

Indian nature myths,

Also available in digital form.

www.loc.gov

 

[Kongo1]

He's quite outdated, but Cushman's History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Natchez Indians was an interesting read if you'd like to learn more about those groups.
Pauketat's work on Cahokia was also interesting for the connections its author tried to make across the vast Mississippian world.

 

[Jax Historian]

In the Hands of the Great Spirit: The 20,000-Year History of American Indians by Jake Page is the best overall survey or Native Americans I know of. Its 20 years old so there is more recent scholarship, but to get a broad overview of Native Americans, this one works well. Using the link, you can get a used hardcover in very good condition for $7.99 + $3.99 S&H.

After this one, you will have to drill down to specific Indian groups. For that I would use recent scholarly works.

 

[History Chick]

Personally, I would say the best source coming to native Americans folklore remains the Library of Congress. It's a gold mine.

For example:

Indian nature myths,

Also available in digital form.

www.loc.gov

Also archive.org: Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

Any repository for public domain books will be a gold mine but of course they may not be the most recent studies.

In my attempts to map out tribal territories I used "Handbook of American Indians north of Mexico Part 1 & 2" (Hodge), and "The Indian Place Names on Long Island and islands adjacent" (Tooker), and occasionally "Footprints of the Red Men" (Ruttenber) but they don't focus on dress and folklore, they're more about what tribes lived where, what dialects they used, origins of their name, notable events, etc.

 

[Speculatin']

I belonged to the History Book Club years ago. Maybe I'll go back again. Check it out. You won't be sorry!

History Book Club

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historybookclub.com

 

[Frank Buffalo]

Salisbury, Neal. The History of Native Americans From Before the Arrival of the Europeans and Africans Until the American Civil War. In: Engerman, Stanley L. and Gallman, Robert E., eds. Cambridge Economic History of the United States, Volume I: The Colonial Era. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press; 1996

Confer, Clarissa W. Daily Life in Pre-Columbian Native America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 2008

These are books I found informative, but I don't think they go into folklore and dress. So they may or may not be of interest to you.

 

[historynut 73]

Many , many tribes ! It is kinda like asking for info about European peoples as if there were only a couple !