Library Resources: Cultural Awareness

Weaving Indian and Euro-American histories together, Sami Lakomäki places the Shawnee people, and Native peoples in general, firmly at the center of American history. The book covers nearly three centuries, from the years leading up to the Shawnees' first European contacts to the post-Civil War era, and demonstrates vividly how the interactions between Natives and newcomers transformed the political realities and ideas of both groups.

Making History: IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts is a unique contribution to the fields of visual culture, arts education, and American Indian studies. Written by scholars actively producing Native art resources, this book guides readers in how to learn about Indigenous cultures as visualized in our creative endeavors. By highlighting the rich resources and history of the Institute of American Indian Arts, the only tribal college in the nation devoted to the arts whose collections reflect the full tribal diversity of Turtle Island, these essays present a best-practices approach to understanding Indigenous art from a Native-centric point of view.

Traversing a range of cultures, including the Tohono O'odham of the Sonoran Desert and the Rarámuri of the Sierra Tarahumara, the book is an illuminating journey through the southwest United States and northern Mexico. Salmón weaves his historical and cultural knowledge as an indigenous ethnobotanist with stories American Indian farmers have shared with him to illustrate how traditional indigenous foodways--from the cultivation of crops to the preparation of meals--are rooted in a time-honored understanding of environmental stewardship.