Native American Heritage Month 2023 Reading and Watch List

Honor and celebrate Native American Heritage Month and beyond by enjoying these books and films recommended by the osteopathic medical education community!

Science and Medicine

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.

Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States: Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health

Centuries of colonization and other factors have disrupted Indigenous communities' ability to control their own food systems. This volume explores the meaning and importance of food sovereignty for Native peoples in the United States and asks whether and how it might be achieved and sustained. This book identifies the challenges involved in revitalizing and maintaining traditional food systems and offers advice and encouragement to those concerned about tribal health, environmental destruction, loss of species habitat and governmental food control.

The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing

A spellbinding journey between two worlds, this remarkable book describes surgeon Lori Arviso Alvord's struggles to bring modern medicine to the Navajo reservation in Gallup, New Mexico—and to bring the values of her people to a medical care system in danger of losing its heart. Rising above the odds presented by her own culture and the male-dominated world of surgeons, Dr. Alvord witnessed the power of belief to influence health, for good or ill. She came to merge the latest breakthroughs of medical science with the ancient tribal paths to recovery and wellness, following the Navajo philosophy of a balanced and harmonious life, called Walking in Beauty.

Figures and Legends

A Life on Fire: Oklahoma's Kate Barnard

In A Life on Fire, Connie Cronley tells the story of Catherine Ann "Kate" Barnard (1875-1930), a fiery political reformer and the first woman elected to state office in Oklahoma almost fifteen years before women won the right to vote. Defending Native orphans against a conspiracy of graft that reached from Oklahoma to Washington, D.C., she uncovered corrupt authorities and legal guardians stealing oil, gas and timber rights from Native Americans' federal allotments. In retaliation, legislators and grafters closed ranks and defunded her state office. She remains, however, a riveting figure in Oklahoma history, a fearless activist on behalf of the weak and helpless.

Black Elk Speaks

Black Elk Speaks, the story of the Oglala Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk (1863-1950) and his people during momentous twilight years of the nineteenth century, offers readers much more than a precious glimpse of a vanished time. Black Elk's searing visions of the unity of humanity and Earth, conveyed by John G. Neihardt, have made this book a classic that crosses multiple genres. Whether appreciated as the poignant tale of a Lakota life, as a history of a Native nation or as an enduring spiritual testament, Black Elk Speaks is unforgettable.

Crazy Brave

In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, the end place of the Trail of Tears, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by finding shelter in her imagination, a deep spiritual life and connection with the natural world. Narrating the complexities of betrayal and love, Crazy Brave is a haunting, visionary memoir about family and the breaking apart necessary in finding a voice.

Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival

Based on an Athabascan Indian legend passed along from mother to daughter for many generations on the upper Yukon River in Alaska, this is the tragic and shocking story—with a surprise ending—of two elderly women abandoned by a migrating tribe that faces starvation brought on by unusually harsh Arctic weather and a shortage of fish and game. This story of survival is told with suspense by Velma Wallis, whose subject matter challenges the taboos of her past. Yet, her themes are modern—empowerment of women, the graying of America and growing interest in Native American ways.

Language and Culture

Cherokee Narratives: A Linguistic Study

The stories of the Cherokee people presented here capture in written form tales of history, myth and legend for readers, speakers and scholars of the Cherokee language. Assembled by noted authorities on Cherokee, this volume marks an unparalleled contribution to the linguistic analysis, understanding and preservation of Cherokee language and culture. By enabling readers at all skill levels to use and reconstruct the Cherokee language, this collection of tales will sustain the life and promote the survival of Cherokee for generations to come.

Cherokee National Treasures: In Their Own Words

Cherokee origin stories have been handed down over thousands of years. They intertwine to form a rich history of oral and artistic traditions that tell the Cherokee story. The vast array of art objects unearthed from prehistoric mounds throughout the southeastern United States evidence the antiquity of this rich cultural history. The stories in this book reflect how history has woven itself into the fabric of the present. Their telling will make you feel as though you are fortunate enough to sit in the presence of the Cherokee artists, who intimately share the story of themselves, their family, who and what influenced them and how their art reflects who they are as Cherokee people.

The Gift of Knowledge / Ttnúwit Átawish Nch'inch'imamí: Reflections on Sahaptin Ways

The Gift of Knowledge / Ttnuwit Atawish Nch'inch'imamí is a treasure trove of material for those interested in Native American culture. Author Virginia Beavert grew up in a traditional, Indian-speaking household. Both her parents and her maternal grandmother were shamans, and her childhood was populated by people who spoke tribal dialects and languages. Her work on Native languages began at age twelve. After a stint in the U.S. Air Force during World War II, Beavert went on to earn graduate degrees in education and linguistics, and she has contributed to numerous projects for the preservation of Native language and teachings. Beavert narrates highlights from her own life and presents cultural teachings, oral history and stories (many in bilingual Ishishkíin-English format) about family life, religion, ceremonies, food gathering and other aspects of traditional culture.

Why Indigenous Literatures Matter

Part survey of the field of Indigenous literary studies, part cultural history and part literary polemic, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter asserts the vital significance of literary expression to the political, creative and intellectual efforts of Indigenous peoples today. In considering the connections between literature and lived experience, this book contemplates four key questions at the heart of Indigenous kinship traditions: How do we learn to be human? How do we become good relatives? How do we become good ancestors? How do we learn to live together? Blending personal narrative and broader historical and cultural analysis with close readings of key creative and critical texts, Daniel Heath Justice argues that Indigenous writers engage with these questions in part to challenge settler-colonial policies and practices that have targeted Indigenous connections to land, history, family and self.

Heritage and History

American Indian Myths and Legends

More than 160 tales from eighty tribal groups present a rich and lively panorama of the Native American mythic heritage. From across the continent come 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," said National Book Award Winner Peter Matthiessen. In addition to mining the best folkloric sources of the nineteenth century, editors Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz have also included a broad selection of contemporary Native American voices.

Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians out of Existence in New England

In Firsting and Lasting, Jean M. O’Brien argues that local histories became a primary means by which European Americans asserted their own modernity while denying it to Indian peoples. Erasing and then memorializing Indian peoples also served a more pragmatic colonial goal: refuting Indian claims to land and rights. Drawing on more than six hundred local histories from Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island written between 1820 and 1880, as well as censuses, monuments and accounts of historical pageants and commemorations, O’Brien explores how these narratives inculcated the myth of Indian extinction, a myth that has stubbornly remained in the American consciousness. Indians did not—and have not—accepted this effacement, and O’Brien details how Indians have resisted their erasure through narratives of their own.

We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy

It was one of the most reliable jokes in Charlie Hill's stand-up routine: "My people are from Wisconsin. We used to be from New York. We had a little real estate problem." Acclaimed comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff focuses on one of comedy's most significant and little-known stories: how, despite having been denied representation in the entertainment industry, Native Americans have influenced and advanced the art form. Featuring dozens of original interviews and the exhaustive research that is Nesteroff's trademark, We Had a Little Real Estate Problem is a powerful tribute to a neglected legacy.

Works of Fiction

Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction

This exciting and groundbreaking fiction anthology showcases a number of new and emerging 2SQ (Two-Spirit and queer Indigenous) writers from across Turtle Island. These visionary authors show how queer Indigenous communities can bloom and thrive through utopian narratives that detail the vivacity and strength of 2SQness throughout its plight in the maw of settler colonialism's histories. Here, readers will discover bio-engineered AI rats, transplanted trees in space, the rise of a 2SQ resistance camp, a primer on how to survive Indigiqueerly, virtual reality applications, motherships at sea and the very bending of space-time continuums queered through NDN time.

There There

Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil is coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. They converge and collide on one fateful day at the Big Oakland Powwow and together this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism. It is fierce, funny, suspenseful and impossible to put down—full of poetry and rage, exploding onto the page with urgency and force. There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.

Movies

Turquoise Rose

Turquoise "T," played by Navajo actress Natasha Kaye Johnson, is in college in Phoenix and struggling at work as a photographer for a newspaper. She reluctantly agrees to stay with her grandmother on the Navajo reservation while she recovers from an illness. Over the summer she bonds deeply with her feisty and traditional grandmother in their rural homeland. Along the way she also gets to know the locals, including beginning a relationship with a handsome young artist named Harry, who's got personal issues of his own.

Smoke Signals

Arnold rescued Thomas from a fire when he was a child. Thomas thinks of Arnold as a hero, while Arnold's son Victor resents his father's alcoholism, violence and abandonment of his family. Uneasy rivals and friends, Thomas and Victor spend their days killing time on a Coeur d'Alene reservation in Idaho and arguing about their cultural identities. When Arnold dies, the duo set out on a cross-country journey to Phoenix to retrieve Arnold's ashes. Smoke Signals, based on short stories by Sherman Alexie, was the first feature made by a Native American crew and creative team.

She Sings to the Stars

Mabel is a Native American grandmother who lives alone, tending her drought-ravaged corn in the desert Southwest. Her half-Mexican grandson, Third, dreams of "making it big" in LA, but his plans change dramatically when he comes to his grandmother's house to collect traditional dolls he hopes to sell for a high price. Lyle is a faded magician from LA traveling with a white rabbit, the promise of a gig and a life-long dream to be able to magically disappear. When his radiator boils over, he is stranded outside Mabel's house. Both men must yield to a timeless rhythm to discover a capacity greater than imagined.

AACOM thanks Natasha Bray, DO, MSEd, dean, clinical professor of rural health and associate dean of accreditation at the Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine (OSU-COM) at Cherokee Nation; Sonja Settle, MLIS, medical library manager at OSU-COM at Cherokee Nation; Rica Amity, PhD, NCC, dean of students at the Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences (PNWU) and assistant professor of family medicine at the PNWU college of osteopathic medicine; Dougherty Tsalabutie, MPH, (Pueblo of Zuni), director of the National Center for American Indian Health Professions at A.T. Still University-School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona; and Helan Paulose, OMS I, Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine Montana, for sharing these recommendations.