Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Native American History, Culture, and Life From Paleo-Indians to the Present [Paperback]

Frederick E. Hoxie (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 20, 1996

Even as interest in the powerful, often tragic history of Native America grows, many books continue to perpetuate long-standing misconceptions of the past as well as the romantic steretypes often popularized today. Readers can now rely on Encyclopedia of North American Indians for an authentic and often surprising portrait of the complexities of the Native American experience. Written by more than 260 contemporary authorities, the volume features many Native American contributors - including eminent writers, tribal elders, scholars, and activists - with voices as distinct as their subjects, offering a deeper and more informed appreciation of American Indian life, past and present. Illustrated with many rare photographs, the Encyclopedia features articles on subjects such as mound builders, reservations, cigar-store Indians, child rearing, powwows, boarding schools, museums and collectors, dreams, the occupation of Alcatraz, and the impact of American Indian civilizations on Europe and the world. Contemporary topics include gambling, sports mascots, alcoholism, urban Indians, and the status of women. Biographies illuminate not only famous chiefs and warriors but an enormously diverse group of historical figures, such as Pauline Johnson, a Mohawk who becme the first American Indian woman to publish poetry; Charles Curtis, a Kaw Indian who served as vice president under Herbert Hoover; and "Chief" Bender, an Ojibwa who played and coached professional baseball and is lauded in the Baseball hall of Fame. Covering Arctic to southeastern peoples, separate articles on more than one hundred major tribes - from Abenaki to Zuni - discuss community origins, rituals and beliefs, social organizations, and present-day life.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Immensely readable and informative, this important resource was edited by prominent North American Indian scholar Hoxie (Parading Through History: The Making of the Crow Nation, Cambridge Univ., 1995), as well as vice-president for research and education at the Newberry Library in Chicago. A "who's who" of scholars in the field have compressed traditional and new research into 400 authoritative articles accessible to lay readers. Several good one-volume encyclopedias on American Indians have appeared recently. Native North American Almanac (Gale, 1994) presents history (ancient and modern), statistics, essays, directory information, and contemporary biographies; Native America in the Twentieth Century (Garland, 1994) treats art, policy, law, religion, and tribes. With 100 historical biographies, 100 tribes, cultural overviews, and teminology, the Encyclopedia of North American Indians occupies a special niche within this group. It is distinctive for the interpretative quality of its diverse subject coverage and for its fulfillment of the editor's aim to "introduce, teach and invite further inquiry." Highly recommended for all public and academic libraries.?Margaret W. Norton, Morton West H.S., Berwyn Ill.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

This ambitious undertaking is edited by Frederick Hoxie, the vice-president of education and research at the Newberry Library in Chicago and the former director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian. His advisory board included such luminary scholars and authors as Peter Nabokov, Joy Harjo, Vine Deloria Jr., Nancy Lurie, Alvin Josephy, and JoAllyn Archambault. Hoxie says that the volume "strives to introduce, to teach, and to invite further inquiry."

The encyclopedia contains signed entries by 260 authors and numerous unsigned entries by about two dozen other authors. There are four types of entries. First, there are descriptions of 100 tribes--the editor tried to provide coverage of all major contemporary groups. These entries are supplemented with "regional entries" that discuss smaller native communities. There are five entries on the major languages (Lakota, Navajo, Cherokee, Cree, Ojibwa) and four on the major language groups (Algonquian, Iroquoian, Pueblo, and Salishan). Secondly, there are biographies of 100 prominent deceased Native Americans. The biographees are political figures, athletes, artists, and scholars. Next, there are 100 interpretive articles on topics such as beadwork, dreams, and treaties. Finally, brief entries provide definitions of topics such as peyote, cradle boards, or the Battle of Little Big Horn. Many of the longer entries include a two-to three-item bibliography. The entry Bibliographies by Velma Salabiye (Navajo) gives a broad overview of scholarship in the field. Black-and-white maps and photographs (most of them historical) add interest to the text. A detailed index aids access.

The articles are well written and easy to read. There is no entry on the Lewis and Clark expedition, but the one on Sacagawea discusses it. The entry on the Blackfoot does not note that the only Indian killed during the Lewis and Clark expedition was a Blackfoot. There is no entry for trickster or New Age.

This book is similar to The Native North American Almanac [RBB My 1 94] in its popular approach, though its contributors are scholars. It is appropriate for the high-school or public library where the user needs a definition or overview. A better work on contemporary Native Americans is Davis' Native America in the Twentieth Century: An Encyclopedia [RBB D 1 94].

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 768 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (November 20, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395669219
• ISBN-13: 978-0395669211
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 8.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,444,873 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #94 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Native American

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic reference work, November 7, 2000

By 

Edward Bosnar - See all my reviews

This review is from: Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Native American History, Culture, and Life From Paleo-Indians to the Present (Paperback)

"Encyclopedia of the North American Indians" is probably one of the best reference works of its type for any subject. The entries are clear, concise and highly informative and there are a large number of useful photographs and illustrations. It covers all relevant subject areas connected to the Native Americans: history, literature, culture, customs and language, politics and contemporary issues. By itself it is a highly informative book, yet it also serves as a vehicle for further study of more specific subject matter; in this sense, it is very helpful that all entries include the names of their authors and that biographical information is also provided. The further reading lists are also very helpful. Anyone even remotely interested in Native Americans has to have this valuable resource on his/her bookshelf.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine reference., September 4, 2001

By 

James Yanni (Bellefontaine Neighbors, Mo. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Native American History, Culture, and Life From Paleo-Indians to the Present (Paperback)

I don't know that it is exhaustive; I'm sure that there is information one might want that isn't to be found here, although I can't think of any examples off the top of my head. And I can't vouch for its veracity; I haven't the competence in the subject matter. Certainly, it is a marvellous reference for someone like me, who has little other knowledge of the subject, and wants a place to begin in gaining such knowledge.

The style of the entries varies considerably, as one might expect of a book that is a collection of entries by various authors; some of them seem very straightforward and mainstream in their approach, others are clearly written by activists seeking to balance centuries of European-oriented history with their own opposite cultural perspective. All are at least reasonably well-written, however, and quite enlightening.

17 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An invaluable reference for Native American studies., March 5, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Native American History, Culture, and Life From Paleo-Indians to the Present (Paperback)

Over 260 contemporary authorities on North America's original inhabitants and their descendants make this encyclopedia truly worthy of the name. Contributors are themselves from a wide variety of Indian nations. Typical entry titles are "Food and Cuisine", "Jim Thorpe", "Origins", "Urban Indians", and "Women". An invaluable reference for any library, or for that matter an individual who wants to take that first step into researching their own Native American Roots as did one individual who attention I brought this item to. I have a back ground in Library and information studies with two advance degrees in that area which I think makes me feel qualified to say that everything that one wants is not on line and 20 years from now when the world have become gridlock with electronic noise which is really nothing more than useless or worse yet incorrect or misleading electronic information this could still sitting on your self. One of the things I like to do is test drive a reference tool by asking a typical reference question which I say with kind of smirk knowing that the only typical reference question is directional and the answer involves pointing down the hall to the men's or women's rest room. So since I lived for many years in South Central Wisconsin I have decided to find more About the Black Hawk wars since the route of the retreat for Chief Black Hawk was through what was to become 13 years later the University Of Wisconsin Campus. Since the item is arranged in dictionary format (With many Illustrations and photographs, and Maps) I simply turn to page 76-77-78 to a signed article by Roger Nichols of the University of Arizona. Marktaineshekiakiak 1767-1838 (Sauk War Leader and Spokesman): The article is concisely written on level which would make it accessible to a high school student but at the same time useful to a graduate student who might chose to use the article as an access point to a much wider area of Interest as would be my case due to my interest in both social economic and military history as in it starts with the individual and moves to the broad social an economic context. Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Native American History, Culture, and Life from Paleo-Indians to the Present in addition supplies multiple access points through a general index; cross references, and in many cases furthers reading lists. Since I have written for number Encyclopedias over the years I most particularly like the idea of the articles being signed and the contributors being listed. Really a good reference tool works like The sighting scope on a large telescope: it bring you into an large And you can focus with as much detail as the granularity of the data will allow. I once wrote a paper on that but that another story. 756 Pages, Appendix, Index Maps, B/W Photographs, Paintings, Drawings.

Phil Kavney, Reviewer