Devon A. Mihesuah - Böcker

Henry Mihesuah, a Comanche of the Quahada band, has led an ordinary modern American Indian life filled with extraordinary moments. Growing up in the 1920s and 1930s on his family's allotment outside Duncan, Oklahoma, Mihesuah was a member of a family of farmers who gave part of what they grew to black sharecroppers and often helped feed their poorer white neighbors. Never afraid of controversy and always the first to fight, Henry Mihesuah fell in love with and married a white woman and then served a dangerous tour of duty in the Marines in post–World War II China. In the 1950s he took a chance and, encouraged by a federal government program, relocated along with many other Indians to seek urban employment in California. Barely surviving a horrific traffic accident, Mihesuah eventually returned home to Oklahoma, where he has spent the last few decades fighting racism and attempts to take his family's land, eschewing local politics yet also taking many steps to reclaim and revitalize connections to his Comanche family and culture, past and present. Henry Mihesuah spoke at length about his life to his daughter-in-law, accomplished historian Devon Abbott Mihesuah, who has carefully researched and edited those hours of conversation into an engaging, detailed account that is at once honest, informative, and moving. Readers come to know and respect how one forthright Comanche man unyieldingly walks his own path in the modern world, the ways in which events big and small have affected him, and how, with his wife, family, land, strong opinions, and tough choices made along the way, Henry Mihesuah leads a happy and fulfilling life.

Henry Mihesuah, a Comanche of the Quahada band, has led an ordinary modern American Indian life filled with extraordinary moments. Growing up in the 1920s and 1930s on his family's allotment outside Duncan, Oklahoma, Mihesuah was a member of a family of farmers who gave part of what they grew to black sharecroppers and often helped feed their poorer white neighbors. Never afraid of controversy and always the first to fight, Henry Mihesuah fell in love with and married a white woman and then served a dangerous tour of duty in the Marines in post–World War II China. In the 1950s he took a chance and, encouraged by a federal government program, relocated along with many other Indians to seek urban employment in California. Barely surviving a horrific traffic accident, Mihesuah eventually returned home to Oklahoma, where he has spent the last few decades fighting racism and attempts to take his family's land, eschewing local politics yet also taking many steps to reclaim and revitalize connections to his Comanche family and culture, past and present. Henry Mihesuah spoke at length about his life to his daughter-in-law, accomplished historian Devon Abbott Mihesuah, who has carefully researched and edited those hours of conversation into an engaging, detailed account that is at once honest, informative, and moving. Readers come to know and respect how one forthright Comanche man unyieldingly walks his own path in the modern world, the ways in which events big and small have affected him, and how, with his wife, family, land, strong opinions, and tough choices made along the way, Henry Mihesuah leads a happy and fulfilling life.

Educators, librarians, food sovereignty activists, culinary arts students, and those interested in Native American food history and sovereignty will find that this book is an excellent resource.-Elise Krohn, Tribal College Journal2020 Gourmand World Cookbook Award This new edition is revised, updated, and contains new information, new chapters, and an extensive curriculum guide that includes objectives, resources, study questions, assignments, and activities for teachers, librarians, food sovereignty activists, and anyone wanting to know more about indigenous foodways.Winner of the Gourmand International World Cookbook Award, Recovering Our Ancestors’ Gardens is back! Featuring an expanded array of tempting recipes of indigenous ingredients and practical advice about health, fitness, and becoming involved in the burgeoning indigenous food sovereignty movement, the acclaimed Choctaw author and scholar Devon A. Mihesuah draws on the rich indigenous heritages of this continent to offer a helpful guide to a healthier life.Recovering Our Ancestors’ Gardens features pointed discussions about the causes of the generally poor state of indigenous health today. Diminished health, Mihesuah contends, is a pervasive consequence of colonialism, but by advocating for political, social, economic, and environmental changes, traditional food systems and activities can be reclaimed and made relevant for a healthier lifestyle today.New recipes feature pawpaw sorbet, dandelion salad, lima bean hummus, cranberry pie with cornmeal crust, grape dumplings, green chile and turkey posole, and blue corn pancakes, among other dishes. Savory, natural, and steeped in the Native traditions of this land, these recipes are sure to delight and satisfy.

Ten leading Native scholars examine the state of scholarly research and writing on Native Americans. Their distinctive perspectives and telling arguments lend clarity to the heated debate about the purpose and direction of Native American scholarship. All too frequently, Native Americans have little control over how they and their ancestors are researched and depicted in scholarly writings. The relationship between Native peoples and the academic community has become especially rocky in recent years. Both groups are grappling with troubling questions about research ethics, methodology, and theory in the field and in the classroom.In this timely and illuminating anthology, ten leading Native scholars examine the state of scholarly research and writing on Native Americans. They offer distinctive, frequently self-critical perspectives on several important issues: the representativeness of Native informants, the merits of various methods of data collection, the veracity and role of oral histories, the suitability of certain genres of scholarly writing for the study of Native Americans, the marketing of Native culture and history, and debates about cultural essentialism. Some contributors propose alternative forms of scholarship. Special attention is also given to the experiences, responsibilities, and challenges facing Native academics themselves.With lively prose and telling arguments, Natives and Academics lends clarity to the heated debate about the purpose and direction of Native American scholarship.

In the past decade the repatriation of Native American skeletal remains and funerary objects has become a lightning rod for radically opposing views about cultural patrimony and the relationship between Native communities and archaeologists. In this unprecedented volume, Native Americans and non-Native Americans within and beyond the academic community offer their views on repatriation and the ethical, political, legal, cultural, scholarly, and economic dimensions of this hotly debated issue. While historians and archaeologists debate continuing non-Native interests and obligations, Native American scholars speak to the key cultural issues embedded in their ancestral pasts. A variety of sometimes explosive case studies are considered, ranging from Kennewick Man to the repatriation of Zuni Ahayu:da. Also featured is a detailed discussion of the background, meaning, and applicability of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, as well as the text of the act itself.

Oklahoma Choctaw scholar Devon Abbott Mihesuah offers a frank and absorbing look at the complex, evolving identities of American Indigenous women today, their ongoing struggles against a centuries-old legacy of colonial disempowerment, and how they are seen and portrayed by themselves and others. Mihesuah first examines how American Indigenous women have been perceived and depicted by non-Natives, including scholars, and by themselves. She then illuminates the pervasive impact of colonialism and patriarchal thought on Native women's traditional tribal roles and on their participation in academia. Mihesuah considers how relations between Indigenous women and men across North America continue to be altered by Christianity and Euro-American ideologies. Sexism and violence against Indigenous women has escalated; economic disparities and intratribal factionalism and "culturalism" threaten connections among women and with men; and many women suffer from psychological stress because their economic, religious, political, and social positions are devalued. In the last section, Mihesuah explores how modern American Indigenous women have empowered themselves tribally, nationally, or academically. Additionally, she examines the overlooked role that Native women played in the Red Power movement as well as some key differences between Native women "feminists" and "activists."

Continuing the thought-provoking dialogue launched in the acclaimed anthology Natives and Academics: Researching and Writing about American Indians, leading Native scholars from diverse disciplines and communities offer uncompromising assessments of current scholarship on and by Indigenous peoples and the opportunities awaiting them in the Ivory Tower. The issues covered are vital and extensive, including how activism shapes the careers of Native academics; the response of academe and Native scholars to current issues and needs in Indian Country; and the problems of racism, territoriality, and ethnic fraud in academic hiring. The contributors offer innovative approaches to incorporating Indigenous values and perspectives into the research methodologies and interpretive theories of scholarly disciplines such as psychology, political science, archaeology, and history and suggest ways to educate and train Indigenous students. They provide examples of misunderstanding and sometimes hostility from both non-Natives and Natives that threaten or circumscribe the careers of Native scholars in higher education. They also propose ways to effect meaningful change through building networks of support inside and outside the Native academic community. Designed for classroom use, Indigenizing the Academy features a series of probing questions designed to spark student discussion and essay-writing.

So You Want to Write about American Indians? is the first of its kind—an indispensable guide for anyone interested in writing and publishing a novel, memoir, collection of short stories, history, or ethnography involving the Indigenous peoples of the United States. In clear language illustrated with examples—many from her own experiences—Choctaw scholar and writer Devon Abbott Mihesuah explains the basic steps involved with writing about American Indians. So You Want to Write about American Indians? provides a concise overview of the different types of fiction and nonfiction books written about Natives and the common challenges and pitfalls encountered when writing each type of book. Mihesuah presents a list of ethical guidelines to follow when researching and writing about Natives, including the goals of the writer, stereotypes to avoid, and cultural issues to consider. She also offers helpful tips for developing ideas and researching effectively, submitting articles to journals, drafting effective book proposals, finding inspiration, contacting an editor, polishing a manuscript, preparing a persuasive résumé or curriculum vitae, coping with rejection, and negotiating a book contract.

During the decades between the Civil War and the establishment of Oklahoma statehood, Choctaws suffered almost daily from murders, thefts, and assaults - usually at the hands of white intruders, but increasingly by Choctaws themselves. This book focuses on two previously unexplored murder cases to illustrate the intense factionalism that emerged among tribal members during those lawless years as conservative Nationalists and pro-assimilation Progressives fought for control of the Choctaw Nation.Devon Abbott Mihesuah describes the brutal murder in 1884 of her own great-great-grandfather, Nationalist Charles Wilson, who was a Choctaw lighthorseman and U.S. deputy marshal. She then relates the killing spree of Progressives by Nationalist Silan Lewis ten years later. Mihesuah draws on a wide array of sources - even in the face of missing court records - to weave a spellbinding account of homicide and political intrigue. She painstakingly delineates a transformative period in Choctaw history to explore emerging gulfs between Choctaw citizens and address growing Indian resistance to white intrusions, federal policies, and the taking of tribal resources.The first book to fully describe this Choctaw factionalism, Choctaw Crime and Punishment is both a riveting narrative and an important analysis of tribal politics.

Who was Nede Wade Christie? Was he a violent criminal guilty of murdering a federal officer? Or a Cherokee statesman who suffered a martyr's death for a crime he did not commit? For more than a century, journalists, pulp fiction authors, and even serious historians have produced largely fictitious accounts of ""Ned"" Christie's life. Now, in a tour de force of investigative scholarship, Devon A. Mihesuah offers a far more accurate depiction of Christie and the times in which he lived.In 1887 Deputy U.S. Marshal Dan Maples was shot and killed in Tahlequah, Indian Territory. As Mihesuah recounts in unsurpassed detail, any of the criminals in the vicinity at the time could have committed the crime. Yet the federal court at Fort Smith, Arkansas, focused on Christie, a Cherokee Nation councilman and adviser to the tribal chief. Christie evaded capture for five years. His life ended when a posse dynamited his home - knowing he was inside - and shot him as he emerged from the burning building. The posse took Christie's body to Fort Smith, where it lay for three days on display for photographers and gawkers. Nede's family suffered as well. His teenage cousin Arch Wolfe was sentenced to prison and ultimately perished in the Canton Asylum for ""insane"" Indians - a travesty that, Mihesuah shows, may even surpass the injustice of Nede's fate.Placing Christie's story within the rich context of Cherokee governance and nineteenth-century American political and social conditions, Mihesuah draws on hundreds of newspaper accounts, oral histories, court documents, and family testimonies to assemble the most accurate portrayal of Christie's life possible. Yet the author admits that for all this information, we may never know the full story, because Christie's own voice is largely missing from the written record. In addition, she spotlights our fascination with villains and martyrs, murder and mayhem, and our dangerous tendency to glorify the ""Old West."" More than a biography, Ned Christie traces the making of an American myth.

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.Unprecedented in its focus and scope, this collection addresses nearly every aspect of indigenous food sovereignty, from revitalizing ancestral gardens and traditional ways of hunting, gathering, and seed saving to the difficult realities of racism, treaty abrogation, tribal sociopolitical factionalism, and the entrenched beliefs that processed foods are superior to traditional tribal fare. The contributors include scholar-activists in the fields of ethnobotany, history, anthropology, nutrition, insect ecology, biology, marine environmentalism, and federal Indian law, as well as indigenous seed savers and keepers, cooks, farmers, spearfishers, and community activists. After identifying the challenges involved in revitalizing and maintaining traditional food systems, these writers offer advice and encouragement to those concerned about tribal health, environmental destruction, loss of species habitat, and governmental food control.

Who was Nede Wade Christie? Was he a violent criminal guilty of murdering a federal officer? Or a Cherokee statesman who suffered a martyr's death for a crime he did not commit? For more than a century, journalists, pulp fiction authors, and even serious historians have produced largely fictitious accounts of 'Ned' Christie's life. Now, in a tour de force of investigative scholarship, Devon A. Mihesuah offers a far more accurate depiction of Christie and the times in which he lived.In 1887 Deputy U.S. Marshal Dan Maples was shot and killed in Tahlequah, Indian Territory. As Mihesuah recounts in unsurpassed detail, any of the criminals in the vicinity at the time could have committed the crime. Yet the federal court at Fort Smith, Arkansas, focused on Christie, a Cherokee Nation councilman and adviser to the tribal chief. Christie evaded capture for five years. His life ended when a posse dynamited his home - knowing he was inside - and shot him as he emerged from the burning building. The posse took Christie's body to Fort Smith, where it lay for three days on display for photographers and gawkers. Nede's family suffered as well. His teenage cousin Arch Wolfe was sentenced to prison and ultimately perished in the Canton Asylum for 'insane' Indians - a travesty that, Mihesuah shows, may even surpass the injustice of Nede's fate.Placing Christie's story within the rich context of Cherokee governance and nineteenth-century American political and social conditions, Mihesuah draws on hundreds of newspaper accounts, oral histories, court documents, and family testimonies to assemble the most accurate portrayal of Christie's life possible. Yet the author admits that for all this information, we may never know the full story, because Christie's own voice is largely missing from the written record. In addition, she spotlights our fascination with villains and martyrs, murder and mayhem, and our dangerous tendency to glorify the 'Old West.' More than a biography, Ned Christie traces the making of an American myth.

During the decades between the Civil War and the establishment of Oklahoma statehood, Choctaws suffered almost daily from murders, thefts, and assaults—usually at the hands of white intruders, but increasingly by Choctaws themselves. This book focuses on two previously unexplored murder cases to illustrate the intense factionalism that emerged among tribal members during those lawless years as conservative Nationalists and pro-assimilation Progressives fought for control of the Choctaw Nation.Devon Abbott Mihesuah describes the brutal murder in 1884 of her own great-great-grandfather, Nationalist Charles Wilson, who was a Choctaw lighthorseman and U.S. deputy marshal. She then relates the killing spree of Progressives by Nationalist Silan Lewis ten years later. Mihesuah draws on a wide array of sources—even in the face of missing court records—to weave a spellbinding account of homicide and political intrigue. She painstakingly delineates a transformative period in Choctaw history to explore emerging gulfs between Choctaw citizens and address growing Indian resistance to white intrusions, federal policies, and the taking of tribal resources.The first book to fully describe this Choctaw factionalism, Choctaw Crime and Punishment is both a riveting narrative and an important analysis of tribal politics.

Under the shadow of gray clouds, three children venture into the woods, where they spot the corpse of an old man on a scaffold. Suddenly a wild figure emerges, with long fingernails and tangled hair. It is the Hattak fullih nipi foni, the bone picker, who comes to tear off rotting flesh with his fingernails. Only the Choctaws who adhere to the old ways will speak of him.The frightening bone picker is just one of many entities, scary and mysterious, who lurk behind every page of this spine-tingling collection of Native fiction, written by award-winning Choctaw author Devon A. Mihesuah. Choctaw lore features a large pantheon of deities. These beings created the first people, taught them how to hunt, and warned them of impending danger. Their stories are not meant simply to entertain: each entity has a purpose in its behavior and a lesson to share—to those who take heed.As a Choctaw citizen, with deep ties to Indian Territory and Oklahoma, Mihesuah grew up hearing the stories of her ancestors. In the tradition of Native storytelling, she spins tales that move back and forth fluidly across time. The ancient beings, we discover, followed the tribe from their original homelands in Mississippi and are now ever-present influences on tribal consciousness.While some of the horrors told here are “real life” in nature, the art of fiction that Mihesuah employs reveals surprising outcomes or alternative histories. It turns out the things that scare us the most can lead to the answers we are seeking and even ensure our very survival.

After a security guard is found dead and another wounded at the Children's Museum of Science and History in Norman, Oklahoma, Detective Monique Blue Hawk and her partner Chris Pierson are summoned to investigate. They find no fingerprints, no footprints, and no obvious means to enter the locked building.Monique discovers that a portion of an ancient and deformed skeleton had also been stolen from the neglected museum archives. Her uncle, the spiritual leader Leroy Bear Red Ears, concludes that the stolen remains are those of Hatak haksi, a witch and the matriarch of the Crow family, a group of shape-shifting Choctaws who plan to reestablish themselves as the powerful creatures they were when the tribe lived in Mississippi. Monique, Leroy, and Chris must stop the Crows, but to their dread, the entities have retreated to the dark and treacherous hollow in the center of Chalakwa Ranch. The murderous shape-shifters believe the enormous wild hogs, poisonous snakes, and other creatures of the hollow might form an adequate defense for Hatak haksi.But what no one counts on is the unexpected appearance and power of the Old Ones who guard the lands of the Choctaw afterlife. Blending tribal beliefs and myths into a modern context, The Hatak Witches continues the storyline of Choctaw cosmology and cultural survival that are prominent in Devon A. Mihesuah's award-winning novel, The Roads of My Relations.

The disappearance of a young Choctaw leads Detective Monique Blue Hawk to investigate a little-known ceremonial dance. As she traces the steps of the missing man, she discovers that the seemingly innocuous Renewal Dance is not what it appears to be. After Monique embarks on a journey that she never thought possible, she learns that the past and future can converge to offer endless possibilities for the present. She must also accept her own destiny of violence and peacekeeping.