A current reference work that reflects the changing times and attitudes of, and towards the indigenous peoples of all the regions of the Americas. --from publisher description.

Presents detailed coverage of the deities, legendary heroes and heroines, important animals, objects, and places that make up the mythic lore of the many peoples of North America.

Native Americans in the United States, similar to other indigenous people, created political, economic, and social movements to meet and adjust to major changes that impacted their cultures. For centuries, Native Americans dealt with the onslaught of non-Indian land claims, the appropriation of their homelands, and the destruction of their ways of life. Through various movements, Native Americans accepted, rejected, or accommodated themselves to the non-traditional worldviews of the colonizers and their policies. The A to Z of Native American Movements_through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on important persons, places, events, and institutions and significant political, economic, social, and cultural aspects_is a useful reference on topics dealing with key movements, organizations, leadership strategies, and the major issues Native Americans have confronted.

Entertaining and informative, the newly updated Britannica Student Encyclopedia helps children gain a better understanding of their world. Updated for 2012, more than 2,250 captivating articles cover everything from Barack Obama to video games. Children are sure to immerse themselves in 2,700 photos, charts, and tables that help explain concepts and subjects, as well as 1,200 maps and flags from across the globe. Britannica Student is curriculum correlated and a recent winner of the 2008 Teachers Choice Award and 2010 AEP Distinguished achievement award.

Have you ever driven through a small town with an intriguing name like Wyandotte or Cuyamungue and wondered where that name came from? Or how such well-known placenames as Tucson, Waco, or Tulsa originated? Native American placenames like these occur all across the American Southwest. This user-friendly guide—covering Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas—provides fascinating information about the meaning and origins of southwestern placenames. With its unique regional approach and compact design, the handbook is especially suitable for curious travelers. Written by distinguished linguist William Bright, the handbook is organized alphabetically, and its entries for places—including towns, cities, counties, parks, and geographic landmarks—are concise and easy to read. Entries give the state and county, along with all available information on pronunciation, the name of the language from which the name derives, the name’s literal meaning, and relevant history.In their introduction to the handbook, editors Alice Anderton and Sean O’Neill provide easy-to-understand pronunciation keys for English and Native languages. They further explain basic linguistic terminology and common southwestern geographical terms such as mesa, canyon, and barranca. The book also features maps showing all counties in each of the southwestern states, a list of Native languages and language families, and contact information for tribal headquarters throughout the Southwest.

The arrival of European and Euro-American colonizers in the Americas brought not only physical attacks against Native American tribes, but also further attacks against the sovereignty of these Indian nations. Though the violent tales of the Trail of Tears, Black Hawk's War, and the Battle of Little Big Horn are taught far and wide, the political structure and development of Native American tribes, and the effect of American domination on Native American sovereignty, have been greatly neglected. This book contains a variety of primary source and other documents--traditional accounts, tribal constitutions, legal codes, business councils, rules and regulations, BIA agents reports, congressional discourse, intertribal compacts--written both by Natives from many different nations and some non-Natives, that reflect how indigenous peoples continued to exercise a significant measure of self-determination long after it was presumed to have been lost, surrendered, or vanquished. The documents are arranged chronologically, and Wilkins provides brief, introductory essays to each document, placing them within the proper context. Each introduction is followed by a brief list of suggestions for further reading. Covering a fascinating and relatively unknown period in Native American history, from the earliest examples of indigenous political writings to the formal constitutions crafted just before the American intervention of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, this anthology will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students of the political development of indigenous peoples the world over.

Moving away from territorially-bound narratives toward a more kinetic conceptualization of identity, this book represents the first analysis of the politics of American identity within the fiction and memoirs of Isabel Allende. Craig offers a radical transformation of societal frameworks through revised notions of place, temporality, and space.

Indigenous peoples have gained increasing international visibility in their fight against longstanding colonial occupation by nation-states. Although living in different locations around the world and practising highly varied ways of life, indigenous peoples nonetheless are affected by similar patterns of colonial dispossession and violence. In defending their collective rights to self-determination, culture, lands and resources, their resistance and creativity offer a pause for critical reflection on the importance of maintaining indigenous distinctiveness against the homogenizing forces of states and corporations. This timely book highlights significant colonial patterns of domination and their effects, as well as responses and resistance to colonialism. It brings indigenous peoples issues and voices to the forefront of sociological discussions of modernity. In particular, the book examines issues of identity, dispossession, environment, rights and revitalization in relation to historical and ongoing colonialism, showing that the experiences of indigenous peoples in wealthy and poor countries are often parallel and related. With a strong comparative scope and interdisciplinary perspective, the book is an essential introductory reading for students interested in race and ethnicity, human rights, development and indigenous peoples issues in an interconnected world.