Cozy up with a good book this month

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Canada Book Day was celebrated on April 23, and Windspeaker would like to join in the celebration of the printed word and present some books that have arrived, some recently, some not so recently, through our door for review.

We've had the opportunity to do some larger work on a few of them, as you've noticed in our coverage this month, but these are a few we haven't been able to get to for a full accounting. We hope you find something among them that piques your interest enough to find you choosing to spend your quiet moments with a good book.

Building a Birchbark Canoe: The Algonquin Wabanaki Tciman

By David Gidmark

Firefly publishers

147 pages (sc)

$19.95 (US)

Building a Birchbark Canoe shows readers the practical process of the construction of a birchbark canoe, at the same time as demonstrating the cultural significance of an elegant and practical craft that might otherwise be lost to history.

Mi'kmaq Treaties on Trial: History, Land and Donald Marshall Junior

By William C. Wicken

University of Toronto Press

301 pages (hc)

$55

The book explores the historical basis of the Mi'kmaq's claim by analyzing the context in which a treaty signed in 1726 was confirmed and later renegotiated in 1749, 1752, and 1760.

Selling the Indian: Commercializing & Appropriating American Indian Cultures

Edited by Carter Jones Meyer & Diana Royer

University of Arizona Press

320 pages (sc)

$22.95 (US)

Selling the Indian shows that commercialization and appropriation of American Indian cultures have been persistent practices over the last century and constitute a form of imperialism that could contribute to the destruction of the American Indian culture and identity. The collection of essays offers a means toward understanding this complex process and provides a new window on Indian-white interactions.

Yuwipi: Vision & Experience in Oglala Rituals

By William K. Powers

University of Nebraska

112 pages (sc)

$6.95 (US)

Yuwipi is the present-day Oglala Sioux version of an ancient ritual in which the shaman is bound and, in the darkness, calls spirits to come and free him and to communicate with his audience. The author shows how this ritual is related to two other old institutions, the vision quest and the sweat lodge.

Muskekowuch Athinuwick: Original People of the Great Swampy Land

By Victor P. Lytwyn

University of Manitoba Press

304 pages (sc)

$24.95

The original people of the Hudson Bay lowlands, often known as the Lowland Cree, were among the first of the Aboriginal peoples in northwest North America to come into contact with Europeans. Their own oral histories recount thousands of years of living in the region.

The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French-Native Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century

By Killes Havard

McGill-Queen's University Press

308 pages (sc)

$24.95

In the summer of 1701 in Montreal, 40 First Nations met with the French to end persistent, bloody conflicts between the Iroquois confederacy and the French and their Native allies. Elaborate, month-long ceremonies culminated in the signing of the treaty that effectively ended the Iroquois wars.

Iroquois Culture & Commentary

By Doug George-Kanentiio

Clear Light Publishers

224 pages (sc)

$14.95 (US)

The author offers a portrait of the Iroquois that touches on a multitude of topics, beginning with Iroquois beliefs concerning their origins as a people and their spiritual, communal and family traditions. Stories of Iroquois leaders and heroes include historical figures such as Handsome Lake, as well as Elders whom the author knows personally.

Learning by Designing: Pacific Northwest Coast Native Indian Art

Volume 1

By Jim Glibert and Karin Clark

Raven Publishing

224 pages (sc)

$24.95 (US)

A comprehensive study of the Pacific Northwest Coast art styles. Attempts to help the reader understand and recognize the essential differences in the four major styles of this region.

With Eagle Tail

By Colin F. Taylor and Hugh Dempsey

Key Porter Books

128 pages, 100 b/w potos (hc)

$21.95

With Eagle Tail is the story of a young newspaper photographer, Arnold Lupson, who left his home in England after the First World War to live with the Native American tribes of the North American Plains. His images offer a glimpse into the culture and day-to-day endeavors of the members of the Sarcee, Blackfoot and Stoney tribes.

Tom Three Persons

By Yvonne Trainer

Frontenac House

71 pages (sc)

$14.95

Tom Three Persons was created as a one-person oral performance piece by Yvonne Trainer in the early 1990s. It has been defined as a biography in verse, a work of Prairie realism, a postmodern long poem, and a postcolonial text.