Native American Experience

Learn about the life, culture and history of the Native American people.

Nerburn, Kent
The Wolf at Twilight : an Indian Elder's Journey Through a Land of Ghosts and Shadows
The author finds himself back on the Lakota reservation where he traveled more than a decade before with a tribal elder named Dan. This touching, funny, and haunting journey goes deep into mysteries of reservation boarding-schools, sweat lodges, and the isolated homesteads of the Dakota hills.
2009
Adult Nonfiction Book

Northrup, Jim
Anishinaabe Syndicated : a View from the Rez
Northrup, an Anishinaabe writer, takes a humorous look at life on and off the Fond do Lac Reservation in northern Minnesota, including traditional ricing and fishing, pow wows and casinos, family relationships, politics, pets, boarding schools, and travel. 2012 Minnesota Book Award nominee.
2011
Adult Nonfiction Book

Peacock, Thomas D.
Ojibwe Waasa Inaabidaa = We Look in All Directions
Chronicles the history and culture of the Ojibwe people. Peacock, an Ojibwe himself, discusses the written language of the Ojibwe, their 500-mile migration to Northern Michigan from the St. Lawrence River valley, their struggles with the U.S. Government over sovereignty and land issues, and other historical issues.
2002
Adult Nonfiction Book

Peltier, Leonard
Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance
Incarcerated for the last twenty-four years, the Native American activist shares his life story, as well as philosophical views on prison and how it has affected him.
1999
Adult Nonfiction Book (Biography)

Razor, Peter
While the Locust Slept
This memoir, written when the author was 73 years old, won a Minnesota Book Award. Razor describes his experiences as an orphan growing up at the State Public School in Owatonna and the severe abuse he suffered. As an adult, he gained strength from researching his Native American heritage.
2001
Adult Nonfiction Book (Biography)

Swift, Tom
Chief Bender's Burden : the Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star
The story of Bender's improbable journey--from his early years on the White Earth Reservation, to his development at the Carlisle Indian School, to his big break and eventual rise to the pinnacle of baseball.
2008
Adult Nonfiction Book

Treuer, Anton
The Assassination of Hole in the Day
Explores the murder of the controversial Ojibwe chief who led his people through the first difficult years of dispossession by white invaders—and created a new kind of leadership for the Ojibwe. A Minnesota Book Award nominee.
2011
Adult Nonfiction Book

Treuer, Anton.
Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but Were Afraid to Ask
What have you always wanted to know about Indians? In matter of-fact responses to over 120 questions, both thoughtful and outrageous, modern and historical, Ojibwe scholar and cultural preservationist Anton Treuer gives a frank, funny, and sometimes personal tour of Native people and their culture.
2012
Adult Nonfiction Book

Treuer, David.
Rez Life : an Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life
Celebrated novelist David Treuer has brings a novelist’s storytelling skill and an eye for detail to a complex and subtle examination of Native American reservation life, past and present.
2012
Adult Nonfiction Book

Vizenor, Gerald Robert
The Everlasting Sky: Voices of the Anishinabe People
This classic collection of essays portrays the peoples and political times on northern reservations in the 1970s. Many of the writings are drawn from the author’s experiences growing up on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota.
2000
Adult Nonfiction Book

Warren, William W.
History of the Ojibway People
For the first time since its initial publication in 1885, this classic text is now available with new annotations. Warren collected firsthand descriptions and stories from relatives, tribal leaders, and acquaintances and transcribed this oral history of the Ojibwe.
2009
Adult Nonfiction Book

Weatherford, J. McIver
Indian Givers : How Native Americans Transformed the World
Chronicles 500 years of contributions from the Indians of the Americas by anthropologist Jack Weatherford, including our federal government, democratic institutions, modern medicine, agriculture, architecture, and ecology.
2010
Adult Nonfiction Book

White, Bruce M.
We are at Home : Pictures of the Ojibwe People
A fascinating history of the Ojibwe people at home in the Minnesota landscape through 1950--as told through more than 200 vivid photographs.
2007
Adult Nonfiction Book

Wilson, Diane, 1954-
Beloved Child : a Dakota Way of Life
Through interviews with cultural activists and Dakota elders, Dianne Wilson, tells stories of restoration and reconciliation, and the efforts of modern Native American activists to empower their people in the wake of genocide and the forced enculturation of the boarding school system.
2011
Adult Nonfiction Book










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