New Native American Books

 

The Maya / / Michael D. Coe.

Imprint: [London?] : Thames and Hudson, c2011.

   F1435 .C72 2011

The Maya has long been established as the best, most readable introdu

to the New World’s greatest ancient civilization. In The Maya Michael D.

 

Coe distils a lifetime’s scholarship for the general reader and student. This, the eighth edition of the book, incorporates the latest archaeological and epigraphic research, which continues to proceed at a fast pace. Among the finest new discoveries are the spectacular polychrome murals of Calakmul, which provide archaeological evidence for the importance of marketplaces in the Classic Maya cities as well as giving a unique glimpse into Maya daily life. Other recent finds relate to the initial peopling of the Maya area by Early Hunters and Archaic peoples. This edition concludes with new historical evidence for the crucial role played by collaborationist native leaders in the Spanish conquest of the region. 

The case of the Indian trader : Billy Malone and the National Park Service investigation at Hubbell Trading Post / / Paul D. Berkowitz.

   F819.G36 B37 2011

   Imprint: Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, c2011.

 

This is the story of Billy Gene Malone and the end of an era. Malone lived almost his entire life on the Navajo Reservation working as an Indian trader; the last real Indian trader to operate historic Hubbell Trading Post. In 2004, the National Park Service (NPS) launched an investigation targeting Malone, alleging a long list of crimes that were similar to Al Capone. In 2005, federal agent Paul Berkowitz was assigned to take over the year-and-a-half-old case. His investigation uncovered serious problems with the original allegations, raising questions about the integrity of his supervisors and colleagues as well as high-level NPS managers.

In an intriguing account of whistle-blowing, Berkowitz tells how he bypassed his chain-of-command and delivered his findings directly to the Office of the Inspector General. 

 

 

Empires, nations, and families : a history of the North American West, 1800-1860 / / Anne F. Hyde.

   Hyde, Anne Farrar, 1960.

   F596 .H94 2011

   Imprint: Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, c2011. 

To most people living in the West, the Louisiana Purchase made little difference: the United States was just another imperial overlord to be assessed and manipulated. This was not virgin wilderness discovered by virtuous Anglo entrepreneurs. Rather, the United States was a newcomer in a place already complicated by vying empires. This book documents the broad family associations that crossed national and ethnic lines and that formed the basis for a global trade in furs that had operated for hundreds of years before the land became part of the United States. Empires, Nations, and Families shows how the world of river and maritime trade effectively shifted political power away from military and diplomatic circles into the hands of local people. Tracing family stories from the Canadian North to the Spanish and Mexican borderlands and from the Pacific Coast to the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, Anne F. Hyde’s narrative moves from the earliest years of the Indian trade to the Mexican War and the gold rush era. Her work reveals how, in the 1850s, immigrants violently wrested control from Native and other powers. 

 

  

Living with the dead : mortuary ritual in Mesoamerica / / edited by James L. Fitzsimmons and Izumi Shimada.

   F1435.3.M6 L58 2011

   Imprint: Tucson : University of Arizona Press, c2011.  

 

Scholars have recently achieved new insights into the many ways in which the dead and the living interacted from the Late Preclassic to the Conquest in Mesoamerica. The eight essays in this useful volume were written by well-known scholars who offer cross-disciplinary and synergistic insights into the varied articulations between the dead and those who survived them. From physically opening the tomb of their ancestors and carrying out ancestral heirlooms to periodic feasts, sacrifices, and other lavish ceremonies, heirs revisited death on a regular basis. The activities attributable to the dead, moreover, range from passively defining territorial boundaries to more active exploits, such as “dancing” at weddings and “witnessing” royal accessions. The dead were—and continued to be—a vital part of everyday life in Mesoamerican cultures.