A Forest of Time: American Indian Ways of History

Description

A Forest of Time is the first introduction for undergraduates and graduates| Western and Indian history buffs| and general readers to the notion that American Indian societies had vital interests in interpreting and transmitting their own ways for themselves. Through separate discussions of legends and oral histories| creation stories and folktales| it illustrates how various Indian peoples related and commented upon their changing times. Drawing upon his own varied research as well as sampling the latest in scholarship from ethnohistory| anthropology| folklore and Indian Studies| Dr. Nabokov offers dramatic examples of how native peoples put rituals and material culture| landscape| prophecies| and even the English language to the urgent task of keeping the past alive and relevant. Throughout these lively chapters| we also witness the American Indian historical imagination deployed as a coping skill and survival strategy. This book surveys the latest integrating ideas while offering a useful bibliography that opens up| and demands that we engage with| alternative chronicles for America’s multi-cultural past. Peter Navokov is Professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures and American Indian Studies Program at UCLA. He is the author of several books| including Native American Architecture| (Oxford| 1991| co-author Robert Easton) which won the American Institue of Architects honor award and the Bay Area Book Reviewer Association Award. His book Native American Testimony (Thomas Y. Crowell| 1978) was named the American Library Association’s Best Book for Young Adults and Library School Journal Best Book 1978 in addition to receiving the Carter G. Woodson Award. His work as a journalist in 1967 earned him prizes from the Albuquerque Press Association and the New Mexico Press Association.