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| APOTHEOSIS OF JANAAB' PAKAL : Science, History, & Religion at Classic Maya Palenque [Gerardo Aldana] Takes up anew the riddles within a number of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions first recognised by Floyd Lounsbury. Gerardo Aldana unpacks these mathematical riddles using an approach grounded in a reading of the texts made possible by recent advances in decipherment. Using a history of science methodology, he expands upon (and sometimes questions) the foundational work of archaeoastronomers. Aldana follows three lines of investigation: a reading of the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Classic period (ad250-900), mathematical analysis to recover Classic Maya astronomical practice, and a historiography of Maya astronomy. During troubled times in Palenque, Aldana contends, Kan Balam II devised a means to preserve the legitimacy of his ruling dynasty. He celebrated a re-creation of the city as a contemporary analogue of a mythical Creation on three levels: monumental construction for a public audience, artistic patronage for an elite audience, and a secret mathematical astronomical language only for rulers-elect. Discussing all of these efforts, Aldana focuses on the recovery of the secret language and its historical context. { 230pp, 155x230mm, June 2007; HB, £36.99, 087081866X:9780870818660 , University Press of Colorado } |
| ENCOUNTER WITH THE PLUMED SERPENT : Drama & Power in the Heart of Mesoamerica [Maarten Jansen] The Mixtec, or the people of Ñuu Savi (Nation of the Rain God), one of the major civilizations of ancient Mesoamerica, made their home in the highlands of Oaxaca, where they resisted both Aztec military expansion and the Spanish conquest. In 'Encounter with the Plumed Serpent', two leading scholars present and interpret the sacred histories narrated in the Mixtec codices, the largest surviving collection of pre-Columbian manuscripts in existence. In these screenfold books, ancient painter-historians chronicled the politics of the Mixtec from approximately ad900 to 1521, portraying the royal families, rituals, wars, alliances, and ideology of the times. By analysing and cross-referencing the codices, which have been fragmented and dispersed in far-flung archives, the authors attempt to reconstruct Mixtec history. Their synthesis here builds on long examination of the ancient manuscripts. Adding useful interpretation and commentary, Jansen and Pérez Jiménez synthesise the large body of surviving documents into the first unified narrative of Mixtec sacred history. { 396pp, 155x230mm, June 2007; HB, £49.99, 0870818686:9780870818684 , University Press of Colorado } |
| HOME : Native People in the Southwest [Ann Marshall (ed); Poetry by Ofelia Zepeda] In the American Southwest, Native people remain connected to the lands that have been their homes for centuries. In Home: Native People in the Southwest, they tell of that connection, of how it has survived and changed over time, and of how they are preserving it for future generations. Native artists express multiple visions of home in their art. The stories of the people who made the art are all different and yet, as Native people, they have a shared history and land, and their stories have common themes for all people. The permanent collection of the Heard Museum is a part of these stories. In the pages of this book, inspired by the Heard Museum's major new exhibition of the same name, you will encounter many expressions of the meanings of home as they are embodied in clay, pigment, plant materials, fiber, wood, metal, and words by people whose art is indivisible from their lives and whose lives are indivisible from the landscapes in which they live them. { 192pp, 285x235mm, May 2005; HB, £33.50, 0934351767:9780934351768 , Museum of New Mexico Press } |
| INDIGENOUS EXPERIENCE : Global Perspectives [Roger C A Maaka & Chris Anderson] No book to date has presented such a complete and diverse picture of the experiences of indigenous people around the globe. Maaka and Anderson attempt to introduce the reader to the heterogeneity and depth of indigenous groups' colonial experiences. Focused on the global context, 'The Indigenous Experience' takes examples from the North American nations of Canada and the United States; the Hispanic nations of Latin America; Australia; New Zealand; Hawaii and Rapanui from Oceania; from Northern Europe and the circumpolar region, Norway; and from the continent of Africa, an example from Nigeria. This book is also global in its authorship, with articles by leading scholars from areas that are reflected in the examples; Australia, Canada, the United States, and Norway. { 366pp, 170x250mm, October 2006; PB, £22.99, 1551303000:9781551303000 , Canadian Scholars' Press } |
| MESOAMERICAN RITUAL ECONOMY : Archaeological & Ethnological Perspectives [Karla L Davis-Salazar & Christian E Wells] Scholars examine the extent to which economic processes were driven by and integrated with religious ritual in ancient Mesoamerica. The contributors explore how traditional rituals -- human blood sacrifice and self-mutilation, 'flowery wars' and battling butterfly warriors, sumptuous feasting with chocolate and tamales, and fantastic funerary rites -- intertwined with all sectors of the economy. Examining the interplay between well-established religious rites and market forces of raw material acquisition, production, circulation, and consumption, this volume effectively questions the idea that materialism alone motivates the production, exchange, and use of objects. Exploring the intersection of spirituality and materiality, MESOAMERICAN RITUAL ECONOMY will be of interest to all scholars studying how worldview and belief motivate economic behaviour. The authors consider a diverse set of Mesoamerican cultural patterns in order to investigate the ways in which ritual and economic practices influenced each other in the operation of communities, small-scale societies, and state-level polities. { 336pp, 155x230mm, May 2007; HB, £43.50, 0870818716:9780870818714 , University Press of Colorado } |
| MONTANA 1911 : A Professor & His Wife Among the Blackfeet [Mary Eggermont-Molenaar] This is the complete text diary kept by Mrs W M Uhlenbeck-Melchoir while accompanying her husband, the Dutch anthropologist/linguist, Dr C C Uhlenbeck, during his fieldwork on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana in the summer of 1911. Here eyewitness account of their three-month stay gives the reader a fascinating insight into the world of the Blackfeet. The first edition ever to be translated into English, this book is complete with notes, introductions, & supplementary materials. The book includes essays on Blackfeet mythology & folklore that detail life before the reservation period & a biographical sketch of the Uhlenbecks, featuring aspects of C C Uhlenbeck's career as a linguist & scholar, as well as numerous photographs from the era. { 417pp, 280x220mm, September 2005; PB, £41.50, 1552381145:9781552381144 , University of Calgary Press } |
| NATIVE PATHWAYS : American Indian Culture & Economic Development in the Twentieth Century [Brian Hosmer & Colleen O'Neill (eds)] Contributors to 'Native Pathways' ponder questions about American Indians' participation in the broader US market highlighting how indigenous peoples have simultaneously adopted capitalist strategies and altered them to suit their own distinct cultural beliefs and practices. Including contributions from historians, anthropologists, and sociologists, the book offers fresh viewpoints on economic change and cultural identity in twentieth-century Native American communities. { 354pp, 155x230mm, November 2004; PB, £18.50, 0870817752:9780870817755 / HB, £43.50, 0870817744:9780870817748 , University Press of Colorado } |
| SHARED IMAGES : The Innovative Jewelry of Yazzie Johnson & Gail Bird [Diana Pardue; Foreword by Martha Hopkins Struever] Gail Bird (Santo Domingo/Laguna) and Yazzie Johnson (Navajo) have been making jewellery together since 1972 and are considered among the first rank of Native American artists. SHARED IMAGES is a retrospective of their career in the decorative arts, spanning the early 1970s to the present. The jewellery creations of Johnson and Bird are frequently dramatic, always wearable, and compositionally arresting. Their use of non-traditional stones and uncommon juxtapositions of materials has earned them a place in the world of contemporary art alongside the most influential jewellers of their generation. Drawing inspiration from prehistoric pictograph and petroglyph sites, Johnson and Bird have developed a distinctive set of designs that continue to inspire contemporary creations. SHARED IMAGES emphasises the forty-six thematic belts that have won the artists well-deserved acclaim at Santa Fe's annual Indian Arts Market. The book documents Johnson and Bird's collaborative process and features a range of exemplary pieces shown in museums and galleries across the country. Published in association with the Heard Museum. { 188pp, 230x280mm, February 2007; HB, £29.99, 0890134960:9780890134962 , Museum of New Mexico Press } |
| THIS SOLDIER LIFE : The Diaries of Romine H. Ostrander, 1863 & 1865, in Colorado Territory [Paul A Malkoski] Romine Ostrander, born in 1837 in Roseville, Illinois, had made his way to Colorado as a private in the First Colorado Cavalry by the time he was twenty-five. On 26 February 1863, he bought a small, leather-bound diary; over the next three years he filled this volume and two more with his thoughts, travels, and frustrations. The delicate, well-worn diaries accompanied the private in his saddlebags over miles of dusty Colorado trails, but eventually they disappeared. The 1863 and 1865 journals resurfaced in 1922 in a warehouse in Fresno. Annotated for historic interest but otherwise unedited, they offer a fascinating and infectious read -- the young author creates a vivid portrait of frontier Colorado and comments on the events of his day: the Sand Creek Massacre, the Civil War, Lee's surrender, and his own encounters with Arapahos, Cheyennes, Comanches, Apaches, and Cherokees. { 130pp, 155x230mm, February 2007; PB, £13.50, 0942576519:9780942576511 , University Press of Colorado } |
| WEASEL TAIL : Stories Told by Joe Crowshoe Sr (Áápohsoy'yiis), a Peigan-Blackfoot elder [Michael Ross] The generation to which Joe and Josephine Crowshoe belonged spanned more than the length of their lifetimes. That generation fought heroically in world wars and at the same time raised children under a paternalistic federal regime that denied both a culture and a heritage. The Crowshoes regained their heritage and shared it with the larger community, gaining respect from all the people with whom they were in contact and becoming articulate representatives and the holders of stories, legends, and customs. The interviews in Weasel Tail track not just their personal stories but the stories of a people who insisted on being recognised and a culture born out of the land of southern Alberta. Paralleling the interviews, Mike Ross has included historical photographs and documentation of a world and people who are a rich part of Alberta's history. The interviews in WEASEL TAIL track not just their personal stories but the stories of a people who insisted on being recognised. { 236pp, 155x230mm, April 2008; PB, £19.50, 189712628X:9781897126288 , Newest Press } |
| WORDS OF THE HURON [John L Steckley] "Words of the Huron" is an investigation into seventeenth-century Huron culture through a kind of linguistic archaeology of a language that died midway through the twentieth century. John L Steckley explores a range of topics, including: the construction of longhouses and wooden armour; the use of words for trees in village names; the social anthropological standards of kinship terms and clans; Huron conceptualising of European-borne disease; the spirit realm of orenda; Huron nations and kinship groups; relationship to the environment; material culture; and the relationship between the French missionaries and settlers and the Huron people. Steckley's source material includes the first dictionary of any Aboriginal language, Recollect Brother Gabriel Sagard’s Huron phrasebook, published in 1632, and the sophisticated Jesuit missionary study of the language from the 1620s to the 1740s, beginning with the work of Father Jean de Brébeuf. The only book of its kind, "Words of the Huron" will spark discussion among scholars, students, and anyone interested in North American archaeology, Native studies, cultural anthropology, and seventeenth-century North American history. { 259pp, 155x230mm, September 2006; PB, £17.99, 0889205167:9780889205161 , Wilfrid Laurier University Press } |
| WORLD BELOW : Body & Cosmos In Otomí Indian Ritual [Jacques Galinier, Howard Scott & Phyllis Aronoff] Jacques Galinier surveys both traditional Otomí cosmology and colonial and contemporary Catholic rituals to illustrate the complexity of continuity and change in Mesoamerican religious ideology and practice. Galinier explores the problems of historical and family memory, models of space and time, the role of the human habitation in cosmology, shamanism and healing, and much more. He elucidates the way these realities are represented in a series of arresting oppositions -- both Otomí oppositions and the duality of indigenous and Catholic ritual life -- between the upper and lower human body. As Galinier details, in Otomí cosmology, psychological forces are stored at the very bottom of the body -- 'the World Below' -- in what translates roughly as an 'Old Bag'. This spiritual sack is saturated with 'rottenness and sex' and invades the collective unconscious of the Otomí cosmos. Drawing upon both Freud and theories of the carnivalesque, Galinier argues that this world below provides the foundation for an indigenous metapsychology that is at once very close and very far away from the Freudian conceptual apparatus. { 271pp, 155x230mm, November 2004; PB, £23.50, 0870817736:9780870817731 / HB, £56.99, 0870817728:9780870817724 , University Press of Colorado } |