Native American Heritage Month
Arkansas Native Tribes
- Museum of Native American HistoryLocal history museum on the history of Native Americans.
- Caddo NationInformation from the Caddo Nation, the official website of the tribe.
- Osage NationInformation from the Osage Nation, the official website of the tribe.
- Quapaw NationInformation from the Quapaw Nation, the official website of the tribe.
- Cherokee NationInformation from the Cherokee Nation, the official website of the tribe.
Caddo Nation
"The Caddo Nation historically included the Hasinai, Kadohadacho, and Natchitoche alliances of peoples. It existed for centuries before the modern era in what is now the northwest portion of Louisiana, east Texas, southwest Arkansas, and southeastern Oklahoma. In this region of river valleys and upland forests, the Caddo hunted and cultivated the rich fauna and flora in a sustainable manner."
Meredith, Howard. “Caddo.” Salem Press Encyclopedia, May 2023. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=605bf52d-173e-34e7-bb83-ae89fe335b4b.
Books
The Archaeology of the Caddo by
This landmark volume provides the most comprehensive overview to date of the prehistory and archaeology of the Caddo peoples. The Caddos lived in the Southeastern Woodlands for more than 900 years beginning around AD 800-900, before being forced to relocate to Oklahoma in 1859. They left behind a spectacular archaeological record, including the famous Spiro Mound site in Oklahoma as well as many other mound centers, plazas, farmsteads, villages, and cemeteries. The Archaeology of the Caddo examines new advances in studying the history of the Caddo peoples, including ceramic analysis, reconstructions of settlement and regional histories of different Caddo communities, Geographic Information Systems and geophysical landscape studies at several spatial scales, the cosmological significance of mound and structure placements, and better ways to understand mortuary practices. Findings from major sites and drainages such as the Crenshaw site, mounds in the Arkansas River basin, Spiro Mound, the Oak Hill Village site, the George C. Davis site, the Willow Chute Bayou Locality, the Hughes site, Big Cypress Creek basin, and the McClelland and Joe Clark sites are also summarized and interpreted. This volume reintroduces the Caddos' heritage, creativity, and political and religious complexity.
Call Number: Online OnlyISBN: 9780803220966Publication Date: 2012-06-01
Caddo Indians by
Carter, Cultural Representative of the Caddo tribe of Oklahoma, creates vivid pictures of daily life in the three branches of the Caddo nation, and introduces past and present Caddo leaders. Drawing on archaeological data, oral histories, and descriptions by European and American explorers, missiona
ISBN: 0806127473Publication Date: 1995-10-01
Traditions of the Caddo by
Hernando de Soto encountered the Caddos in the sixteenth century, and survivors of Sieur de La Salle's last voyage in the late seventeenth century gave the first full description of them. By 1903, when George A. Dorsey was investigating their customs and beliefs, the Caddos, numbering 530, were living on a reservation in Oklahoma. The Caddoan tribes, found along the Red River and its tributaries in present-day Louisiana and Arkansas, practiced agriculture long before they hunted buffalo. The tales collected for this book, first published in 1905, reflect the women's horticultural practices (supplemented by the men's hunting), village life distinguished by conical grass lodges, family and social relationships, connection to nature, and ceremonies. The tales vibrate with earthly and unearthly forces: Snake-Woman, who distributes seeds; Coyote, who regulates life after death; the Effeminate Man, who brings strife to the tribe; Coward, son of the Moon; the Man and the Dog who become Stars; the Old Woman who kept all the pecans; Splinter-Foot Boy and Medicine-Screech-Owl; water monsters; animal-peop≤ and cannibals.
Call Number: Online OnlyISBN: 9780803266025Publication Date: 1997-12-01
Jeri Redcorn, Caddo potter | Bullock Texas State History Museum
Osage Nation
"The Osage are one of five tribes in the Dhegiha group of the Siouan language family. Osage is a French corruption of the tribal name Wa-zha'zhe (Wazhazhe or "water people"). At the time of first White contact, the Osage lived primarily in what is present-day western Missouri. Tribal legend and archaeological evidence suggest, however, that the ancient Osage lived east of the Mississippi River. Forced to relocate by the US federal government in the 1800s, the group remains a federally recognized tribe with tribal land in Oklahoma. In the twenty-first century the Osage population is centered in Oklahoma, with other concentrations in Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri."
Despain, S.Matthew. “Osage.” Salem Press Encyclopedia, May 2023. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=70f7e81a-3fcd-3994-a618-8b6ab2ec60b8.
Books
Art of the Osage by
The Osage people, who have flourished in several locations and within a multiplicity of environments in the American Midwest, have infused their arts with an aesthetic vigor bound to an exquisite simplicity. Art of the Osage, the first comprehensive presentation of the art of the Osage people, explores the interconnections among their material culture, social organization, cosmology, aesthetics, and rituals. This volume draws together over two centuries? worth of Osage art, tracing the patterns of Osage life and culture as they existed from contact to the present. The Osage people thrived in the central Mississippi Valley fur trade from the late seventeenth through the early nineteenth centuries, were forcibly relocated into northern Oklahoma in the nineteenth century, and prospered again from mineral and oil wealth in the twentieth century. As with other civilizations that have balanced abundance with hardship, the Osage experience yielded a highly refined artistic tradition, rich in meaning and complex in its commitment to utility. Cradle boards, headdresses, riding quirts and war clubs, beadwork and ribbon work, blankets, peyote fans, rattles, wedding garments, and dance costumes display the range and beauty of Osage material culture. In contrast to many other Native American artistic traditions, Osage art has never been commercialized: artisans have typically made items only for members of their families or other members of the Osage community. Although contemporary Osage art shows direct continuity in decorative motifs and basic forms with early historic Osage art, it is still a dynamic and evolving artistic tradition. Uninfluenced by external market forces, it represents one of a declining number of true indigenous living artistic traditions. The works illustrated here reveal the bold yet subtle aesthetic of Osage art, one of the most distinctive and significant Native artistic traditions in the United States.
ISBN: 0295983876Publication Date: 2004-04-01
Osage and Settler by
Drawing on a rare family archive and archival material from the Osage Nation, this book documents a unique relationship among white settlers, the Osage and African Americans in Oklahoma. The history of white settlement and colonization is often discussed in the context of the cultural erasure of, and violence perpetuated against, American Indians and enslaved blacks. Conversely, histories of American Indian nations often end with colonial conquest, and exclude the experiences of white settlers. The author's anthropological approach examines the lived experience of individuals--including her own family members--and their nuanced and intersecting relationships as they negotiate cultural and geographic landscapes of oppression and technological change. The art, architecture, body ornamentation, sacred objects, ceremonies and performances accompanying this transformation are all addressed.
Call Number: Online OnlyISBN: 9780786495825Publication Date: 2015-06-12
Traditions of the Osage by
The forty-nine traditional Osage narratives presented here, collected in Oklahoma between 1910 and 1923 for the Bureau of American Ethnology, have never before been assembled in one book. What makes these stories especially important is that they were collected in their original language, Osage, by a scholar who was a native speaker of a mutually intelligible language, Omaha, and who was also highly educated and articulate in English. As contextualized in Garrick Bailey's introduction, these stories offer insights into Osage culture and society that are not available elsewhere. Bailey divides the stories into sacred teachings, folk stories, and animal stories. To the Osage, the sacred included not only religious but also what we would consider social and political institutions. Unlike the sacred teachings, which were known only to priests, folk tales were public property. Sacred teachings were always educational, whereas folk stories served a variety of purposes. Some were entertaining, some humorous, some frightening, but all were also designed to instill the proper social norms and values of the Osage. The animal stories, intended for children, also illustrate Osage values, as well as conveying information about the animals themselves.
Call Number: E 99 .O8 T74 2010 and OnlineISBN: 9780826348500Publication Date: 2010-05-15
Quapaw Nation
"Unlike many other American Indian tribes, the Quapaws (or Arkansas) have not preserved elaborate traditions explaining their origins. They say only that their Ancient Ones came forth from the water. Because of this, the history of the tribe is difficult to uncover. The Quapaws, or “Downstream People,” migrated from the Ohio Valley to the Arkansas River near where it joins the Mississippi River in the mid-1600s. Since the Quapaws went downstream, their kindred tribes called them Ugaxpa (also O-Gah-Pah), or “drifted downstream.” Their principal villages were on the west bank of the Mississippi River in what is now Arkansas. The forests and rivers supplied plenty of berries, game, and other food. They had large, well-tilled fields and cultivated gourds, pumpkins, sunflowers, beans, squash, and corn. Corn was considered the most important agricultural product. They hunted buffalo, which was a substantial part of their diet, and preserved what was not needed immediately for winter."
“Quapaw.” Salem Press Encyclopedia, May 2023. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=23a0cb13-d307-33c1-8b36-4fb6ee03a4cf.
Books
The Quapaw Indians by
Traces the history of this Arkansas River valley tribe, describes their culture, and shows how they were affected by westward expansion.
ISBN: 0806115424Publication Date: 1980-05-01
Tar Creek by
A small tribe of Indians, the Quapaws, survived civilization. A group of criminals, the likes of Bonnie and Clyde, found refuge. The wealth that poured from the ground created some of the richest Indians in the World. And Mickey Mantle got his start as a lead and zinc miner. All these events, and more, took place in or around a small community known as Picher, Oklahoma. And from the early part of the twentieth century, that community was nearly hidden under millions of tons of chat waste piles. Join author Larry Johnson on an exciting adventure starting with the origin of the Native American tribes, leading up to the horrific environmental hazards and final destruction of this town in the May 2008 tornadoes. Tar Creek effectively spins the true tale of the Quapaw Indians, the world's greatest discovery of lead and zinc, and the making of the oldest and largest environmental Superfund site in America. Organically encompassed in this tale are the first footsteps of the American Indian in the Western Hemisphere, the founding of the United States, and the transition of Indian Territories into statehood. Tar Creek is an hourglass with the discovery of lead and zinc at Picher as the skinny neck through which all of the interconnected acts and events preceding the discovery are slowly moving, resulting in the repercussions ninety years later. You'll be engaged and awed as you learn the real story on the journey to Tar Creek.
ISBN: 9781606965559Publication Date: 2009-03-01
Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears
"Soon after the American Revolution ended in 1783, demands began for the removal of all Native Americans from the southeastern part of the new United States. After a brief renewal of violent resistance, led by warriors such as Dragging Canoe of the Cherokees and Alexander McGillivray of the Creeks, most tribes were peaceful but firm in their efforts to remain in their ancestral lands. The exception was the Seminoles in Florida. Many early treaties were negotiated to persuade these tribes to move west voluntarily. When the desired result was not achieved, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, paving the way for forced removal. President Andrew Jackson , an old foe of the southeastern tribes, signed the bill, which became law on May 28, 1830.
The Trail of Tears removals rank among the most tragic episodes in United States history. The policies of three American leaders reveal the changing attitudes on how to best accomplish the removals. After Thomas Jefferson's peaceful persuasion and reasonable terms failed, John C. Calhoun, as secretary of war under President James Monroe, favored educating Native Americans to accept the need for removal. In the end, it was Andrew Jackson's policy of forced removal that completed the distasteful task."
Swygart, Glenn L. “Trail of Tears.” Salem Press Encyclopedia, Apr. 2023. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=b35405a1-f61c-3f6c-a885-e31402df0971.
Books
The Cherokee Diaspora by
The Cherokee are one of the largest Native American tribes in the United States, with more than three hundred thousand people across the country claiming tribal membership and nearly one million people internationally professing to have at least one Cherokee Indian ancestor. In this revealing history of Cherokee migration and resettlement, Gregory Smithers uncovers the origins of the Cherokee diaspora and explores how communities and individuals have negotiated their Cherokee identities, even when geographically removed from the Cherokee Nation headquartered in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Beginning in the eighteenth century, the author transports the reader back in time to tell the poignant story of the Cherokee people migrating throughout North America, including their forced exile along the infamous Trail of Tears (1838-39). Smithers tells a remarkable story of courage, cultural innovation, and resilience, exploring the importance of migration and removal, land and tradition, culture and language in defining what it has meant to be Cherokee for a widely scattered people.
ISBN: 9780300169607Publication Date: 2015-09-29
Monuments to Absence by
The 1830s forced removal of Cherokees from their southeastern homeland became the most famous event in the Indian history of the American South, an episode taken to exemplify a broader experience of injustice suffered by Native peoples. In this book, Andrew Denson explores the public memory of Cherokee removal through an examination of memorials, historic sites, and tourist attractions dating from the early twentieth century to the present. White southerners, Denson argues, embraced the Trail of Tears as a story of Indian disappearance. Commemorating Cherokee removal affirmed white possession of southern places, while granting them the moral satisfaction of acknowledging past wrongs. During segregation and the struggle over black civil rights, removal memorials reinforced whites' authority to define the South's past and present. Cherokees, however, proved capable of repossessing the removal memory, using it for their own purposes during a time of crucial transformation in tribal politics and U.S. Indian policy. In considering these representations of removal, Denson brings commemoration of the Indian past into the broader discussion of race and memory in the South.
Call Number: Online OnlyISBN: 9781469630823Publication Date: 2017-02-20
Trail of Tears by
A sixth-generation North Carolinian, highly-acclaimed author John Ehle grew up on former Cherokee hunting grounds. His experience as an accomplished novelist, combined with his extensive, meticulous research, culminates in this moving tragedy rich with historical detail. The Cherokee are a proud, ancient civilization. For hundreds of years they believed themselves to be the "Principle People" residing at the center of the earth. But by the 18th century, some of their leaders believed it was necessary to adapt to European ways in order to survive. Those chiefs sealed the fate of their tribes in 1875 when they signed a treaty relinquishing their land east of the Mississippi in return for promises of wealth and better land. The U.S. government used the treaty to justify the eviction of the Cherokee nation in an exodus that the Cherokee will forever remember as the "trail where they cried." The heroism and nobility of the Cherokee shine through this intricate story of American politics, ambition, and greed. B & W photographs
ISBN: 0385239548Publication Date: 1997-09-22
