Saturday, May 11, 2013

The Song of Hiawatha

I grew up around the names of Native Americans.  Sandusky (Wyandot for cold water), on Lake Erie and Huron High School across from Shawnee Place and down the road from Miami Place and Tecumseh Place.  Summers in Northern Michigan looking out t the Manitou Islands and hearing the Chippewa legend of the Sleeping Bear.   To the north, the land of Hiawatha.  Here's my collection of Native American books.

1.  Four American Indians: King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola, Edison Whitney and Frances Perry (1904).  Histories of four great Native American leaders published as a text book for high schools.   Heavy stock paper with illustrations.  Bought used at the State Department Bookstore with a personal library stamp, William Locke.




2.  Indian Stories, Major Cicero Newell (1912).  Also a school book explaining Native American family life, their skills at hunting and fighting.  Focuses mostly on Dakota tribe.  Illustrations and pictures and well organized.  Curious note inside on fly-leaf, "3 oldest members of U.S. Senate Carter Glass 82, Norris 73 M. Henry King"  Bought used someplace.

















3.  On the Rez, Ian Frazier (2001).  Frazier spent a time on modern day Indian Reservations, especially that of the Oglala Sioux,  in the plains and badlands of the American West. Crazy Horse, perhaps the greatest Indian war leader of the 1800s, and Black Elk, the holy man whose teachings achieved worldwide renown, were Oglala.  Bought used at B.J.'s Books, Warrenton, VA.




4.  Dictionary of the Amerian Indian, John Stoutenbugh, Jr (1960),  Reference book of 431 pages of entries from Aatsosni to Zuni.   Ex Libris Stamp for Opal Durrer Chrickenberger.  Bought used somewhere.




















5.  Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival, Velma Walllis (1993).  Based on an Athabaskan Indian legend of two elderly woman abandoned by a migrating tribe in the upper Yukon River in Alaska.  Stamped withdrawn from Berlin Township Public Library, Berlin, OH; bought from the Library's used book sale.  













6.  Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, illustrated by Susan Jeffers (1996).  Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha illustrated as a children's book.  "On the shores of Gitche Gumee, Of the shining Big-Sea-Water..."  Bought new.

















7.  Amercian Hertiage Book of Indians (1961).  Color plate illustrations, maps and sketches.   Christmas 1973.









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