This site has a lot of links.

There are general histories of aboriginal peoples in Canada by Olive Dickason, J.R. Miller and Arthur Ray; Dickason's is the most comprehensive.

quote:

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Originally posted by April:
I am starting to develop a real interest in native issues in North America, and was wondering if there is a good book I could read to learn the basics.

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This may be way off what you are looking for, but I'll mention it anyway. I recently read "Nunaga" by Duncan Pryde. He was a Scottish fellow who took a job as a Hudson's Bay trader back in the early 60's. He became fluent in the Inuit language and was completely immersed himself in the Innuit culture. He was also completely accepted in the community, and essentially lived as a "white" Eskimo.

And if Chief Crazy Horse never said this, it still sounds alright by me.

quote:

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We did not ask you white men to come here.
The Great Spirit gave us this country as a home.
You had yours. We did not interfere with you.
The Great Spirit gave us plenty of land to live on, and buffolor, deer, antelope and other game.
But you have come here, you are taking my land from me, you are killing off our game, so it hard for us to live.

Now, you tell us to work for a living,
but the Great Spirit did not make us to work,
but to live by hunting. You white men can work if you want to. We did not interfere with you, and again you say why do you not become civilized?
We do not want your civilization! We would live as our fathers did, and their
fathers before them. " - Chief Crazy Horse

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More recently, there are the writings of Ward Churchill, e.g. "A Little Matter of Genocide". I have some problems with his analysis, and he's definitely controversial, even among indigenous activists, but he's provocative and political. Some people have cast doubts on his claim to be native, or his claim to have been with the AIM. I have no way of verifying either the claim or the doubts, or who their ultimate source is, so there you have it.

There is "Stolen from Our Embrace", a book about the mass abduction and forced assimilation of First Nations kids by the Canadian state.

There is "As Long as this Land Shall Last", by Rene Fumoleau. It is a meticulous documentation of the signing of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11, including interviews with the surviving elders who attended the ceremony, and whose testimony was crucial in a key court ruling that the Canadian government hadn't acted in good faith and that the intent of the original agreements was not to extinguish aboriginal title (forcing renegotiation of treaties in the Northwest Territories, a process that is still ongoing, I believe). Google Rene Fumoleau and you will find an online collection of 10,000 of his photos of the North at the Prince of Wales Heritage Centre.

There is this website of interviews with Saskatchewan elders:

http://www.lights.com/sicc/index.html

Here is a good collection of stories by Cree and Dene elders:

http://collections.ic.gc.ca/tales

Check out the other things at the Aboriginal Collections project:

http://collections.ic.gc.ca/E/SL_FirstPeoples.asp

You should also check out The Indigenous Environmental Network at

http://www.ienearth.org/

Red Wire Magazine:

http://www.redwiremag.com/

Dene Youth Alliance:

http://www.deneyouthalliance.ca/

*edited because I can't spell the name of my home province

[ 30 March 2005: Message edited by: DavisMavis ]

If you are interested in more recent issues, read One Dead Indian about the killing of Dudley George in Ipperwash.

http://www.blackelkspeaks.unl.edu/toc.htm

http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/naind/html/na_004200_blackelk.htm

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/eight/wklakota.htm

You can compare the transcript with the draft of the a part of the book here:

http://www.blackelkspeaks.unl.edu/appendix2.html

[ 30 March 2005: Message edited by: rasmus raven ]

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WHY IS BLACK ELK SO CONTROVERSIAL?

The undeniable facts are that from 1881 to 1904 Black Elk was an active, respected medicine man among the Lakota and that from 1904 to 1950 he was an active, respected catechist (or instructor) for Christianity among the Lakota. However, interpretations of his life vary widely. Here are several that have been proposed by scholars:
1. Black Elk believed only in his native Lakota religion; he practiced Christianity only to make money.
2. Black Elk totally rejected his native religion for Christianity.
3. Black Elk accepted the truths of both the Lakota religion and Christianity but regarded them separately.
4. Black Elk accepted the truths of both religions and developed a sophisticated framework in which Christianity became the fulfillment of his Lakota religion.

In recent years the last hypothesis is gaining some acceptance. Black Elk was a profound religious thinker (far more profound than his elitist biographer John Neihardt). In spite of being nearly blind Black Elk had taught himself the written Lakota language. He not only read the Bible but felt obligated to have scholars (John Neihardt and Joseph Epes Brown) record the ancient, sacred beliefs of the Lakota. To learn Black Elk’s actual testimony, avoid the doctored book Black Elk Speaks in favor of the more accurate The Sixth Grandfather. To get the flavor of the raging controversy, sample The Black Elk Reader (2000)—as supposed scholars fling misinformation, distorted facts and self-serving interpretations at each other.

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This book presents the transcripts of the interviews with Black Elk (as opposed to Neihardt's rewritten version).

Here is a list of other Lakota/Dakota lives.

As to other books, while everything has its problems, books by Norval Morriseau and Basil Johnston (Legends of My People: The Great Ojibway; Ojibway Heritage; Ojibway Ceremonies etc.) recounting Ojibway stories and beliefs are quite useful. There is this history of the Ojibway people.

There is also "The Destruction of California Indians", a documentary history edited by Robert Fleming Heizer, published by Bison Books (University of Nebraska Press).

Kohkominawak otacimowiniwawa / Our Grandmothers' Lives as Told in Their Own Words: Told by Glecia Bear, Irene Calliou, Janet Feitz, Minnie Fraser, Alpha Lafond, Rosa Longneck, Mary Wells. Freda Ahenakew and H. C. Wolfart, eds. and trans. Saskatoon: Fifth House Publishers, 1992, 408 pp.

Fifth House also reprints "Sacred Tales of the Sweet Grass Cree", transcribed and edited by Leonard Bloomfeld in 1925.

The Counselling Speeches of Jim Kâ-Nîpitêhtêw

A 6-part televised history of the Ojibwe people

There is a lot of material out there.

[ 30 March 2005: Message edited by: rasmus raven ]

Sources are a problem: most books rest on research sources drawn from newcomer archives. One interesting attempt to use indigenous memory as a counter-source is The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7. It's impossible to read this and still believe that Canada's extension of its rule over the prairies had even an iota of justice about it. The numbered treaties should really be studied as Canada's first foreign relations, not as part of domestic political history. Arthur Ray's Bounty and Benevolence is also good on the numbered treaties.

On native-newcomer relations in Canada, J.R. Miller's book Syscrapers Hide the Heavens is good, as is the collection Miller edited, Sweet Promises.

The Black Elk stuff reminds me of the different views around the syncretic Iroquois prophet Handsome Lake. Much of what's written about him is controversial. Death and Rebirth of the Seneca by Anthony Wallace is one view. I found Gerald Alfred's Heeding the Voices of Our Ancestors to be the best book on contemproary Mohawk nationalism. These two are good antidotes to the common theme of decline in too many books. First nations nationalism is real and growing, a theme overlooked all too often.

April, the following forums are pretty decent:

Turtle Island.org

and