Native American Heritage Month
In November, the Sonoma County Library celebrates Native American Heritage Month. As described by the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), this month is “a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and histories and to acknowledge the important contributions of Native people.” We join the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and thousands of libraries, schools and local governments in paying tribute to the ancestry and traditions of Native Americans / Indigenous Peoples.
The cultural revitalization and self-determination efforts of Native people are part of a robust history. Dr. Arthur Caswell Parker (Cattaraugus Seneca), an anthropologist and historian who founded the Society of American Indians in 1911 and the NCIA in 1944, was one of the first to propose a day be set aside for “First Americans.” Thanks in part to the additional efforts of Reverend Red Fox James (Blackfoot), who was also known as Red Fox Shiukusha, and those of Reverend Sherman Coolidge (Arapaho), New York selected the second Saturday in May, 1916, for “American Indian Day.” Several other states set aside various days for similar observances during the first half of the 20th Century. However, it wasn’t until 1976 that the U.S. Federal Government set aside a portion of the calendar to celebrate Native peoples. In 1998, Native American Day was enacted as a state holiday in California. President Joe Biden declared October 11, 2021, to be a federal holiday: Indigenous People’s Day.
For more information about the current sovereignty and revitalization efforts of local Native American groups, please see:
The author(s) acknowledge(s) that they are descendant(s) not of Native people but of settler-colonialists. We recognize the historical and ongoing violence of settler colonialism, and affirm Indigenous sovereignty. Our library buildings/facilities are on stolen land. We will continue to hold ourselves accountable to the needs of the Indigenous people of Sonoma County, California, and beyond. The author(s) would welcome comments or corrections from members of Native communities, particularly the Coast Miwok, Kashaya, Southern Pomo, and Wappo tribal nations.
Events
Sonoma County Library
Warrior Women
Tuesday, November 9, 2021, 6:00pm - 7:00pm
Register
Warrior Women explores what it means to balance a movement with motherhood and how activist legacies are passed down from generation to generation in the American Indian Movement.
Healdsburg Museum
From Diggers Bend to River Rock: Dry Creek Rancheria People and History
September 30, 2021 to May 29, 2022
Wednesday-Sunday, 11-4
Guest Curator, Dry Creek Pomo historian, and basket expert, Sherrie Smith-Ferri, Ph.D., has arranged for the loan of baskets woven by DCR makers to the Healdsburg Museum. Private basket collectors, Tribal families, and UC Berkeley’s Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology have loaned these pieces, many of which were woven around 1900.
In-Gallery Basketmaking Demonstration
Friday, November 12, 2021, 12:00-3:00pm
Enjoy watching Dry Creek Rancheria weaver Clint McKay at work.
For more information: https://myemail.constantcontact.com/October---November-2021-Review.html?soid=1115883753593&aid=BZ0X9DNhnZU
Sonoma State University
Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask
Tuesday, November 2, 2021, 11am (Zoom)
Hear Dr. Anton Treuer talk "Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask": an interactive and informed discussion of hot topics in Indigenous Studies, including residential boarding schools, pipeline protests, the use of Indigenous people as mascots for sport teams, and we can best grapple with racial equity in the time of racial reckoning.
Co-hosted by Dr. Janet Hess, Acting Chair of Native American Studies and Dr. Erica Tom, Director of Native American Studies.
Please contact Dr. Erica Tome at tome@sonoma.edu for registration information.
Books and More:
Adult Nonfiction
Click here to download the list as a PDF
by Damon B. Akins & William J. Bauer, Jr.
(Round Valley Indian Tribes)
970.004 AKINS
by Jessica McDiarmid
A True Story Of Racism, Indifference, And The Pursuit Of Justice For Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women And Girls
362.88089 MCDIARMID
Adult Fiction
Click here to download the list as a PDF
by Beth H. Piatote
(Member of Chief Joseph’s Tribe and the Colville Confederated Tribes)
Young Adult Fiction & Non-Fiction
Click here to download the list as a PDF
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People
by Debbie Reese
(Nambé Pueblo)
Y 970.0049 MENDOZA
Children's Books Ages 8-12
Click here to download the list as a PDF
Ancestor Approved
Intertribal Stories for Kids
by Cynthia Leitich Smith
(Muscogee (Creek) Nation)
J ANCESTOR
Children's Books Ages 0-8
Click here to download the list as a PDF
by Rose Ann Tahe
(Naaneesh't'ezhi Tachii'nii nish'li (The Charcoal Streaked Division of the Red Running Into the Water Clan), born for Ashiihi bashish'chiin (Salt People Clan)
E TAHE
When Turtle Grew Feathers
A Folktale from the Choctaw Nation
by Tim Tingle
(Choctaw Nation)
E TINGLE
Go Show The World
A Celebration Of Indigenous Heroes
by Wab Kinew
(Ojibwa)
J 970.004 KINEW & E KINEW
Thanks to our resource sharing agreement, your Sonoma County Library Card grants you access to both the Lake County Native American Collection and the Mendocino First American Collection. Click here to browse both collections.
