(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best native american history books

Sorry, I forgot to respond to this! I tried to pick out books that are fairly accessible & not loaded with anthropological jargon or the like.

• If you want a really concise overview of Native American history, I recommend North American Indians: A Very Short Introduction. Theda Purdue and Michael Green are/were (Green recently passed away) very important historians in Native American history. (Plus it's adorable that they're married.)
  
  
• One of my favorites is Tiya Miles's Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom. I like how it shows how race played out in the South in much more complicated ways if we include Native Americans. It reads like a story more than a history book.
  
  
• Tiya Miles also wrote The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story. I haven't read it, but I've heard it's good.
  
  
• Nancy Shoemaker's A Strange Likeness: Becoming Red and White in Eighteenth-Century North America is an undergraduate-level analysis of the ways that both Europeans and Natives constructed their identities in opposition to each other. Each chapter covers a specific topic.
  
  
• While I haven't read it, Daniel K. Richter's Facing East From Indian Country: A Native History of Early America is a commonly assigned book in undergrad classes. It places Native Americans at the center of American history, rather than focusing on Europeans.
  
  
• Another commonly assigned book for undergrads that I haven't read: Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
  
  
• Linford D. Fisher's The Indian Great Awakening: Religion and the SHaping of Native Cultures in Early America is a bit more academic due to the topic, but I think it's still pretty accessible. If you're interested in learning about how Native American religions adapted & blended with Christianity, it's a good account.
  
  
• A really important book is Kathleen DuVal's The Native Ground: Indians and Colonists in the Heart of the Continent. Like Fisher's book, it's a little more academic, but it talks about how Native Americans controlled interactions with Europeans in the Mississippi/Arkansas River Valley areas. Instead of Europeans destroying Native cultures, there was a period when Europeans had to adapt to Natives' demands.
  
  
• I find the Red Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s fascinating, but the books & articles I've read are organizational histories and wouldn't be that appealing to a non-specialist. Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee is the most popular book about that movement, but I've never read it.
  
  Sorry for so many suggestions, but I thought I would give a bunch so that you can see what might appeal to you based on your own interests. All the above books are important because they help change our understandings of Native American and American history. Natives are not passive subjects in the books but are active in shaping their own lives.

The last excellent work of fiction I read was City of Dreams by Beverly Swerling. The book that I feel best captures the feeling of New York City, however, is Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin.

I mostly read nonfiction books about New York City history, and I'll share a few of my favorites with you. The definitive tome, of course, is Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Mike Wallace and Edwin Burrows. Another favorite of mine, as I love the history of New Amsterdam, is Island at the Center of the World:The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America by Russell Shorto. One of the most fascinating subjects I have been learning about is Native American history at the period of first European contact, and I really recommend checking out Adriaen Van Der Donck's A Description of New Netherland (The Iroquoians and their World), which many scholars agree is just as much of a significant work as William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation, and would be the definitive guide to the new world if it had been written in English. Evan Pritchard's Native New Yorkers: The Legacy of the Algonquian People of New York also offers an incredible look at native culture.

If you are interested in the subway system, check out Stan Fischler's fantastic Uptown, Downtown. One of the most underrated books I have picked up recently explores the construction of the amazing Grand Central Terminal, and I learned an incredible amount from it: Grand Central's Engineer: William J. Wilgus and the Planning of Modern Manhattan. If you are interested in urban planning, I would also suggest The Measure of Manhattan: The Tumultuous Career and Surprising Legacy of John Randel Jr., Cartographer, Surveyor, Inventor.

At this point I've read a ton of nonfiction books about the city, so if you have any questions or want any other recommendations, feel free to ask!

Mods: I'm not Native but I found these books immensely helpful when I had the same questions over the years. Please delete if this if it's not allowed.

If you want to know about America's indigenous people, go to the source. I suggest avoiding books written by non-Natives, although there are of course special exceptions. This is because history, research, and literature by non-Natives tends to have an underlying motive heavy with inaccuracies or romanticism. It's also written from a Eurocentricm perspective where European culture is the standard against which difference is measured. There is an excellent post over on /r/AskHistorians that breaks the difference down at length, which illustrates why these texts are often not representative of the people they're discussing. In particular, an indigenous perspective "places the emphasis of understanding on the actual relationship between two things" whereas a non-Native emphasizes the "understanding on the actual object rather than the relationship." The distinction is important and, in my experience, it's been difficult not to see the faults in non-Native written information afterward.

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People is a really good place to start. Yes, it's written for young folks, however, it doesn't dress up American history and instead presents it as is. You can use this book as a springboard for other topics. A lot of American history books present a cleaned up narrative that glosses over the human atrocities in favor of "unity." You see this jargon time and time again, even recently. So You Want to Write About American Indians? is also excellent, even if you're not a writer because she breaks down many of the self serving reasons behind non-Natives' discussions of Native America. And Custer Died for Your Sins is a classic in this discussion. This book was probably the most instrumental in peeling the romanticism away from my worldview. The chapter Anthropologists and Other Friends is an honest, raw, and direct dressing-down of non-Natives "studying" Native populations. And Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science has been one of the foremost books I've read (aside from the first one I linked) that dismantled my understanding of history and colonized misconceptions we take as fact when it comes to the social and historical misrepresentations of cultural, racial, ethnic, and national ideas of America's indigenous peoples. All of these items were written by indigenous people, from varying different cultural backgrounds and tribes. There are over 560 different federally recognized tribes, and they all have their own cultural backgrounds, languages, and history. Everyone is different. Try and be mindful of that when it's otherwise easy to say, "Native Americans believe that/Native American beliefs say/etc/etc."

I wasn't referring to old growth forests-which hasn't existed in parts of America for a very long time. Lets back up here. First, when the settlers arrived they described the New World forests as "Park-like" with very little underbrush. They were able to walk freely and easily among the trees and shoot/kill deer and rabbits easily due to this. This was due to regular burnings by the Native Americans on the east coast, which included burning trees. (Source: http://www.amazon.com/New-Worlds-All-Europeans-Remaking/dp/080185959X)

Then the settlers came, and the British monarchy needed trees for their ships. By the time the New World was found, there were very little trees left in England. Here is a link to the Pine tree issues in NH (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Tree_Riot) but it extended down the entire length of New England. There are historical houses and barns throughout New England that have 'contraband timber' which was hidden as the supporting beams of houses. Truly, England took a lot of timber from the Americas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_lumber_industry_in_the_United_States)

The civil war didn't help much, with armies needing massive amounts of timber to support military entrenchment.
>These armies were huge, mobile communities, bigger than any city in the South save New Orleans. They cut down enormous numbers of trees for the wood they needed to warm themselves, to cook, and to build military structures like railroad bridges. Capt. Theodore Dodge of New York wrote from Virginia, “it is wonderful how the whole country round here is literally stripped of its timber. Woods which, when we came here, were so thick that we could not get through them any way are now entirely cleared.”

(http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/the-civil-wars-environmental-impact/)

So what you think of as "Old growth" isn't more than 150 years old, and in some rare cases 200 years old. Climate change has effected some trees ability to survive in some climates in the Americas. Such as trees in Missouri, Tenessee, and Kentucky. They have been wracked with ice storms during the winters the last twenty years, causing heavy ice to bend and crack soft wood and hard wood trees.

Edit: I forgot to mention, there are also issues with pollution. The Morton Arboretum near Chicago is trying to tackle this issue currently, breeding trees that can withstand pollution in cities and around cities. Beeches are incredibly sensitive to pollution, and only thrive on very rich soil--which has been a significant loss to areas like Chicago, which are basically swamp like. It's a whole area that is incredibly interesting.


There is a lot going on here regarding the degradation of our forests.

I really like history books that don't at first seem to be history books, but are explorations of societies sometimes seen through the lens of a single important concept or product. For instance, Mark Kurlansky has several books such as Salt; A World History, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, The Basque History of the World, Nonviolence: 25 Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea that teach more history, and more important history than is usually taught in US public schools.

History need not be rote memorization of dates and figures. It can, and should be a fun exploration of ideas and how those ideas shaped civilizations. It can also be an exploration of what did not make it into the history books as Bart Ehrman's Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament or his Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why and Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels attest.

I don't wish to come across as too glib about this, but I feel like the average person might well retain more useful knowledge reading a book like A History of the World in 6 Glasses than if they sat through a semester of freshman history as taught by most boring, lame generic high schools. I feel like often the best way to understand history is to come at it tangentially. Want to understand the US Constitution? Study the Iroquois confederacy. Want to understand the French? Study cuisine and wine. Want to understand China? Study international trade. And so it goes. Sometimes the best history lessons come about from just following another interest such as astronomy or math or cooking. Follow the path until curiosity is sated. Knowledge will accumulate that way. ;-)

>it's just surreal that the natives of this land only gained the right to vote in it less than one century ago and it's kind of sickening to think about how archaic this time is.

I don't want to look like I'm forming a pity party, but the Civil Rights Movement didn't really help out Indian Country. We had to have our own round of protests and fighting in the 1970s. Check out the American Indian Movement, the Occupation of Alcatraz Island and especially the Alcatraz Proclamation, among others. What really stunning is that the American Indian Religious Freedom Act didn't come about until 1978, let alone the fact that they had to pass it at all!

>Are there any books, movies, or another form of media that are true stories or realistic fiction that depict American Indians in a way that you find to be interesting and faithful?

Anything by Vine Deloria, Jr. is awesome, although he is more historian and scientist than he is story-teller. A short list of my favorites:

• Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto
  
• God Is Red: A Native View of Religion
  
• Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact
  
  If you want to read some great fiction that depicts American Indians accurately, start with Sherman Alexie:
  
  
• Smoke Signals
  
• The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
  
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
  
  Outside of those authors, some popular picks are Black Elk Speaks and Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.
  
  As far as movies go, any self-respecting Indian has seen the movie Smoke Signals dozens of times. Powwow Highway is a favorite of mine, and Dance Me Outside is movie gold, although it doesn't get enough attention.
  
  >I'm thinking - why hasn't HBO or some big network done a drama that focuses on American Indians? This could be a very interesting book, as well... Or is this idea something even somewhat appealing to you as a young American Indian?
  
  I'm not sure what you are thinking, but I have my own ideas. I'd like to see a series that focuses on a single reservation for each episode, and details the hardships that the people of that reservation deal with on a daily basis. Call it a pity party, but there are children in the United States right now that live in houses with dirt floors and sleep on pallets and go to school on 30-year-old school buses on unkempt dirt roads (and sometimes off-road) where they learn a curriculum outdated for a decade or more........ I can go on and on. Get in your car and drive to Pine Ridge Reservation RIGHT NOW, you'll be convinced that you walked into a third world country in the middle of a war. Its not pretty. The corruption in the tribal government needs to be put in the spotlight, and the part that the Federal and State governments have played in this tragedy need to be righted. That's the facts.

You can find a lot in our booklist- I'll single out some from there that focus on writing and add some more.

• Breaking the Maya Code by Michael Coe is the example of what popular history can be. It's a thrilling account of the decipherment of Maya writing, which Dr. Coe played a big part in.
  
  
• Reading the Maya Glyphs by Coe and Mark VanStone is a sort of workbook companion to Coe's history. It teaches the fundamentals of Maya writing and is handy guide for further studies.
  
  
• Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens by Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube is less explicitly about the glyphs and more about what we can learn from them. Still, Martin and Grube are skilled epigraphers who reveal the history of several important city states with emphasis on how archaeologists and epigraphers work.
  
  
• Maya Decipherment is David Stuart's blog and a great thing to follow. Simon Martin and Stephen Houston frequently contribute, as do a handful of others. Lots of great articles of various topics,
  
  
• FAMSI has a great selection of resources on all kinds of Mesoamerican writing. Josserand & Hopkins' Glyph Workbook is generally better than Coe & VanStone's, if less official. The Kerr Vase Database is fun to look through, and the searchable dictionaries are useful.
  
  
• Corpus of Maya Heirogylphic Inscriptions from Harvard's Peabody Museum is a handy database that's easy to browse and nice to have on hand when other books/articles reference a monument. Sometimes has translations, almost always has transcriptions.
  
  
  
  

I'm going to use the terms Native, Indian, and Indigenous interchangeably here. There is fiery debate about whether this should be done among scholars. I also at times use the word "histories" instead of "history" and "peoples" instead of "people" to emphasize that Natives should not be talked about as one big group; they can be pretty culturally unique from one another, although much of their contact with colonists was similar. (Think about the difference between "I study Africans" and "I study Egyptians and Tutsi.")


I have a great deal to say about Native American histories and how we teach them here in the United States. If you want to get your feet wet, there are a few things you must know, and a few books I recommend.


First of all, you must understand that the majority of information we have about Native Americans was written by contemporary European colonists, and by modern academics (most of whom are white). I'm not suggesting white people can't teach Native history (I'm white and taught it after all), but I'm underscoring the fact that there are virtually no Natives in academia, and most pre-colonial Indigenous cultures did not write things down. They transmitted their history and culture via oral tradition. Thus, the majority of public history on the subject of Native Americans is filtered through what some people call a "colonial lens."


Second, and probably most importantly, Indigenous peoples generally have vastly differing conceptualizations of land, death, spirituality, property, family, and community from us (and by "us" I mean Western descendants of Europeans). The more you read about how some Natives imagine physical land or ownership of it, the more you realize how their cultures and histories are fundamentally difficult to examine, given that your entire framework for understanding reality does not map over theirs. Example: a Muslim can move from Morocco to New York and take his religion with him. He's still a Muslim in Times Square. The same is categorically not true for some Natives with regard to their understanding of theology.


Third, Natives are generally reluctant to share their culture with outsiders, at least historically, because their understanding of knowledge differs from ours. The European knowledge paradigm was to poke and prod and discover and gain knowledge at great cost; many Native cultures conceive of the concept of "protected knowledge" that loses its value and power if spread around too much. In some ways it's similar to the Old Testament Judeo-Christian belief that some knowledge is forbidden or obscured for a reason.


I tell you all of this because "understanding" Native histories is different from "understanding" French history or British history or Italian history. The barrier to entry is much higher for the above reasons.


But, if you want to begin learning, here are three books I recommend:


Wisdom Sits in Places - Keith Basso This is hands-down my favorite book on Native Americans. It is an analysis of Native land, and it will help you understand why forcibly removing an Indian tribe from one location to another completely fucks up their entire community and frequently causes cultural collapse. It's super short and moving. Written by an anthropologist.


Violence over the Land - Ned Blackhawk was written by one of the very few Native Americans in academia. He is considered a grandmaster historian and is hugely respected. This book explains what happens when you've got a bunch of Native cultures all living side-by-side, and then you introduce foreign influence/germs/weapons/money. It's a really big book so I'd skim it and know the arguments.


Ties that Bind - Tiya Miles Written by an Afro-Cherokee woman (who is also a professor). It examines the super complex relationships between the Cherokees, African slaves, and Euro-Americans.


All of these books will help you sort of "get" an important aspect of Native culture, belief, or experience.


Shameless plug: I am a horror author whose novel Stolen Tongues spends a lot of time elaborating on some of the points I made above, and attempts to represent Natives in fiction in a much more complex light. If you don't mind being kept awake all night, you might enjoy that book as an introduction to public history on Native Americans.


About me: I did my AA, BA, and MA in History, and during graduate school I specialized in Native American histories. I left teaching a few years ago and became a software engineer because although I loved my students and my job, it was financially unsustainable where I live (Bay Area, CA).

If you enjoyed Origins and especially the Duat scenes, you might enjoy reading more about it. Eric Hornung’s The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife is a good starting point. The Egyptian Book of the Dead is also very good. It has photos of the papyrus with the translation in English. (Amazon links for convenience, try to find them at a library of course.)

Nefertiti’s afterlife is the most true to the Egyptian conception of the Elysian Fields. It perfectly captures what Egyptologists find captivating about this stuff. If it grabs you on a visceral level, you might be an Egyptologist at heart. Feel free to ask me for new or different sources.

Peru 1532 - Atahualpa Inca agreeing to meet Francisco Pizarro and fewer than 200 Spanish soldiers in Cajamarca square.


Atahualpa had received the invaders from a position of immense strength. Encamped along the plains of Cajamarca with a large force of battle-tested troops fresh from their victories in the civil war against his half-brother Huascar, the Inca felt they had little to fear from Pizarro's tiny army, however exotic its dress and weaponry. In a calculated show of goodwill, Atahualpa had lured the adventurers deep into the heart of his mountain empire where any potential threat could be met with a show of force.

Despite their experience, Pizarro's 160 men had marched into an impasse and were now thoroughly frightened and desperate. All that they could decide during that anxious night was to employ the various tactics and advantages that had proved successful in the Caribbean. They could use surprise, attacking first without provocation, and take advantage of the novelty of their appearance and fighting methods. Their weapons - horses, steel swords and armor - were far superior to anything they had encountered so far in the Indies, although they were not so sure about the Incas. They had in mind the tactic that had succeeded so well in the conquest of Mexico: the kidnapping of the head of state. They could also try to make capital of the internal
dissensions within the Inca empire - Hernando Pizarro had already offered the services of Spaniards to help Atahualpa in his inter-tribal fighting.

Possibly their greatest advantage lay in the self-assurance of belonging to a more advanced civilization and the knowledge that their purpose was conquest: to the Indians, they were still an unknown quantity of uncertain origin and unsure intentions.

Atahualpa accepted this invitation but was in no hurry to make the short journey across the plain to Cajamarca. He had just finished a fast and there was drinking to be done to celebrate this and the victory of his forces at Cuzco. The morning went by with no sign of movement from the native encampment. Finally leading a procession of over eighty thousand men, he advanced down the hillside very slowly.

The familiar noble envoy arrived from Atahualpa saying that he intended to come with his men armed. 'The Governor replied: "Tell your lord to come ... however he wishes. In whatever way he comes, I will receive him as a friend and brother."The Spaniards were concealed in their buildings, under orders not to emerge until they heard the artillery signal. A chronicler recalled 'I saw many Spaniards urinate without noticing it out of pure terror.'

When the messenger reached Atahualpa, he made a reverence and told him, by signs, that he should go to where the Governor was.' He assured the Inca 'that no harm or insult would befall him. He could therefore come without fear - not that the Inca showed any sign of fear.' Shortly before sunset Atahualpa left the armed warriors who had accompanied him, on an open meadow about half a mile outside Cajamarca. His immediate party still numbered over seven thousand but were unarmed except for small battle axes intended for show.

Eighty lords carried him on their shoulders, all wearing a very rich blue livery. He was seated on the litter, on a small stool with a rich saddle cushion. When Atahualpa arrived, Pizarro launched the ambush with the prearranged signal and killed many hundreds of Atahualpa's family and followers. Many tried to save the Inca but it was futile. The carnage continued.

The kidnapping set of a chain of events but the immediate aftermath was Atahualpa tried to ransom himself, and Pizzarro tried to use him as a puppet ruler. When that did not materialize, Pizzaro executed Atahualpa in 1533. Over the next thirty years the Spanish struggled against various insurrections, but, with the help of native allies, they finally gained control of the Inca empire in the 1560's.

Many reasons can be offered for the fall of the Incas, but the sudden conquest of a mighty empire by only a handful of Spaniards is still hard to comprehend.

Read The Conquest Of The Incas by John Hemming ( 1970 ) if ever get a chance, felt great empathy and shock at the sheer amount of missed chances. Gripping book & considered by many to be one of the finest if not the finest large scale historical study ever written. Link


Edit : Thank you very much to the kind soul that gifted me my first gold :)

Edit : Added text from the book.

The Florentine Codex is a document of Aztec knowledge compiled by the Spanish. It's a really interesting read. When I read it I focused on parts which detail some pretty sophisticated medical knowledge--hampered of course by the Spaniard's lack of such knowledge.

I would say the Aztecs definitely surprised Europeans in their ways of life, what with human sacrifice and all.

Regarding Native Americans in the present day US, an idea of the "noble savage" emerged and played a large part in philosophies of romanticism.

This is a great book I read recently regarding Native issues in American today from a Native perspective. Truthful and good-humored too. You can get a sense of what Native Americans may feel about their historical interactions with white Americans, what they think that the white people wanted from them.

I found a decent 70s-era Cherokee textbook on eBay a while back, and I started to work through the exercises in it, but I eventually shelved the book when I considered that, living here in Charleston, South Carolina, I wasn't likely to find opportunities to practice the language often—or ever. But I'm just back from a trip to western North Carolina, where I met some native speakers, and I'm feeling inspired. I'd love to practice. Hell, I'll even copy a few pages and send them over if you feel like comparing notes. I studied Nahuatl back in college and speak that pretty well. But like you, I come from Appalachian stock (Scots-Irish, mostly) and I'm interested in Cherokee history and culture.

Maybe Erik Hornung's "The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife" could help?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Ancient-Egyptian-Books-Afterlife/dp/0801485150

It's got a chapter on the Amduat (Eg. Imy Duat, I think? lit, "The Things of the Underworld"), and a chapter on the Book of Gates. From what I understand, they're kind of similar, in that the Book of Gates follows the progress of a soul through the underworld after death, where the Amduat follows the journey of Ra through the underworld each night, dividing the journey into twelve hours, each hour being a different district of the underworld. It actually looks like a pretty comprehensive overview from the ToC shown on Amazon.

Plus, as a special bonus, you get the Litany of Re, the Book of the Heavenly Cow, and the Book of Traversing Eternity. Fun reading!

Not sure if you're looking for something more New-Agey, but this is a great book that was recommended to me about faery tradition: http://www.amazon.com/Cunning-Folk-Familiar-Spirits-Shamanistic-Traditions/dp/1845190793/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458325340&sr=1-1&keywords=cunning+folk+and+familiar+spirits

Wilby examines specific recorded accounts of interactions between humans and the Good People, draws comparisons in connection to kinds of witchcraft (cunning folk specifically working as benevolent mediators), and then also relates these workings to the shamanistic tradition in Europe and the New World.


Another great book is R.J. Stewart's translation and commentary on Robert Kirk's "The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, & Fairies": http://www.amazon.com/Robert-Kirk-Walker-Between-Worlds/dp/0979140242/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458326038&sr=1-7&keywords=r.j.stewart

This provides Kirk's relatively short manuscript of studies and theories on the Good People, which he skated a thin line of heresy on as a minister of the church. He worked to collect word of mouth instances and stories and applied them to what he knew regarding science and the church's world outlook. Stewart provides commentary and helps to round out the text, as well as speaks about Kirk's mysterious death and the possibility that he was actually taken to the Otherworld.

The pacific northwest has always had a strong presence of native americans. Humans came over into the american continents as far back as 16-18 thousand years ago (kya). They did so by walking over the Land Bridge that Sarah Palin uses to get to russia (joke), and by boat, believe it or not, up and down the british columbia/washington/oregon coast. There's been a lot of study on their culture, but most of it has to do with survival. What they ate, how they lived, and of course where they put their trash (refuse middens, aka trash piles are an extremely valuable resource for archaeologists).
Additionally, the native americans spread out to the other sides of the mountains. Generally, cultures were split by the mountains due to the geographical limitations created by them. The coast range people were very coastal fishing oriented; those in the Willamette valley (Portland, Salem, Eugene Oregon); and then the eastern plateau people. Further north different tribes were created, but all had generally similar cultures, compared to those on other sides of the mountains. IIRC, Chief Sealth led the Suquamish tribe in late historic times (1800's or something...sorry not sure), and Seattle is named after him.

I'm a geologist primarily, and archaeologist second, so sorry of I don't remember every bit from my arch classes. However, I do remember one fact which is really interesting, and connects cultures across the pacific.
Surely you heard about the Cascadia Subduction Zone article in Time magazine a few months ago. Native americans in the northwest survived through the disaster, and told the story of a battling thunderbird and whale. However, a connection was made between their oral history, and the extremely accurate tsunami logs in historic Japan, and scientists were able to trace back the last CSZ event to 9PM of January 26th, 1700, which is pretty freaking incredible if you ask me.

Anyways, This Book has incredible resources in all of the different cultures of native americans in Oregon. Their class was very informative, and it's worth a look-through.

You're welcome! It was also an eye opener for me, as it was one of the books that encouraged me to make learning and teaching about New York City history part of my life's work. I grew up near Adriaen Van Der Donck's farm, where Van Cortlandt Park is now, and I have had a particular interest in his life for a long time. The recent translation of his pivotal A Description of New Netherland is a worthwhile read (it has an introduction from Shorto so you know it's good).

I have read some awesome new books recently, and I will make sure to update the book list with them soon. I really just can't get enough of this historical stuff!

Dark Tide is a great book all about the flood and why it happened, both the science and the politics.

Also, the notion that "for nearly 100 years, the Great Molasses Flood has remained a great mystery," is pretty far off the mark.

One scholar has estimated that over 210,000 people lived on the Northwest Coast at Contact. It had one of the highest population densities of anywhere in North America. Many people supported by a hugely productive area; and people here were hugely inventive, creative in ways they caught, prepared, collected the hundreds of food and other resource items. Mind blowing, truly, the kinds of knowledge people had. I know your question is focused on population size---but it is interesting to think about how that came to be. Yes, there was a “natural abundance” of food (think salmon, sturgeon, elk, deer, beaver, berried, roots like camas and wappato), but people were not simply passive consumers. They had so much knowledge about all that was around them. Read any explorer accounts (like Lewis and Clark)…. And these visitors were amazed and frankly would have had trouble surviving a winter, if not for the help of the local Native people.

Best resource for demographic stuff: Robert Boyd , 1999, The Coming of the Pestilence: Introduced Infectious Diseases….

Oregon Archaeology (Aikens, Connoly, Jenkins)
https://www.amazon.com/Oregon-Archaeology-Melvin-C-Aikens/dp/0870716069

Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia (edited by Boyd, Ames, Johnson)

http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/BOYCHI.html

If you're interested in acquiring a book on it, let me recommend the one from Chronicle Books, The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day. I've owned a few books on it and while others have more scholarly interest, they can also be dry reading. The Chronicle Books edition shows images of the scroll, and then gives you the translation underneath, which I found incredibly visually interesting as a non-Egyptologist.

If you want more scientific detail and analysis, I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will recommend a more recent book. I got my start three decades ago with The Papyrus of Ani in the British Museum, by E. A. Wallis Budge. Lots of fascinating historical detail, even if his conclusions have probably all been refined or refuted since then.

Your best bet for a narrative history of the occupation would be Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior's Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. As the title says it goes from the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz through 1972's BIA occupation and concludes with WK. It's well written and a fun read. Matthiesson's In the Spirit of Crazy Horse: The Story of Leonard Peltier and the FBI’s War on the American Indian Movement deals mostly with the Leonard Peltier trial but it has some good stuff about what happened following Wounded Knee.

PBS also did an episode of American Experience on the subject that's available online.

There's a few other books that are somewhat related and may be of interest. Charles Wilkinson's Blood Struggle deals with the legal and political actions of tribes during the twentieth century. It talks about Wounded Knee a little bit but it's mostly a legal history. Additionally Indians in Unexpected Places is a wonderful read on the differences between the lives Indians lived and white expectations, which influenced a lot of the talk about Wounded Knee.

I've got piles of books lying around my apartment so if you need anymore I can probably pull some more.

Read this. Great, funny, interesting book about all the visitors to the Americas between Columbus (and before) and up to the Pilgrims landing, including Roanoke. Favorite line (paraphrasing): "When the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth the first Native American they encountered not only spoke fluent English, but asked if they had brought beer." Great read.

Personally, I've never liked any of the witchcraft books that you'll typically find in a bookstore. Though not all, many are Wiccan or neo-pagan, and are more the author's own opinion than anything else. While there's nothing wrong with that, it's not what I'm looking for in a book. Recently I've taken a liking to more scholarly works. They're harder to read, and can be really boring at times, but it's a wealth of research and sources. I've been reading Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits by Emma Wilby. I highly recommend it! She pieces together the beliefs and practices of witches (cunning folk) through witch trial records, with a focus on the concept of the witch's familiar.

Cunning-Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic https://www.amazon.com/dp/1845190793/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_JkJ2Cb6ESTNSE

There are several books on Egypt that are well worth your while, including (in no particular order):

Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt by John Anthony West.

Egyptian Magic by Florence Farr.

On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans and Assyrians by Iamblichus, trans. by Thomas Taylor.

Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World by Gerald Massey.

The Book of the Dead trans. by E.A. Wallis Budge.

I hope that helps.

A tangentially related thing might be the Luddites. The Luddites were not against technology, but they saw the profits of technological advancements in clothing manufacture go to the owners of capital, rather than any of them; and wanted a fairer share.

I'm not saying Enterprise did any of this--and I'm too lazy to go look any of it up--but something they could have done would be, say, have such transport crews express that Warp 5 is okay, even great, but have no interest whatsoever in working for or with Starfleet.

Historically, I'm not sure we can assert there's a consistent tendency for people to be afraid of change as such. People adapt fairly rapidly to change just as often, if even more often, than they do resist it out of fear or spite. Humans wouldn't have gotten far as a species if our prevailing instinct was to throw away more useful tools or methods. In this respect we should probably differentiate between new economies or technology (tendency to embrace), versus new cultural mores (tendency to reject or syncretize).

That does not mean there wasn't resistance to such adaptations, or that they didn't upset the social order. "Realistically," which is to say, how I'd expect Star Trek to play out given what I know of the past, there should be a lot of Travises; young people who embraced the future and prospered. The idea that there'd be a generational divide? That's plausible.

But as always, ask: Cui bono?

For what it's worth, I'm basing my post on a few books I've read recently, most notably: https://www.amazon.com/Native-Ground-Colonists-Continent-American/dp/0812219392

If you like this story you have to read Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 by Stephen Puleo. I couldn't put it down and ended up reading it in one sitting. Looks like you can get it for 90 cents used on Amazon!

If anyone is interested about the history of the Oregon Trail, as well as how much of it has been preserved today, I highly recommend checking out The Oregon Trail by Rinker Buck. It is a fascinating read and I learned a lot more about the trail than I had known before.

You are asking me to condense Early Modern History to a comment on Reddit? Uhh, no. But you can read a book if you are interested!

Try After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000

Great read, with a new Global perspective on the rise and fall of Empires.

If you want to continue, you should then dive into the arbitrary/flexible notion of the Empire and read The Comanche Empire

Good stuff.

Well, according to that page, radiocarbon dates at the Honey Creek site show that it was occupied through the Early Historic era. That means that Europeans were present and active on the landscape.

European contact drastically reduced native populations through conflict and disease. Sites would be abandoned with reduced population. Most of the Native Americans that were left would either be pushed off of the land, or forced into more European ways of life. This was especially common in Spanish-held parts of the continent, where conversion of the Natives to Catholicism was very important. Many Native Americans in the American Southwest were forced into virtual slave labor in Spanish Missions, forever severing them from their traditional way of life. I, however, am not the best person to talk about that. An actual historian would the early contact era would be a much more useful source.

Another major change in human subsistence during the Early Historic era on the Edwards Plateau was the intensification of the bison-hunting and trading economy dominated by the expanding Comanche presence. This new economy was enabled by the re-introduction of the horse into North America and drastically changed the way of life on the Great Plains and surrounding regions. The Comanche Empire by Pekka Hämäläinen is a fantastic book on the subject.

So in summary, the Edwards Plateau was undergoing several great transitions between 1400 AD and 1700 AD. Traditional ways of life drastically changed during this time period.

Professor here. I'm actually teaching a class I put together from scratch this summer on Indian/Anglo relationships in the colonial and early republic eras. I've published a little on Indians but at the turn of the 18th century, which might be too early for you.

Anyway, I'm not at home now, but if you're really interested in a giant list of books (I don't think anyone can get "comprehensive"), then just PM me and I'll look at my shelves when I'm at home.

edit: The five books I'm assigning for the class, if you're interested are:

http://www.amazon.com/New-Worlds-All-Europeans-Remaking/dp/080185959X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301062905&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Name-War-Philips-American-Identity/dp/0375702628/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301062952&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.com/Indians-Settlers-Frontier-Exchange-Economy/dp/080784358X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1301062975&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Spirited-Resistance-1745-1815-University-Historical/dp/0801846099/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1301062994&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Parading-through-History-1805-1935-American/dp/0521485223/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1301063005&sr=1-1

Mark Kurlansky (author of Salt: A World History) wrote a fascinating book about Basque history and culture. I definitely recommend it:

The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation

For the history of the Incas:

The Last Days of the Incas by Kim McQuarrie is really excellent.
The Conquest of the Incas by John Hemming is also very good.

Because they maintained some form of independence and were capable of defending their lands pretty well (the Pyreness create a nice natural barrier). The Celts and Iberians didn't affect Basque life much. The Romans, who did eventually conquer the Basques, didn't develop/Romanize it too well, being more interested on the Mediterranean coast. After the fall of the Romans and the rise of the Franks and Visigoths, the state of Vasconia (Gascony) was more or less consolidated (602), alternating between absolute independence or a client state of the Franks.

With the eventual absorption of Gascony into French politics (~1053), we then see the rise of the Kingdom of Pamplona/Navarre (824), which existed as an independent entity until 1512, when it was absorbed into the greater Spanish crown. It's important to note that Basque regions that were annexed usually asked that their new lords allow them to govern themselves according to their own laws and traditions. These vows, taken by the lord, were done in public/holy places, leaving the Basques to enjoy a greater amount of autonomy.

Shown so far is a history of independence and self-rule from pre-history to the early 16th century. Unfortunately, I don't have much on the history between then and the rise of nationalism. However, if France wasn't able to consolidate French entirely until the late 19th century, and we are to believe that only ~50% of people in France could speak any French in 1789 and only 25% spoke it as their native language in 1871, this raises issues with the idea of a centralized state capable of enforcing its language, specially on semi-autonomous region or ethnic minorities in the peripheries.

This brings us into the modern era. The Basques sided with the losers during the Spanish Civil War. Under Francisco Franco, who took power, speaking Basque was banned in Spain, and the region saw greater immigration from the poorer parts of the country, both of which severely damaged the amount of Basque being spoken.

EDIT: Seeing as this was well received, I'd like to introduce you all to Sancho the Great. He was the Basque king of Pamplona from 1004 to 1035, and before his death untied all of Christian northern Spain, from Galicia, through Leon and Castile, to Navarre and Aragon. His descendants would continue to rule those kingdoms after him. He also greatly improved the roads from Leon to Gascony, leading to increased trade coming in from mainland Europe and the greater popularization of the holy site at Santiago.

So, say what you want of the Basques as a minority group, but I have to side with Mark Kurlansky's biased views of the Basques in that Spanish customs and Iberian Catholicism would not exist as they are without the Basques, among other things.

I highly recommend some reading such as this. Its an excellent analysis and not too heady.

Highlights from my library...

At introductory level, Skilton A Concise History of Buddhism is a good overview of Buddhism from an historical perspective.

Foundations of Buddhism by Rupert Gethin is a fairly good modern overview of Buddhist ideas.

Kalupahana A history of Buddhist philosophy - slightly eccentric, but some excellent coverage of Buddhist thought. Stops short of Tantra. However, supplement with Samuel The Origins of Yoga and Tantra.

Snellgrove Indo-Tibetan Buddhism covers late Mahāyāna and Tantra; theory oriented. Perhaps a but dated now, but non-sectarian.

For early Buddhist texts, Gethin's selections from the Pāḷi Canon is probably a better bet than Bodhi's massive tome. It is more focussed. If you get into Pāli Suttas then get the Nikāya translations, starting with Majjhima Nikāya (the most readable). Another lesser know anthology is by Glenn Wallis Basic Teachings of the Buddha. Slightly idiosyncratic, but a very interesting perspective.

For a traditional anthology of Mahāyāna texts try the much neglected Śikṣamuccaya by Śāntideva (8th Century). I have a different edition to this link, so maybe look around.

Tantra doesn't lend itself to anthologies. I think probably the best introduction to Tantra is Hakeda Kūkai: Major Works, though it may not entirely stand alone, you'll at least know what the right questions are. I've never found any book by a Tibetan Buddhist to rival Kūkai for clarity of exposition about what Tantra Buddhism is.

In terms of practice, Buddhism is often sharply divided by sectarianism and so books on practice tend to be narrowly focussed along sectarian lines. And even on single practices within sects (such as books on Theravāda approaches to breath meditation only; Zen approaches to koan practice and so on.). Note that having asked for a comprehensive book, most of the suggestions are sectarian and ignore centuries of development of Buddhism in other directions.

Buddhism also often suffers from a theory/practice disconnect. A lot of our theory/doctrine has no practical application; while some of our practices are poorly understood and communicated.

The fact is that if you take one sect at a starting point, you will find much of what you learn contradicted when you shift to a different sectarian point of view. Sects tend to present their sectarian point of view as Buddhism without ever letting on that other brands are available. So a comprehensive outline of Buddhism is almost impossible without fudging a lot of conflict and contradiction.

It's time once again for the AskHistorians Book Giveaway! This month we picked two winners: Eric Hacke and Alec Barnaby! The selection of books we have available this month are:

• Eugene Rogan's The Arabs: A History, recommended by /u/cptbuck.
  
  
• Vine Deloria's Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, recommended by /u/snapshot52.
  
  
• Terry Bouton's Taming Democracy: "The People," the Founders, and the Troubled Ending of the American Revolution, recommended by /u/uncovered-history.
  
  
• Eugene Crosby's Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900, my recommendation
  
  Want a chance to get a free book? Help support the podcast via Patreon!

Dark Tide by Stephen Puleo. Kind of niche topic, but a good read.

I had to read it in college. It is actually very interesting. I provided a link to the book for those that are interested.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0807050210?pc_redir=1405433114&robot_redir=1

Almost 20 years ago I had a book with cassettes that taught basic Cherokee. It's still in print, though it doesn't seem to be sold with the accompanying audio now. EDIT: Nope, here are the CDs.

I would still love to learn this language... maybe when I retire...

You would love this book. It's all about the period you mention: http://www.amazon.com/Voyage-Long-Strange-Conquistadors-Adventurers/dp/0312428324/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Curtis' images are incredibly flawed documents. He did a fair amount of artistic editing of the clothing his subjects wore and the environments they were photographed in. His focus was on photographing what he believed to be the "true" Native that he believed was going extinct. In doing so, he created a large documentary record filled with false truths. The "history" he created was of his own creation, not of those he was photographing.

Curtis' work has been used as the definitive record of that period's Native life by many people who do not know about his photo staging. Often, they are used as documents against modern Indians as a way to delegitimize our cultural authenticity. This has lead to a lot of resentment towards his work. If he had photographed Indian peoples in their real contexts, there would not only be less resentment, but there would be a better modern understanding of the interactions between Indian cultures and Western technology over time by the general public.

As it stands, Curtis' photographs are a staged romantic view of historical Indians that can be described as little more than a stereotype.

To see an opposite example, check out Phil Deloria's Indians in Unexpected Places.

The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey is a great book about traveling the Oregon Trail via covered wagon in the modern era.

If anyone is interested in these sorts of wagons, a guy took one down the original Oregon Trail a few years ago and wrote a bestselling book on it. Tl;Dr: mules>oxen.

You can read to book dark tide if you want more info.
It would probably make a good movie actually...
https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Tide-Great-Boston-Molasses/dp/0807050210

Just symbols and symbology, generally?

A specific set of symbols, like Mayan glyphs or graffiti tags?

A fictional story involving symbols and codes?

Some suggestions:

Oral History/Stories

• The Sons of the Wind: The Sacred Stories of the Lakota - Dooling
  
  
• American Indian Myths and Legends - Erdoes, Ortiz
  
  
• American Indian Trickster Tales - Erdoes, Ortiz
  
  Historical/Educational material
  
  
• Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Contitions of North American Indian; Vol. I & II - Catlin
  
  
• Major Problems in American Indian History - Hertado, Iverson
  
  
• We are Still Here: American Indians in the Twentieth Century - Iverson
  
  
• American Indian Politics and the American Political System - Wilkins, Stark
  
  Native Authors
  
  
• Custer Died For Your Sins - Vine Deloria Jr.
  
  
• Standing in the Light - Young Bear, Theisz
  
  
• The Way to Rainy Mountain - Momaday
  
  
• Prayers of Smoke
  
  
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West - Brown
  
  Non-Native Authors
  
  
• Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder - Nerburn
  
  
• The Wolf at Twilight: An Indian Elder's Journey through a Land of Ghosts and Shadows - Nerburn
  
  
  Region Specific
  
  
• Lakota Society - Walker
  
  
• The Lakota and The Black Hills - Ostler
  
  
• Black Elk Speaks - Neihardt
  
  And just for fun, a Movie
  
  
• Dreamkeeper - Steve Barron
  
  Feel free to point out any mistakes, I'll add more should I think of them.
  
  These are just suggestions.

I remember reading this one in a college history class and thinking it was pretty powerful:

Custer Died For Your Sins by Vine Deloria Jr.

Well, you chose a complicated subject of study! Maya glyphs are mostly written in classic Cholan, wich is a dead language... so, first you need to have a basic understanding of at least Yukatek (modern) maya, it's the very basic requirement to study maya glyphs.

Once you have the basic understanding on Maya as a language, you can start using this

BEGINNER'S VISUAL CATALOG OF MAYA HIEROGLYPHS by Alexandre Tokovinine

http://www.mesoweb.com/resources/catalog/Tokovinine_Catalog.pdf

And then use a somehow more advanced book like this

https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Maya-Glyphs-Second-Michael/dp/0500285535

"Unsubdued Indians"...damn straight, that's Comanche territory (check out Comanche Empire to learn how very unsubdued they were). Silly Euro-Americans.

For anyone who hasn't read it, Dark Tide is a great book that goes into depth about the lead up, accident, and aftermath.

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Tide-Great-Boston-Molasses/dp/0807050210

I read a book recently about a guy who recreated the journey. It’s pretty crazy. Link

[Dark Tide] (http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Tide-Great-Boston-Molasses/dp/0807050210)

also [The Dante Club] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dante_Club) is a lighter fiction based book in boston

Maybe it's time to try something else? Beware the white liberal.

The tomato is a new world vegetable.
All of the usual foods you think of as Italian weren't Italian until post-Columbus exchange.

Source:the Basque people were the first importers of tomatos, tobacco, etc. etc. etc.

Would maybe start with an overview on underworld texts

Amduat and Amduat explained

Pyramid Texts

Book of the Dead (very large pages with full color plates of the Ani papyrus + translations)

Coffin Texts

Book of Gates and Book of Gates explained

Some of these may be available for PDF download elsewhere, if you search by ISBN.

The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife by Erik Hornung.

Dark Tide
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Tide-Great-Boston-Molasses/dp/0807050210

The Boston Molasses Flood of 1919.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/01/14/nearly-century-later-new-insight-into-cause-great-molasses-flood/CNqLYc0T58kNo3MxP872iM/story.html

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Tide-Great-Boston-Molasses/dp/0807050210

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Tide-Great-Boston-Molasses/dp/0807050210
Great book on the tragedy

You forget Basque fishermen. Here you go.

Actually it’s a pretty half-assed article. Great subject, but the so-called mystery is pure hype. The only revelation, and it’s not much of one, is offering an explanation of the speed that the molasses traveled. But the rest — why the tank collapsed, how people died (duh!), etc. — is explained in detail in “Dark Tide,” a very good book on the subject. Rather shoddy reporting on the part of the Times to be unaware of the book’s existence. But then there wouldn’t have been a “mystery” to write about.

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Tide-Great-Boston-Molasses/dp/0807050210/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480173259&sr=1-2&keywords=dark+tide

1st act of U.S. domestic terrorism i believe. "Dark Tide" about it was a pretty good read. the molasses was all about war supply chain / munitions (Industrial Alcohol) back in the day: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Tide-Great-Boston-Molasses/dp/0807050210

Try reading Custer Died For Your Sins by Vine Deloria.

1491 by Charles C. Mann

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiesson

Custer Died For Your Sins by Vine Deloria Jr.

Those are the three that I always answer this question with.

Fire in the Grove: The Cocoanut Grove Tragedy and Its Aftermath

Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919

Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894

The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche

Curse of the Narrows: The Halifax Disaster of 1917

Chicago Death Trap: The Iroquois Theatre Fire of 1903

To Sleep with the Angels: The Story of a Fire


Albatross
"One late summer's day, the yacht Trashman set sail from Annapolis to Florida. On board were five young people: John, the captain; Meg, Mark, Brad, and Debbie Scaling. When the boat sailed into a gale, the eighty-knot winds shredded the sails. Forty-foot seas crashed through the cabin windows, and Trashman sank, leaving the crew adrift in a rubber dinghy. Albatross tells the story of how Debbie and Brad survived and how the tragedy changed Debbie Scaling's life forever."

have not read yet, supposed to be good:
Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival

I am only answering further because I looked at your artwork and it is nice, and it seems you did not pursue the anthropology thing further, which is a good thing. So there's the possibility you're not completely aligned with the US anthropology cult, with its known problems, prejudices and motivations.

I am glad you pointed out various Maya are still around, this is important to educate people on. After all, if they weren't around any more, who would the US have to finance the assassination of in central america through ongoing genocidal schemes?

Your follow up statement that "I'm led to believe that their view of the downfall would be as varied as the countries across which they are spread" does suggest that you have in fact talked to Maya people, and are aware that there was no "collapse" at all, and are aware there is no single Mayan people, and are aware that the ongoing changes in various Maya cultures in history, like the histories of most cultures, aren't particularly sudden or mysterious. These were the main issues with your previous post.

Maya peoples know their history, have maintained their oral and written records, and there is no huge mystery of their history.

There is only the american anthropologists and archaeologists who continue to claim that there is a mystery here or there, while they ignore actual history kept by non-white and non-american peoples. (I qualify this with 'white' because the non-white american anthropologists I know do not have this belief, nor do the non-american white anthropologists.) These are bizarre claims and are among the many reasons that american anthropologists are regarded with skepticism and ridicule by much of the rest of the world anthropological communities.

Worthwhile reading to decolonize the minds of those who have been through US or similarly minded anthro programs.

Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State

From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich

Darkness in El Dorado

Custer Died for Your Sins

Indians and Anthropologists

Read all these. Then proceed.