November is Native American Heritage Month, a time to honor Indigenous histories, cultures, voices, and contributions. One meaningful way to celebrate is by reading books written by and about Indigenous people that center Native perspectives, preserve cultural knowledge, and challenge longstanding misconceptions about American history. Here, we’ve collected books that highlight the diverse histories and cultures of Native communities, particularly across the Pacific Northwest and California, for your reading list this month and beyond.
Fighting for the Puyallup Tribe: A Memoir
Ramona Bennett Bill’s “remarkable memoir” (Ms. Magazine) is an invaluable firsthand account of Native resistance. Drawn from a lifetime of activism, the book is full of vivid stories of Bennett Bill’s fearless testimony in courtrooms and press conferences on issues affecting Indian Country, and of the many friends and comrades she made along the way.
Native Alienation: Spiritual Conquest and the Violence of California Missions
Charles Sepulveda crafts a “powerful account of both violence and resilience” (Ethnic and Racial Studies) in this pathbreaking reconsideration of California Indian history. Native Alienation challenges the romantic portrayal of Spanish missions, reconstructing the history of Spanish conquest to confront the erasure of Indian individuality and resistance.
Indigenizing California Mission Art and Architecture
In this illustrated addition to California mission scholarship, Yve Chavez examines how Native artists kept their culture alive under colonial rule. Her fresh analysis not only recasts mission art and architecture within an Indigenizing framework but also serves as a vital resource for understanding the ongoing significance of these sites for the descendants of mission survivors.
Refusing Settler Domesticity: Native Women’s Labor and Resistance in the Bay Area Outing Program
Caitlin Keliiaa traces the lives and experiences of Native women coerced from boarding schools and brought to labor as live-in workers in the San Francisco Bay Area in this award-winning book. “The narratives and other historical details are fascinating glimpses in time that tug on the emotions in every direction and remind us of the spirit of resistance and the ongoing fight for equality” (News from Native California).
A Drum in One Hand, A Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast
Charlotte Coté shares her Tseshaht community’s and her own work to revitalize relationships to haʔum (traditional food) as a way to nurture health and wellness, linking contemporary Nuu-chah-nulth practices of traditional food to the broader context of food sovereignty in Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest. “To be privy to such information feels like an incredible gift: Coté’s stories are generous and insightful” (Pacific Northwest Quarterly).
Yéil Kundayaayí, Adventures of Raven: Tlingit Raven Stories
Edited by Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Richard Dauenhauer, Will Geiger, and Jeff Leer and published in association with Sealaska Heritage Institute, this monumental volume brings together Raven stories by Tlingit storytellers. Here the legendary cultural hero’s adventures appear for the first time in the original language—transcribed directly from recordings of oral performance—accompanied by facing English translations and detailed annotations.
We Are Dancing For You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women’s Coming-of-Age Ceremonies
In this deeply personal account, Cutcha Risling Baldy brings us the voices of people transformed by cultural revitalization. Following the resurgence of the Flower Dance, the women’s coming-of-age ceremony for the Hoopa Valley Tribe, she locates this revival within a broad context of decolonizing praxis and considers how this renaissance confounds ethnographic depictions of Native women.
Cherokee Earth Dwellers: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World
Ayetli gadogv—to “stand in the middle”—is at the heart of a Cherokee perspective of the natural world. From this stance, Cherokee Earth Dwellers offers a rich understanding of nature grounded in Cherokee creature names, oral traditional stories, and reflections of knowledge holders. During his lifetime, elder Hastings Shade created booklets with over six hundred Cherokee names for animals and plants. With this foundational collection at its center, and weaving together a chorus of voices, this book emerges from a deep and continuing collaboration between Christopher B. Teuton, Hastings Shade, Loretta Shade, and others.
Anakú Iwachá: Yakama Legends and Stories
This collection, translated and edited by Vi Hilbert, compiles and expands foundational Yakama stories, sharing lessons, values, and customs from across the Columbia River plateau and the Pacific Northwest. With Ichishkíin and English text, annotations, a glossary, and artwork by Tribal artists, Anakú Iwachá helps readers, teachers, and students engage with the legends as teaching and learning tools and as a precious gift to current and future generations.
Haboo: Native American Stories from Puget Sound
Beautifully illustrated and filled with vivid tales, this collection includes the stories and legends of the Lushootseed-speaking people of Puget Sound, translated by Vi Hilbert and with a foreword by Jill La Pointe. Haboo offers a vivid and invaluable resource for linguists, anthropologists, folklorists, future generations of Lushootseed-speaking people, and others interested in Native languages and cultures.
Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers
Gathering a dynamic combination of Native writers, this anthology of essays, edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton, grounds the written word in the formal art of basket weaving, turning the essay into a mode of resistance and homage to the practice. “A veritable feast of First Nations and Native American writers that readers may otherwise never have discovered” (World Literature Today).
Jesintel: Living Wisdom from Coast Salish Elders
“A rich visual feast that honors Pacific Northwest Indigenous life” (Library Journal), this heavily photographed book from Children of the Setting Sun Productions (now Setting Sun Circle) celebrates the experience, history, and community of the Coast Salish people through interviews with elders. Their powerful experiences and stories illuminate the importance of ethical reciprocal relationships and the interconnectedness of places, land, water, and the spirit within all things.
