Description: The Mayan Chilam Balam books are named after Yucatec towns such as Chumayel, Mani, and Tizimin, and are usually collections of disparate texts in which Mayan and Spanish traditions have coalesced. The Yucatec Mayas ascribed these to a legenda
Description: J. Eris S. Thompson was one of the leading 20th century Mayan scholars. This is a set of excerpts from Thompson's massive opus on Mayan writing. Mayan dates were the first elements of this writing system which were decoded, so there is extensive discussion of the Mayan calendar in this work. New portions of this book will be added in the near future, but it is not feasible to post the entire book on the web at this point.
Description: The Navajo are a tribe of Native Americans who live in the southwestern United States. They speak the Navajo language, and many are members of the Navajo Nation, an independent government structure which manages the Navajo reservation in the
Description: The Jicarilla Apache lived in what is now Northern New Mexico and Eastern Colorado. Their name means 'Little Baskets'. Along with the Navaho they were among the southernmost of the Athabascans. They are grouped with the Plains indians, due to
Description: Mission Indians, predominantly from present-day California (although members of the Shoshone also joined), were groups of Native Americans who were brought to live in the Spanish missions in California, and there baptized as Catholics, under
Description: A funeral is a ceremony marking a person's death. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from the funeral itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor. These customs vary widely between cultures, and between religious affiliations within cultures. In some cultures the dead are venerated; this is commonly called ancestor worship. The word funeral comes from the Lat...
A funeral is a ceremony marking a person's death
Description: Ethnological presentation of Navaho mythology, from the Smithsonian Bulletin. Contains rare and no longer in print material essential to the understanding of the history of this tribe
Description: When, some seven years ago, I took up the duties of stipendiary magistrate, medical officer, and protector of Indians in this mosquito-cursed district of the Pomeroon, I determined upon devoting all my spare time—and there has been plenty of
Description: This is a collection of Native American folklore, retold for children and young adults, over a century ago. The author, probably not a Native American herself, drew on authentic lore from a wide variety of culture regions, but sprinkled in st
Description: The Shoshone (also spelled Shoshoni) are Native Americans of the Great Basin region, and south and east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Shoshoneans are distributed widely--from Southern California, Death Valley and Mono Lake, through Uta
Description: This is A. L. Kroebers' classic article on the religion of Native California. It covers the entire culture region.
Description: Peyote has never been a drug for thrill seekers. The small, hard cactus is difficult to obtain. It tastes vile, ingestion normally leads to painful vomiting, and the effects are more subtle than other psychedelics. The Native American Peyot
Description: This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the
Description: This short book about Yosemite Valley and its original inhabitants was written early in the 20th century. Of particular interest are the photographs, which are all in the public domain; while not as gorgeous as those taken in later years by A
Description: Constance Goddard Du Bois (1889-1934) was an American novelist and an ethnographer, writing extensively between 1899 and 1908 about the native peoples and cultures of southern California. Her published fiction included several short stories plus six novels. Her most enduring contribution was as a self-taught ethnographer, doing pioneering studies in a period when professional academic anthropology was just becoming established in the United States. Starting ...
Description: This is a collection of papers by Constance Goddard Du Bois on the mythology of the Luiseño and Diegueño Indians of Southern California
Description: This monograph is a posthumous publication; the author died in 1907. Sparkman spent years studying the Luiseño people, who resided in the approximate area of Orange County in California. The text mostly covers material culture, but includes d
Description: This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.