Native American Games and Stories Review

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(More customer reviews)I am a teacher on a reservation and purchased this book for two reasons; 1) to use in our Native American Month unit, and 2) to introduce the kids to traditions and activities of other tribes in our state as well as in our country. The book worked well for these purposes, but will be a much better resource to me next year as I will have a lot more time to really prepare and use them to their greatest advantage!

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Native American GAMES and Stories Now you can learn to play authentic Native American games! An important credo of Native American life states that you can learn while you play and play while you learn. Readers will be able to pore over intriguing stories, immerse themselves in Native American understandings, and get to play these funfilled games as they learn how global thought and beliefs can transcend into their own lives. Sample themes, stories, and games: Ball Games & Team Sports; the Ball Players in the Sky (Passamaquoddy); Stickball Bowl Games & Other Games of Chance; Gluskabe Brings the Summer (Abenaki)--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth's Surface Review

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(More customer reviews)David Standish has produced one of the most entertaining nonfiction works you're likely to find. It chronicles the history of the idea that the Earth is hollow from the time of Edmond Halley to the present. Standish redeems Halley's reputation, explaining that Halley proposed the idea to explain anomalies in the Earth's magnetic field. Things get weirder from there as Standish dives into the inexplicable belief of John Cleves Symmes that openings into the Earth exist at the poles. Probably the best chapter is the one on Cyrus Teed and Koreshanity, a religion that teaches that the Earth is hollow and we live on its inner surface. The book goes downhill after that, presenting nothing but summaries of sci-fi novels with a few conspiracy theories thrown in.
The book is too breezy. The style is fun, but Standish's personal asides and sarcastic humor, at first entertaining, become irritating by the end. The sketchy finale, in which Standish mentions some modern religious beliefs about the hollow Earth, collapses into an obnoxious joke.
When Standish steps away from his subject, he not only gets personal but commits errors; his characterization of all thought before the Enlightenment as "dreamy romanticism" is hardly accurate.
Besides containing too much of David Standish, Hollow Earth contains too little...well, hollow Earth. His tantalizing introduction mentions a number of societies and religions that have posited fascinating things under the Earth's surface, but he never discusses most of them. Starting with Halley was a mistake; Standish soon has nothing to do but summarize novels. Perhaps he starts too late because everything before Halley can be dismissed as "dreamy romanticism."
For those with a serious interest in science fiction, this book is a great introduction to the origins of the hollow Earth idea and gives decent, if opinionated, descriptions of its appearance in the genre. As an entertaining book, it's also quite good. If, however, you're looking for detailed info on religious legends of subterranean realms or modern conspiracy theories, look elsewhere.

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Whale in the Sky (Picture Puffin) Review

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(More customer reviews)Whale In The Sky, written and illustrated by Anne Siberell, is a clear and strong story about how whale came to live in the ocean and not in the stream. The text is concise and spare, which keep the story from being bogged down. The relaxed style of the writing is also reflected in the graphics. The illustrations are done with woodcuts. This style adds to the native Pacific Northwest Coast rythym of the words. The colors contrast for easy 'reading' of the pictures. A beginning reader can get the messages without being able to read the words. This is a great story to learn about how totem poles came into being. The book starts with a one paragraph history of the area and totem poles. The book ends with the story, Whale In The Sky, depicted in a totem pole. Without giving it away, the story shows cooperation toward a goal, as well as, respect for others and their needs. My chldren love to add words as we read or tell the parts themselves. When this book is back in print, pick up a copy and add it to a young persons library near you.

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Describes the Northwest Indian totem pole which shows how Thunderbird punished Whale for chasing Salmon and scaring Frog.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Symbiosis and Ambivalence: Poles and Jews in a Small Galician Town Review

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(More customer reviews)This book covers the vicissitudes of pre-WWII Polish-Jewish relations in the town of Jaslicka, SW Poland (post-WWII boundaries), from a few centuries ago until the Holocaust. To begin with, the term "Polish nobility" spanned the magnate and the poor noble-in-name-only, and constituted the largest franchised class in Europe: 8-12% vs. 1-2% of other European states. (p. 58).
Contrary to the likes of Heller's ON THE EDGE OF DESTRUCTION, the evidence doesn't support the awfulization of the Jewish experience. In fact, most of the time, Polish-Jewish relations were good. (p. xxi). Although both lived in a poor country, the Jews, on the whole, were wealthier than the Poles. (p. 64). Contrary to the common misconception about the Poles having ostracized the Jews and forced them into ghettos, it was the Jews who had, using modern parlance, self-segregated themselves. Lehmann comments: "We have seen that the Jews strongly marked themselves off from the Poles. The distinction between the Jews (yidn) and non-Jews (goyim) reflected the Jewish fear of Gentile intrusion, as well as Jewish disdain for the gentile world." (p. 124).
Negative stereotypes coexisted with positive ones, and weren't the exclusive provenance of either group. For instance, Poles had their folk tales about Jews using the blood of kidnapped Christian children, and Jews had their Hassidic teachings about such things as the Jews being God's ONLY people, and gentiles having no hearts (only an organ that resembles a heart: p. 93). Polish peasants at times thought of the exploitive usurious Jew, and at other times the benevolent usurious Jew. (pp. 71-72). However, even when Jewish usury was benign, the lot of the poverty-stricken Polish peasant could only breed resentment: "This (like any other) form of involuntary dependence typically gave rise to feelings of hostility and frustration." (p. 84).
The Endek-encouraged boycotts of Jewish shops, in favor of Polish ones, weren't practiced by most local Poles. (p. 82). This adds to similar testimonies elsewhere, and reinforces the premise that Polish anti-Semitism had been much more bark than bite.
During the Holocaust, the Germans came and took away the Jews, while the Poles were forced to stay indoors. (p. 147). This adds refutation to the notion that Poles tended to stand around and mock the Jews during such events. However, Lehmann follows the guilt-by-observation thinking of Michael Steinlauf and Jan T. Gross)(pp. 183-184). By some leap of logic, the Poles are now in a sense culpable for the Holocaust merely for being AWARE of the fact of Jewish deaths.
She mentions the Lemkos, some of whom considered themselves Ukrainians, and a considerable fraction of whom were pro-Nazi. (e. g., p. 141). Lehmann also characterizes the postwar killings of local Jews as the deeds of "local criminals, bandits, and soldiers". (p. 152).
In common with many authors, Lehmann portrays "anti-Semitism without Jews" as something profound, and fulfilling of some deep pathology. (p. 8). How about simply reputations of peoples in general going far beyond the confines of the time and place of their domiciles? (Consider, for example, manifestations of "anti-Polonism without Poles" in such places as China).


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In Poland and elsewhere the breakdown of communism has resulted in an increased interest in various aspects of the Polish-Jewish past which can be explained, the author argues, in terms of a broader intellectual need to explore the "blank spots" of Poland's national history. This quest begins and ends with Polish anti-Semitism and the Shoah, during which most of Europe's Jews were annihilated on Polish soil. How is it possible that, considering the virtual absence of a Jewish population in today's Poland, Jews still play an important role in the cultural expressions and the consciousness of the Polish people? To find an answer the author explored Polish-Jewish relations in a small Galician town from the early 19th century to the end of World War II. A detailed historical-anthropological analysis of archival materials as well as interviews with Polish inhabitants of this town and Jewish survivors living elsewhere reveal a pattern of Polish-Jewish interdependence that has led to a far more complex picture than is generally assumed and calls into question the prevalence of Polish anti-Semitism.

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The Wolf and the Raven: Totem Poles of Southeastern Alaska Review

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(More customer reviews)Since you can't "look inside" this book and there are no editorial reviews, I will type out some relevant information about and from this book. It is the result of an effort of the United States Forest Service to collect and recover totem poles in southeastern Alaska. This project began in 1938. From the preface: "Since most of the totem poles were in deserted native villages inaccessible to regular steamer routes, the Forest Service desired to locate them more centrally where visitors to Alaska might enjoy these carved memorials. Gaining permission to move the poles was the first task--and a difficult one, because ownership was vested in lineages, not in individuals. The excellent cooperation of the natives soon overcame this obstacle, however, and the poles are now located on public land where they will be preserved for the benefit of future generations."
I have quite a number of books about the art of the Northwest Coast Native Americans, and this slim volume might be my favorite. Many, many books explain the design elements that constitute the style of Northwest Coast native art, and while learning about form lines, ovoids, U and S shapes, etc. etc. is certainly interesting, it is also technical and does not explain to the observer *why* this particular design was used, and in the case of totem poles, why these figures were put together and the significance of their order.
You won't find much discussion of design elements in this book, but what you will find is pictures of totem poles *and* the stories behind the totem poles. This is fascinating to me. After all, the story is the magic that brings the totem pole to life.
To learn about how the stories were collected, I will quote from pages 11-12 of the Introduction: "It is no simple task to record the history of each pole, or to ascertain and note down with accuracy the legends that are so abstractly symbolized. Many of the poles that can still be seen are from long-deserted village sites. Some of the survivors of the lineages that used to live in these villages had not seen the poles until the government's reconstruction project was started. Potlatches at which these survivors would have heard the pole histories and legends reviewed have not been given for many years. In some instances no member of the clan or lineage which owns the pole could be located, and nonmembers were sometimes reluctant to explain carvings of tales that are not their hereditary property. Some of the figures on the poles constitute symbolic reminders of quarrels, murders, debts, and other unpleasant occurrences about which the Indians prefer to remain silent.
"The most widely known tales, like those of the exploits of Raven and of Kats who married the bear woman, are familiar to almost every native of the area. Carvings which symbolize these tales are sufficiently conventionalized to be readily recognizable even by persons who lineage did not recount them as their own legendary history. On the other had, carvings like that of the Pointing Figure (Fig. 14) symbolize personal experiences that are known only to a very few...
"The most complete and best-told versions as judged by the Tlingit themselves were selected for this publication. Minor additions have been made to clarify references to Tlingit customs. The Tlingit phrasing and narrative style have been followed as closely as possible in an English translation."
In summation, this is a wonderful little book, and for anyone interested in totem poles or the art of the Northwest Coast Native Americans, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

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