Research Guides: Ethnic Studies: Indigenous Peoples: Home

Introduction

The terms Indigenous and Native American cover an incredible breadth and diversity of peoples. This guide is meant to give you a quick introduction to the extensive resources the Butte College Library has to offer on all aspects of Native American peoples, history, and culture. Find more by searching from the library home page with terms such as Plains Indians, Maidu, or Inuit and combining them with other terms like history, art, activism, or whatever you need.

Remember that library catalogs are developed over time, and you may need to use terms that are not the most current, but which reflected practices when they were developed. Thus "Indians" appears frequently. For example, if you are searching for the most general works about Native Americans, one major term in the catalog is Indians of North America.

Why do colleges have ethnic studies classes and departments? Listen to The Long, Bloody Strike For Ethnic Studies, from the podcast Code Switch, to learn about the student activism that led to more ethnic studies classes in higher education.

A pictorial Maidu basket, late 19th c.

What databases should I use?

We subscribe to over 50 databases that collect articles, reference materials, ebooks, and videos for you to access. Here are a few good databases to try out when searching for articles on Indigenous history and culture.

Ethnic Newswatch (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
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Ethnic NewsWatch is a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. The database now also contains Ethnic NewsWatch: A History, which provides historical coverage of Native American, African American, and Hispanic American periodicals from 1959-1989.
Issues & Controversies In American History This link opens in a new window
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Journals, magazines, and newspapers throughout history to the present. Includes information from government sites such as the Library of Congress and historical societies.
America: History and Life with Full Text (EBSCOHost) This link opens in a new window
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Scholarly journals, professional journals, and magazines on the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present.
Alexander Street Video (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
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Online streaming of academic related videos.
eHRAF World Cultures This link opens in a new window
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Cross-cultural and ethnographic database that contains descriptive information on all aspects of cultural and social life. The information is organized by cultures and ethnic groups.

Getting Citations from Library Databases

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Online Museum Exhibits

Libraries and museums all over the world now offer digitized collections, so you can see historical and artistic treasures from where you are. Explore some of these online exhibitions of Indigenous history:

Chico State Meriam Library: The Dorothy M. Hill collection is the result of over 30 years of work with tribal Elders to preserve the "culture, language and life of Northeastern California's Native American tribes and families" and includes photos, interviews, and much more. It may also be helpful to look at the collections of Northeastern California documents and photographs, although they are more general in scope.
UC Berkeley: Native American Photographs (Merriam): over 1000 photos, many from the North Valley.
The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian has an extensive website featuring online exhibits, articles, and much more.
The National Park Service has a large website on Native American heritage. Keep scrolling down, it just continues on and on! Here's an article with local relevance.
The Library of Congress has extensive collections that you can search. One sample is this primary source collection about Native American boarding schools.
New York Public Library: "Photographs of Native Americans" (Curtis)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has many digitized items. Try searching by tribal name.
BDMx: Biblioteca Digital Mexicana
A collection of unpublished or rare items from Mexican archives. In Spanish.

''For All My Relations'' / Enhancing Services For Victims Of Crime In Indian Country" by Sam English, 1994.

Relevant ebooks

The library offers a wide variety of books, ebooks, and articles. Here are just a few ebooks, available with the click of a mouse. Find more titles on Native American topics in our curated collection!

50 Events That Shaped American Indian History by Donna Martinez (Editor); Jennifer L. Williams Bordeaux (Editor)
This powerful two-volume set provides an insider's perspective on American Indian experiences through engaging narrative entries about key historical events written by leading scholars in American Indian history as well as inspiring first-person accounts from American Indian peoples.
I Am Where I Come From: Native American College Students and Graduates Tell Their Life Stories by Andrew Garrod (Editor); Robert Kilkenny (Editor); Melanie Benson Taylor (Editor); K. Tsianina Lomawaima (Foreword by)
I Am Where I Come From presents the autobiographies of thirteen Native American undergraduates and graduates of Dartmouth College, ten of them current and recent students. The memoirs are notable for their eloquence and bravery.
The Native American World by Donna Hightower-Langston
Over 300 entries covering major tribes, languages, prominent individuals, and important historical events.
Historical Dictionary of Native American Movements by Todd Leahy; Raymond Wilson
For centuries, Native Americans dealt with the onslaught of non-Indian land claims, the appropriation of their homelands, and the destruction of their ways of life. Through various movements, Native Americans accepted, rejected, or accommodated themselves to the non-traditional worldviews of the colonizers and their policies. The Historical Dictionary of Native American Movements is a useful reference on topics dealing with key movements, organizations, leadership strategies, and the major issues Native Americans have confronted.
Teaching Spirits by Joseph Epes Brown; Emily Cousins (As told to)
Teaching Spirits offers a thematic approach to Native American religious traditions. Through years of living with and learning about Native traditions across the continent, Joseph Epes Brown learned firsthand of the great diversity of the North American Indian cultures. Yet within this greatmultiplicity, he also noticed certain common themes that resonate within many Native traditions. This volume brings to life the themes that resonate at the heart of Native American religious traditions.
Inuit Stories of Being and Rebirth by Bernard Saladin d'Anglure; Peter Frost (Translator); Claude Lévi-Strauss (Foreword by)
Ujarak, Iqallijuq, and Kupaaq were elders from the Inuit community on Igloolik Island in Nunavut. The three elders, among others, shared with Bernard Saladin d'Anglure the narratives which make up the heart of Inuit Stories of Being and Rebirth. Through their words, and historical sources recorded by Franz Boas and Knud Rasmussen, Saladin d'Anglure examines the Inuit notion of personhood and its relationship to cosmology and mythology.
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz; Jean Mendoza (Adapted by); Debbie Reese (Adapted by)
Indigenous human rights advocate Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the roles that settler colonialism and policies of American Indian genocide played in forming our national identity.
In My Own Moccasins: A Memoir of Resilience by Helen Knott
Helen Knott, a highly accomplished Indigenous woman, seems to have it all. But in her memoir, she offers a different perspective. In My Own Moccasins is an unflinching account of addiction, intergenerational trauma, and the wounds brought on by sexual violence. It is also the story of sisterhood, the power of ceremony, the love of family, and the possibility of redemption.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices.
There There by Tommy Orange
Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering bestselling novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.
Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement by Cathleen D. Cahill
From social clubs in New York's Chinatown to conferences for Native American rights, and in African American newspapers and pamphlets demanding equality for Spanish-speaking New Mexicans, a diverse cadre of extraordinary women struggled to build a movement that would truly include all women, regardless of race or national origin. In Recasting the Vote, Cathleen D. Cahill tells the powerful stories of a multiracial group of activists who propelled the national suffrage movement toward a more inclusive vision of equal rights.

photo credit

Petroglyph image by Norman Bosworth from Pixabay.