The McCarthy Library staff acknowledge that we are located on the ancestral and unceded lands and territories of the Onasatis (Wappo) and Patwin people.
Every November, we pay special attention to Native American Heritage Month, which "is a time to celebrate the traditions, languages and stories of Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and affiliated Island communities and ensure their rich histories and contributions continue to thrive with each passing generation" (https://www.bia.gov/NNAHM).
Resources:
Winner of many literary awards, Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers is a debut collection of poems by a dazzling geologist of queer eros. Its landscapes are ravaged, but they are also startlingly lush with cacti, yarrow, larkspur, sagebrush. Rooted in Navajo history and thought, these poems show what has been brewing in an often forgotten part of the American literary landscape, beautiful and bone dense, ambitious, and defiantly vulnerable.
In An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them.
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off.
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.
An unparalleled examination of Native American knowledge and uses of California's natural resources that reshapes our understanding of native cultures and shows how we might begin to use their knowledge in our own conservation efforts.
Beginning with the tribes' devastating loss of land and the forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools, Treuer shows how the period of greatest adversity also helped to incubate a unifying Native identity.
Postcolonial Love Poem is an anthem of desire against erasure. Natalie Diaz's brilliant second collection demands that every body carried in its pages--bodies of language, land, rivers, suffering brothers, enemies, and lovers--be touched and held as beloveds.
Napa Valley is known for its wine and winemakers, but just beneath the fertile soil lies another, more complex version of its history.
A large portion of this book, including Part I: First People is available to read online on Google Books.
A scholarly but entertaining ethnographic study of the early Indian population of Napa Valley, California.
Atlas of Indian Nations is a comprehensive resource for those interested in Native American history and culture. Told through maps, photos, art, and archival cartography, this is the story of American Indians that only National Geographic can tell. In the most comprehensive atlas of Native American history and culture available, the story of the North American Indian is told through maps, photos, art, and archival cartography.
"The Napa Valley is one of California's longest inhabited areas. Archaeological surveys indicate 10,000 years of uninterrupted habitation. "It was a paradise - a cultivated paradise where one only had to reach out their hand to eat. A place rich in beauty, water and food," stated the oral history of Native American elder Jim Big Bear King."
- Napa Valley First People's History, Suscol Intertribal Council
Estimated tribal regions in the Napa area in 1769. From the State of California Native American Heritage Commission's Digital Atlas of California Native Americans.
Location: San Francisco - The Presidio, 1016 Lincoln Blvd., San Francisco, CA 94129 inside Tides Converge
Come join us for an evening of art, performances, and film screenings. Paintings and a variety of artwork will be on display in the Tides Converge Exhibition Space main entrance through the end of February 22, 2025.
Date: Thursday, November 7, 2024
Time: 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Location: Virtual
Register through link!
Join the Napa Public Library for a talk with author and Navajo Ranger Stanley Milford, Jr. as he discusses his memoir, The Paranormal Ranger, and his investigations into bizarre cases of the unexplained in Navajoland.
Date: Saturday, November 9, 2024
Time: 10:00am - 2:00pm
Location: Capitol Mall, Sacramento
California’s Inaugural National Native American Heritage Month Parade hosted by the California Legislative Native American Caucus. Join us in celebrating the contributions, achievements, cultural diversity and impact of California’s First People.
Dates: Saturday November 9 and 10, 2024
Location: San Jose State University – SPX Building (near San Carlos and 4th Street)
Join us for a celebration of American Indian heritage as we recognize the diversity and resilience of our American Indian community on campus and in the broader South Bay Indigenous Communities.
Saturday, November 9, 2024 from 12 PM to 9 PM
Dance Exhibitions, Billy Mills Speaks, Arvol Looking Horse Speaks, and much more
Sunday, November 10, 2024 from 12 PM to 6 PM
All day Powwow
Dates: September 16 - November 21, 2024
Time: Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Location: Santa Rosa - Finley Community Center, Senior Wing
The Pomo Project of Sonoma County presents its annual exhibit featuring Indigenous California artists.
Date: Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Time: 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Location: Virtual
Register through link!
Join the Napa Public Library for a conversation about how Mona Susan Power's work explores Native Rights and Native American culture, in particular using an important symbol that anchors comfort and companionship in Native life: dolls.
Dates: November 22 - 29, 2024
Location: Virtual
The National Museum of the American Indian’s Native Cinema Showcase is an annual celebration of the best in Native film. This year’s series explores the challenges still confronting Indigenous peoples on disparate fronts, including sports, missing and murdered Indigenous women, intergenerational trauma, and rematriation of the land with buffalo.