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Native Knowledge 360° | Essential Understandings

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The National Museum of the American Indian’s Native Knowledge 360°: Essential Understandings about American Indians is a framework that allows you to see new possibilities for creating student learning experiences. #NK360

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Webinar Dec. 17th, 2020 4pm

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Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Youth in Action: Conversations About Our Future. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

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(Re)Telling the American Story The American story has been profoundly shaped by Native Americans, yet the stories told about Native people are often false and almost always incomplete. From Pocahontas and Jamestown to the first Thanksgiving and Plymouth Colony, Indigenous peoples have rarely been the narrators of their own stories.

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Are you looking for best books by or about American Indians? First Nations? Native Americans? Indigenous People?

Update on Nov 26, 2018: Some of the books in these lists may have religious or spiritual content that is problematic to the people whose ways are being used by writers. For context, see my post on November 15, 2018 "Open Letter: Trail of Lightning is an Appropriation of Diné Cultural Beliefs. Does the Letter from the Diné Writers Collective Mark a Turning Point?"

Below are links to posts on American Indians in Children's Literature and elsewhere that'll help you find ones selected by Native people (me, and other Native people, including members of the American Indian Library Association)! This page will be updated, so come back and visit again!

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Best Books by Native or Indigenous Writers

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Native American Cultures and Clothing: Native American Is Not a Costume

NK360° Helpful Handouts: Guidance on Common Questions provide brief introductions for teachers to important topics regarding Native American life, cultures, and communities. Native American Cultures and Clothing: Native American Is Not a Costume addresses the use of "Native" costumes in and out of the classroom. Use this guide to debunk stereotypes of Native Americans and explore Indigenous clothing traditions. Culturally sensitive activities and resources related to Native clothing are provided.

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Native Knowledge 360° Resource | Native American Cultures and Clothing: Native American is Not a Costume

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Native American Cultures and Clothing: Native American is Not a Costume provides cultural context for traditional Native clothing practices and advocates for the end of â€œdressing upâ€ as a Native American. #NK360

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Digital lesson

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College, Career, & Civic Life-C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards

D1.5.9-12
Determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in answering compelling and supporting questions, taking into consideration multiple points of view represented in the sources, the types of sources available, and the potential uses of the sources.

D4.1.9-12
Construct arguments using precise and knowledgeable claims, with evidence from multiple sources, while acknowledging counterclaims and evidentiary weaknesses.

D2.Geo.6.9-12
Evaluate the impact of human settlement activities on the environmental and cultural characteristics of specific places and regions.

D2.Geo.4.9-12
Analyze relationships and interactions within and between human and physical systems to explain reciprocal influences that occur among them.

D2.His.13.9-12
Critique the appropriateness of the historical sources used in a secondary interpretation.

D4.1.9-12
Construct arguments using precise and knowledgeable claims, with evidence from multiple sources, while acknowledging counterclaims and evidentiary weaknesses.

D2.Civ.5.9-12
Evaluate citizens' and institutions' effectiveness in addressing social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national, and/or international level.

D4.7.9-12
Assess options for individual and collective action to address local, regional, and global problems by engaging in self-reflection, strategy identification, and complex causal reasoning.

D4.6.9-12
Use disciplinary and interdisciplinary lenses to understand the characteristics and causes of local, regional, and global problems; instances of such problems in multiple contexts; and challenges and opportunities faced by those trying to address these problems over time and place.

Common Core State Standards

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.1
Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

9-10 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.1
Write [construct] arguments focused on discipline-specific content.

11-12 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.1
Write [construct] arguments focused on discipline-specific content.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.9
Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.8
Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.1
Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2
Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.8
Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.9
Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

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Native Knowledge 360-Pacific Northwest History and Cultures: Why Do the Foods We Eat Matter?

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Overview of NMAI's teacher resource on perspectives from Native American community members, images, objects, and other sources to help students and teachers understand the important connections between foods and cultures for Native People of the Pacific Northwest, including grade level and subject applications, as well as relevant standards and Essential Understandings.

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This page is intended to provide you with an explanation for why phrases like "war whoop" or "off the reservation" or "like a bunch of wild Indians" or "low man on the totem pole" cause us at AICL to be critical of a book. If you said these phrases to me in conversation, they'd be what is called microaggressions.
All people use certain phrases without thinking. Our parents used them, and their parents used them... We hear them on television and in movies. We read them in books, too, but many of them reflect ignorance, bias, or stereotypical ideas.
As time permits, I'll add the depth that I provide for "Off the reservation." Below "Off the reservation" are others, arranged alphabetically. They include
"bury the hatchet"
"circle the wagons"
"happy hunting grounds"
"hold down the fort"
"indian giver"
"low man on the totem pole"
"on the warpath"

One example is "off the reservation" which is used to generally used to signify being out of control. Hit pause for a few minute and let's look at that phrase. Bear with me--context is important. At least as far back as 6000 years (see footnote in article In the early 1800s, more and more white settlers began moving onto their homelands. In 1855, the US government wanted that land for those settlers. A Secretary of the Interior's Commissioner of Indian Affairs, J.D.C. Atkins, submitted a history of what transpired to the U.S. House of Representatives 50th Congress (1887-1889). About that 1865 treaty,
here), three tribes--the Wascoes, the Warm Springs, and the Paiutes--were in what we now know as Oregon. They fished the Columbia and hunted all through that area for their own subsistence, for also for trading purposes.
treaty was negotiated that established the Warm Springs Reservation. The tribes gave up ten million acres of land and reserved the rights to fish, hunt, and gather foods "in their usual and accustomed places" which included places not within the boundaries of the reservation (this summary is based on information provided at the Warm Springs website).
Some years later, commercial fishermen fenced off land along the river and had railroad tracks laid there. Refrigerated train cars were parked next to the river and fish was caught and moved into the train cars. The commercial fishermen argued that the tribes had given up that land in a supplemental treaty in 1865. Sentries were posted to keep Native people from the river. This was, of course, a threat to their livelihood and a treaty violation as well.
Atkins reports:*

"... nothing whatever was said to them regarding the giving up of their fishery rights, and that they were simply told the treaty was intended to regulate their manner of leaving the limits of the reservation with passes from the agent to prevent them from being taken for hostiles, the Snake Indians being at the time at war."

That excerpt is interesting, isn't it? For those who don't know, the US government assigned "Indian agents" to tribes. In theory they were responsible for implementing federal policy, but so many were corrupt opportunists that they became regarded in negative ways. There was a lot of fraud and misrepresentation of fact going on but let's stick with the topic at hand. This practice wasn't specific to Warm Springs. It was widespread. It was in practice on the Apache reservation in the late 1870s when It is one phrase, but as I noted above, there are many. AICL's *In that congressional hearing, the Secretary of the Interior wanted $3000 to buy some of the land along the Columbia River in Oregon. That land would be held in trust by the U.S. government for the people on the Warm Springs reservation to use for fishing. I do not know if funds were allocated to purchase that parcel of land but can say that the tribes have prevailed in what they agreed to in the 1855 treaty. There have been many cases wherein tribes have successfully fought to defend their reserved rights. This
The excerpt says two things. First, it says that 'you Indians better stay on your reservation because if you don't, someone might think you're a Snake Indian and kill you.' Second, it also says--in effect--that 'for your own good, you can't leave without the agent's permission.' In other words, if you left the reservation without permission of the Indian agent and got shot by a white person, it is your own damn fault.

Geronimo was there. Jackie Thompson Rand (she's Kiowa) writes about Kiowa men in the 1870s needing permission from the agent to hunt off their reservation (see page 91 of her book, Kiowa Humanity and the Invasion of the State, published in 2008 by the University of Nebraska Press). These are only three examples. There are others. Does this history help you understand why I, or any Native person, would hear "off the reservation" and have a different response to it than someone who doesn't know this history?

The Foul Among the Good page has visual illustrations that many people find innocuous--but that I object to. This "All you do is complain" page is a companion, of sorts, to The Foul Among The Good. If you're here, it is because I linked this page from a brief post to AICL. Rather than go into a lot of history for some of those posts, I hope it will suffice for you to know that innocuous phrases are borne of certain moments in history that, in effect, yank me right out of a story. Sometimes I'll continue to read. Sometimes I just set the book aside. No matter how good that story or book might be, its magic can be ruined by a single phrase. _____

If you're a writer, please rethink your use of "off the reservation" or any of the phrases I'm listing here. You're perpetuating misinformation. If, however, you push back on the use of the phrase in the book, that would be ok, and I'd love to see how you do it. timeline has pertinent dates.
If you're an editor, have a conversation with your writer about other options. The writer can avoid the phrase, or find a way to critique it within the book.
If you're a reviewer and your journal policy allows you to do so, call it out in your review. If you review at a blog, do call it out!

Update, May 4, 2016: Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, Suzan Shown Harjo, wrote an excellent article about "off the reservation" in response to Hilary Clinton's use of it in an April 29 CNN interview, and the ways the phrase was being discussed by Native and non-Native commenters, too. Some said we were "put on reservations." Some said reservations were "concentration" or "internment" camps. Harjo wrote, in part:

While the advocacy and earnestness of Sanders spokesperson Turner are greatly appreciated, she (like others, including some Native commenters) misstates the history by claiming that the 'government put them on reservations."

Reservations are Native lands reserved by Native Nations in treaties and agreements, first with each other and later with England, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Russia and other countries, and with the United States, beginning in its earliest days.

Our ancestors were not put on reservations. They reserved lands, including hunting, fishing, gathering and cultural rights in ceded territories, that they trusted the US would help protect them from the rapidly increasing and aggressive foreign populations and their diseases.

Then came the Indian Removal Act, a states' "rights" law signed by General Andrew Jackson, almost as soon as he became US President. Jackson had helped draft the Act, after he, his former aide de camp and other Indian fighters took over the Senate and House Committees on Indian Affairs. The law required a removal treaty before Native Peoples were wrenched from their homelands.

That began a process of the US backing Georgia, New York and other powerful states to ethnically cleanse certain Native reserved territories by coercing treaties for a mass movement of many Native Peoples to new reserved lands in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma and Kansas).

Whether the Native lands were negotiated in honorable nation-to-nation dealings or at bayonet point, they are our countries today. Insistence that we were forced onto reservations and need to be liberated has led to horrific policies and land loss in the distant and near past. This is one reason we take words and language so seriously, and suit up for teachable moments.

Below are additional phrases that are in use, but problematic. As of this date (May 5, 2016), we (at AICL) have not done in-depth write-ups similar to the one for "off the reservation." They are arranged alphabetically for your convenience, and several are in process.

This is a phrase widely used to say that someone is taking a defensive position. If you pause to think about it, I think you'll understand why it is a problem. The phrase is rooted in stories about "brave pioneers" who were "under attack" by "hostile savages." Hit the pause button.
Those "brave pioneers" were seeking land that belonged to Native peoples who fought to defend that land, their homes, their moms and their kids. Anyone would do that, but the imagery of "circle the wagons" makes Native peoples out as barbaric and aggressive. Who, in fact, was the aggressor?!
More facts: The wagons were circled at night in order to keep the cattle enclosed so they wouldn't wander off. I've also read that, if there was an attack, the wagons were too far apart and slow moving to have actually been put into that circle.

That phrase is used to signify where Indians go when they die, but is it? Given that there are over 500 federally recognized tribal nations in the US, with distinct languages, histories, locations, and material cultures, you may correctly surmise that there would be differences in how the after life is viewed or named, too.

When Europeans and then, Americans, began to move onto Indigenous lands in what is currently known as the United States, Indigenous people fought to protect their homelands and their families. Who wouldn't? To protect the non-Native settlers--and enable non-Native invasions and acquisitions of Indigenous lands, the US army built forts to protect non-Native people from what they incorrectly characterized as "primitive savages." Today, the phrase is used by someone who is going somewhere, and is telling someone else to be in charge while they are gone.

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This page is intended to provide you with an explanation for why phrases like "war whoop" or "off the reservation" or "like a bunch of wild Indians" or "low man on the totem pole" cause us at AICL to be critical of a book.

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Unlearning Columbus Day Myths: Celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day

NK360° Helpful Handouts: Guidance on Common Questions provide brief introductions for teachers to important topics regarding Native American life, cultures, and communities. Unlearning Columbus Day Myths: Celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day addresses problems with continuing to celebrate Columbus and points educators to the value of honoring Indigenous Peoples' Day. Culturally sensitive activities and resources related to Columbus and Indigenous Peoples' Day are provided.

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Native Knowledge 360° Resource | Unlearning Columbus Day Myths: Celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day

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Unlearning Columbus Day Myths: Celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day provides context for the celebration of Columbus Day and promotes Indigenous Peoples' Day as the holiday's successor. #NK360

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NMAI is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding of the Native cultures of the Western Hemisphere through partnership with Native people and others. The museum works to support the continuance of culture, traditional values, and transitions in contemporary Native life.