Here are the following resources listed within this section.
1. Alanis Obomsawin: The Vision of a Native Filmmaker (2006) by Lewis Randolph
2. Anitsalagi Elohi Anehi: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World (2023) by Christopher B. Teuton & Hastings Shade
3. Gyaehlingaay: traditions, tales, and images of the Kaigani Haida (1991) by Carol M. Eastman & Elizabeth A. Edwards
4. Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists (2019) authored & curated by Jill Ahlberg Yohe & Teri Greeves
5. Wendy Red Star: Delegation (1981) by Wendy Red Star
Alanis Obomsawin: The Vision of a Native Filmmaker (2006)
by Lewis Randolph
Location:
This item is accessible via UAlbany's Primo search platform with an authorized account, as well as being shelved in the University of Albany's Main Library. Access the item's online record here. The book's call number is:
Citation:
Lewis, R. (2006). Alanis Obomsawin: The Vision of a Native Filmmaker. U of Nebraska Press.
Annotation:
Alanis Obomsawin is a powerful Abenaki artist. Her work is featured as multiple resources within this guide, and this book provides an education into who Alanis Obomsawin is and what motivates her to create art. While this book was written in 2006, Obomsawin's story is not finished. She was born in 1932 and is still living at the age of 92 as of writing this research guide (May 2025).
Resource's Description:
In more than twenty powerful films, Abenaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin has waged a brilliant battle against the ignorance and stereotypes that Native Americans have long endured in cinema and television. In this book, the first devoted to any Native filmmaker, Obomsawin receives her due as the central figure in the development of indigenous media in North America. Incorporating history, politics, and film theory into a compelling narrative, Randolph Lewis explores the life and work of a multifaceted woman whose career was flourishing long before Native films such as Smoke Signals reached the screen. He traces Obomsawin s path from an impoverished Abenaki reserve in the 1930s to bohemian Montreal in the 1960s, where she first found fame as a traditional storyteller and singer. Lewis follows her career as a celebrated documentary filmmaker, citing her courage in covering, at great personal risk, the 1991 Oka Crisis between Mohawk warriors and Canadian soldiers. We see how, since the late 1960s, Obomsawin has transformed documentary film, reshaping it for the first time into a crucial forum for sharing indigenous perspectives. Through a careful examination of her work, Lewis proposes a new vision for indigenous media around the globe: a cinema of sovereignty based on what Obomsawin has accomplished.
Resource's Listed Keywords: Obomsawin, Alanis -- Criticism and interpretation; Motion picture producers and directors -- Canada; Documentary films -- Canada; Indians in motion pictures; Indigenous peoples in motion pictures
Anitsalagi Elohi Anehi: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World (2023)
by Christopher B. Teuton & Hastings Shade
Location:
This item is accessible through Interlibrary loan at Buffalo State University's library collection. Interlibrary loan is available with an authorized UAlbany student account.
Citation:
Teuton, C. B., & Shade, H. (2023). Cherokee Earth Dwellers: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World.
Annotation:
The title of this book is written in romanized Cherokee, and translates to Cherokee Earth Dwellers. This book contains a fantastic resource for creative writers looking to include the animal perspective of an Indigenous culture such as the Cherokee. With stories, descriptions, illustrations, and more this book will be a valuable resource for anyone looking to create a rich natural world within their written work. This resource is especially reliable due to the authors being of the Cherokee Nation and gathering stories from community members and their elders.
Resource's Description:
Cherokee Earth Dwellers will be the first book to articulate a Cherokee view of the natural world grounded in Cherokee names for that world. Weaving together a chorus of voices of elders including Hastings Shade, who created booklets with over 600 Cherokee names for animals and plants, the manuscript explores how contemporary Cherokee knowledge keepers understand and engage the natural world. The core of the book is the names themselves, including birds, animals, edible plants, reptiles, amphibians, trees, insects, plants, and fish. Far more than a word list, however, the manuscript includes explanations, anecdotes, and stories attached to each entry that chart the contours of a Cherokee understanding of the natural world. Some of these names are known and in use today by Cherokee speakers, but the vast majority are no longer in everyday use within Cherokee community. What emerges in Cherokee Earth Dwellers is a breathtaking vision of an enstoried Cherokee world, one in which all creatures interrelate in complicated ways that articulate a range of values, and the evolving nature of contemporary Cherokee community.
Resource's Listed Keywords: Cherokee philosophy; Nature; Cherokee language -- Vocabulary; Cherokee Indians -- Social life and customs
Gyaehlingaay: traditions, tales, and images of the Kaigani Haida (1991)
by Carol M. Eastman & Elizabeth A. Edwards
Location:
This item is accessible via UAlbany's Primo search platform with an authorized account, as well as being shelved in the University of Albany's Main Library. Access the item's online record here. The book's call number is:
Citation:
Eastman, C. M., Edwards, E. A., Pettviel, L., & Pasco, D. (1991). Gyaehlingaay : traditions, tales, and images of the Kaigani Haida. Burke Museum Publications.
Annotation:
This resource provides a close cultural look at the Pacific Northwest Indigenous perspective of the Haida. The Kaigani Haida is a specific dialectical group of the Haida, and it's important to preserve their language. This resource acts as a vehicle for the preservation and circulation of the language alongside important cultural narratives and references of life. However, for someone researching the contemporary Haida language, they may want to find a more modern publication. Although, the wealth of historical knowledge is always relevant for the Haida.
Resource's Description:
The book is divided into sections on traditions, reminiscences, western forms, and tales. These sections present English versions with commentary on the narratives. These are followed by the texts in Haida with interlinear English.
Resource's Listed Keywords: Subject; Haida Indians; Haida language; Haida Indians -- Legends; Haida language -- Texts; Legends -- Alaska; Legends -- British Columbia
Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists (2019)
authored & curated by
Location:
This item is located at the University of Albany's Main Library, Oversized collection. One can find the item's online record here. The book's call number is:
Citation:
Annotation:
This is a literal massive book full of currated Indigenous art that was also featured in an exhibition of the same name. Art inspires, influences, and impacts further art making, and an authentic source of Indigenous art will provide a unique variety of perspectives and ways of expressing the world. This resource gathers the artistic knowledge of a phenomenal amount of Indigenous women. Their unique insight into the perception of our native world is invaluable in developing more authentic pieces of writing and art.
Resource's Description:
Women have long been the creative force behind Native American art, yet their individual contributions have been largely unrecognized, instead treated as anonymous representations of entire cultures. 'Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists' explores the artistic achievements of Native women and establishes their rightful place in the art world. This lavishly illustrated book, a companion to the landmark exhibition, includes works of art from antiquity to the present, made in a variety of media from textiles and beadwork to video and digital arts. It showcases more than 115 artists from United States and Canada, spanning over one thousand years, to reveal the ingenuity and innovation that have always been foundational to the art of Native women.
Resource's Listed Keywords: Indigenous art -- North America; Indigenous art -- United States; Indigenous art -- Canada; Indian art -- North America; Indian art -- United States; Indian art -- Canada; Indian women artists -- United States; Indian women artists -- Canada; Indian women artisans -- United States; Indian women artisans -- Canada
Wendy Red Star: Delegation (1981)
by Wendy Red Star
Location:
This item is located at the University of Albany's Main Library. One can find the online item record here. The call number for this book is the following:
Citation:
Annotation:
This resource provides an important visual reference for Native life. The photographer is viewing her pictures through an Apsáalooke lens, and this book represents a compelling visual narrative as she moves alongside the lives around her. She has a critical eye on representation and it's many facets. A filmmaker, artist, or other visual creators, along wish writers, may find that Red Star's photographs inspire endless stories within them.
Resource's Description:
Delegation' is the first comprehensive monograph by Apsáalooke/Crow artist Wendy Red Star, whose photography recasts historical narratives with wit, candor, and a feminist, Indigenous perspective. Red Star centers Native American life and material culture through self-portraiture, collages, archival interventions, and site-specific installations. Whether referencing nineteenth-century Crow leaders or 1980s pulp fiction, museum collections or family pictures, she constantly questions the role of the photographer in shaping Indigenous representation. Includes an array of Red Star's lens-based works from 2006 to the present, and a range of essays, stories, and poems.
Resource's Listed Keywords: Red Star, Wendy, 1981-; Photography, Artistic; Indians in art; Indians of North America; Indian photographers; Pictorial works