Native Americans

Title: Mining Sacred Ground
Author: David E. Knop
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
Reviewer, Marcia J Sargent

ISBN: B004YZB9JI

Ancestral spirits demand that Marine veteran Peter Romero protect the secrecy of a sacred burial ground, and the world becomes a stranger place than he’d ever understood. He is pitted against a psychotic anthropology professor in a life-and-death struggle through the hills, arroyos, and caves of central Arizona, and into another world.

When Romero’s cousin is murdered, the former military policeman is astonished that the local sheriff shows no enthusiasm for solving the crime. He is forced to recognize that, after a military career, greater danger lies ahead in his civilian life.

Romero takes up arms to mete out his own justice, but he must decide if he belongs to the world he sees, or to a spirit world in which he discovers the strength of his ancestors. He makes their power a part of his being. As a spirit warrior, Romero battles self-doubt, his wife’s threats of divorce, and local law enforcement who plan his murder. He confronts an armed gang bent on revenge, skirts federal agents intent on stopping him, and evades the deadly fire of a deranged sniper.

Aided by a wise tribal elder, Romero uncovers a tangle of clues that link his cousin’s death to trafficking in ancient treasures and a deadly conspiracy that centers him in their crosshairs. Romero combines his combat experience and the fighting skills of his ancestors to dispatch his enemies and protect an ancient secret.

Title: Saga of the Sioux
Author: Dwight Jon Zimmerman
Genre: Young Adult
Reviewer: jim greenwald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0805093648

This new adaptation of Dee Brown's multi-million copy bestseller, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, is filled with photographs and maps to bring alive the tragic saga of Native Americans for middle grade readers. Focusing on the Sioux nation as representative of the entire Native American story, this meticulously researched account allows the great chiefs and warriors to speak for themselves about what happened to the Sioux from 1860 to the Massacre of Wounded Knee in 1891. This dramatic story is essential reading for every student of U.S. history.

Title: With Pen & Feather
Author: Jim Greenwald
Genre: Poetry, Book of Poetry, Native American
Reviewer:

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1424118743

This is a work of friendship, of sharing. We decided to join together in an effort to write something that was a bridge of thoughts and ideas. That allowed each of us to express what we feel, have felt and experienced.The words we wrote hold a special meaning to us, they are part of us and come from within. We included poems and stories. Stories are how things and events are handed down - it is oral history and the means by which history was preserved amongst the tribes. Your journey through this book will see us speak of love, emotion, of messages, feelings and a concern for this planet earth (Mother Earth). It is a message of mixed cultural thoughts, an expression of our Native American and non-native cultures. We hope you enjoy your journey with us. We hope to connect with you through our words and thoughts expressed in our writings. If one person sees the meaning and love that life holds, our work will have stood for something good.

Title: Mitakuye Oyasin
Author: Jim Greenwald
Genre: Poetry
Reviewer: W.H. McDonald Jr.

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1424138884

This book is a mix of love, loss, the past, respect and survival. This planet we live on (Mother Earth) is in peril, of this no one should have any doubts. The issue is awareness, and whether we are to be part of the problem or part of the solution. What we do now will determine not simply issues of quality of life, but of life itself. If we continue to poison the air, water and seas, this home of ours will die.

He drove to work sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup, and when he finished he pitched it to the side of the road; it is only one styrofoam cup after all. It is a shame we often think of individual instead of collective concerns. For on that morning he was joined by at least a million others with the same thought.

It is time we all hugged a tree!

Title: Twisted Tongues
Author: Ruth Naphas Gerhardt & jim greenwald
Genre: Poetry, Book of Poetry
Reviewer: Joyce Gilmour

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1451233191

The Twisted Tongues collection of "historical" poetry brings together two dynamic poets: Ruth Naphas Gerhardt (With Pen & Feather) and jim greenwald (Mitakuye Oyasin, and Tears for Mother Earth).

History unfortunately is written by the conqueror and therefore lacks the balance of truth one should expect in an accurate historical accounting. This collection presents facts, not fiction, of events that have taken place in this land that is now called the United States of America. In the "settlers" quest" for what was not available to them in their homelands, they set out to take from those who were the original inhabitants of this land. The result of this greed was hundreds of wars, multitudes of lies, and the committing of atrocities whose repercussions still resound today.

The writings within are not intended as complete history, but rather something to whet your curiosity enough to investigate on your own. Do so at your own peril as the truth can and will torture one's mind as it relates to beliefs held close as a result of the Declaration and Constitution. It should be embarrassing enough just to relate this one simple fact: out of the five-hundred plus treaties signed by Native Americans with the government of the U.S.A., the government cannot point to one it has honored.

The Supreme Court record, based on percentages of rulings against Native Americans is appalling. Rarely has any governmental body utilized archaic law with such contempt and disregard for fairness, equality, and reason. The court in one flagrant abuse of its powers used "latches" as an "excuse" to void the claims of land made by the Oneida. "Latches" literally means "they waited too long!" In Sherill (NY) v. Oneida, it was the lone deciding factor to toss out a legitimate claim to land that had, beyond a doubt, been stolen from the Oneida by the state of New York. Not one ounce of reality or consideration was given to the fact that by oppression in many of its forms the Oneida were not capable of mounting a sustained legal fight for what is rightfully theirs. That is why they lost their land.

We hope you enjoy this collection and are stirred to investigate on your own what really happened and still goes on today. Set aside all your hard learned theories and beliefs taught to you by "Hollywood." This is real!