The Native Americans believed that the soul never dies, and death was a transition from this world to the next. Preparation for this journey was diverse across the vast geographical expanse of North America. Burials could be above ground on a scaffold or tree, cremation, mummification, sometimes the bones were saved, and a mass burial was conducted, caves and fissures in rocks were used to inter the dead. Some buried the owner's horses and dogs with the body. Human sacrifice was practiced, slaying the wives or slaves and placing them within the graves. Some tribes left the remains to elements to be eaten by wild animals. In contrast, lavish burial mounds were constructed over the dead. Ghosts of the dead were feared, and in some cases, the corpse was immediately buried, and their house burned that the spirit may not return. The mourning rituals were just as diverse. Many tribes mourned the dead for extended periods that included cutting their hair and gashing their bodies with wounds or even cutting off their fingers to show their grief. Somber crying and wailing could be heard for days in the villages. Eighty-three different tribes' burial rituals are described in detail from first-hand accounts. This is your arcane journey into the spirit world of the Native Americans of North America. Plains Sioux Indians history, religion, Assinboine Indian history, religion, Sisseton Indian hisory, religion, YanktonI Indian history, Assinboine Indian history, religion, Teton Sioux, history, religion Brule'eton Sioux history, religion, Kansa Indian history, religion, Sioux Indian history, religion, Missouri Indian history, religion, Omaha Indian history, religion, Osage Indian history, religion, Ponca Indian history, religion, Oto Indian history, religion, Mandan Indian history, religion, Mdewakanton Indian history, religion, Hidasta Indian history, religion, Quapaw Indian history, religion, Crow Indian history, Monacan Indian history, religion, Santee, Indians history, religion, Biloxi Indians history, religion, Pascagoula Indians history, religion, Montagnais Indians history, religion, Micmac Indians, history, religion, and Malecite Indians, Wampanoag Indian history, religion, Narraganset Indians history, religion, Manhattan Island Indians history, Delaware Indian history, religion, death rituals Nanticoke Indian history, religion, Powhatan Indians history, religion, Werowance Indians, history, religion, Miami, Indian, history, religion, Pottawatomie Indian history, religion, Ojibwa Indian history, religion, Iroquois Indians history, religion, Oneida Indian history, religion, Seneca Indian history, religion, , Huron Indian history, religion, Seneca Indian history, religion, , Mohawk Indian history, religion, Wyandot Indian history, religion, Huron Indian history, religion, Cree Indian history, religion, Cherokee Indian history, religion, , Timucuan Tribes history, religion, Muskhogean Tribe Indians, history religion, Seminole Indians history, religion,, Choctaw Indians history, religion, Natchez Indians history, religion, Chickasaw Indians history, religion, Creek Indians history, religion, Caddoan Indians history, religion, Arikara Indians history, religion, Pawnee Indians history, religion, Crow Indians history, religion, Southwest Indians, history, religion, Navajo Indians history, religion, , Apache Indians history, religion, Pima Indians history, religion, Kiowa Indians history, religion, Wichita Indians history, religion, Caddo Indians history, religion,, Hopi Indians history religion, Pueblo Indians history, religion, Moquis (Pueblo), Commanche Indians history, religion, Shoshone Indians history, religion, Ute Indians history, religion, , Goshute Indians history, religion, Blackfoot Indians history, religion, Yakima Indians, Pacific Northwest, Achomawi, Karuk, Shanel, Yuki, Tolowa, Yokayo, Round Valley, Yurok, Klamath, Tolkotins, Skokomish, Chinook, Alaska, Aleut, Gwich'in, Innuit, Eskimo, Haida

Written in response to the Hawk's Nest Tunnel disaster of 1931 in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, The Book of the Dead is an important part of West Virginia's cultural heritage and a powerful account of one of the worst industrial catastrophes in American history. The poems collected here investigate the roots of a tragedy that killed hundreds of workers, most of them African American. They are a rare engagement with the overlap between race and environment in Appalachia. Published for the first time alongside photographs by Nancy Naumburg, who accompanied Rukeyser to Gauley Bridge in 1936, this edition of The Book of the Dead includes an introduction by Catherine Venable Moore, whose writing on the topic has been anthologized in Best American Essays.

Contains over 750 alphabetically-arranged entries that provide information about the rock group Grateful Dead, featuring profiles of band members and associated musicians, filmmakers, photographers, composers, and others, and descriptions of the band's albums and solo releases.

In the tradition of The Book of Runes and the Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead, this divination system contains 42 beautifully illustrated cards and a book that explains the meaning of the cards and how to use them for education and enlightenment. Matthews has made many original contributions to the fields of Celtic and Arthurian research. Boxed and shrink-wrapped.

The outpouring of Native American literature that followed the publication of N. Scott Momaday’s Pulitzer Prize–winning House Made of Dawn in 1968 continues unabated. Fiction and poetry, autobiography and discursive writing from such writers as James Welch, Gerald Vizenor, and Leslie Marmon Silko constitute what critic Kenneth Lincoln in 1983 termed the Native American Renaissance. This collection of essays takes the measure of that efflorescence. The contributors scrutinize writers from Momaday to Sherman Alexie, analyzing works by Native women, First Nations Canadian writers, postmodernists, and such theorists as Robert Warrior, Jace Weaver, and Craig Womack. Weaver’s own examination of the development of Native literary criticism since 1968 focuses on Native American literary nationalism. Alan R. Velie turns to the achievement of Momaday to examine the ways Native novelists have influenced one another. Post-renaissance and postmodern writers are discussed in company with newer writers such as Gordon Henry, Jr., and D. L. Birchfield. Critical essays discuss the poetry of Simon Ortiz, Kimberly Blaeser, Diane Glancy, Luci Tapahonso, and Ray A. Young Bear, as well as the life writings of Janet Campbell Hale, Carter Revard, and Jim Barnes. An essay on Native drama examines the work of Hanay Geiogamah, the Native American Theater Ensemble, and Spider Woman Theatre. In the volume’s concluding essay, Kenneth Lincoln reflects on the history of the Native American Renaissance up to and beyond his seminal work, and discusses Native literature’s legacy and future. The essays collected here underscore the vitality of Native American literature and the need for debate on theory and ideology.

American Indians have produced some of the most powerful and lyrical literature ever written in North America. Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature covers the field from the earliest recorded works to some of today's most exciting writers. Th