PROF'S CHOICE
TRADITION, BALANCE, AND HEALING POWERS
VISITING PROFESSOR BERND PEYER
John Rollin Ridge, The Life and Adventures I of Joaquin Murieta (University of Oklahoma Press, 1955; first published in 1854) A historical romance written by a Cherokee author. Although its subject is Mexican social banditry in early California, the book nevertheless reflects the author's own turbulent experiences in the aftermath of Cherokee removal in the mid-nineteenth century.
Sarah Winnemucca, Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (University of Nevada Press, 1994 ; first published in 1883) First major publication by a Native American woman. This autobiographical narrative tells of her people's difficult times in Nevada at the beginning of the reservation era from the 1850s to the 1880s.
Charles Alexander Eastman, class of 1887, From the Deep Hoods to Civilization University of Nebraska Press, 1981; first published in 1916) The second memoir written by one of Dartmouth's most famous Native American alumni. Here he reviews critically his experiences with "civilization" into the first two decades of our century.
D'Arcy McNickle, The Surrounded (University of New Mexico Press, 1978; first published in 1936) A novel with autobiographical undertones about a mixedblood protagonist who tries to find balance between the ways of his Indian and Euro-American relatives.
N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn (Harper & Row, 1989; first published in 1966) This novel about an alienated Native American who re-established his ties to Pueblo traditions was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and initiated the cur rent boom in Native American literature.
Leslie Silko, Ceremony (Viking, 1986; reprint of the 1977 edition) A beautiful novel about the healing powers of Southwestern Native American storytelling traditions.
Louise Erdrich '76, Love Medicine (Henry Holt, 1993; expanded version of the 1984 edition) One of the most widely acclaimed novels of our day, by another renowned Dartmouth Native American. The book forms part of a tetralogy describing the intergenerational experiences of a multicultural family in North Dakota.
Peyer
