The Writings of Guy Bensusan

In this issue we move to the story of how the Hexadigm developed. We find a young and inexperienced Bensusan who learns to be sensitive to the response of his students. His humility and concern lead him to a new teaching paradigm that he has applied widely with great success. Others are now adapting this teaching model to science and other subject matters. Guy’s philosophy and practice have continued to grow with the advent of new technology and the acceptance of distance learning as a viable and effective alternative to traditional methods of teaching. He is the master teacher, leading us into new paradigms of teaching and learning. Through these writings he takes us on a journey of exploration and discussion. He shows us how to motivate students and achieve results with anywhere-anytime collaborative learning that are the envy of most classroom teachers. The Bensusan Method is enriching the lives of tens of thousands of students. Ed Journal is grateful to have Dr. Bensusan present this series of articles each month so that you, your colleagues, and your students can enjoy and benefit from his experience.

 

TEACHING NATIVE AMERICANS

Guy Bensusan

My first experience teaching a course in which Native Americans were the entire audience came in1967. I was at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, and the Director of Continuing Education asked me to teach Mexican Arts, Ideas and Values every other weekend at a small boarding school called Rock Point, just north of the spectacular Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo Reservation. Every other Friday at noon, I climbed into the University car, spent four hours of windshield time avoiding horses and cattle on the road, taught my class in the evening to twenty-five Navajo teachers, ate with them, stayed overnight in the teacher's dormitory, taught again in the morning, and drove home. It was a deep challenge to me at the time, one which, looking back, was a milestone in my life --- an experience which made me question pre-assumed truths and reversed my thinking about the art of teaching.

But before this, my multicultural life and later professional training had not prepared me for teaching North American Indians. As the child of a mining engineer in upcountry Brazil, I went to school with Tupí, Tapajós and Aymará Indians who called themselves Brazilians; I grew up thinking all races were "flesh" color. When we moved to the USA and drove west on Highway 66, I met real Pueblos, Apaches and Navajos in New Mexico and Arizona and I learned they were not like the "reel" Indians I saw in the movies or was taught about in college courses. During the 1950's I received a superb education leading to a doctorate in Latin American History at UCLA, though it too was flawed and misleading about Native Americans. I was taught that the "Hispanic" aspect of Latin American culture, even in New Mexico and Arizona, dominated native culture. I was told that, except for isolated cases, where the Indians had been "assimilated," their "difference" from other Indians was due to the Latin influence!

Along with other students, I was taught the outsiders' views of things as well as their standards of evaluation; not the Indian stories of skies, plants, animals, symbols or arts. Even my most sensitive professors often dismissed native ideas as superstitions, local lore or unedified narratives, relegating Indians to a status of quaint and odd. And who was I at that time to dispute my highly- regarded mentors? I was not encouraged to study what natives had thought or believed other than through descriptions by Spaniards who wrote their own observations.

Even when I designed the first year-long Humanities sequence on Mexican and Southwestern Arts and Culture for the Bilingual-Multicultural Master's Degree Program, we emphasized Hispanic things. There was so much more information to offer, I thought. I bought a cowboy hat and boots, and became a westerner. A zealous movie-goer, I became fascinated with Sedona, Monument Valley and the many other locations where my favorite Westerns had been filmed. Clambering about the sets, I relived and reinforced the misleading filmic images, feeding my dis-education about the "Injuns" I joked about in class. Navajos, Hopis, Apaches, Hualapais, Yavapais, Mohaves and Pima who were students laughed along with us.

They responded with their own anecdotes about "white eyes," but also about "Meskins and Injuns." Yet these were not the people the movies suggested; instead, they did their homework well and earned high marks on my tests. They might be reserved and live apart at the Indian dorm, and they might go off to ceremonies of various sorts for several days without saying anything, but their course essays and projects were satisfactory and often were highly competent. When in 1964 and 1965, I received Teacher-of-the-Year awards as voted by the student body, I truly felt I was succeeding as an educator. Naturally I thought I would have the same success out at Rock Point.

Neither then nor now is Flagstaff a noisy metropolis, so I did not feel I was going to the boondocks at Rock Point, just out to the countryside. The most evident and immediate challenge with the students was auditory, as they spoke so quietly. I found myself asking them to repeat their responses until I could fine-tune my own hearing. The same was true in their non-verbal communication; slight movements of head, mouth, body, eyes and hands conveyed ideas clearly --- that is, if one was paying attention.

I began by teaching them what I taught on campus: Arts, Ideas and Values of Mexican culture, popular, concert, and folk music, examination of Maya and Aztec artifacts, a comparison of Mexican Festivals (Holy Week, Bullfights, Day of the Dead, the Cinco de Mayo observance of a Mexican military victory in 1862), and the Folklore Ballet, recounting some folk stories showing cultural traits and Hispano-Indian blendings, plus a study of icons, designs and symbols used in ceramics, carvings and textiles.

Music and dance history evoked smiles and some interesting comparative discussion, but much of my "best stuff" simply flopped. They ignored my brilliant analysis of the bullfight, the slides of Jesus-on-the-cross being carried through the streets at Easter, the pictures of skulls and skeletons so common in Mexican life. Navajo teachers would not even look at the screen, much less discuss concepts of celebrating death or its many visual and symbolic manifestations.

Their response to my presentation on architecture and of my favorite Mexican baroque and churriguerresque cathedrals was even more disappointing. It was clear I was not getting through and my spirits were both shattered and mystified when the same program so successful on campus was a failure here. I had no idea what was wrong, plus my pride was in trouble. At lunch one Saturday, after an especially dismal, morning session, I blurted out, "What is wrong?"

They were silent for a long while as I looked into each impassive, unreadable face. After what seemed forever, Stella, the senior teacher who was in charge of arrangements and always helpful and genial, responded. Looking at me squarely, she said, "What is wrong is that you are making us do things which are prohibited. When we look at or listen to what is taboo we must go and be purified. Otherwise we will spread that evil. You wonder why we are late on Saturdays. It is because we have a smoke ceremony to cleanse us. We must not look at owls and skulls, or talk about death, or tell and listen to tales and stories in the spring and summer."

"We know it is important to learn about these other cultures, and we have an agreement with the Education Department, but we are very uncomfortable. And even though many of us, like myself, have Mexican names, we also have a long history of hostility with both Spaniards and Mexicans. The overdecorated art that you want us to admire shows us they are morally decadent and reminds us of what the Old People (Anasazi) who were before us made. They decorated everything much too much, and now they are gone."

"We believe it is because they did not keep life in balance. We leave our pots plain and whatever design it has when it is done comes from baking in the fire. We like you and we must have this course for our teaching degrees, and there is much we enjoy about it. But there are also many places where we must endure what you are doing until class is over."

I was stunned. I had totally miscalculated. There was a vast hole in my education and in my so-called multiculturality, one that I had obviously fallen headlong into. Yet true to my vocation, I tried to point out that they needed the course, because at Rock Point they were isolated and should encounter the outside world in order to deal with alternatives that would lead them to new ways of seeing. I asked how they expected to teach their students if they did not reach out. My feelings were more than a little hurt, but when my rationale drew no response, I also realized that they as well as I knew that I was mouthing academic officialese, rather than heeding their explicit cultural warnings. I should have known better; I was not a provincial yokel, I was multilingual, well traveled, able to function in many societies and successful in coping with foreign dilemmas. With my Ph.D. and teaching awards, I should be able to handle this!

I tried another tactic: "These slides and lectures worked so well in Flagstaff. The Navajos in my classes there looked at the slides, talked about the ideas, made comparisons of Mexican culture with Navajo culture and even wrote about them in detail. Why don't these same things work here?" Stella's answer was gentle, sensible and obvious; "Why do you expect us to be like Navajos who leave their culture to go to the city and become like the Anglos? We live here."

How could I have fallen into this cultural entanglement? I had just come up point-blank against the wall every one of us builds within ourselves, one that has many doors and windows, if we will only take the time, courtesy and respect to open. After this lesson, so delicately presented for my consideration, I now doubt if there is any possible way of learning all the ways there are to deal with the "other" race or ethnic group, that no one can ever be a true expert --- each one of us can only do our best to be the most expansive and careful of others, hoping to be the least, rather than the most, offensive.

I had not applied my own basic principles, having created a generalization about an entire group in which Indians were Indians everywhere. I thought about nothing else during the long drive home: ethos-pathos, rights and rites, academic curricular standards versus the sub-culturally diverse entitlement of students not to have their ways and customs disregarded. I could see and understand both sides.

In Flagstaff I consulted with Roger Wilson and Milo Kalectaca, older Navajo and Hopi colleagues with whom I served on a multi-cultural teacher education committee. Their response to my questions was: "Have you asked the teachers how they want you to deal with this difficult predicament?" What a simple blockbuster: "Have you asked them?" Well, of course I had not asked them --- I was the teacher!! They were paying me to teach them! Why would anyone ask the students what they wanted to learn or even what the teacher might best use as examples?

When I did ask, I was astonished how simple and easy it became to by-pass this huge problem without sacrificing the academic essentials. I only needed to release my ego, to inquire about what created the student discomfort and substitute an equally useful topic which would serve the same purpose of illustrating and exemplifying our course principles. What I had chosen to teach about Mexican Arts and Culture was what I already knew, was familiar with, and enjoyed. I had concentrated on my needs rather than on theirs. I needed to find something for class that would not be traumatic to on-reservation Navajo students.

However, I still was not ready to allow them to select their own topics within the subject matter of the course. I did that for them, and what I chose worked well. I still needed to listen closely when they spoke, and remembered to keep my voice down when I got enthusiastic, or carried away singing and playing the guitar. But what developed from that long-ago encounter was both a revelation to me and a clear indication of the in-no-way-inferior abilities of Navajo teachers and trainees to be creative in class and express their ideas with useful examples and with wisdom. When the course came to an end, the class members held a party and presented me with a sand painting award which still adorns the wall of my office.

Teaching Indians is no different than teaching any other ethnic group --- steps must be taken in advance to insure one's lecture and display materials contain a minimum of offensive subjects to the students. When an Anglo teacher first encounters a Native American audience, it helps to remember that any one of the Indian persons in the classroom may have lived in Europe for a couple of years, or attended an Ivy League college, or mastered the art of medieval calligraphy, or won distinguished awards in creative arts, or is the son or daughter of an elected and esteemed "National Treasure." I can provide a local name for each of these categories.

Too often the immediate response to a Native American falls into one of several categories: (1) guilt for previous transgressions, (2) nervousness in dealing with peoples we have been taught to consider backward, and (3) asking too many questions about their culture, beliefs, and customs. One way of coping with each of the above challenges is or can be: (1) some racial groups persist in keeping alive centuries' old feuds but many Native Americans are quick to reassure that bygones will be bygones. (2) Envision the Native American before you as having earned a doctoral degree, as being a successful business-person, as someone able to speak three languages, or be accustomed to wearing $10,000 worth of jewelry at once. (3) If you feel you must inquire into personal beliefs, always ask first whether this is a topic that an outsider may learn about.

As Stella had suggested, I was wrong to assume that "Indians" at NAU in Flagstaff were culturally the same as the ones at Rock Point. I set up a new three- part classification: "Traditional" or rural, "Modernized" or urban, and "Transitional" or an extensive dynamic stage in-between. I needed to be sensitive and ask many questions about what students were uncomfortable with when I taught on the Reservation, because the classes were 90% or more Indians, usually "traditional." On campus the ratio was different; there might be 5% Indian, hardly ever "traditional." I needed to adapt to two different worlds, so I was fortunate to live in both for a while and learn how to adjust. Obviously, location is a major asset in teaching.

I now perceived Mexico as well as the Southwest in a new light: on both sides of the border Native culture had not only endured, but had exerted much more influence upon European (Hispanic or Anglo) culture than had previously been suggested by academe, government, popular magazines and the media in general. All you had to do was look for the Indian imprint rather than the European one. Even the early "How to teach" manuals for the different ethnicities which appeared en masse during the 1970's were guilty of this, though they fortunately treat the subject in more profound ways now.

The other vital concept was "cultural process;" continuing and accelerating change. I saw analogies in the transculturation of Indians and Mexican Americans. "Latin" students comprised several groups. Flagstaff's resident families often related to New Mexican Colonials, many moving west with railroad building. Other Mexican Americans came from lengthy descent, whether in agriculture at Yuma, mining at Globe and Morenci, ranching in Apache-Navajo counties, border business at Nogales and Douglas or, the contrast of large numbers of big-city kids from Phoenix. A third group were recent arrivals from Mexico or Central America, representing many social and economic levels. Some Natives and Mexicans were closer to tradition, some had lost it (along with language, stories and customs), and many in-betweens were a little of this and a little of that --- unsure whether to retain their tradition or go toward the mainstream.

Traditional content for both my courses emphasized what was in the main stream. I saw the need to change that and wanted an approach based on location, which would include Native and Latin elements from both sides of the border varying the fare and allowing Indian and Mexican American students to relate to classroom topics that came from each of their own cultures. The bonus was that they learned more by being able to see the other cultures having similar challenges. My first efforts were two 1976 Bicentennial programs: "Panorama of Mexican American Art," a touring exhibition for the Museum of Northern Arizona and "Roots and Rhythms," a series on Latin American Music for National Public Radio. In each case we started with "Popular Arts" and then reached out to Fine Arts and Folk Arts.

It was a start, and the success of those programs led to the next step, developing what would become the formula I currently use in the Interactive Instructional Television classroom. Crystallized into its present form, I call it "The Hexadigm," an open-ended six-part schema for dealing with the on-going and complex evolution of Native and subsequent cultures. In the following description, the six parts are in capitals and are numbered. This is one way I have found to be successful in teaching humanities to Native Americans, by incorporating an inclusivist rather than particularist viewpoint.

Regardless of whether we talk about the Southwest or any other part of the Americas, it is clear that "Indian cultures" by 1500 were the consequence of many successive (1) CULTURAL SEQUENCES of native groups for millenia, with each new group providing and receiving (2) MUTUAL INFLUENCES, including those by land and climate --- which had been there all along. These two-or-more-way cultural adaptations would continue to evolve as each new layer of culture came in from Europe, Africa and other continents.

At the same time, earlier frontiers in each region related to natural factors, while later ones became the arbitrary and politically-driven borders and boundaries we now learn in national lessons. Location, climate, local history and elevation coupled with ethnic ratios contributed to (3) REGIONAL DIVERSITIES. While all cultures, regardless of era, had certain levels of technology, the arrival of Spanish metal tools, livestock, new plants, diseases, and new languages, arts, music, dance, clothing and religions deeply affected native life, creating a most profoundly significant cultural turning point for resident and newcomer alike. In Arizona and New Mexico those influences came in a Northward movement from Mexico about 1600, with follow-ups in the 1770s and after Independence in 1821.

After 1820, however, (4) MODERNIZING TECHNOLOGIES, such as the steam engine for land and sea transport increased the flow and speed of cultural change with ever-growing numbers and diversity, once more changing the lives of Native, Mexican and newcomer. In the 1870's, the pace intensified with railroads, with Mexican immigrants during the 1910 Revolution, and with automobiles and national highways in the 1930's. After World War Two came Sunbelters (including me), retirees, seasonal visitors, plus global immigrants and more Mexicans. The Southwest is no longer what it was either in quantity or quality, especially for Native Americans.

(5) EXPANDING COMPREHENSIONS resulted from all of these. Museums and study-centers grew, while changes on the national level affected schooling, life styles and language. People learned about each other, and World War II saw them go away together and return with changed ideas. Flagstaff's Museum of Northern Arizona, plus local monuments and parks, along with revived interest in Native arts and cultures by academe, commerce and tourist development evoked scholarly studies, motion pictures, magazines, videotapes and private arts collections. The media today deluge us with Native American arts, documents, histories and countless other studies, many of them by Indians, and from Indian perspectives, even feminist.

Increased availability of information and attitudes, as well as the new technology make it possible to study the new resources in different ways. Watching films helps us classify things we had only previously read about; greater collections of recorded music establish an alteration of thinking about music and how it might be best taught and understood. More information of different kinds leads to diversity of methods, helps to subdivide fields of study and multiplies the foci of scholarly interest. While pockets of cultural and intellectual resistance remain, the way we have and are defining Native American Studies and Native American life has led to (6) REVISED INTERPRETATIONS about Indians, the final part of the Hexadigm.

The Hexadigm was successful with Mexican American and Native American students, and also with "Anglos," in presenting an outline of a concept first, and then applying it to art, architecture, music and dance. In every case, I began with the Indian ideas and activities, then moved to the Spanish and Mexican ones, and finally to the Anglos and what they had done. Rather than use standardized tests, I encouraged students to write responses and reflections in their journals, and turn them in to me every three weeks. I kept leading them back to the six points, and asking them to discuss what they thought was most important as well as what they found that bothered them. Each respective audience could thus see themselves in our classroom activities. This extremely important breakthrough made it clear that by seeing themselves in the content of the course they gained a feeling of trust with the teacher, which in turn encouraged or enabled them to participate in and contribute to the class discussion. Teacher evaluations suddenly rose, spurring me to go farther.

In 1979, I composed a verse called "Past and Repast" which applied the Hexadigm to history, culture and gastronomy. I printed out copies so we could read it together in class; it made the students hungry, so was a big hit! I published it in a couple of journals and conference proceedings, and I even made a video of my "declamation," which was used in our Elderhostel sessions. Year by year I versified about music, teaching principles and cultural evolution as well as built collections of musical instruments and folk art. I was pleased with the response to them and how well they were received when I went to Western Carolina University on a National Faculty Exchange where there were Cherokee and Lumbe Indians. Everyone could relate to the materials and there was interesting discussion. But the students were still not truly involved. They were an audience, and I was performing. I was still only lecturing.

The change would come when I began to teach in my first Interactive Instructional Television classroom. Three groups of students were in classrooms 60 miles apart, and I could only be in one of those places at a time. It was two- way video and two-way audio, and he-she who pushed the microphone button first got to say something or answer the question. Sometimes, if one didn't like the answer, they would argue about it without asking my permission! It was exciting, and lights went on in my head: why not build an entire course out of student- discussion, with the professor setting up the situations and helping to lead students through the complexity in a Socratic method --- that is, asking questions, getting answers, and continuing to ask more questions?

It worked, and step-by-step has improved. Two years later I was appointed to a unique position: Senior Faculty Associate for Interactive Instructional Television. The job description said I should teach two courses each semester over the system; experiment to see what interaction might allow in order to redesign education; develop ways to assist other faculty to get started; and help build the teaching side of what would become a statewide academic program. It is clearly the most exciting job I have ever had in my 45 years of teaching.

We started with one remote site, built two more, and by using a piece of equipment called a Four-Split, could see and talk with all four classrooms simultaneously. The geographic diversity also increased the number of Indian tribes we had access to. Now we have gone to a Nine-Split (currently the only one in the nation used for university courses) which has taken us to all parts of this large state. It has been this innovation that has helped bring Native Americans from so many different sites into greater participation in the course.

Since IITV is so interesting and I learn so much, I have scheduled two courses in each summer session as well. I will teach my 60th fully interactive course in July of 1995, and while courses in the regular semester enroll fifteen percent Native Americans, in summers we get forty-five percent. Class videotapes show that Indians interact, present ideas, debate points and definitions, and bring out perspectives that other students have not thought of. They even volunteer to give presentations on camera to the other classrooms, and handle questions with good answers. I sometimes feign amazement and say, "What's wrong with you guys, Indians are supposed to be reserved, taciturn and be of few words. What's going on?" They will laugh and say they are comfortable, having fun and learning. We have even been able, once into the course, to introduce some of those taboo topics and discuss them.

Why does it work? I think there are several reasons, which are confirmed by Indian students who take my courses, male and female, traditional, transitional and transformed, and from many different tribes and regions. Part of it is the Interactive Television --- all the students are intimidated by the technology, so the playing field is equally uneven for everyone; they all have to learn to use it from scratch. Several Indian students have told me it amuses them to see Anglo students being scared, breathing rapidly, trembling on camera and losing their composure. They say it helps their own sense of competence, their resolve to improve and their willingness to contribute.

The method of starting our American study with Indian arts and culture is of utmost importance. By continuing to come back to what happens with the Natives as each new cultural layer comes along, we have made their culture a focal part of the course and opened up the chance for each of the several cultural groups in the electronically-linked classrooms to discuss feelings and reactions to the interpretations. Everyone's culture is in the course content and we discuss all of the parts openly, including our feelings and reactive responses. I tell students that I am multicultural and share many of my personal experiences in arts and culture with them. They reciprocate.

Two important consequences derive from that: one is that students are listening to other students in a classroom situation. At first there is some reluctance, but up on the screen we rapidly get to know each other by name, and since I arrange for us to be on the circuit before class starts, some students even come to class early and strike up conversations with those in other places. I have seen several Natives from one tribe or nation relate well to newfound friends from another --- even discussing differences in culture between tribes, which is listened to by non-Natives. The other factor is the importance of geography, that is, location, elevation, climate, ethnic ratios, cultural emphasis, etc., which becomes obvious to the students as the discussion goes on.

Appropriate answers come from appropriate locations, and this demographic reality is discussed openly with such questions as, "well, is that more a product of your culture or where you are living?" The subject under discussion takes on many new dimensions as we examine it. For instance, one requirement is that students take a field-trip to a park or museum and also engage in an ethnic interview in order to broaden what would otherwise be an exclusive reliance upon book sources. Consequently, in at least one class session I will ask each site to talk about parks and other resources that are available in their locale, or to go to other classroom sites in order to see what they have previously only heard about. It is not uncommon for a student who regularly attends at one site to show up at another. When they do, students recognize them, talk with them, and often socialize after class. Sometimes students from different sites who have chosen the same project topic will ask to make their presentations on the same day in order to cover the ground better.

The atmosphere is much different from what I have seen in the more traditional single classroom. At the same time, student ratios have changed extensively. In my electronic classrooms on the Navajo and Hopi reservations I still have 90% or more Natives, while on campus what used to be 5% has risen to 25% during the fall and spring semesters. Summer Sessions bring as many as 50 percent, since so many Native teachers come to campus for their residence requirements. The overall ratios are equally altered. Last semester, for instance, in a class of 90, there were 23 Native Americans representing 11 nations, 27 Mexican Americans, 2 Asians, 3 African Americans, 38 Anglos, and 7 international students, including a Mexican woman who gave birth to a 6 pound, seven ounce daughter two days after the course ended. It was a most interesting semester and we all learned from each other.

I am no longer lecturing about Arts and Culture to the students. Instead, I find out early who is in the course and what their interests are, altering specific topic areas to take advantage of the knowledge individual students bring to the course through presentations to the class. My role now is to help the student develop the project and facilitate the exploratory discussion about contexts, comparisons, causes, consequences and combinations. During the past year, we had jewelers, rug weavers, basketmakers, dress designers, musicians, sandpainters, apprentice healers and apprentice museum curators in the course.

By asking that they help us learn about what they do while also insisting that they pursue a broader context of their specialty, we seem to make dual headway. One highly traditional Navajo woman told me that she has come to understand that her prior view of rugmaking was very parochial, and that the Spanish-Mexican influence upon Navajo life was very profound --- which she says gives her a much deeper understanding of her own weaving designs and related cultural activities. Most significantly she wrote in her evaluation that she had been closed to the idea until she had discovered it in her own research.

Finally, the continuing development of this interactive multicultural program is also aided by the dramatic change in Native American outlooks, which have been with us since the beginning of the 1990's, in preparation for the Quincentennial in 1992. Among the various Indian students who come into my courses now, there is a new attitude of wanting to be heard, wanting to have their culture known, and a willingness to discuss it. Some, of course, demand the right to be the exclusive interpreters, in compensation perhaps for the long centuries of having been defined by outsiders.

I still need to find better ways to increase the students' reading depth and frequency, as well as to encourage improvement in their timeliness of handing in assignments. I would also prefer students to get over their initial inertia in getting started with their assignments, and I would be happier if everyone would stay for the entire course. These may come with time, however, since each semester seems to be more productive. From what I see in my classroom and read in the evaluations, mutually useful sharing goes on among many races --- I look forward to seeing what will happen in the multi-site, Interactive Instructional Humanities courses yet to come.

May 20, 1995

Some Useful References

Three books which I have used the most in regard to teaching multicultural courses are:

Edward H. Spicer, Cycles of Conquest, University of Arizona Press, 1962 and several updates. I have found this to be a useful starting place for my thinking on many cultural and contextual topics.

Alfred Crosby, The Columbian Exchange, Greenwood Press, 1972.

James A. Banks, Teaching Strategies for Ethnic Studies, now in fifth edition (1991) from Allyn and Bacon. The annotated bibliography is varied and valuable.

(Perry and Fraser's Freedom's Plow, Routledge, 1993, moves along similar lines, but focuses upon African Americans, Asian Americans and East Coast situations, a different world from the Southwest.)

Three others I find most useful are:

Carl Waldman, Atlas of the American Indian, New York, 1985

Herman Viola and Carolyn Margolis, Seeds of Change, Smithsonian, 1991.

Trenton and Houlihan, Native Americans: Five centuries of changing Images, Abrams, 1989.

Arizona Highways (dating back into the 1920's) carries a wealth of information on Southwest Indians and statewide multicultural lore; Texas Highways covers similar grounds but is more focused upon interesting places to visit. New Mexico Magazine, Indian Artist, Southwest Art emphasize the art world. Native Peoples, affiliated with ten major museums about the nation, is useful in many cultural ways.

Whispering Wind Magazine has been published since the late 1960's; editors Jack and Darlene Heriard at Written Heritage (800-301-8009) also have a broad selection of books, videos, cd-roms and cd's. Individual Museums also have excellent publications, new materials all the time: the Woolaroc Museum in Barlesville, Oklahoma; the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Texas; and the Textile Museum in Washington DC, are very helpful. Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff has long published Plateau, which is superceded by Cañon Journal.

University of Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona Presses are prolific publishers of Native Americana, while Chelsea House Publishers, Broomall, PA, has children's series on Indians. A helpful reader is The American Frontier volume in the Opposing Viewpoints series by Greenhaven Press in San Diego. PBS has produced several videos on Chaco Canyon and various Indian cultures; KNME (Albuquerque) produces many in the Colores Series; Interpark (Cortez, Colorado) has an extensive catalog; Camera One in Seattle, Washington has produced Wes Studi's Ancient America Series of five regional surveys which both update and supplement the four video set organized by Will Sampson under the title of Hollywood Massacre.

Finally, Bill McCune of Phoenix produced "Indian" --- A History of Native Arizona.