RECOMMENDED READING

 Books: M - Z

 Magazines
& Newsletters


BOOKS: A - L


Androgynous Objects, String bags and gender in central New Guinea
Author: Maureen A. MacKenzie

"This book deals with the understanding of the relationship between string bags (bilum), material culture and gender in Central New Guinea. It contains detailed study of the form and function of the bilum. The hardcover is a bit pricey, but there is an affordable paperback out on the market."
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Buckskin: The Ancient Art of Braintanning
Authors: Tamara Wilder and Steven Edholm

"This book is written as an easy to use practical guide for the beginning home tanner and as a long term reference. It goes in-depth into the beginning process of preparing the hide to the final process of smoking the hide. Each step is covered in its own chapter, augmented by a total of 148 photos and illustrations."
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Bushcraft: A Serious Guide to Survival and Camping
Author: Richard Graves

"An excellent book on bushcraft from Australia. Out-of-print and hard to find."
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Bush Craft: Outdoor Skills & Wilderness Survival
Author: Mors L. Kochanski

"A gold mine of information on wilderness survival in the Great White North."
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Camping & Wilderness Survival
Author: Paul Tawrell

"This book contains a wealth of survival and camping techniques. It was labeled "The Ultimate Outdoors Book". A must get for those who are into wilderness survival."
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Carving Traditions of Northwest California
Author: Ira Jacknis

"The book covers the history of the traditional carving techniques of the Northwest California Indians. The construction and aesthetic form of the elk spoons and acorn mush paddles are revealed in chapters in the book as well as in photographs."
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Catching Fire, How Cooking Made Us Human
Author: Richard Wrangham

"This book is a must have to all who wonder how we became the humans we are. In clear and uncertain terms Richard Wrangham carefully and consistently builds the argument that cooking shaped the humans that we are today. With well documented facts, you cannot come away from this book a non-believer. For all its forceful logic and information, it is an easy read for everyone."

 

 

 


Chumash Ethnobotany
Author: Jan Timbrook

Covering both historical and contemporary use of plants, this book -- the result of three decades of research in archives and among native people -- celebrates more than just the variety of plants; it celebrates the resourcefulness and ingenuity of the people who have always known them best.

"An excellent resource on Southern California plant knowledge and uses by the Chumash People. Highly recommended."


Common Edible and Useful Plants of the West
Author: Muriel Sweet

"If you want to know how the Native Americans, pioneers and the early Spanish-Americans used many of the common wild plants of the west for food, building shelters or making artifacts, and as tonics or in other ways to help bring back or preserve health, this is the book for you."
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Creative Ropecraft
Author: Stuart Grainger

"The standard work on the subject of practical and decorative knots and ropework. It is a treasure trove of knots, hitches, bends, plaits, netting and decorative ropework, enabling the layman to follow in the footsteps of the traditional seamen who have gone before him. Well illustrated by Stuart Grainger."
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Crafts of the North American Indians; A Craftsman's Manual
Author: Richard Schneider

"Native American skills."
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Deerskins into Buckskins
Author: Matt Richards

"Over 130 photos and illustrations bring you step by step from raw skin to velvety soft buckskin and then show you how to create beautiful garments and useful goods. Designed to be easily understood by the beginner yet rich with details for the experienced, this book teaches tanning as a natural process."
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Early Uses of California Plants
Author: Edward K Balls

"Information from many sources has been compiled here to present the most important uses of plants by early inhabitants of California, as well as methods of preparing the plants for use."
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Earth Knack: Stone Age Skills for the 21st Century
Author: Bart & Robin Blankenship

"This book is chock full of instructions on primitive skills. Learn about the fire plow, pottery, netting, plants, basketry and more."
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Earth Pigments and Paint of the California Indians, Meaning and Technology
Author: Paul Douglas Campbell

"This subject is brought together and treated in-depth for the first time. Drawing on the best scholarship of others and extensive personal research, the author uncovers the technology and the significance of paint in early Native California. Hundreds of rare photographs parallel the text. Many are of painted 19th century Indians. Others in full color depict an array of ochre-covered artifacts. Images from walls of remote caves transport the reader to a California long past and little known."

The book is available on Amazon.com or call 818-249-4318. You can also order through email at coyotekasr@hotmail.com or mail an order to 2431 Orange Avenue, La Crescenta, CA 91214. If anyone wants to wholesale the books, Paul will give a good price.

Paul Douglas Campbell is also the author of Survival Skills of Native California, a book of in-depth research on representative life skills of the California Indians.


Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West
Author: Gregory L. Tilford

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Edible Wild Plants, Wild Food from Dirt to Plate
Author: John Kallas

Edible Wild Plants provides what you really need to know to have your own wild food adventures. Whether a beginner or advanced wild food aficionado, gardener, chef, botanist, nutritionist, scientist, or a dieter with special needs, this book is for you. Author John Kallas gives you unprecedented details, maps, simple explanations, and multiple close-up photographs of every plant covered at every important stage of growth. You learn that a plant is not only edible but when, why, and how it is. He can turn you into a successful, well-fed, and happy forager anywhere in North America.

 

 

 


Flavors of Home: A Guide to Wild Edible Plants of the San Francisco Bay Area
Author: Margit Roos-Collins

"A guide to wild edible plants of the San Francisco Bay Area."
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Flintknapping: Making and Understanding Stone Tools
Author: John C. Whittaker

"A thorough summary available on flaked stone technology. The book skillfully blends instruction on how to make stone tools with information on how to interpret flaked stone artifacts."
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Food in California Indian Culture
Edited by Ira Jacknis

This volume reprints the food-related sections from many hard-to-find sources. Representing all regions of modern California, these detailed descriptions present the full range of Native food from gathering through storage, processing, cooking, and eating, as well as the role of food in myth and ritual. Selections on changes in food customs introduce contemporary essays and photographs by Native Californians. An introduction by Hearst Museum anthropologist Ira Jacknis focuses on cooking and eating, a subject neglected by scholars.


Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants
Author: Christopher Nyerges

Christopher Nyerges has been teaching people about wild foods and useful plants for many years down in southern California. An excellent guide book on wild plant foraging and uses.
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Gems Trails of Northern California
Author: James Mitchell

"A great source locator for gems in Northern California."


Handbook of Yokuts Indians
Author: Frank F. Latta

"Richly detailed account of California's most populous native society. An excellent study of Yokuts culture and history."
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Hawaiian and Other Polynesian Gourds
Author: Ernest S. Dodge

"Dr. Dodge was the former director of the Peabody Museum of Salem for over 30 years. Excellent information on the various uses of Polynesian gourds."
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How To Make Primitive Pottery
Author: Evard H. Gibby

"Included are sections on Finding Clay, Clay Preparation, Tempering Clay, Making Pottery, Finish and Decoration, Drying Pottery, Primitive Firing, How To Cook in a Clay Pot, Other Objects Made From Clay and more."
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Indian and Eskimo Artifacts of North America
Author: Charles Miles
Bonanza Books

"In this primarily pictorial guide with explanatory captions, Miles has organized photographs of over 2,000 examples of all of the major kinds of North American native-made and -used artifacts, and presents them under several functional headings."
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Indian Uses of Native Plants
Author: Edith Van Allen Murphey
Mendicino County Historical Society

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Keeping It Living
Traditions of Plant Use and Cultivation on the Northwest Coast of North America
Edited by Douglas Deur & Nancy J. Turner

This book is the first comprehensive overview of how Native Americans managed the landscape and cared for the plant communities on which they depended, from the Oregon coast to Southeast Alaska. With contributions from ethnobotanists, archaeologists, anthropologists, geographers, ecologists, and Native American scholars and elders, this book documents practices, many unknown to European peoples, that involved manipulating plants and plant communities. It describes how indigenous peoples of this region used and cared for over 300 different species of plants, from the lofty red cedar to diminutive plants of backwater bogs.


 Books: M - Z

 Magazines

 

What good books would you recommend? Send in your suggestions along with a review or short summary.
E-mail your comments to "Dino Labiste" at KahikoArts@yahoo.com

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