First Nations Studies

This excellent introduction to the many diverse yet related American Indian worldviews will be a welcome resource for teachers of introductory courses in Native American Studies or philosophy of religion, as well as laypersons with an interest in native cultures.

Native Americans and Canadians are largely romanticised or sidelined figures in modern society. Their spirituality has been appropriated on a relatively large scale by Europeans and non-Native Americans, with little concern for the diversity of Native American opinions. Suzanne Owen offers an insight into appropriation that will bring a new understanding and perspective to these debates.

This collection of essays and stories, many of which first appeared in Parabola magazine, range from descriptions of traditional Native American lifestyles and sacred rituals to startlingly apt prophesies of the coming of Europeans and descriptions of the struggle to live the traditional Native teachings in a world that has gone in a very different direction.

Interviews with religious leaders from various Indian tribes share their world views.

The first edition of this historical and philosophical work was written as a text for the first course in Native philosophy ever offered by a philosophy department at a Canadian university. This revised edition, based on more than twenty-five years of research through the Native Philosophy Project and funded in part by the Rockefeller Foundation, is expanded to include extensive discussion of Native American philosophy and culture in the United States as well as Canada.