November is Indigenous Peoples’ Month and in the reading community it’s also “nonfiction November.” This month I’ll be sharing books, both nonfiction and fiction, written by Indigenous authors. I’m hoping to highlight Indigenous voices, both from North America and around the world. Indigenous people exist all over the world, and not just within countries formed through colonialism.

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Last week I shared nonfiction books from Indigenous authors from around the world, and this week I want to continue sharing nonfiction books. However this week I’m going to focus on Indigenous authors from around the North American continent, and more specifically I want to share books by Indigenous women.

I’m always a big fan of supporting women and gender non-conforming individuals, and I love to highlight them in all creative endeavours.

I believe gender has a huge impact on our experience in this world.

Intersectionality is an area of study that focuses on how different identities combine and interact to impact our life experiences, such as what it means to be a “Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet” which is how Audre Lorde self-identified. All of those identities are important, and they can be discussed individually, but the real power comes from looking at how they affect each other and what it means to be all at the same time.

Indigenous women have a unique view on this world, and they always have. Nowadays they’re dealing with the systems of colonialism and patriarchy at the same time, while also coming from a culture that’s separate from those systems. Many Indigenous cultures have had a different relationship with nature, governance, and gender than the current systems in North America.

Indigenous women have always been a core part of their community. While that role may have changed over the years, they still have important insights to share with the rest of the world.

I’ve curated five books that highlight Indigenous women authors. The topics are varied and their Nations are diverse, but they all have valuable insights to share with the world.

I hope you find something of interest in this list of books.

Five nonfiction books by Indigenous women

Here’s a list of five nonfiction books by Indigenous women.

1. I Am Woman: A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism by Lee Maracle (1988)
   Stó꞉lō nation
2. Holding Our World Together: Ojibwe Women and the Survival of the Community by Brenda J. Child (2012)
   Red Lake Ojibwe Reservation
3. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013)
   Potawatomi Nation
4. Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga (2017)
   Ojibwe with roots in Fort William First Nation
5. A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott (2019)
   Tuscarora writer from Six Nations of the Grand River

Keep reading to find out more about each one. I’ve listed them in order of when they were published.

I Am Woman: A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism (1988)
Stó꞉lō nation

by Lee Maracle

I Am Woman represents my personal struggle with womanhood, culture, traditional spiritual beliefs and political sovereignty, written during a time when that struggle was not over. My original intention was to empower Native women to take to heart their own personal struggle for Native feminist being. The changes made in this second edition of the text do not alter my original intention. It remains my attempt to present a Native woman’s sociological perspective on the impacts of colonialism on us, as women, and on my self personally.

Links:

• You can find out more on:
  • Goodreads
  • Storygraph
  • About the author – CBC
  • Wikipedia
    • On the author
• You can buy the book here on Amazon.

Holding Our World Together: Ojibwe Women and the Survival of the Community (2012)
Red Lake Ojibwe Reservation

by Brenda J. Child

A groundbreaking exploration of the remarkable women in Native American communities.

Too often ignored or underemphasized in favor of their male warrior counterparts, Native American women have played a more central role in guiding their nations than has ever been understood. Many Native communities were, in fact, organized around women’s labor, the sanctity of mothers, and the wisdom of female elders. In this well-researched and deeply felt account of the Ojibwe of Lake Superior and the Mississippi River, Brenda J. Child details the ways in which women have shaped Native American life from the days of early trade with Europeans through the reservation era and beyond.

Child offers a powerful tribute to the many courageous women who sustained Native communities through the darkest challenges of the last three centuries.

Links:

• You can find out more on:
  • Goodreads
  • Storygraph
  • Author’s University Profile
  • Wikipedia
    • On the author
• You can buy the book here on Amazon.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013)
Potawatomi Nation

by Robin Wall Kimmerer

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.

Links:

• You can find out more on:
  • Goodreads
  • Storygraph
  • Author’s Website
  • Wikipedia
    • On the author
    • About the book
• You can buy the book here on Amazon.

Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City (2017)
Ojibwe with roots in Fort William First Nation

by Tanya Talaga

In 1966, twelve-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks after running away from residential school. An inquest was called and four recommendations were made to prevent another tragedy. None of those recommendations were applied.

More than a quarter of a century later, from 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home and live in a foreign and unwelcoming city. Five were found dead in the rivers surrounding Lake Superior, below a sacred Indigenous site. Jordan Wabasse, a gentle boy and star hockey player, disappeared into the minus twenty degrees Celsius night. The body of celebrated artist Norval Morrisseau’s grandson, Kyle, was pulled from a river, as was Curran Strang’s. Robyn Harper died in her boarding-house hallway and Paul Panacheese inexplicably collapsed on his kitchen floor. Reggie Bushie’s death finally prompted an inquest, seven years after the discovery of Jethro Anderson, the first boy whose body was found in the water.

Using a sweeping narrative focusing on the lives of the students, award-winning investigative journalist Tanya Talaga delves into the history of this small northern city that has come to manifest Canada’s long struggle with human rights violations against Indigenous communities.

Links:

• You can find out more on:
  • Goodreads
  • Storygraph
  • Website for the production company that focuses on Indigenous storytelling (Tanya is the President & CEO)
  • Wikipedia
    • On the author
    • About the book
• You can buy the book here on Amazon.

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground (2019)
Tuscarora writer from Six Nations of the Grand River

by Alicia Elliott

A bold and profound meditation on trauma, legacy, oppression and racism in North America from award-winning Haudenosaunee writer Alicia Elliott.

In an urgent and visceral work that asks essential questions about the treatment of Native people in North America while drawing on intimate details of her own life and experience with intergenerational trauma, Alicia Elliott offers indispensable insight into the ongoing legacy of colonialism. She engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, love, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrifcation, writing and representation, and in the process makes connections both large and small between the past and present, the personal and political–from overcoming a years-long battle with head lice to the way Native writers are treated within the Canadian literary industry; her unplanned teenage pregnancy to the history of dark matter and how it relates to racism in the court system; her childhood diet of Kraft Dinner to how systemic oppression is directly linked to health problems in Native communities.

With deep consideration and searing prose, Elliott provides a candid look at our past, an illuminating portrait of our present and a powerful tool for a better future.

Links:

• You can find out more on:
  • Goodreads
  • Storygraph
  • About the author – Writers’ Trust of Canada
  • Wikipedia
    • On the author
• You can buy the book here on Amazon.

Final thoughts

I hope you found something of interest in this list of books.

I’m always looking for more suggestions of books to read. I’d love to know which books you love or that you would recommend. Let me know in a comment below!

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below.