This dictionary containing more than 1,300 entries is a careful selection of the distinctive stories, characters, themes, symbols, and motifs that interweave the traditions of over 100 different Native American cultures. The alphabetically arranged entries are rigorously cross-referenced, allowing the reader to pursue in depth a particular path of inquiry. Each entry cites tribal origin and the corresponding geographic region. These regions in turn...

Attributed to Tecumseh in the early 1800s, this statement is frequently cited to uphold the view, long and widely proclaimed in scholarly and popular literature, that Mother Earth is an ancient and central Native American figure. In this radical and comprehensive rethinking, Sam D. Gill traces the evolution of female earth imagery in North America from the sixteenth century to the present and reveals how the evolution of the current Mother Earth figure...