Where the Lightning Strikes: The Lives of American Indian Sacred Places - Softcover

Nabokov, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143038818 ISBN 13: 9780143038818

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2007

Synopsis

From the author of How the World Moves: A revelatory new look at the hallowed, diverse, and threatened landscapes of the American Indian

For thousands of years , Native Americans have told stories about the powers of revered landscapes and sought spiritual direction at mysterious places in their homelands. In this important book, respected scholar and anthropologist Peter Nabokov writes of a wide range of sacred places in Native America. From the “high country” of California to Tennessee’s Tellico Valley, from the Black Hills of South Dakota to Rainbow Canyon in Arizona, each chapter delves into the relationship between Indian cultures and their environments and describes the myths and legends, practices, and rituals that sustained them.

About this title

About the Author:

Peter Nabokov is professor of American Indian Studies and World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. His previous books include A Forest of Time, Native American Testimony, Native American Architecture (with Robert Easton), Indian Running, Two Leggings: The Making of a Crow Warrior, and Architecture of Acoma Pueblo.

From Publishers Weekly:

According to UCLA professor Nabokov (Native American Testimony), the places that American Indians call sacred may be as wondrous as "cliffs spilling with waterfalls" and as humble as "caves splattered with bat excrement." What makes them important is not postcard-perfect beauty but the beliefs a group has about "what lies within or beneath what the eye can see." This excellent volume presents the "biographies" of 16 such places, from Maine to California. Through them, Nabokov surveys a wide range of Native American spiritual practices and reveals how intrusions into Native Americans' land have also constituted assaults upon their religious beliefs. Indeed, many of the assaults continue to this day: after the disruptions caused by war, disease, missionary activity and forced relocation came those of hydroelectric dams, agribusiness, parking lots and extreme sports buffs. Nabokov's deeply informed text is enhanced by first-person accounts of his visits to the locations and by his spirited commentary on the writings of other ethnographers, naturalists, linguists and anthropologists. Sentimental clichés and monolithic views are dismantled along the way. Each of Nabokov's biographies can be savored separately; taken together, they demonstrate both that there is "more to some American places than [meets] the eye" and that Native Americans have known that for a very long time. (Jan.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0143038818
• ISBN 13: 9780143038818
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368