'Sacred Wisdom' Catches Spirit of Native American Cultures

Larry Zimmerman View print-quality image

Anthropologist and IUPUI Professor Larry J. Zimmerman weaves depictions of intricate spiritual lives shaped from a respect for nature into the pages of his new book on the history, art and beliefs of North American Indians.

“At the core of each Native culture is an abiding reverence for the region in which the people live. The terrain there is sacred, a source of identity and strength,” Zimmerman writes in The Sacred Wisdom of the American Indians, newly released by Watkins Publishing, an imprint of Duncan Baird Publishers of London.

Published in color with more than 150 brilliant images, the 309-page book gives readers opportunities to mull over its pages and imagine a culture that created pottery several thousand years ago or to consider a “soul catcher” made of bone inlaid with an abalone shell for use by a medicine man. Historical views of sacred Hopi lands in the Grand Canyon and paintings of finely recreated rituals, such as one of a Kiowa sun dance on deerskin, are also among the book’s many images.

Zimmerman delicately articulates present-day issues against a mosaic of ancient traditions, bringing an anthropologist’s contextual fervor to the tragic events but defining inspirations of the North American Indians. The Sacred Wisdom is not an art book but a literary quest illuminated with visual signposts guiding the reader toward an understanding of North America’s indigenous heritage.

The new book is the fourth on North American Indians written for general audiences by Zimmerman, a professor of anthropology and the public scholar of Native American representation in the School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Zimmerman is the recipient of the Peter J. Ucko Memorial Award for Contributions to World Archaeology by the World Archaeological Congress in 2008.

The book begins with an introduction on the first Americans, great historic figures and the dispossession. Its five chapters are Tribes & Territories; The Life of the Spirit; Symbol, Myth & Cosmos; Ritual & Sacrament; and The Survival of the Sacred. A reference section includes a colorful map of the concentrations of the Native populations in the present day.

“What inspires and unites all these peoples is a view of the world as a place of sacred mystery. Their relationship with the world is rooted in a profound respect for the land and its life-forms, Zimmerman writes. “Humans are not above creation but a part of it and people must form a respectful balanced relationship with the world around them.

“The soul of Native North America lies in these ideas, which have remained sufficiently powerful to enable these cultures to survive in the modern world.”

Go to http://www.watkinspublishing.co.uk/book/The-Sacred-Wisdom-of-the-American-Indians.aspx for more about the book.