One Hundred Summers - by Candace S Greene (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Prior to widespread literacy, the Kiowa people recorded their history in pictorial calendars, marking an entry for each summer and each winter. One Hundred Summers presents a recently discovered calendar, created by the Kiowa master artist Silver Horn. Covering the period from 1828 to 1928, the pictures trace Kiowa experiences from buffalo to biplanes, from horse raiding to World War I service, offering an indigenous perspective on a critical period of Kiowa history. The calendar, now housed at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, is reproduced in full color in this book. Weaving together information from archival sources, community memories, and a close reading of the pictures themselves, Candace S. Greene frames and clarifies this uniquely Native American perspective on Southern Plains history during an era of great political, economic, and cultural pressures. A rare window on a century of Kiowa life, One Hundred Summers is also an invaluable contribution to the indigenous history of North America. Beautifully produced with sixty-five color plates and twenty-five black & white images, this volume includes appendices featuring a wealth of unpublished primary source material on other Kiowa calendars and a glossary by a native Kiowa speaker.

Review Quotes

"One Hundred Summers brings to light a striking document by one of the most important calendar keepers among the Kiowas and is a welcome addition to a growing number of publications and on-line projects that provide complete photographic records and analyses of books of Plains Indian ledger drawings."--Phillip Earenfight, Great Plains Research

"One Hundred Summers reminds us that indigenous cultures have not vanished, but have changed and evolved over the past two centuries. It also reminds us that, for those who care enough to look and listen, American Indians have a lot to tell us about their own past."--Greg Olson, Annals of Iowa

"A solid scientific work, clearly arranged and well-written."--Dagmar Siebelt, Anthropos

"Beautifully reproduced in full color, this volume provides a fascinating look, not only at the Kiowa, but also at the gifted artist who kept a priceless record. . . . Much more than just another coffee table book, anyone with even a remote interest in American Indian artwork or history will savor this intelligent, well-researched work."--Sandy Amazeen, monstersandcritics.com-- (2/13/2009 12:00:00 AM)

"There is much to ponder in this book; it is a triumph of scholarship that has rescued a valuable document of Kiowa life, one that tells us a great deal indeed about a pivotal century in the tribe's history."--Clyde Ellis, Museum Anthropology Review

About the Author

Candace S. Greene is an ethnologist in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. She is the author of Silver Horn: Master Illustrator of the Kiowa and the coeditor (with Russell Thornton) of The Year the Stars Fell: Lakota Winter Counts at the Smithsonian (Nebraska 2007). Ellen Censky is the former director of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and currently serves as vice president of the Milwaukee Public Museum. Daniel C. Swan is the associate curator of ethnology at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. Gus Palmer Jr. is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma.