Native American Flags

by Donald T. Healy, Peter J. Orenski, Carl Waldman (Foreword)

Flags of the Native peoples of the United States proudly display symbols of tribal traditions, art, and culture. In Native American Flags , Donald T. Healy and Peter J. Orenski present an encyclopedic look at the flags and histories of 183 Native American tribes throughout the United States. Listing Indian nations alphabetically, this fully indexed reference includes both federally recognized tribes and other groups, and offers an image of each tribe’s flag and a map of their location within the United States. Each entry includes a brief summary of the tribe’s history, presents information on contemporary Indian peoples, and describes and illustrates in detail the symbolism and imagery of each Native American flag. A gallery of color plates includes full-color representations of 192 historic and contemporary Native flags. The authors visited more than two dozen reservations and surveyed more than 250 tribal governments, working closely with them to produce this authoritative volume. A portion of their original research on Native American flags was published in Raven , the journal of the North American Vexillological Association, an organization devoted to the scientific study of flags. This thoroughly revised and updated edition includes more than fifty new flags and accompanying tribal listings and full-color representations of each flag. Carl Waldman’s foreword places the flags within the context of Indian history, mythology, and art, and shows how Native American flags have become powerful symbols of Native unity and tribal sovereignty.

Genres: Nonfiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2003

Reviews

[PinkPanthress · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let's start by saying, that this is rather a 4.5 Stars Book.

You can borrow it here totally legal and for free. (always for one full hour, it took me a few hours to really enjoy it.) https://archive.org/details/nativeame...

(you just have to delete the colon symbol in the link, since GR understandably doesn't like link)

I couldn't give it a full 5 Star rating BECAUSE… the title itself was rather misleading.
It says 'Native American Flags' and I was like, "Yayz!1!!ONEZ! All Native Flags of the North American Continent…", but the Book is only about US-American Natives and their Flags. A Book which costs about 100$ should mention that part, this tiny info is something it owes to its potential readers/buyers. Non-Americans might very well mistake this Book as something else, like I did.

BUT! This Book is amazing with all the Flags and Infos. I would like to take an example here.
The Metis Nation in N.E., the author tells us a few facts about the people in general, bit of their history… Then about the flag. How it's very close to its canadian counterpart. Its colours and symbol, and what they mean to the people or not.
All in all, as detailed as the author could get on each Flag.
I enjoyed reading through it. Skimming back and forth… here and there.
It's a great reference book and the Vexillology-Fangirl deep inside me might have squeed every now and then.

So, if you are in Flags AND do understand that this Book is only about flags of the Natives in the USA… then by all means, enjoy! :)
I know I did, even though I was a tiny bit sad for not having the Canadian Native Flags in this as well.

[Christine Sopko · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book covers a lot of territory...i wish the flags were grouped by linguistic similarities or reservation for my ease but I understand with movement over time that alphabetically makes the most sense and for ease of finding the flag. I want to read another book on analysis and groupings of the flags..such as time period when they were made.