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Thinning blood : a memoir of family, myth, and identity / Leah Myers.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, N. Y. : W. W. Norton & Company, [2023]Edition: First editionDescription: 163 pages : illustrations, genealogical table ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
  • still image
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781324036708
  • 1324036702
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Introduction: A Lineage -- Part I: Bear -- A legend of the bear mother -- Real live Indians -- An annotated guide to anti-native slurs -- Bear's decision -- Part II: Salmon -- A legend of salmon women -- Roots -- Skinwalker -- Native enough -- Salmon's memory -- Part III. Hummingbird -- A legend of hummingbird -- Portrait of a perfect native -- A writer who can't read -- Hummingbird's movement -- Part IV Raven -- A legend of raven stealing the sunlight --Unreported violence -- Scalping knife turned scalpel -- A letter to my seventh generation descendant -- The sound of the end -- Raven's emergence.
Summary: Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by The Millions A vibrant new voice blends Native folklore and the search for identity in a fierce debut work of personal history.Summary: "Leah Myers may be the last member of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe in her family line, due to her tribe's strict blood quantum laws. In this unflinching and intimate memoir, Myers excavates the stories of four generations of women in order to leave a record of her family. Beginning with her great-grandmother, the last full-blooded Native member in their lineage, she connects each woman with her totem to construct her family's totem pole: protective Bear, defiant Salmon, compassionate Hummingbird, and perched on top, Raven. As she pieces together their stories, Myers weaves in tribal folktales, the history of the Native genocide, and Native mythology. Throughout, she tells the larger story of how, as she puts it, her "culture is being bleached out," offering sharp vignettes of her own life between White and Native worlds"-- Provided by publisher
List(s) this item appears in: Indigenous Voices
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Shelving location Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library Biography MYERS, L. M996 Available 33111011068240
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Biography In Case You Missed It MYERS, L. M996 ICYMI - Recently New Available 33111011296122
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by The Millions

A vibrant new voice blends Native folklore and the search for identity in a fierce debut work of personal history.

Leah Myers may be the last member of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe in her family line, due to her tribe's strict blood quantum laws. In this unflinching and intimate memoir, Myers excavates the stories of four generations of women in order to leave a record of her family. Beginning with her great-grandmother, the last full-blooded Native member in their lineage, she connects each woman with her totem to construct her family's totem pole: protective Bear, defiant Salmon, compassionate Hummingbird, and perched on top, Raven.

As she pieces together their stories, Myers weaves in tribal folktales, the history of the Native genocide, and Native mythology. Throughout, she tells the larger story of how, as she puts it, her "culture is being bleached out," offering sharp vignettes of her own life between White and Native worlds: her naïve childhood love for Pocahontas, her struggles with the Klallam language, the violence she faced at the hands of a close White friend as a teenager.

Crisp and powerful, Thinning Blood is at once a bold reclamation of one woman's identity and a searingly honest meditation on heritage, family, and what it means to belong.

Introduction: A Lineage -- Part I: Bear -- A legend of the bear mother -- Real live Indians -- An annotated guide to anti-native slurs -- Bear's decision -- Part II: Salmon -- A legend of salmon women -- Roots -- Skinwalker -- Native enough -- Salmon's memory -- Part III. Hummingbird -- A legend of hummingbird -- Portrait of a perfect native -- A writer who can't read -- Hummingbird's movement -- Part IV Raven -- A legend of raven stealing the sunlight --Unreported violence -- Scalping knife turned scalpel -- A letter to my seventh generation descendant -- The sound of the end -- Raven's emergence.

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by The Millions A vibrant new voice blends Native folklore and the search for identity in a fierce debut work of personal history.

"Leah Myers may be the last member of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe in her family line, due to her tribe's strict blood quantum laws. In this unflinching and intimate memoir, Myers excavates the stories of four generations of women in order to leave a record of her family. Beginning with her great-grandmother, the last full-blooded Native member in their lineage, she connects each woman with her totem to construct her family's totem pole: protective Bear, defiant Salmon, compassionate Hummingbird, and perched on top, Raven. As she pieces together their stories, Myers weaves in tribal folktales, the history of the Native genocide, and Native mythology. Throughout, she tells the larger story of how, as she puts it, her "culture is being bleached out," offering sharp vignettes of her own life between White and Native worlds"-- Provided by publisher

Includes bibliographical references (pages 159-163).

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