• Examines the complexities of Indigenous legends and creation myths and reveals common oral traditions across much of North America
• Explores the history of Cahokia, the Mississippian Mound Builder Empire of 1050-1300 CE, told through the voice of Honga, a Native leader of the time
• Presents an Indigenous revisionist history regarding Thomas Jefferson, expansionist doctrine, and Manifest Destiny
While Western accounts of North American history traditionally start with European colonization, Indigenous histories of North America-or Turtle Island-stretch back millennia. Drawing on comparative analysis, firsthand Indigenous accounts, extensive historical writings, and his own experience, Omaha Tribal member, Cherokee citizen, and teacher Taylor Keen presents a comprehensive re-imagining of the ancient and more recent history of this continent's oldest cultures. Keen reveals shared oral traditions across much of North America, including among the Algonquin, Athabascan, Sioux, Omaha, Ponca, Osage, Quapaw, and Kaw tribes. He explores the history of Cahokia, the Mississippian Mound Builder Empire of 1050–1300 CE. And he examines ancient earthen works and ceremonial sites of Turtle Island, revealing the Indigenous cosmology, sacred mathematics, and archaeoastronomy encoded in these places that artfully blend the movements of the sun, moon, and stars into the physical landscape.
Challenging the mainstream historical consensus, Keen presents an Indigenous revisionist history regarding Thomas Jefferson, expansionist doctrine, and Manifest Destiny. He reveals how, despite being displaced as the United States colonized westward, the Native peoples maintained their vision of an intrinsically shared humanity and the environmental responsibility found at the core of Indigenous mythology.
Building off a deep personal connection to the history and mythology of the First Peoples of the Americas, Taylor Keen gives renewed voice to the cultures of Turtle Island, revealing an alternative vision of the significance of our past and future presence here. Taylor Keen is a senior lecturer in the Heider College of Business Administration at Creighton University. He holds a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College and two master's degrees from Harvard University, where he has served as a Fellow in the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. He is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, the founder of Sacred Seed, an organization devoted to propagating tribal seed sovereignty, and a member of the Earthen Bison Clan of the Omaha Tribe where he is known by the name "Bison Mane." He lives in Omaha, Nebraska. Foreword
By Charles C. Mann
Preface
1 Cosmogenesis
The Earth Diver Mythos, an Ancient
Creation Cosmology
2 An Island in the East
A Comparative Analysis of an Indigenous Atlantis
3 The Founders' Dilemma of America
A First Peoples' Historical Perspective of America
4 Living Red
An Indigenous Philosophy on Living in Harmony
with Earth Mother
5 Pahuk
Sacred Geography in Nebraska
6 Mother Corn, Mother Earth
Rediscovering a Sacred Tribal Feminine Tradition
7 Cahokia
The Rise and Fall of an Indigenous Empire
8 As Above, So Below
Archaeoastronomy of the Earthen Works
and the Journey of the Souls
9 Ten Thousand Years Ago and Beyond
The Antiquity of Indigenous Peoples in America
Notes
Bibliography
Index "Brother Keen, with his infinite Indigenous and academic knowledge, brings forth amazing truths about ancient North American cultures the modern world was unaware of. Not only are the ancient earthworks extensive and scientifically and astronomically complex but Keen unveils they are all connected across the entire continent, mirroring the heavens. Simply incredible research." "Careful analysis by Taylor Keen of the placement and designs of earthworks of the Indigenous people of North America reveals far more complex planning and design was involved than just
