Native American Filmography
updated (12/04)

Anthropological and Historical Documentaries

Hollywood Depictions of Native Americans

This filmography lists films, videotapes, and videodiscs in the American University Library Media Services collection that relate to the indigenous peoples of North America . The programs represent a variety of perspectives ranging from anthropological to historical to stereotypical depictions in Hollywood Westerns. Other useful resources for identifying media programs about the indigenous peoples of North America include:

Battaille, Gretchen M. & Silet, Charles L. P. (1985). Images of American Indians on film: An annotated bibliography. New York : Garland . PN1995.9 I48 Z9935

National Video Resources. (Winter 1993). Videoforum: A videography for libraries, Native American issue. V. 1. Available from the MacArthur Foundation Library Video Project, P.O. Box 409113 , Chicago , IL 60640 , 800/847-3671

Native American Public Broadcasting Consortium. (1992). Catalog of programming, 1992-93. Available from Native American Public Broadcasting Consortium, 1800 North 33rd St., P.O. Box 83111, Lincoln, NE 68501, 402/472-3522

Weatherford, E. & Seubert, E. (c1981-c1988). Native Americans on film and video. 2 v. New York : Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation. PN1995.9 .I48 N37

Anthropological and Historical Documentaries

Alaska, the last frontier? Human geography, people places and change. 1996. 1 videocassette (27 min.). This program shows the difficulties of balancing the needs of indigenous peoples and the wilderness with economic development and modern life in the state of Alaska . VHS 3605

Alcatraz is not an island. 2002. 1 videocassette (58 min.). A brief history of the relationship between the U.S. government and American Indians is covered at the beginning of this program. This leads to a discussion of the creation of the United Bay Area Council of American Indian Affairs, in San Francisco , and a new Pan Indian Activism. This program focuses on the story of the American Indian occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay beginning in 1969. Many of the former participants are interviewed. VHS 7482

Always the enemy; The only good Indian is a dead Indian. c1993. 1 videocassette (100 min.). How the West was Lost. "Always The Enemy" describes the Apaches' struggle under Cochise and Geronimo and the 27 years they endured as prisoners of war even though they were not defeated. "The Only Good Indian Is A Dead Indian" shows how massacres of peaceful Cheyennes turned them toward vengeance and how the whites' slaughter of buffalo herds destroyed their way of life. VHS 2192

America, the dancing ground.  1 videocassette (28 min.). Shows the importance of dance in American culture from the native American dances and dances brought from Europe by the earliest settlers to the twentieth century innovations by Isadora Duncan, Ted Shawn, Ruth St. Dennis, Martha Graham and others. Excerpts from works by several dance companies show the variety of dance types that are part of American culture. VHS 2289

Ancestral voices, the power of the word. 1989. 1 videocassette (58 min.). This is the first of two programs filmed at Glassboro State College in Glassboro , New Jersey . This episode includes poets who turn to the past and their own cultural heritage to understand the present. Featured at a poetry reading at Glassboro State College and in extensive interviews with Moyers are Garrett Hongo, Joy Harjo, and Mary TallMountain. VHS 783

Another wind is moving: the off-reservation Indian boarding school . c1985. 1 videocassette (58 min.). Interviews American Indians regarding their experiences at boarding schools and examines their positive and negative impacts. VHS 580

Baked Alaska . 2003. 1 videocassette (26 min.). Documentary about how rising temperatures and the battle over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) are impacting life in Alaska . "Temperatures in Alaska are rising ten times faster than in the rest of the world.  President Bush is ignoring the warning signs. He pulled out of Kyoto and now wants to open a wildlife refuge for oil drilling. Native Alaskans are divided: The Inupiat Eskimos want the jobs and the money, but the Gwitchin Indians fear it will destroy their reindeer.  Alaska is rich from oil.  But each barrel sent south comes back as damage to the delicate balance of Arctic life." -from container.  VHS 7267

Between two worlds. 1990. 1 videocassette (58 min.). The story of Joseph Idlout, a highly respected Inuit hunter who attained celebrity status in Canada in the 1950s as a model Eskimo in the "good Indian" mold and was pictured for many years on the back of Canada's two dollar bill. Idlout's son, Peter Paniloo, takes us on a poignant journey through his father's life and tragic death. With footage from the NFB film "The Land of the Long Day," we see Paniloo as a boy of 14, living in his father's camp on the land in stark contrast with his life today in Pond Inlet with its satellite TV, supermarkets and fax machines.  VHS 4139

Buffalo Soldiers. 1984? 1 videocassette (49 min.). A photographic history of the two black cavalry regiments that served to keep peace on the frontier from 1867 to 1891. Also shown is the dedication ceremony at Fort Leavenworth of a monument to the Buffalo soldiers by sculptor Eddie Dixon, with speeches by Gen. Colin Powell and other high- ranking black officers of the U.S. Armed Forces. VHS 2284

The Chaco legacy. Odyssey series. 1980. 1 videocassette (60 min.). Examines archaeological theories about the rise and fall of Chacoan culture, which had a high level of technical development and flourished over 900 years ago in the area of Chaco Canyon , New Mexico . Shows their extensive water control system, the large network of roads they constructed and several mammoth structures they built. Includes a history of the different excavation projects. Examines the theory that the Chaco civilization was a technological society that collapsed because of the gradual depletion of their resource bases. VHS 4955

A Clash of cultures; I will fight no more forever. c1993. 1 videocassette (100 min.). How the West was Lost. "A Clash of Cultures" describes the defeat and demoralization of the Navajo through a visit to Monument Valley and a description of the 300-mile forced march known as "The long walk." "I Will Fight No More Forever" describes the gallant fight of the Nez Perce tribe under Chief Joseph. VHS 2191

The Columbian exchange.   Columbus and the age of discovery. 1991. 1 videocassette (58 min.). Follows the voyage of the Venezualan Navy training ship Simon Bolivar as it retraces Columbus 's third voyage of 1498 which took him to coastal America and convinced him that he had reached the Orient. Also examines the interchange of horses, cattle, corn, potatoes, and sugar cane between the Old World and the New, and the lasting impact of this interchange on the people of both worlds. VHS 1436

Columbus and The Age of Discovery. c1991. 7 videocassettes (58 min. each). Exquisitely photographed, painstakingly researched, this 7-nation co-production chronicles Columbus 's extraordinary journey and legacy. The definitive series commemorating the quincentennial, this video history relives Columbus 's daring and dangerous voyages and their momentous repercussions--for both the New World and the Old. VHS 1431-1437

Columbus didn't discover us. c1992. 1 videocassette (24 min.). Indians from North, Central, and South America speak of the impact the Columbus legacy has had on the lives of indigenous people. VHS 1980 (English version) VHS 1979 (Spanish version)

Coming to light Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians : a film. 2000. 1 videocassette (56 min.). Edward S. Curtis was an American photographer whose documentation of Native Americans is appreciated today especially by their descendants for the preservation of their culture. VHS 6817

Cree hunters of Mistassini. 198? 1 videocassette (58 min.). Shows the conflict produced by the James Bay development scheme between a hunting culture of Cree Indians and the dominant white culture that has come to rely heavily on large-scale technology. VHS 6681

Dance me outside. 1995. 1 videocassette (91 min.). Film looks at the relationships between Anglos and Indians on the Kidiabinessee Reservation in Northern Ontario from the point of view of the Indians. When an Indian girl is brutally murdered by a white hooligan, he goes virtually unpunished. Shocked by the murder, four teenagers find their friendships put to the test as their struggle to become men and women becomes entangled with a fight for justice. VHS 5727

Dancing in one world. c1993. 1 videocassette (57 min.). Dancing. This program was made with dancers from the Pacific Rim Area including the United States (Afro-Americans, American Indians, and Hawaiians), Polynesia , Australia , and Indonesia . These dancers also took part in the Los Angeles Festival. Includes archival film footage. VHS 2298

Death runs riot. The West. 1996. 1 videocassette (85 min.). In the 1850s, as more American pioneers poured west, they brought with them the nation's oldest most divisive issue--slavery--and the rough frontier would supply the sparks the would ignite the Civil War. Indians would be dragged into "the white man's war," while the besieged Mormons would commit the worst massacre of innocent pioneers in American history. And as the bitter Civil War drew to a close, celebrated Union heros such as George Armstrong Custer and William Tecumseh Sherman would use the tactics which had defeated the South against the Native Americans of the West. VHS 4234

Domesticating a wilderness. America, a personal history of the United States. 1972. 1 videocassette (52 min.). Discusses the Mormons' establishment in Utah , the first transcontinental rail link, the settlement of the midlands by European immigrants, and the Indians' last desperate struggles which exploded in the Custer massacre and the Battle of Wounded Knee. VHS 1997

The eagle and the raven purification by banishment. 1996. 1 videocassette (60 min.). Examines the case of two Tlingit Indian youths that were tried by a tribal court for a crime committed outside reservation land. They were sentenced to a period of banishment in the Alaskan wilderness. VHS 4916

The Early Americans. 1976. 1 videocassette (41 min.). Traces the arrival of humans in North America as nomadic hunter, sometime during the ice age, to builder of complex societies around the 15th century A.D. VHS 6911

Fight no more forever. The West. 1996. 1 videocassette (85 min.). By the 1870s there were only a few pockets of resistance against the nation's push to conquer the West. On the Great Plains , Sitting Bull followed his mystical visions and urged his Lakota people to fight rather than surrender their sacred Black Hills and traditional way of life.  Custer's "Last stand" would also become, in effect, the last stand of the Sioux as a free people. In Utah , the Mormon patriarch Brigham Young would be forced to choose between saving his church or sacrificing his spiritual son.  Farther west, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce would find himself helping to lead one of the most extraordinary military campaigns in American history. VHS 4236

Genocide, from biblical times through the ages. 2002. 1 videocassette (57 min.). Although the term "genocide" was coined by humanitarian Rafael Lemkin in reference to the Turkish expulsion and slaughter of Armenians in the early 20th century, the phenomenon is as old as civilization. In this program, a variety of experts analyze Biblical accounts and some of the earliest documented examples of genocide, as in the Athenian siege of Melos in 416 BC, to explore the psychology that motivates such violence. This grim survey looks at the extermination of Tasmanians, Native Americans, Namibia 's Herero tribe, and the Armenians. VHS 6887

Geronimo and the Apache resistance. 1990. 1 videocassette (58 min.). Using archival photos and interviews with descendants of the Chiricahua Apaches, the program highlights the clash between Indian and white cultures and portrays the effects on an Indian society faced with the loss of its land and traditions. VHS 3082

Ghost dance. The West. 1996. 1 videocassette (85 min.). By the late 1880s, the Americans were astounded by the change they had brought to the West. Mining towns such as Butte , Montana were now full-fledged industrial cities.  Defeated militarily, Native Americans throughout the region now flocked to the call of a Paiute mystic, who offered the illusionary hope that the lost world of the buffalo could be brought back by a Ghost Dance. But its promises would be trampled in the snow and blood of Wounded Knee . In place of the great Native American cultures which once dominated the Plains was a new culture, epitomized by the Oklahoma Land Rush, in which 100,000 eager settlers lined up for a mad dash to stake out a farm and a future. VHS 4238

Gone west. America, a personal history of the United States. 1972. 1 videocassette (52 min.). Deals with the Louisiana Purchase , the Lewis and Clarke Expedition, the exploration of the distant reaches of the waterways, the forcing of Indian nations west of the Mississippi , and the gold rush. VHS 1995

A Good day to die; Kill the Indian, save the man. c1993. 1 videocassette (100 min.). How the West was Lost. "A Good Day to Die" describes the rebellion of the Dakotas , led by Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and Sitting Bull, to the gold seekers and shows how the victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn foretold their defeat. "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" describes the resistance of Dakotas and Northern Cheyenne to their removal to reservations. Whites' hysteria about the Dakotas ' ritualistic ghost dance led to the Battle of Wounded Knee. VHS 2193

The Great Spirit within the hole. c1983. 1 videocassette (58 min.). Focuses on American Indians in the nation's prisons and tells that Indian spiritual leaders are often denied entry to prisons to commune with their people. Emphasizes how freedom of Indian religious practices aids in rehabilitation. VHS 1801

Hopi, songs of the Fourth World . 1983. 1 videocassette (58 min.). An in-depth look at the meaning of the Hopi way, a philosophy of living in balance with nature. Describes the Hopi philosophy of life, death, and renewal as revealed in the interweaving life cycle of humans and corn plants. VIC 438

How the West was lost. c1993. 3 videocassettes (300 min.). Documents the epic struggle for the American West and the devastating effects of westward expansion on the way of life of five native American nations through the recollection of their descendants, archival photographs, and historical documents. VHS 2191-2193

Hunters and bombers. c1991. 1 videocassette (52 min.). Indigenous Peoples: Standing Their Ground. The Innu (Montagnais Indians) of Labrador are protesting low-level military flights and the playing of war games over their territory. VHS 1953

Imagining indians. 1996? 1 videocassette (57 min.). Using an eclectic mix of interviews, staged scenes and graphic imagery, this film represents a Native American's view of the disparity between self-perception and the white culture's principally Hollywood-inspired interpretations of Native Americans. VHS 6866

In the land of the war canoes: Kwakiutl Indian life on the Northwest Coast . 1992, orig. 1914. 1 videocassette (47 min.). Presents an epic saga of Kwakiutl Indian life on the northwest coast of America as filmed in the summer of 1914 at Kwakiutl villages on Vancouver Island , Canada , by Edward S. Curtis. Edited and restored with the addition of an authentic sound track. VHS 1818

In the light of reverence. 2001. 1 videocassette (73 min.). Across the United States , Native Americans are struggling to protect their sacred places. Religious freedom, so valued in America , is not guaranteed to those who practice land-based religions. This film presents three indigenous communities in their struggles to protect their sacred sites from rock climbers, tourists, stripmining and development and New Age religious practitioners. VHS 7424

In the white man's image. 1991. 1 videocassette (58 min.). Examines the experiment of federal government boarding schools for Indian children. Historians and writers focus on this late 19th century experiment of indoctrinating young Native Americans so that they would become alienated from their language, religion, history and social customs. In particular looks at the education of a certain group of American Indians in the Carlisle School for Indian Students founded by Richard Pratt in the early part of the 20th century. Includes the story of Cheyenne warriors who were exiled to St. Augustine , Florida as the first group of Indians to be schooled under Mr. Pratt's direction. Native Americans who attended these schools help tell the story of this humanist experiment gone wrong. VHS 3036

In whose honor? 1996. 1 videocassette (57 min.). In 1989 Charlene Teters began protesting the use of an Indian chief as the mascot of the University of Illinois .  Interviews with members of the university and town communities discuss the pros and cons of the Indian mascots, including the damage to Indians' self-esteem but the revenue earned for the university and for local businesses, campus spirit and alumni support. American Indian leaders were involved in protesting the misuse of Indians as symbols of sports teams.  Although the protests succeeded in a few cases, Chief Illiniwek is still the mascot at the University of Illinois . VHS 4143

Incident at Oglala. 1992. 1 videocassette (90 min.). In 1975, armed FBI agents entered the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Gunfire erupted - a Native American and two FBI agents fell dead. After the largest manhunt in FBI history, three men were apprehended but only one, Leonard Peltier, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. VHS 3022

Indians, outlaws and Angie Debo. The American experience. 1988. 1 videocassette (58 min.). Outlines the life and unique experiences of Angie Debo. Her meticulous research of Oklahoma history revealed that the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma were victims of a complex swindle involving major political figures. Debo was threatened and isolated by these powerful politicians, but she remained steadfast in her criticism of Indian policy. Today, her books serve as a cornerstone of American Indian scholarship, particularly as they related to tribal sovereignty and land rights. VHS 4065

Iowa's ancient hunters. 1979, made 1978. 1 film (28 min.). Presents a documentary on the efforts of a group of archaeologists, geologists, climatologists, and anthropologists to reconstruct the climate, environment, and culture of a prehistoric site located near Cherokee, Iowa . MPD 33

Ishi the last Yahi. 1992. 1 videocassette (57 min.). Presents further research by Jed Riffe on Ishi, the last surviving member of the Yahi Native American tribe in northern California . "When 'Ishi,' the last surviving member of a small Indian tribe, walked into the small California town of Oroville in 1911, he became a media curiosity and scientific 'specimen.' The San Francisco Museum built a Yahi house where audiences could watch Ishi make arrowheads and shoot bows. Ishi went to the theater and received invitations of marriage. But contact would bring him terrible physical and psychological consequences." Summary taken from American Experience/PBS website. VHS 4846

Joy Harjo. Lannan literary series. 1989. 1 videocassette (60 min.). "Joy Harjo, one of the most important Native American poets and author of 'She had Some Horses', reads for the Laguna Poets in Laguna Beach and is interviewed by Lewis MacAdams"--Container. VHS 3211

Last stand at Little Bighorn. 1992. 1 videocassette (58 min.). Examines the Battle of the Little Bighorn, known as "Custer's Last Stand," from an Indian and white man's perspective. Uses journals, oral accounts, Indian ledger drawings, archival footage, and feature films to present the dual viewpoints of this historic event. VHS 4397

Leslie Marmon Silko. Native American novelists. 1995. 1 videocassette (42 min.). Profiles the Native American woman author Leslie Marmon Silko, whose work is strongly rooted in her own matrilineal tribal background.  Like all writing of lasting value, it uses particular experiences and places to reveal universal truths.  Here, Silko discusses her own background and the interrelationship between her smaller, immediate Indian world and the larger brutal surrounding world. VHS 3933

Lighting dances with wolves with Dean Semler .Kodak cinematography master class series . 1993. 1 videocassette (29 min.). Documentary film cinematographer Dean Semler demonstrates how he produced the effect of flickering firelight in Dances With Wolves. A replica of the interior of a tipi (or teepee) was constructed for the demonstration. Scenes from Good Thing Going are used as examples of his technique. VHS 2303

Little injustices: Laura Nader looks at the law. 1981. 1 videocassette (60 min.). Odyssey. Anthropologist Laura Nader compares the resolution of everyday complaints in law between a small Zapotec Indian village and the United States . Studies are based on a 10-year study of 5000 consumer complaints. She discusses the legal procedures and remedies, and comments on the problems of an impersonal law and on large corporations. VIC 209

Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris. 1989, c1988. 1 videocassette (29 min.). In a Bill Moyers interview, this husband-and-wife team discuss how their writings reflect the family, community, and lifestyles of their native American heritage. They introduce the concept of "ironic survival humor" which enables Indians to live under oppression. They also discuss the native Americans' ability to live on the land without pushing it to the brink of ecological disaster. VHS 810

The Moravian massacre. 1996. 1 videocassette (48 min.). In 1782 in Eastern Ohio ninety Moravian Indians were massacred in what remains one of the most cold-blooded murders in the nation's history. The village of Gnadenhutten (German for "House of Grace") was one of three Moravian settlements along the Tuscarawas River . It was inhabited by Delaware and Mohican Indians converted to Christianity by Moravian missionaries. Video explores the massacre itself and the events leading up to it. VHS 5590

The Mystery of the Anasazi. 1976. 1 videocassette (51 min.). Nova. Inquires into the mystery of the unknown builders of ruins discovered by the Navajo Indians 300 years ago. Considers questions such as who these people were, what happened to them, and why they disappeared. VIC 69

Mythos. 1996. 5 videocassettes (275 min.). Excerpts from Joseph Campbell's last lecture series before his death illustrate his theory of the origin, purpose and history of myth and mythology. Psyche and symbol: Looks at the  universal themes that operate in all people and cultures which link us together. Also examines  how myths emerge from the unconscious and how, in every culture, these myths have evolved to guide the individual through the cycle of life. -- The spirit land: Explores how, for the American Indian, myths served to awaken in them a mystery of life and provided them with the rituals to prepare them for the obstacles of the real world. On being human: Discusses the characteristics we share in common with the animal world, and that point where animal behavior ends and human behavior begins. -- From goddesses to gods: explores the connections between ancient societies and the origins of the Western Judeo-Christian tradition. -- The mystical life: Uses texts and artifacts from the ancient mystery religions of Greece to reveal the unbroken connection between these religions and those of the West. VHS 5142 , VHS 5143

Myths and the moundbuilders. Odyssey series. 1981. 1 videocassette (60 min.). Archaeological. ecological and experimental studies of the mound  builders of the U.S. Midwest and Southeast. The huge earthworks and mounds scattered through the eastern half of the United States prompted people in the nineteenth century to speculate that a lost civilization had preceded the Indians then living among the mounds. Though we've known for some time that the ancestors of those Indians actually built the mounds, archaeologists are still exploring their contents for a better understanding of their builders. Includes both the Hopewell (100 BC- 300 AD) and Mississippian (700-1600 AD) prehistoric American cultures, and discusses social organization in such large communities as Cahokia in East St. Louis . VHS 4949

N. Scott Momaday. Native American novelists. 1995. 1 videocassette (45 min.). The Native American experience is portrayed in conversations with N. Scott Momaday. VHS 3994

Native Americans the invisible people. CNN special reports: Invisible people. 1994. 2 videocassettes (109 min.). A special report on the current social conditions of Native Americans. VHS 7395

Navajo medicine. 1993. 1 videocassette (29 min.). Examines the lack of health care on the Navajo reservation and the struggles of Navajo health care workers. VHS 3466

New Orleans' black Indians a case study in the arts. Faces of culture: revised. 1994. 1 videocassette (28 min.). Explores the blend of American Indians and blacks that comprise the Black Indian tribes of New Orleans as they carry out a century old tradition of participation in the pre-Lenten Mardi Gras revelry. VHS 3123

One sky above us. The West. 1996. 1 videocassette (85 min.). As the 20th century neared, Americans celebrated with the World Columbian Exposition, where they were toldthat the frontier had closed, but in the real West, for every frontier story that ended, another one began. Some Native Americans waged a struggle to hold onto their traditions in the midst of rapid, overwhelming change, while others chose to learn the white man's ways, hoping to help their families and their tribe. In California , the emerging metropolis of Los Angeles waged yet another battle to control the arid region's most precious commodity--water. Much had changed in the West, but it continued to be what it had always been--a landscape of the imagination, the reservoir of our shared hopes and dreams, a place of both conflict and infinite possibility, and an enduring symbol of something unquestionably American. VHS 4239

The people. The West. 1996. 1 videocassette (85 min.). To the original Native American inhabitants, the West has been a land of myth. To the European settlers, the West was a "wilderness" to be conquered. Nearly 100 years before the American Revolution, the Pueblo people of the Southwest rose up against their European masters and drove the Spanish from their lands. Then, with America 's purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1804, Lewis and Clark set off to find the fabled Northwest Passage , as a confident young nation prepared for its own epic march across the West. VHS 4231

Picuris Indians. c1988. 1 videocassette (54 min.). Presents a glimpse of some of the most intimate, unrehearsed moments of the Picuris Indian people at the site of their ancient pueblo hidden in a "Shangri-La" setting in a high mountain valley in the Picuris Mountains of north central New Mexico . VHS 882

The Primal mind. 1984. 1 videocassette (58 min.). Hosted by Jamake Highwater, incorporates scenic views, still photographs, and vintage footage in examining the contrasts between traditional native American concepts and European-based American cultures. Focuses on differences related to art, nature, architecture, and time. VHS 685

Science or sacrilege Native Americans, archaeology, & the law. 1996. 1 videocassette (57 min.). Discusses the issue of the controversy between Indians and scientists on the excavations and study of Indian burial grounds and remains. Examines the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation act (NAGPRA) passed in 1990, its underlying moral and political issues, its practical consequences, and the prospects for science in the post-NAGPRA world. VHS 4126

Search for the First Americans. 1992. 1 videocassette (60 min.). Follows the trail of America's first inhabitants. Did they really migrate across a Bering Sea land bridge at the end of the last Ice Age, or did they in fact arrive thousands of years earlier, possibly by some different route as new archaeological evidence increasingly hints? VHS 1957

The Shape of the land. 1987, c1986. 1 videocassette (57 min.). America by Design. Illustrates how farming, strip mining, bridges, irrigation projects, and our settlement patterns have left their imprints on the shape of the American landmass. Architecture historian Spiro Kostof contrasts Indian and European notions of land ownership and use, and examines the issues involved in the regulation of natural resources. VHS 1166

The spirit of Crazy Horse. 1990. 1 videocassette (58 min.). Milo Yellow Hair recounts the story of the Sioux Indian's struggle to reclaim their ancestral homeland, and the program investigates the simmering conflict of recent decades and offers a perspective on the choices that lie ahead. Events covered include: Little Big Horn (1876), Massacre at Wounded Knee (1890), Siege of Wounded Knee (1973) and the death in 1985 of Harry Crow Dog. Includes archival film. VHS 1232

The spirit of maize. Curriculum Materials Center : Tales from the blue crystal. 1988. 1 videocassette (15 min.). Tells an Indian legend of a Chippewa boy who prays that he can help his people find food. A stranger appears from the sky to wrestle with him and gives him some mysterious instructions that result in a new food for the Indians called maize. Told with graphics and narration. VHS 2584

Two spirits native lesbians and gays. 1992. 1 videocassette (26 min.). The present status of, and attitutes toward, Native American lesbians and gays is examined. Uses excerpts from "Mujeria II : primitive and proud," "Honored by the moon," and "Me, and Mr. Mauri.". VHS 5168

Surviving Columbus . 1992. 1 videocassette (115 min.). Using stories from Pueblo elders, interviews with Pueblo scholars and leaders, archival photographs, and historical accounts, this program explores the Pueblo Indians' 450-year struggle to preserve their culture, land, and religion despite European contact. VHS 1978

The vanishing American. 1999. 1 videodisc (109 min.). Indian warrior Nophate strives to maintain ancient and honorable customs among his people in the face of abuse and exploitation by whites in the early 20th century. DVD 249

Water is for fighting over. Human geography, people places and change. 1996. 1 videocassette (27 min.). Along the parched California Nevada border, groups with compelling yet competing interests claim the water of the Truckee River Basin . Film examines the lives and livelihood of these people for whom the Truckee River water is so important. VHS 3607

A weave of time the story of a Navajo family, 1938-1986. 1987. 1 videocassette (60 min.). A documentary using film footage and photographs from 1938 to 1986 that looks at four generations of a Navajo family and the impact of modernization on their lives as well as their efforts to maintain their traditions. Follows anthropologist John Adair's study of Navajo silver crafts in Pine Springs , Ariz. , and his acquaintance with Tom Burnside and his family, all Navajo handicrafters. Covers Adair's first visit in 1938 to his reunion with the Burnsides in 1986. Focuses on the Burnsides' many handicraft skills, family scenes, community ceremonies, and their current life-style. VHS 425

Where the spirit lives. 1989. 1 videocassette (98 min.). Komi, a Blackfoot Indian girl living in western Canada in 1937, is brutally kidnaped and placed in a mission school that attempts to remove all traces of her native culture. This is a part of a deliberate Canadian policy to force Native American children to abandon their culture in order to conform with the white Christian one. Forced to take the anme Amelia, she attempts to preserve her heritage and to adjust to the alien white culture with the help of one sympathetic white teacher. VHS 1388

The wilderness and the west. American visions. 1997. 1 videocassette (ca. 60 min.). An eight part series presenting American history through its visual art, painting, sculpture, architecture and monuments. In this third segment as majestic primal America fosters the idea of landscape as God's fingerprint, landscape painting holds deep religious and patriotic connotations. Soon, the belief in Manifest Destiny is embodied in art. Traveling from Yellowstone to the Hudson Valley, Hughes explores the work of artists such as Thomas Cole, John Audubon, Albert Bierstadt, John Gast, Currier & Ives, Emanuel Leutze, George Catlin, Frederick Church, Frederic Remington, Thomas Noran and William Jackson and finds the conflicting impulses to worship the land and to conquer it, to create a myth of the West just as the frontier is closing. VHS 4573

Hollywood Depictions of Native Americans

Billy Jack. 1997. 1 videocassette (114 min.). A half-breed Indian, ex-Green Beret, seeks peace and solitude on an Arizona reservation, but becomes drawn into the tensions and violence between a school for troubled youths and the narrow-minded locals. VHS 7227

Black robe. c1991. 1 Videodisc (101 min.). In the 17th century, Father Laforgue, a young Jesuit priest, is assigned to go up river into the Canadian wilderness to convert the Huron Indians. His young aide and translator, Daniel, falls in love with Annuka, the daughter of the Algonquin chief. Torn between his own desires and ideals of the priesthood, Laforgue's faith is tested, and his life and the outcome of the mission imperiled, as the expedition faces the elements and hostile Indians. DVD 43

Blood of the hunter. 1994. 1 videocassette (92 min.). Set near Hudson Bay just after the turn of the 20th century. Blake (Biehn), a mysterious stranger, murders a postman in cold blood in the middle of Canada 's desolate Great White North and tries to frame a local trapper Yan Thoreau (Arcand). Unaware the police are looking for him, Yan leaves his wife (Vandernoot) alone to begin a long trek across the frozen wilderness. During his trip he receives a mysterious prophecy from a psychic Cree Indian that his wife is in imminent danger. When Blake makes his way to Thoreau's house, his unsuspecting wife lets him in and he takes her captive. VHS 6214

Broken arrow. Western Classics. 1993. 1 videocassette (93 min.). Amidst the bitter struggle between white men and Indians, Tom Jeffords believes the Indians are treated unfairly. He befriends Cochise, the leader of the Apaches, and arranges a truce. He is called upon by a U.S. Army general to negotiate a peace treaty. After fulfilling his mission, he, his Indian wife and Cochise are targets of a renegade ambush. VHS 6701

Dances with wolves. 1995. 2 videocassettes (237 min.). Rewarded for his heroism in the Civil War, Lt. John Dunbar wants to see the American frontier before it is gone.  He is assigned to an abandoned fort, where a Sioux tribe is his only neighbor. They overcome the language barrier and mutual fear and distrust to become friends and he marries a  woman from the tribe. Ultimately he must make a decision about the tribe and their life when he realizes what their fate will be at the hands of the white man. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 3984, DVD 1950

Fort Apache . c1983, orig. 1948. 1 videocassette (127 min.). In the old west, a military martinet (Henry Fonda) has trouble with his family as well as the Indians. Also stars John Wayne. Directed by John Ford. VHS 123

Lakota woman. 1994. 1 videocassette (118 min.). True story of the 1973 uprising that united Native Americans in their fight for survival. One woman rises from ignorance and fear to meet the challenge of her proud heritage during a bloody siege in which 2,000 Native Americans stood their ground and vowed never to be silent again. VHS 5493

The Last of the Mohicans. 1993. 1 videocassette (74 min.). Cora and her younger sister Alice are on their way to Fort William Henry. Escorted by the treacherous Magua, they are unaware that the Fort, under the command of their father, is besieged by Indians in league with the French. The sisters are saved by Hawkeye and his Indian companions, Uncas and Chingachcook. Cora falls in love with the noble Uncas, the last of his tribe. But Magua still has evil plans. VHS 5719, VHS 6270

Little big man. 2003. 1 videodisc (149 min.). Jack Crabb is 121 years old. And he's done it all. He's been a full-fledged Cheyenne , an Indian fighter, a snake oil merchant, master gunman, drinking buddy of wild Bill Hickok, colleague of Buffalo Bill, and is the only survivor of Custer's Last Stand. Crabb is either the Old West's most neglected hero or the biggest liar ever to cross the Mississippi . Little Big Man is Jack Crabb's story.  DVD 650 , VHS 731

Pocahontas. Walt Disney gold classic collection. 2000? 1 videodisc (81 min.). In 1607, a group of British adventurers, including John Smith, led by the greedy Virginia Company governor Ratcliffe, set sail for the New World , seeking gold and other treasures. In Virginia , Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan's daughter, ponders her life as she is faced with marriage to the stern warrior, Kocoum. The British establish the settlement of Jamestown , Virginia and dig up the countryside for gold. Smith meets Pocahontas and they overcome their initial conflicts. She teaches him about her world. Relations between the British and the Indians deteriorate. Powhatan captures Smith and is about to execute him, but Pocahontas intervenes and Powhatan sets him free. When Ratcliffe tries to kill Powhatan, Smith saves him but is seriously wounded. He must return to England and Pocahontas must stay. DVD 245

Powwow highway. 1997. 1 videocassette (91 min.). Buddy Red Bows ( Martinez ), an Indian rights activist, and Philbert Bono (Farmer), an easy going Northern Cheyenne , are casual acquaintances. Without a car of his own, Red Bow persuades Bono to set out in his 1964 Buick Wildcat on a trip from Montana to New Mexico . Buddy needs to bail his sister out of jail and is financing the trip with tribal council money he is suppose to use to buy bulls; Bono sees the trip as a "medicine" quest. Red Bow would like to go in a straight line; Bono takes them on a meandering route of discovery. VHS 5728

Rio Grande. c1984, orig. 1950. 1 videocassette (105 min.). A Cavalry unit on the Mexican border in the 1880s conducts a vain campaign against marauding Indians. Stars John Wayne. Directed by John Ford. VHS 71

The Searchers. 1991, orig. 1956. 1 videocassette (144 min.). Ex-Confederate soldier Ethan Edwards (John Wayne), an Indian-hater, sets out to track down the renegade Comanches who killed his brother and sister-in-law and carried off their daughter Debbie (Natalie Wood). His search becomes an obsession as for five long years he battles hunger, thirst, the elements and loneliness. In the end he finds not only his niece but his own humanity. DVD 1808, HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 12

She wore a yellow ribbon. Classic series. 1980. 1 videocassette (103 min.). Second of John Ford's "Cavalry Triology" - that includes Fort Apache (1947) and Rio Grande (1949). The story of a U.S. Cavalry captain's last days in service on the western frontier in 1876. As well as safeguarding the stagecoach routes, he must make peace with his Indian counterparts to avert a needless war and also make sure his troop will be in capable hands when he leaves. VHS 125

Skins. 2003. 1 videodisc (87 min.). In the shadow of Mt. Rushmore , lies one of the poorest counties in America , The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. For police officer Rudy Yellow Lodge, the painful legacy of Indian existence is brought home every night as he locks up drunk and disorderly Indians, including his own brother. Rudy's frustration leads him to take the law into his own hands. Ultimately, Rudy is able to honor his big brother, and his people with a life-affirming act of defiance. DVD 550.

Smoke signals. 1999. 1 videocassette (89 min.). Film, which was written, directed and co-produced by Native Americans, is a bittersweet comedy about two young Native-Americans, the athletic Victor and the nerdy Thomas, who live on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation in Idaho . When Victor's father, who deserted his family years before, dies in Phoenix , Thomas offers to finance Victor's trip there in return for being allowed to go. This journey of two dissimilar people becomes an adventure in self-discovery and friendship. DVD 1657, HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 5734

Stagecoach. c1991, orig. 1939. 1 videocassette (97 min.). Nine travelers in a stagecoach are hunted by Indians when they travel into Apache territory. A milestone in the history of the Western, which raised John Wayne from "B" movies to stardom. Directed by John Ford. VHS 2174, DVD 50

Tell them Willie Boy is here. 1986. 1 videocassette (98 min.). A modern western classic based on the true story of a Pauite Indian, named Willie Boy, and his bride who become the objects of the last great Western manhunt after he kills her father in a "marriage by capture".  As the pressure builds, the events explode in the tragic deaths of Lola and Willie and a turning point for Sheriff Cooper. VHS 6702

They died with their boots on. MGM/UA vintage classics. 1997. 1 videocassette (140 min.). A biographical - but only marginally historically correct - look at George Armstrong Custer. West Point cadet, Civil War hero, frontier fighter, Custer (Flynn) is also a devoted husband to his wife Libby (de Havilland). Now, as commanding officer of the Seventh Cavalry, he is a man with the mission of protecting the Dakota Territory from Indian attack. When corrupt officials break treaty with the Sioux, Custer marches out to quell the uprising and lead his regiment to Little Big Horn to begin what will be his final campaign. VHS 5735

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