Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!

marthaengber
Oct 13
1 min read

When THE FALCON, THE WOLF AND THE HUMMINGB, the story of two female warriors in precolonial Connecticut, was first published, I ran a Facebook ad. A number of indigenous people commented, wondering if I was Native American, and if not, whether I made the same mistake a lot of non-Native American people do, that indigenous tribes were/are more or less all the same.

I’m not indigenous, and I did not make that mistake for two reasons. My research illuminated how different each tribe could/can be regarding dress, beliefs, construction of abodes, arts, language and tribal structure. And I live in California, which has a vast array of tribes I’ve had the pleasure of learning about over the years.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area where the Wappo, Yokut, Coastanoan Rumsen Ohlone and Miwok dominated and still live.