Can anyone recommend a book about the history of Michigan Indians?
I would recommend Aube Na Bing by Simon Otto or Ottawa & Chippewa Indians of Michigan by Raymond Lantz. I did not spot any specific books on the other tribes in the area but only had time for a quick search: the tribes in the state are Chippewa, Ottawa, Sauk and Fox, Kickapoo, Huron and Menominee, all with many subdivisions. We Senecas are also well infiltrated along the St. Lawrence Seaway. (My great-grandfather was a fur trader on Mackinac Island and spoke 7 Michigan native languages.) Any of Louise Erdrich’s wonderful novels are written very much from a Chippewas-rubbing-up-against-the-invaders perspective, and if you are looking for fiction you are unlikely to find anything better. The first of these is Love Medicine and I would really have to rack my brain to remember them all, let alone in order, but others are The Beet Queen, The Antelope Wife, The Bingo Palace, Four Souls…her poetry is some of the best I own.
