Native American Heritage Month Resources: Native American Research Starting Points & Resources

Getting Started on Your Research

• Search for Native American, American Indian, Indian, First Peoples or Indigenous as keywords
• Search by the name of a particular tribe or cultural group (e.g. Hopi or Shoshoni)        
• Combine a tribal name with a topical word (e.g. Hopi mythology)  
• Browse the subject Indians of North America in QuickSearch or the library catalog   

Often Native American history or resources are written by non-native people or those who do not have a specific connection to the people they are writing about.  Historically this has led to inaccurate representation of Native American peoples or an erasure of Indigenous knowledge. Read this article by Perspectives on History, the magazine of the American Historical Association, to learn more about the issues that arise when scholarly work does not reflect Indigenous knowledge.

Research conducted among Native American populations have often been conducted without the peoples best interest in mind and have resulted in abuse of Indigenous communities. Read the Native American Center For Excellence's Steps for Conducting and Evaluation in Native Communities to learn more about this issue and how to prevent it.

Photograph: Photograph of a young Indian boy with a puppy in a watering can, Pahrump Valley, NV  from the O. J. Fisk Photograph Collection. O. J. Fisk Photogrpah Collection, 1831s-1975. PH-00096. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.