California through Native eyes

"Most California histories begin with the arrival of the Spanish missionaries in the late eighteenth century and skip to the Gold Rush of 1849. Noticeably absent from these stories are the perspectives and experiences of the people who lived on the land long before European settlers arrived. Historian William Bauer seeks to correct that oversight through an approach that tells California history strictly through Native perspectives. Using oral histories of Concow, Pomo, and Paiute workers, taken as part of a New Deal federal works project, Bauer reveals how Native peoples have experienced and interpreted the history of the land we now call California. Combining these oral histories with creation myths and other oral traditions, he demonstrates the importance of sacred landscapes and animals and other nonhuman actors to the formation of place and identity. He also examines tribal stories of ancestors who prophesized the coming of white settlers and uses their recollections of the California Indian Wars to counteract popular narratives that downplay Native resistance. The result challenges the "California story" and enriches it with new voices and important points of view."--Provided by publisher.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fantasy, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.