Rediscovering Turtle Island - Taylor Keen
• Examines the complexities of Indigenous legends and creation
myths and reveals common oral traditions across much of North America
•
Explores the history of Cahokia, the Mississippian Mound Builder Empire
of 1050-1300 CE, told through the voice of Honga, a Native leader of
the time
• Presents an Indigenous revisionist history regarding Thomas Jefferson, expansionist doctrine, and Manifest Destiny
While
Western accounts of North American history traditionally start with
European colonization, Indigenous histories of North America—or Turtle
Island—stretch back millennia. Drawing on comparative analysis,
firsthand Indigenous accounts, extensive historical writings, and his
own experience, Omaha Tribal member, Cherokee citizen, and teacher
Taylor Keen presents a comprehensive re-imagining of the ancient and
more recent history of this continent’s oldest cultures. Keen reveals
shared oral traditions across much of North America, including among the
Algonquin, Athabascan, Sioux, Omaha, Ponca, Osage, Quapaw, and Kaw
tribes. He explores the history of Cahokia, the Mississippian Mound
Builder Empire of 1050–1300 CE. And he examines ancient earthen works
and ceremonial sites of Turtle Island, revealing the Indigenous
cosmology, sacred mathematics, and archaeoastronomy encoded in these
places that artfully blend the movements of the sun, moon, and stars
into the physical landscape.
Challenging the mainstream
historical consensus, Keen presents an Indigenous revisionist history
regarding Thomas Jefferson, expansionist doctrine, and Manifest Destiny.
He reveals how, despite being displaced as the United States colonized
westward, the Native peoples maintained their vision of an intrinsically
shared humanity and the environmental responsibility found at the core
of Indigenous mythology.
Building off a deep personal connection
to the history and mythology of the First Peoples of the Americas,
Taylor Keen gives renewed voice to the cultures of Turtle Island,
revealing an alternative vision of the significance of our past and
future presence here.