-
Bad Indians
- A Tribal Memoir
- Narrated by: Deborah Miranda
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Women
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
How Much of These Hills Is Gold
- A Novel
- By: C Pam Zhang
- Narrated by: Catherine Ho, Joel de la Fuente
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ba dies in the night; Ma is already gone. Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their Western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry, and glimpses of a different kind of future.
-
-
Artistically written
- By Sherry Novak on 08-15-20
By: C Pam Zhang
-
There There
- A Novel
- By: Tommy Orange
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Alma Ceurvo, and others
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life back together after his uncle's death and has come to work at the powwow to honor his uncle's memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and will perform in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and loss.
-
-
Some powerful characters; abrupt, unfinished end
- By Margaret on 07-28-18
By: Tommy Orange
-
Trail of Lightning
- By: Rebecca Roanhorse
- Narrated by: Tanis Parenteau
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse have destroyed most of the planet…yet out of these waters, Dinétah, a former Navajo reservation, has been miraculously reborn. Listen along as Tanis Parenteau's impeccable narration, capturing the rhythms of Navajo speech, fully envelopes you into the Sixth World. Trail of Lightning follows our heroine as she walks the land alongside gods, heroes of legend, and monsters alike.
-
-
This is a YA romance with Paranormal addons
- By Christian A. Falde on 05-05-19
-
Braiding Sweetgrass
- Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
- By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.
-
-
Finally, Words
- By Donovan P Malley on 06-30-19
-
An American Genocide
- The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873
- By: Benjamin Madley
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Between 1846 and 1873, California's Indian population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. Benjamin Madley is the first historian to uncover the full extent of the slaughter, the involvement of state and federal officials, the taxpayer dollars that supported the violence, indigenous resistance, who did the killing, and why the killings ended. This deeply researched book is a comprehensive and chilling history of an American genocide.
-
-
Not for the faint at heart
- By Rebecca Lindroos on 03-20-17
By: Benjamin Madley
-
California Through Native Eyes: Reclaiming History
- Indigenous Confluences
- By: William J. Bauer Jr.
- Narrated by: Ted Brooks
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most California histories begin with the arrival of the Spanish missionaries in the late 18th century and conveniently 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 innovative approach that tells California history strictly through Native perspectives.
-
-
Read the book
- By Rrrapture G on 02-05-18
-
How Much of These Hills Is Gold
- A Novel
- By: C Pam Zhang
- Narrated by: Catherine Ho, Joel de la Fuente
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ba dies in the night; Ma is already gone. Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their Western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry, and glimpses of a different kind of future.
-
-
Artistically written
- By Sherry Novak on 08-15-20
By: C Pam Zhang
-
There There
- A Novel
- By: Tommy Orange
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Alma Ceurvo, and others
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life back together after his uncle's death and has come to work at the powwow to honor his uncle's memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and will perform in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and loss.
-
-
Some powerful characters; abrupt, unfinished end
- By Margaret on 07-28-18
By: Tommy Orange
-
Trail of Lightning
- By: Rebecca Roanhorse
- Narrated by: Tanis Parenteau
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse have destroyed most of the planet…yet out of these waters, Dinétah, a former Navajo reservation, has been miraculously reborn. Listen along as Tanis Parenteau's impeccable narration, capturing the rhythms of Navajo speech, fully envelopes you into the Sixth World. Trail of Lightning follows our heroine as she walks the land alongside gods, heroes of legend, and monsters alike.
-
-
This is a YA romance with Paranormal addons
- By Christian A. Falde on 05-05-19
-
Braiding Sweetgrass
- Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
- By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.
-
-
Finally, Words
- By Donovan P Malley on 06-30-19
-
An American Genocide
- The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873
- By: Benjamin Madley
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Between 1846 and 1873, California's Indian population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. Benjamin Madley is the first historian to uncover the full extent of the slaughter, the involvement of state and federal officials, the taxpayer dollars that supported the violence, indigenous resistance, who did the killing, and why the killings ended. This deeply researched book is a comprehensive and chilling history of an American genocide.
-
-
Not for the faint at heart
- By Rebecca Lindroos on 03-20-17
By: Benjamin Madley
-
California Through Native Eyes: Reclaiming History
- Indigenous Confluences
- By: William J. Bauer Jr.
- Narrated by: Ted Brooks
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most California histories begin with the arrival of the Spanish missionaries in the late 18th century and conveniently 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 innovative approach that tells California history strictly through Native perspectives.
-
-
Read the book
- By Rrrapture G on 02-05-18
-
The Ohlone Way
- Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area
- By: Malcolm Margolin
- Narrated by: Shaun Taylor-Corbett
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most groundbreaking and highly acclaimed titles that Heyday has published, The Ohlone Way describes the culture of the Indian people who inhabited the Bay Area prior to the arrival of Europeans. Recently included in the San Francisco Chronicle’s “Top 100 Western Non-Fiction” list, The Ohlone Way has been described by critic Pat Holt as a “mini-classic”.
-
-
Racially biased outdated BS
- By Anonymous User on 02-25-22
By: Malcolm Margolin
-
Murder State
- California's Native American Genocide, 1846-1873
- By: Brendan C. Lindsay
- Narrated by: Jim Wentland
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the second half of the 19th century, the Euro-American citizenry of California carried out mass genocide against the Native population of their state, using the processes and mechanisms of democracy to secure land and resources for themselves and their private interests. The murder, rape, and enslavement of thousands of Native people were legitimized by notions of democracy - in this case mob rule.
-
-
History of Native American Genocide in California
- By Douglas S. on 09-14-18
-
Poet Warrior
- A Memoir
- By: Joy Harjo
- Narrated by: Joy Harjo
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joy Harjo, the first Native American to serve as US poet laureate, invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road. A musical, kaleidoscopic, and wise follow-up to Crazy Brave, Poet Warrior reveals how Harjo came to write poetry of compassion and healing, poetry with the power to unearth the truth and demand justice.
-
-
A wonderful spiritual journey!
- By Amazon Customer on 02-19-22
By: Joy Harjo
-
Crazy Brave
- A Memoir
- By: Joy Harjo
- Narrated by: Joy Harjo
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo, one of our leading Native American voices, details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by finding shelter in her imagination, a deep spiritual life, and connection with the natural world. She attended an Indian arts boarding school, where she nourished an appreciation for painting, music, and poetry; gave birth while still a teenager; and struggled on her own as a single mother, eventually finding her poetic voice.
-
-
Poetic Prose
- By Hazel Bergtholdt on 03-08-19
By: Joy Harjo
-
Custer Died for Your Sins
- An Indian Manifesto
- By: Vine Deloria Jr.
- Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Standing Rock Sioux activist, professor, and attorney Vine Deloria, Jr., shares his thoughts about US race relations, federal bureaucracies, Christian churches, and social scientists in a collection of 11 eye-opening essays infused with humor. This "manifesto" provides valuable insights on American Indian history, Native American culture, and context for minority protest movements mobilizing across the country throughout the 60s and 70s. Originally published in 1969, this book remains a timeless classic and is one of the most significant nonfiction works written by a Native American.
-
-
The best place to start to understand the US
- By rain circle on 05-31-20
By: Vine Deloria Jr.
-
Inflamed
- Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice
- By: Rupa Marya, Raj Patel
- Narrated by: Raj Patel, Rupa Marya
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Boldly original, Inflamed takes us on a medical tour through the human body - our digestive, endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, reproductive, immune, and nervous systems. Unlike a traditional anatomy book, this groundbreaking work illuminates the hidden relationships between our biological systems and the profound injustices of our political and economic systems.
-
-
Starts off well!
- By TLCohen on 08-12-21
By: Rupa Marya, and others
-
As Long as Grass Grows
- The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock
- By: Dina Gilio-Whitaker
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of Native peoples’ resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions and a call for environmentalists to learn from the indigenous community’s rich history of activism.
-
-
Extremely informative and eye opening
- By jan on 01-15-20
-
Islands of Decolonial Love
- Stories & Songs
- By: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
- Narrated by: Tantoo Cardinal
- Length: 3 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her debut collection of short stories, Islands of Decolonial Love, renowned writer and activist Leanne Simpson vividly explores the lives of contemporary Indigenous Peoples and communities, especially those of her own Nishnaabeg nation. Found on reserves, in cities and small towns, in bars and curling rinks, canoes and community centres, doctors offices and pickup trucks, Simpson's characters confront the often heartbreaking challenge of pairing the desire to live loving and observant lives with a constant struggle to simply survive....
-
-
couldn't put down
- By Jay on 02-15-22
-
Heart Berries
- A Memoir
- By: Terese Marie Mailhot, Sherman Alexie, Joan Naviyuk Kane
- Narrated by: Rainy Fields
- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder; Terese Marie Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is Heart Berries, a memorial for Mailhot's mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father - an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist - who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame.
-
-
Heart Berries, what a gift!
- By PureTouchMassageTherapy on 03-28-19
By: Terese Marie Mailhot, and others
-
Firekeeper's Daughter
- By: Angeline Boulley
- Narrated by: Isabella Star LaBlanc
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug.
-
-
Che Meegwetch
- By Nix on 03-18-21
By: Angeline Boulley
-
Not "A Nation of Immigrants"
- Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion
- By: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- Narrated by: Shaun Taylor-Corbett
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whether in political debates or discussions about immigration around the kitchen table, many Americans, regardless of party affiliation, will say proudly that we are a nation of immigrants. In this bold new book, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz asserts this ideology is harmful and dishonest because it serves to mask and diminish the US’s history of settler colonialism, genocide, white supremacy, slavery, and structural inequality, all of which we still grapple with today.
-
-
Great if you can bear the narration
- By Tintin on 09-13-21
-
The Water Dancer (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Joe Morton
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her - but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North.
-
-
UGH! I wanted SO much to like this book.
- By Carmen Lang on 01-26-20
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Publisher's Summary
Identity and history at their most dynamic, creative, and personal
“If we allow the pieces of our culture to lie scattered in the dust of history, trampled on by racism and grief, then yes, we are irreparably damaged. But if we pick up the pieces and use them in new ways that honor their integrity, their colors, textures, stories - then we do those pieces justice, no matter how sharp they are, no matter how much handling them slices our fingers and makes us bleed.”
This beautiful and devastating book - part tribal history, part lyric and intimate memoir - should be required for anyone seeking to learn about California Indian history, past and present. Deborah A. Miranda tells stories of her Ohlone Costanoan Esselen family as well as the experience of California Indians as a whole through oral histories, newspaper clippings, anthropological recordings, personal reflections, and poems. The result is a work of literary art that is wise, angry, and playful all at once, a compilation that will break your heart and teach you to see the world anew.
Reviews
“A searing indictment of the ravages of the past and a hopeful look at the courage to confront and overcome them.” (Kirkus Reviews)
“Essential for all of us who were taught in school that the ‘Mission Indians’ no longer existed in California, Deborah Miranda’s Bad Indians is a fascinating book that combines tribal histories, family histories, family tape recordings, and the writings of a White ethnologist who spoke with Miranda’s family, together with photographs, old reports from the mission priests to their bishops, and newspaper articles concerning Indians from the nearby White settlements. But it’s her poetry and prose, and the way she structures the book, which are the real treat for the reader. Her poems provide the delicate but strong structure that beautifully joins all the elements. Always lively, informative, and insightful, Miranda takes us on a journey to locate herself by way of the stories of her ancestors and others who come alive through her writing. It’s such a fine book that a few words can’t do it justice.” (Leslie Marmon Silko, author of Ceremony and The Turquoise Ledge)
“For so long, Native writers and readers open books of our tribal history, archaeology, or anthropology and find that it is not the story we know. It does not include the people we know. It does not tell the stories of the heart or the relationships that were, and are, significant in any time. When we write our own books, they do not fit the ‘record’, as created by and confirmed by outside views. From the voice of the silenced, the written about and not written by, this book is groundbreaking not only as literature but as history.” (Linda Hogan, author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Rounding the Human Corners)
"Bad Indians brings the human story of California’s Indigenous community sharply into focus. It’s a narrative long obscured and distorted by celebrations of Christian missionaries and phony stories about ‘civilization’ coming to a golden land. No other history of California’s Indigenous communities that I know of presents such a moving personal account of loss and survival.” (Frederick E. Hoxie, Swanlund Professor, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
About the Author
Deborah A. Miranda is an enrolled member of the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation of California, and is also of Chumash and Jewish ancestry. The author of four poetry collections - Indian Cartography, which won the Diane Decorah Award for First Book from the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas, The Zen of La Llorona, nominated for the Lambda Literary Award, Raised by Humans, and her latest, Altar for Broken Things - she also has a collection of essays, The Hidden Stories of Isabel Meadows and Other California Indian Lacunae, forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press. In 2021, Miranda retired from Washington and Lee University as Thomas H. Broadus Jr. Endowed Chair of English to write full-time.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Critic Reviews
Winner the 2015 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Awards.
What listeners say about Bad Indians
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Aspyn Maes
- 09-18-21
Bad recording
The book itself is amazing and Miranda is an amazing writer. But the recording was not good and obviously frankensteined.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- HODGEPODGESPV
- 03-09-22
Let’s start with,
I did not have one drop of Indian blood in me.
That said I love listening to this book the author tell me things that I may have heard of before but I know I learned a lot from this book so if you want to know how the other half lives or lived you might wanna read this book and up with your eyes.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jennifer S
- 01-20-22
Different than I expected
Both the memoir and the audio production felt very disjointed, but I appreciate her perspective on California Missions
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- M. Espinoza
- 08-01-21
Essential read for all from California (& beyond)
I thoroughly enjoyed and learned from Elder Deborah Miranda. As someone who has lived and grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area my entire life, nearby Miranda's own lands of Monterey, Carmel, and Sur, I had never learned about these truths. It is essential to know and understand the land of which we are on, as the land is people and we must respect them for being the stewards of these lands.
Thank you to Deborah Miranda for giving us this knowledge and ensuring these stories continue to guide us for years to come.