Native American Heritage Resources: Journal Articles/Database Research

Often Native American history or resources are written by non-native people or those who do not have a specific connection to the communities they are writing about.  Historically, this has led to inaccurate representation of Native American peoples or an erasure of Indigenous knowledge. To learn more, read Educating America: The Historian's Responsibility to Native Americans and the Public in 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.

When searching the databases, it's helpful to start with simple keywords.

• 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. Blackfeet, Crow, Hopi or Shoshoni)        
• Combine a tribal name with a topical word (e.g. Blackfeet mythology)   

Find more (broaden your results) with OR and wildcards:

Example:
  Indian or Indigenous   (finds either term)
   cultur*   (finds culture, cultures, cultural, cultured)

Find less (narrow your results) with AND:

Example:
   Blackfeet and culture   (finds both terms)

Find less with NOT:

Example:
   blackfeet culture not religion   (excludes records that mention religion)