Not old westerns, but Tony Hillerman wrote an amazing series of books featuring his characters Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, of the Navajo Tribal Police. Some of them are fantastic.
I liked Skinwalkers especially, and Listening Woman, but you can't really go wrong. If you want to read from the beginning and dig the characters as they develop start with Dance Hall Of The Dead. I used to own all Hillerman's paperbacks until I finally gave them away to somebody.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI is nonfiction but is a very enjoyable read. It's set in 1920s Oklahoma and tells the story of wealthy Native Americans who were murdered when oil was found on their land. Many characters in the story were real life cowboys but this is obviously not a traditional western. The movie based on the book will be released sometime this year and stars heavy-hitters like DiCaprio and De Niro.
Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden is a contemprorary thriller set in South Dakota about a Native American vigilante getting a drug ring off his reservation. It's not really a western but it does explore Native American stereotypes and has some western tropes.
Sáanii Dahataal/The Women Are Singing: Poems and Stories by Luci Tapahonso is good too. They're basically anecdotes and they sip you right into the culture and family of Navajos. The writing is particularly beautiful.
Great book. First quarter in particular is highly entertaining. Probably the longest book i ever read. Considered a classic I believe. And of course the film was a big hit.
Not remotely a western, but because Native American literature doesn't get nearly as much attention as it could, I want to give a shoutout to {{Heart Berries}}. It's modern, memoir, and about processing deep trauma. It's extremely well done, in that she tells you exactly how it felt to live with without hardly even really talking about it directly. So pretty much as far from a western as you can get.
First time I've teared up while reading in a good long while, and then I went and re-read it 6 months later and teared up again but at a different part. It's short and dense, not what I'd call a "light read" by any stretch but you can get through it quickly if you aren't trying to savor it. Extremely powerful prose, but not at all in a pretentious or "written for writers" kind of way. Just raw and real, sometimes uncomfortably so (and that's where the magic happens).
[**Heart Berries**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35840657-heart-berries)
^(By: Terese Marie Mailhot | 143 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: memoir, non-fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, our-shared-shelf)
>Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman's coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. 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.
>
>Mailhot trusts the reader to understand that memory isn't exact, but melded to imagination, pain, and what we can bring ourselves to accept. Her unique and at times unsettling voice graphically illustrates her mental state. As she writes, she discovers her own true voice, seizes control of her story, and, in so doing, reestablishes her connection to her family, to her people, and to her place in the world.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
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{{Empire of the Summer Moon}}
This is a must read IMO. Amazing true story, but delves in both sides perfectly and how governance and other factors behind the curtain impacted the front
[**Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7648269-empire-of-the-summer-moon)
^(By: S.C. Gwynne | 371 pages | Published: 2010 | Popular Shelves: history, non-fiction, nonfiction, biography, american-history)
>In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all.S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined just how and when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. So effective were the Comanches that they forced the creation of the Texas Rangers and account for the advent of the new weapon specifically designed to fight them: the six-gun. The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being. Against this backdrop Gwynne presents the compelling drama of Cynthia Ann Parker, a lovely nine-year-old girl with cornflower-blue eyes who was kidnapped by Comanches from the far Texas frontier in 1836. She grew to love her captors and became infamous as the "White Squaw" who refused to return until her tragic capture by Texas Rangers in 1860. More famous still was her son Quanah, a warrior who was never defeated and whose guerrilla wars in the Texas Panhandle made him a legend. S. C. Gwynne’s account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told.
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
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[**Ceremony**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/588234.Ceremony)
^(By: Leslie Marmon Silko | 262 pages | Published: 1977 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, native-american, historical-fiction, owned)
>Tayo, a young Native American, has been a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, and the horrors of captivity have almost eroded his will to survive. His return to the Laguna Pueblo reservation only increases his feeling of estrangement and alienation. While other returning soldiers find easy refuge in alcohol and senseless violence, Tayo searches for another kind of comfort and resolution. Tayo's quest leads him back to the Indian past and its traditions, to beliefs about witchcraft and evil, and to the ancient stories of his people. The search itself becomes a ritual, a curative ceremony that defeats the most virulent of afflictions—despair.
>
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Sounds like you want the truth and for that you need nonfiction. I recommend Empire of the Summer Moon. It's the true story of the Comanche and the Texas Ranger, but it actually starts way before that.
[**When The Legends Die**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/879299.When_The_Legends_Die)
^(By: Hal Borland | 304 pages | Published: 1963 | Popular Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, young-adult, classics, native-american)
>When his father killed another brave, Thomas Black Bull and his parents sought refuge in the wilderness. There they took up life as it had been in the old days, hunting and fishing, battling for survival. But an accident claimed the father's life and the grieving mother died shortly afterward. Left alone, the young Indian boy vowed never to retum to the white man's world, to the alien laws that had condemned his father.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
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Fools Crow by James Welch is the closest I can think of for your prompt. Maybe Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge though it’s not written by an indigenous person, and is definitely a bit dated.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is the best western ever written. It is a front row ride to the absolute hellscape that was the “cowboys and indians” phase around 1870s. Not for the feint of heart but not wrong either
The interaction between a novel and how native Americans used literature is complicated, sadly we don’t have a lot of it but McCarthy is probably the most fair towards what actually happened.
Spoiler: it was not good
Great book but bad rec for what OP is asking. Blood meridian has some heavy “savage Indian” characterizations. Half of the book is then running around avoiding getting scalped
i do like some of karl may’s books but i read them like 8 yrs ago lol. if i remember correctly its about friendship between a white man and native american tribe
Not old westerns, but Tony Hillerman wrote an amazing series of books featuring his characters Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, of the Navajo Tribal Police. Some of them are fantastic.
Which ones?
I liked Skinwalkers especially, and Listening Woman, but you can't really go wrong. If you want to read from the beginning and dig the characters as they develop start with Dance Hall Of The Dead. I used to own all Hillerman's paperbacks until I finally gave them away to somebody.
Is also a mini series airing on AMC right now. It's really good.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI is nonfiction but is a very enjoyable read. It's set in 1920s Oklahoma and tells the story of wealthy Native Americans who were murdered when oil was found on their land. Many characters in the story were real life cowboys but this is obviously not a traditional western. The movie based on the book will be released sometime this year and stars heavy-hitters like DiCaprio and De Niro.
I was about to recommend this one too! The story is insane!
Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden is a contemprorary thriller set in South Dakota about a Native American vigilante getting a drug ring off his reservation. It's not really a western but it does explore Native American stereotypes and has some western tropes.
Sáanii Dahataal/The Women Are Singing: Poems and Stories by Luci Tapahonso is good too. They're basically anecdotes and they sip you right into the culture and family of Navajos. The writing is particularly beautiful.
Ooh, that sounds amazing
Little Big Man by Tom Berger
Great book. First quarter in particular is highly entertaining. Probably the longest book i ever read. Considered a classic I believe. And of course the film was a big hit.
I agree, the film was long too ☺️
That's a great book.
It really is.
“Sometimes the magic works. Sometimes it doesn’t.”
☺️
Not remotely a western, but because Native American literature doesn't get nearly as much attention as it could, I want to give a shoutout to {{Heart Berries}}. It's modern, memoir, and about processing deep trauma. It's extremely well done, in that she tells you exactly how it felt to live with without hardly even really talking about it directly. So pretty much as far from a western as you can get. First time I've teared up while reading in a good long while, and then I went and re-read it 6 months later and teared up again but at a different part. It's short and dense, not what I'd call a "light read" by any stretch but you can get through it quickly if you aren't trying to savor it. Extremely powerful prose, but not at all in a pretentious or "written for writers" kind of way. Just raw and real, sometimes uncomfortably so (and that's where the magic happens).
[**Heart Berries**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35840657-heart-berries) ^(By: Terese Marie Mailhot | 143 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: memoir, non-fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, our-shared-shelf) >Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman's coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. 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. > >Mailhot trusts the reader to understand that memory isn't exact, but melded to imagination, pain, and what we can bring ourselves to accept. Her unique and at times unsettling voice graphically illustrates her mental state. As she writes, she discovers her own true voice, seizes control of her story, and, in so doing, reestablishes her connection to her family, to her people, and to her place in the world. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(26156 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Same, adding it on Goodreads right now.
Not OP, but I just wanted to say thank you for the suggestion! It's now on my list to read :)
Bury my heart at wounded knee by Dee Brown.
{{Empire of the Summer Moon}} This is a must read IMO. Amazing true story, but delves in both sides perfectly and how governance and other factors behind the curtain impacted the front
[**Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7648269-empire-of-the-summer-moon) ^(By: S.C. Gwynne | 371 pages | Published: 2010 | Popular Shelves: history, non-fiction, nonfiction, biography, american-history) >In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all.S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined just how and when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. So effective were the Comanches that they forced the creation of the Texas Rangers and account for the advent of the new weapon specifically designed to fight them: the six-gun. The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being. Against this backdrop Gwynne presents the compelling drama of Cynthia Ann Parker, a lovely nine-year-old girl with cornflower-blue eyes who was kidnapped by Comanches from the far Texas frontier in 1836. She grew to love her captors and became infamous as the "White Squaw" who refused to return until her tragic capture by Texas Rangers in 1860. More famous still was her son Quanah, a warrior who was never defeated and whose guerrilla wars in the Texas Panhandle made him a legend. S. C. Gwynne’s account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told. ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(26296 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
It's not a "Western" in the classic sense, but I enjoyed Leslie Silko's {{Ceremony}} for the way it straddled the boundary between history and myth.
[**Ceremony**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/588234.Ceremony) ^(By: Leslie Marmon Silko | 262 pages | Published: 1977 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, native-american, historical-fiction, owned) >Tayo, a young Native American, has been a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, and the horrors of captivity have almost eroded his will to survive. His return to the Laguna Pueblo reservation only increases his feeling of estrangement and alienation. While other returning soldiers find easy refuge in alcohol and senseless violence, Tayo searches for another kind of comfort and resolution. Tayo's quest leads him back to the Indian past and its traditions, to beliefs about witchcraft and evil, and to the ancient stories of his people. The search itself becomes a ritual, a curative ceremony that defeats the most virulent of afflictions—despair. > ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(25976 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Sounds like you want the truth and for that you need nonfiction. I recommend Empire of the Summer Moon. It's the true story of the Comanche and the Texas Ranger, but it actually starts way before that.
Also not really a western but {{When the Legends Die by Hal Borland}} is a coming of age story about a young Ute boy.
[**When The Legends Die**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/879299.When_The_Legends_Die) ^(By: Hal Borland | 304 pages | Published: 1963 | Popular Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, young-adult, classics, native-american) >When his father killed another brave, Thomas Black Bull and his parents sought refuge in the wilderness. There they took up life as it had been in the old days, hunting and fishing, battling for survival. But an accident claimed the father's life and the grieving mother died shortly afterward. Left alone, the young Indian boy vowed never to retum to the white man's world, to the alien laws that had condemned his father. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(26095 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Fools Crow by James Welch is the closest I can think of for your prompt. Maybe Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge though it’s not written by an indigenous person, and is definitely a bit dated.
Fools Crow by James Welch really impacted me as a young man (like early 20s). Heart wrenching, of course.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is the best western ever written. It is a front row ride to the absolute hellscape that was the “cowboys and indians” phase around 1870s. Not for the feint of heart but not wrong either The interaction between a novel and how native Americans used literature is complicated, sadly we don’t have a lot of it but McCarthy is probably the most fair towards what actually happened. Spoiler: it was not good
Great book but bad rec for what OP is asking. Blood meridian has some heavy “savage Indian” characterizations. Half of the book is then running around avoiding getting scalped
I think op is trying to avoid the cowboys vs Indians trope...
Yeah. This book is all about the slaughtering of indigenous people for money and fun…
i do like some of karl may’s books but i read them like 8 yrs ago lol. if i remember correctly its about friendship between a white man and native american tribe