Where the Lightning Strikes The Lives of American Indian Sacred Places

From the author of Native American Testimonycomes a revelatory new look at the hallowed, diverse, and threatened landscapes of the American Indian For thousands of years Native Americans have told stories about the powers of revered landscapes and sought spiritual direction at mysterious locations in their homelands. In Where the Lightning Strikes, Peter Nabokov offers sixteen biographies of place” that dramatize the rich diversity of Indian cultures and their religious systems across North America. From the mountains of Maine to Tennessee’s Tellico Valley, from the Black Hills of South Dakota to Rainbow Canyon in Arizona to the high country of northwestern California, each chapter explores a host of relationships between Indian cultures and their environments and describes the myths, legends, practices, and rituals that sustained them.Based on years of research and personal experience, Where the Lightning Strikesreveals a range of holy lands containing beneficial as well as malevolent forces and reminds us of the stubborn persistence of Indian beliefs in the sacredness of the American earth.

Peter Nabokov is professor of American Indian Studies and World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. His previous books include A Forest of Time, Native American Testimony, Native American Architecture (with Robert Easton), Indian Running, Two Leggings: The Making of a Crow Warrior, and Architecture of Acoma Pueblo.