Native wisdom: The North American Indian

They never believed their will would overpower nature

Before I left for the American southwest, I tried to see what I would see, assiduously looking for the right books, then carefully carrying them home from the library.

One of those I read (or at least four chapters, anyway) was the Doris Kindersley Eyewitness Guide bearing the title North American Indian.

The Eyewitness Guide, of course, is a 35-year-old series of educational non-fiction books, which now run to more than 160 titles on subjects as diverse as dinosaurs, ancient Egypt, flags, chemistry, music, the solar system, film, and Shakespeare. In February 2021, Dorling Kindersley claimed that more than 50 million copies have been sold worldwide in 36 languages.

The Eyewitness Guide to the Amerindians was, as is its trademark style, comprehensive, detailed and colourful with photographs and detailed illustrations. As has been said before, this series literally reinvented nonfiction books — and that too for almost every age group from nine upwards, by breaking up pages and pages of sol…