Spooky Season and Recapping Founder's Week Events

Many of us at AIHREA count Halloween as one of our favorite holidays. We spend the month of October (and the rest of the year if we're honest) consuming all things spooky and haunted. Since we also love to read, to celebrate this year, we've decided to share with you a pair of our favorite Native horror books. One is an old favorite and another is a newer addition to our shelves, but will likely find itself in regular rotation for years to come.

American Indian Ghosts Stories of the West by Mescalero Apache and Otomi author Antonio R. Garcez is one of our favorite books detailing paranormal belief among the peoples of the American West. Interviewing Native and non-Native peoples from Arizona, California, Colorado, and New Mexico, Garcez provides firsthand accounts of paranormal phenomena from reservation communities, historical sites, and private residences. In addition to telling ghosts stories from communities across the West, he provides a brief contextual note about each of the communities or historic sites before his collected stories. Garcez has also collected several other books of experiences with the paranormal including books focused on stories from LGBTQ+ and medical professionals. To learn more about his other books, visit his website here.

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Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories compiled by Neil Christopher brings together nine authors from a variety of backgrounds including Inuit, Dene, and Ukkusiksalingmiut writers to bring elements of the cold, dark North to the horror genre. In each of their stories, the authors provide their own approaches to horror fiction including zombies, blizzards, and post-apocalyptic settings. In addition to providing multiple Indigenous voices, nearly every story makes use of Inuktitut language. A glossary accompanies these stories that not only provides meanings for the words used, but also includes their meanings. You come for the scares and get a language lesson for free!

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Lehigh Founder's Week Events

Since 1879, Lehigh University has celebrated their founder with activities and events on campus. This year, due to COVID-19, Lehigh was forced to change up their regular activities in favor of virtual events including two hosted by AIHREA's partner, the Institute for Indigenous Studies. The Institute hosted two events, a presentation on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and an Indigenous Trivia Night. Both events were well attended and, in case you missed it, you can view the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls presentation below!