The Way We Lived: California Indian Stories, Songs and Reminiscences

Edited with commentary by Malcolm Margolin

This collection of reminiscences, stories, and songs reflects the diversity of the people native to California. The magnitude of that diversity is obvious in any gathering of California Indians, with great differences quickly apparent not only between those from northern and those from southern California, but often between groups of people living only a few miles apart. These stories that tell of a shaman dancing for power, a young boy awaiting initiation, an old man gazing at a pine tree he could no longer climb, or a young girl hearing for the first time the mourning cries of her mother offer a greater understanding of Native American culture and of humanity.

About the Author
Malcolm Margolin grew up in Boston and has been living in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1970. Other books include East Bay Out: A Personal Guide to the East Bay Regional Parks; The Earth Manual: How to Work on Wild Land Without Taming It; and The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area. He is the publisher of Heyday Books, which he founded in 1974, and publisher and co-editor of News from Native California, a quarterly magazine devoted to California Indian history and ongoing culture.

California Historical Society, Heyday Books. 1993