The author entered the United States at age twenty as a student, schooled in French Literature, Classics and Philosophy. After twenty years of marriage, raising three children and running a French Import business in Palo Alto, she embarked in her American career as a cultural and psychological anthropologist. She has documented some forty years of fieldwork through a variety of substantial essays, crafting a rare collection of fascinating papers about American Indians and Amazigh (Berber and Tuareg) people, a unique book by an immigrant to the United States. From fond memories of Mustapha and her childhood in Morocco, to extensive scholarly research on Egyptian civilization and late writings about the unexplored topic of intermarriages between American Indians and French explorers of North America, the book captivates the reader's attention, always informs, and in some instances, as in The People of Niram, delights in unsuspected irony and wit.
About the Author: HELENE E. HAGAN immigrated to the United States in 1959. Born in Rabat, Morocco, Helene received her earlier education in Morocco and at Bordeaux University, France, where she received a Master's Degree in British and American Studies. She also holds two graduate degrees from Stanford University. California, one in French and Education, and the other in Cultural and Psychological Anthropology. She married in 1960 and is the mother of Phillip Durk, Jennifer Jane and Marianne Elizabeth Hagan. She raised her family in Palo Alto, California, where she managed her own business, "La Ruche, French Imports" before returning to Stanford as a Ph D student in Anthropology. After conducting fieldwork (1982-1985) among the Oglala Lakota people of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and directing a photo identification project funded by the South Dakota Committee on the Humanities for the Oglala Lakota College, she worked as Associate Professor at the JFK University Graduate School of Psychology in Orinda, California, and owned an American Indian art gallery in Marin County, "Lakota Contemporary Designs" to support American Indian artists. She has served as President of the non-profit educational organization she founded, Tazzla Institute for Cultural Diversity, since 1993. In 1997, she traveled to the Canary Islands to participate to the first Amazigh International Congress that took place in Tafira. She moved to Los Angeles in 1998. In 2000, in collaboration with several NGOS at the United Nations, and through the activities of the Vice President of Tazzla Institute, Ms. Shirley Chesney, Helene has co-led a UNESCO Culture of Peace program, "Creating Peace Through the Arts and Media" with an annual UN presentation of films and speakers selected by Tazzla institute. Helene has written numerous newspaper and magazine articles on a variety of subjects during her career as an activist anthropologist, four anthropological books on Berber (Amazigh) culture and filmed, edited and produced over fifty community service television programs on a variety of topics related to American Indian and Amazigh (Berber and Tuareg) culture, arts, and human right issues, through Amazigh Video Productions. She has enormously enjoyed her work as a videographer, editor, and producer of these educational and cultural television programs. Helene Hagan is a lifetime Associate Curator of the Paul Radin Collection at Marquette University Special Archives. In 2007, Helene E. Hagan was a guest Professor for the First Berber Institute held at the University of Oregon, Corvallis. In 2008, she created the Los Angeles Amazigh Film Festival. Books published by XLibris: The Shining Ones: Etymological Essay on the Amazigh Roots of Ancient Egyptian Civilization (2000) Tuareg Jewelry: Traditional Patterns and Symbols (2006) Tazz'unt: Ecology, Ritual and Social Order in the Tessawt Valley of the High Atlas of Morocco (2011) Fifty Years in America, A Book of Essays (2013) Russell Means, The European Ancestry of a Militant Indian (2018