Jamake (pronounced Juh-MAH-kuh) Highwater was born on February 14, 1942, in Glacier County, Montana. His father, Jamie Highwater, an Eastern Cherokee originally from Tennessee, North Carolina, or Virginia, traveled around the West working in rodeos, circuses, and carnivals and as a stuntman in Hollywood. The author's mother, Amana Bonneville Highwater, was of French Canadian and Blackfeet descent. Both parents embraced their identity as Native Americans, and passed this proud sense of identity to their son, who has celebrated it in his work.

When Highwater was still a child, his father died in a car accident. Later adopted by a white family in the San Fernando Valley of California, Highwater attended school and grew up in comfortable suburban surroundings.

He went on to receive degrees in cultural anthropology, comparative literature, and music.

Highwater's first books were on rock music: Rock and Other Four Letter Words (1969) and Mick...