Showing papers in "American Indian Quarterly in 1989"

Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture

Abstract: History of Anthropology is a series of annual volumes, inaugurated in 1983, each of which treats an important theme in the history of anthropological inquiry. "Objects and Others," the third volume, focuses on a number of questions relating to the history of museums and material culture studies: the interaction of museum arrangement and anthropological theory; the tension between anthropological research and popular education; the contribution of museum ethnography to aesthetic practice; the relationship of humanistic and anthropological culture, and of ethnic artifact and fine art; and, more generally, the representation of culture in material objects. As the first work to cover the development of museum anthropology since the mid-nineteenth century, it will be of great interest and value not only to anthropologist, museologists, and historians of science and the social sciences, but also to those interested in "primitive" art and its reception in the Western world."

Unfinished Justice: Completing the Restoration and Acknowledgement of California Indian Tribes.

Abstract: T HE 95TH CONGRESS DIRECTED the American Indian Policy Review Commission to conduct extensive research on the conditions of unacknowledged and terminated Indian groups. Until the 1970s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs had employed the "Cohen criteria" in deciding cases of acknowledgement or status clarification of an Indian group. Candidates had to meet one or more of the following criteria: possess a history of treaty relations with the United States; be designated as a tribe by an Act of Congress or Executive Order; be treated by the Federal Government as having collective rights in tribal lands or assets; be recognized as tribe or band by other (acknowledged) tribes or bands; or exercise political authority over its own members, through a form of government or leadership.' By the 1970s, some California tribes had been seeking federal acknowledgement for decades or generations. Many of these tribes could fulfill some or all of the Cohen criteria, but were denied acknowledgement, primarily because the Bureau of Indian Affairs was reluctant to undertake to allocate funds and services to them, or assume fiduciary and administrative responsibilities for additional tribes. During the termination era of the 1950s and early 1960s, no California tribes were acknowledged because the direction of federalIndian policy was speeding toward the elimination of intergovernmental relations with all California tribes. In the mid-1970s, the American Indian Policy Review Commission first expressed the need for an independent office to review petitions for acknowledgement under consistent standards without prejudicing the welfare of those Indian groups who already enjoyed a government-to-government relationship with the United States.2 Congress never authorized the creation of the Acknowledgement and Research Branch, nor administrative procedures to review or evaluate requests for Federal acknowledgement, nor to grant acknowledgement to Indian tribes. Still, in 1978, the Department of Interior, acting partly in response to and partly with trepidation regarding proposed legislation, while lacking statutory direction, promulgated regulations to establish formal administrative procedures to extend federal acknowledgement. Under the current regulations, petitioners must meet the following seven criteria (at 25 Code of Federal Regulations Sec. 83.7):

Renewing the World: Plains Indian Religion and Morality

Abstract: "A valuable resource for anthropologists, ethnohistorians, and western historians who wish to better understand ritual life in the Plains region." Western Historical Quarterly "Harrod's discussion of kinship and reciprocity in Northwest Plains cosmology contains valuable insight into Native American worldview, and his emphasis on the moral dimension of ritual process is a major addition to the too-often ignored subject of Native American moral life." Journal of Religion "Includes the major works on Blackfoot, Crow, Cheyennes, and Arapaho religion, the works to which anyone who wishes to understand the religious life of these tribes must continue to turn." Choice "Plains people, Harrod suggests, refracted nature and conceived an environmental ethic through a metaphor of kinship. He is particularly skillful in characterizing the ambiguity Plains people expressed at the necessity of killing and eating their animal kin. Renewing the World also contributes to another new and uncultivated science we might call 'ecology of mind'." Great Plains Quarterly

Forest Diplomats: The Role of Interpreters in Indian-White Relations on the Early American Frontier.

Abstract: important means by which the two groups comprehended each other. Drastic differences between the English and Indian languages, the highly symbolic and poetic character of the Indian languages and the radically disparate cultures, made the translator's job extremely difficult. While a poor interpreter could turn an eloquent speech of the Indian into flat prose, a good one could make a poor speaker very poetic. The job of the Indian interpreters, then, was not simply the literal translation of one language into another. Only those who were thoroughly familiar with the customs and traditions, as well as languages, of both cultures were able to translate accurately and effectively. The language barrier was not confined to Indian-white relations. Indian tribes had their own distinct languages, and it was sometimes difficult for them, even within one linguistic group, to communicate between two tribes. Experience Mayhew, who devoted his entire life to the welfare of the Martha's Vineyard Indians, for example, learned the native language in childhood by ear, "not out of a grammar," but he found his ability limited in conversing with the Connecticut Indians and was compelled to use an interpreter.' Even within the tribes of the six Nations where close similarities in speech existed, there was some degree of difference. Mohawk and Oneida were the most closely related at the east end of the Confederacy and Cayuga and Seneca at the West. A Mohawk would understand an Oneida without difficulty, but he would most definitely need an interpreter to communicate with a Seneca. All of them would need interpreters to understand the Huron.2

An Indian Account of the Decline and Collapse of Mexico's Hegemony over the Missionized Indians of California.

Abstract: NEW WAYS OF LOOKING AT HISTORICAL events provide a powerful momentum in the historian's continual quest to reinterpret our past. This is an especially important process when we deal with events where racial and cultural conflict occurs. Few, if any, competent historians would be satisfied with accounts of these types of events that took a single parochial point of view. Unfortunately, much of what passes for colonial California history reflects the biases and prejudices of Hispanic missionaries and military authorities of that era.' Only in recent years has a native American historical interpretation begun to surface.2 The approaching Columbian Quincentennial (1492-1992) affords a good opportunity for thoughtful readers of history to consider the Indian perspective of the impact Spanish military and churchsponsored activities had on the native peoples of California. One of the alleged beneficiaries of the Spanish spiritual and physical conquest of Alta California were called Costaf~os (coastal people) by the minions of that empire. Like most California Indian group names, the term Costanoan describes a language family associated with a territory that encompassed much of the San Francisco bay and the Pacific coast south to Monterey. That territory was further divided into eight distinct language areas. In precontact times these people lived in at least 50 politically autonomous triblets. The Mission Santa Cruz was established among the group called Awaswas. The total aborigine population of Santa Cruz County was approximately 1,700 persons. Villages ranged in size from 50 to several hundred persons. The family was the backbone of these societies. Extended family groups governed the conduct of their respective members. Marriage was important because it united two large family groups, which constituted a considerable economic and political force in a small villagebased society. Leaders were primarily responsible for organizing ceremonies and coordinating economic activities. Otherwise, individuals were free from religious or political coercion. The Costanoan economy was carefully maintained by political, religious, and cultural mechanisms. Controlled burning ensured a sustained yield of plant and animal food sources. The native diet was rich in diversity; acorns, grass seeds, berries, roots, deer, elk, antelope,

Living Sideways: Social Themes and Social Relationships in Native American Trickster Tales

Abstract: I'JN A TOLERATED MARGIN OF MESS: The Trickster and his Tales IReconsidered," Barbara Babcock-Abrahams argues that Trickster stories represent the fundamental contradiction between the individual and society, freedom and constraint, and the ambivalence the contradiction raises in the individual.' In much recent Trickster writing, this equation has been developed by emphasizing Trickster as the creatively antinomian overreacher transgressing the artificial codes of society and the categories of human perception that give rise to those codes. The argument in brief, is that Trickster's violative behavior places him at the margin of or even beyond the social pale; from such a vantage point he liberates humans from conventional social moral boundaries and dramatizes new ways of perceiving and the possibility of new orders. One recent writer, Andrew Wiget, characterizes this "virtue" of Trickster thus: "Outside the system of norms established by the myths of origin and transformation, he becomes a useful, institutionalized principle of disorder. As an 'outsider,' Trickster can suggest the dangerous possibility of novel relationships between form and function; sex and role; belief and practice; kin and clan; even appetite and will. He provides, to use Barbara Babcock's terms, the 'tolerated margin of mess' necessary to explore alternatives to the present system and to contemplate change.'"2 It may be that a view of Trickster as a creative rebel has been emphasized at the expense of the socially didactic function of the Trickster tradition, particularly the dramatization of Trickster as a figure deserving the ridicule heaped on him, a negative example of what can go wrong in the greater society when the individual tries to live as a society of one. We make nodding recognition at Ramsey's description of Indian societies as "sternly normative"3 and then return to our delight in the comically rebellious Trickster, and perceive him as a psychic release from social repression. Ramsey has also written that "most sophisticated Indians [he knows] rejects the notion that their traditional figure represents a 'culture hero'"' (35). However, the antinomian Trickster has often become very much the culture hero for the Euro-American literary-scholarly establishment; he is in danger of finding himself the adopted brother of our various Romantic Overreachers. His socially didactic and corrective roles receive at best

America's Native Sweet: Chippewa Treaties and the Right to Harvest Maple Sugar

Abstract: Alexander Ramsey, territorial governor of Minnesota in 1850, wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs about the condition of various Chippewa bands to the North where white settlement had hardly begun. Near LaPointe, Ramsey reported, the Indians "raise corn and potatoes sufficient for their own consumption, and not unfrequently a surplus for sale. They also manufacture large quantities of maple sugar, which they sell to their traders, and catch and salt fish, for which they find a ready market." Further west, the Mille Lac band lived by "a lake abounding in fish and wild rice, and bordered by extensive maple groves, they live in [great] plenty." At Leech Lake, Ramsey found similar conditions: "their lakes are surrounded by extensive and beautiful maple bottoms ... the lands are fertile, sugar trees are abundant, and rice is obtained in large quantities. ... Every article of food which the Indian needs for subsistence can be found either in its bosom or upon its shores."' Part of this bounty, according to Chippewa mythology, had originated "one day [when] Wenebojo was standing under a maple."

Mission Indians and Indians of California Land Claims.

Abstract: SEVERAL ARTICLES AND MONOGRAPHS (Heizer and Kroeber 1976, Heizer 1978, Stewart 1978, Sutton 1985) have described aspects of California Indian Claims Cases, primarily discussing Dockets 31 and 37, the "Indians of California" Case. Although some described the Pitt River Case (Docket 347), none discussed the Mission Indians Claims Case, Docket 80. All California Claims Cases had complex histories leading to the joint offer for an out of court settlement from the United States government. Complexities were due to the diverse nature and history of various regions of California and to influences exerted by non-Indian advisors and attorneys. In fact, non-Indians determined the nature and wording of claims filed. The out-of-court settlement was accepted after meetings held separately by members of each case, the Mission Indian Case, Indians of California Case, and Pitt River Case. The Pitt River vote was unsuccessfully contested. After settlement, non-Indians were among those prominent in expressing dismay at the 47 cents per acre, apparently without reading the Indian Claims Commission Act (H.R. 4497) of August 13, 1946 (60 Stat 1049:25 U.S.C. Sec. 70ff.) and without data on 1851 land values. This paper' presents a background sketch of the major claims, the nature of influences determining the wording of petitions and difficulties resulting therefrom, particularly, the Mission Indian Claims Case, Docket 80. In this case difficulties arose because anthropologists and non-anthropologists misconstrued contact period socio-politicalterritorial organizations due to post 1850 historical change. The 47 cents per acre settlement value is discussed. The first claim, Docket 31 before the Indian Claims Commission, was filed July 19, 1948 by "representatives, and on behalf of the Indians of California." Several band members and representatives of intertribal organizations joined to obtain an attorney to file this case. Many bands and intertribal groups believed that the fictitious "Indians of California" had become an identifiable group based upon a previous act of Congress (May 18, 1928: 45 Stat. 602) which defined it as "all Indians who were residing in the State of California on June 1, 1852, and their descendants now living in said state." This act allowed the Indians of California to bring suit (known as K-344) against the United States for taking land without just compensation, specifically the

Reconstructing Migrations in California Prehistory

Abstract: SNTHROPOLOGISTS WORKING IN CALIFORNIA have, virtually from the inception of the discipline, cited the immigration of ethnic groups as one of the most likely ways to account for the tremendous cultural diversity in the area as documented by ethnologists. Likewise, following on an early theoretical interest in the relationships of language and culture, California ethnologists quickly began to implement a cultural taxonomy using language as the primary classification attribute. This classificatory relationship between culture, language, and ethnicity remains firmly entrenched and has had a considerable influence on the development of archaeology in California. In the past decade there has been a resurgence of studies which link archaeological and linguistic reconstructions of culture history in California. Such studies are labeled "paleolinguistics," "archaeological linguistics," or "linguistic prehistory," and the fact that both linguists and archaeologists use these labels for their work, further emphasizes the relationship between the two fields on this avenue of study. Certainly the most elegant archaeological statement in this regard for California prehistory is that by Michael Moratto in his book California Archaeology. Along with the rejuvenation of linguistic prehistory in California archaeology came the resurrection of migration as a (perhaps the) primary mechanism for the diffusion of language. Then too, some archaeologists and linguists have sought to discover material culture correlates of language and population movements (read ethnic groups), and we rather quickly find ourselves back into the sort of diffusionist modeling of culture change which the "New Archaeology" worked so hard to dispel. This "return to history" should, however, jog our memories about some earlier anthropological approaches to culture change, particularly those that address acculturation and assimilation processes involving migratory groups. I should make it clear that my discussion of the archaeological interpretation of migrations applies only in the context of the California culture area, specifically relating to those gatherer-hunter economies which characterize the area. Extrapolations of this discussion and its interpretations would not be appropriate for groups with significantly different economic and socio-political organization. It should be noted,

Historical Sociology and Native Americans: Methodological Problems

Abstract: N THIS PAPER SOME METHODOLOGICAL problems in making historical comparisons among Native American groups are analyzed. It indicates that comparisons across wide gulfs of time must be made carefully, to contribute to understanding and theoretical development. Focusing on aboriginal social organization, the historical context and consequences of European contact, the changing nature of ethnic phenomena, and recent changes in the processes of incorporation, several criteria for comparisons are suggested: pre-contact social organization; degree of incorporation into a European system; subsequent social transformation; world-historical setting; theoretical agenda of the comparison; and intended generality of conclusions. Historical comparisons among and between Native American groups are fraught with conceptual and practical problems. This paper discusses some of the problems associated with comparative studies motivated by theoretical concerns in one or another of the social sciences. The theoretical goals of a comparative study shape both the cases chosen to compare and the strategy for comparison.' A discussion such as this one can not be definitive, but only suggestive, since changing theoretical interests and accumulating empirical evidence will alter the criteria and problems for comparative studies. Three issues need to be clarified before beginning the discussion. First is the problem of the implied homogeneity of the general term used for Native Americans: "Indians." The terms "Native Americans"

Yurok Aristocracy and "Great Houses.".

Abstract: T HERE WAS A TIME IN THE late nineteenth and early twentieth century when many anthropologists conceptualized all hunting and gathering groups and agricultural societies without the plow, including the Native American societies north of Mexico, as inferior to those of European origin. Among the characteristics which such theorists suggested as signs of American Indian inferiority was the lack of social stratification.

Ejidos and Regions of Refuge in Northwestern Mexico

Abstract: This slim but important volume is a transitional work, one that attempts to bridge two very different traditions in the anthropological study of indigenous communities. . . . succinct and provocative."—American Indian Quarterly "Many of the ideas expressed are provocative, much of the information is new; the bibliography is extensive."—Arizona Daily Star

THE RED ROAD TO NOWHERE: D'ARCY McNICKLE'S THE SURROUNDED AND "THE HUNGRY GENERATIONS"

Abstract: In 1936, with the titles of both novel and author altered, the novel would be published as The Surrounded, by D'Arcy McNickle. And, despite both the publisher's rejection of the manuscript and confusion over the author's gender, Harcourt Brace's declaration would prove prophetic: along with John Joseph Mathews' Sundown, The Surrounded would mark the beginning of "a new Indian literature" that by the 1980s would surpass even the famous Harlem Renaissance in black literature.

Recognizing Indian Folk History as Real History: A Fort Ross Example.

Abstract: TOO OFTEN DO WE FIND Native American folk history patronized as "legend" or some form of "just-so" stories without basis in fact, when in reality they often form valid oral history, simply told from a different viewpoint and background. Two such stories from the Kashaya Pomo living near Fort Ross are compared with Russian and English historical accounts to give us a remarkable picture of a Hudson's Bay expedition in California in 1833. Thanks to the diligent work of linguist Robert Oswalt in recording the stories of the Kashaya Pomo (1964), we have two fascinating accounts of a mysterious expedition passing by Fort Ross. The first one, entitled "The Ayash Expedition" (No. 54) was told by Essie Parrish to Oswalt in September 1958. She had heard it from her father. The second, "The Big Expedition" (No. 57) was told by Herman James, also in September 1958. He had learned his stories from his maternal grandmother, Lukaria, who "had lived her entire life in the vicinity of Metini [Kashya name for Fort Ross area] and was about eight years old when Fort Ross was founded there" (Oswalt 1964: 9). A wonderful thing about these writings is that they are presented in dual language, with the Kashaya and English side-by-side. In his introduction to the stories (which are properly included under "Folk History") Oswalt suggests an element of ambiguity about the timing of the event since Essie Parrish states that it occurred "long, long ago before the white men arrived" (Oswalt 1964: 247), whereas James says that it was at a time when "the undersea people had landed there" (1964: 251). This term, "Undersea People" has been interpreted to mean the Russians as well as the Aleuts, Creoles, Tana'ina Indians and other native peoples the Russians brought with them. These latter made up 80-90 percent of the Fort Ross settlement (Cf. Fedorova 1975: 12). It is important to understand the difference between the references to "undersea people" (/0ahqha yow bakhe yachma/) versus "white people" (/phala cayN/) as shown in the story "Tales of Fort Ross" (Oswalt 1964: 277), in which the term "white people" refers to the post-Russian period, American settlers such as William Benitz. Thus, for Essie Parrish to say "before the white men came," really means before the Americans came (i.e., prior to 1842).

Essays on the history of North American discovery and exploration

Abstract: Initially setting out with nothing more than the idea of taking a shortcut to the Orient, early explorers of North America stumbled upon a confusing array of rivers and wild lands inhabited by strange peoples. This volume encompasses four centuries in the discovery and exploration of North America---the great roadblock to the Orient---and focuses on a theme of interaction between the Old World and the New. David B. Quinn explores European interest in the New World, elaborating on the tradition that the French came for commercial reasons, the Spanish to seek wealth and spread the Catholic faith, and the English to find land on which some of their people could become prosperous and self-sufficient. Robert H. Fuson investigates the background of "The John Cabot Mystique," highlighting the known facts and fictions about the man claimed by some as the first post-Viking European visitor to Canada. The issues behind Olive Patricia Dickason's look at "Old World Law, New World Peoples, and Concepts of Sovereignty" are fascinating examples of the legal and religious mindsets that led European nations to seek out new lands and new subjects for their temporal and spiritual leaders. Cornelius Jaenen discusses interdependent trade ties forged by the French and the Indians, while Elizabeth A. H. John studies the role of maps in territorial disputes and the role of one particularly influential mapmaker. Finally, "Seeing and Believing: The Explorer and the Visualization of Space," by William H. Goetzmann, looks at how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artist-explorers helped further the romantic notion of the West with dramatic renderings of such icons as Indians, canyons, mountains, and buffalo. Stanley H. Palmer is associate professor of history and Dennis Reinhartz is associate professor of history and Russian at the University of Texas at Arlington.

The Sixth Grandfather Black Elk's Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt

Abstract: In "Black Elk Speaks" and "When the Tree Flowered," John C. Neihardt recorded the teachings of the Oglala holy man Black Elk, who had, in a vision, seen himself as the "sixth grandfather," the spiritual representative of the earth and of mankind. Raymond J. DeMallie makes available for the first time the transcripts from Neihardt's interviews with Black Elk in 1931 and 1944, which formed the basis for the two books. His introduction offers new insights into the life of Black Elk.

Gladys Reichard at the Frontiers of Navajo Culture

Abstract: T HERE WAS LIMITED KNOWLEDGE ABOUT the Navajo people until the investigations of Washington Matthews, in the 1880s. Later the Franciscan Fathers at the St. Michaels Mission published a wide ranging study of Indian culture in 1910 in their Ethnologic Dictionary. It was not until the 1920s that university anthropologists, with their rigorous scientific methods, began to intensively investigate the culture of native people. One of these academic anthropologists to study Navajo society was Gladys Reichard. Born a Quaker in the state of Pennsylvania, she had not planned to become an anthropologist, or a student of Navajo culture, or for that matter a university trained scholar. She taught elementary and secondary school before she entered Swarthmore, where she won a scholarship for further graduate study. She earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University under the tutelage of Franz Boas-Papa Franz to her. She secured an appointment at Barnard College, a position she held for the rest of her life. Late in her life she noted that chance had played a role in the great decisions of her life. A fateful turn for her had been the graduate scholarship, then the selection of linguistics for her field of study. Another chance dcision was a field trip to the Navajo Reservation in 1923, with money (at least in part) provided by Elsie Clews Parsons, the wealthy feminist scholar who became a great authority on Pueblo cultures.' The next year she accompanied Pliny Earle Goddard, curator of ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, on a second Navajo field trip, which resulted in the publication of Social Life of the Navajo Indians (1928), the first university anthropological study of the Navajo.2 However, she did not yet concentrate on Navajo life. Having already published on the Wiyot language, she now turned to a study of Melanesian Design, financed by a Guggenheim fellowship to Hamberg, Germany, in 1926-1927, and to the study of the Coeur d'Alene language. Unexpectedly, Reichard inherited Goddard's Navajo text upon his untimely death (1928), a document provided to him by Father Berard Haile-the so-called Blue Eyes manuscript after its Navajo informant-which led to a life-long study of the Navajo.