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Spirits of the Rockies
By Courtney W. Mason. 2014
The Banff-Bow Valley in western Alberta is the heart of spiritual and economic life for the Nakoda peoples. While they…
were displaced from the region by the reserve system and the creation of Canada's first national park, in the twentieth century the Nakoda reasserted their presence in the valley through involvement in regional tourism economies and the Banff Indian Days sporting festivals.Drawing on extensive oral testimony from the Nakoda, supplemented by detailed analysis of archival and visual records, Spirits of the Rockies is a sophisticated account of the situation that these Indigenous communities encountered when they were denied access to the Banff National Park. Courtney W. Mason examines the power relations and racial discourses that dominated the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rocky Mountains and shows how the Nakoda strategically used the Banff Indian Days festivals to gain access to sacred lands and respond to colonial policies designed to repress their cultures.Working Families
By Bettina Bradbury. 2007
Working Families takes the reader onto the streets of Montreal and into the homes of its working-class families during the…
years that it became a major, industrial city. Between the 1860s and 1890s the expansion of wage labour changed the bases of family survival. It offered new possibilities and created new points of tension within the families of the emerging working class. Here we meet the men, youth, and children who worked for wages. We see the women who stayed home with their young, cooked and sewed, planted gardens and tended animals, stretching their often meagre family wages into goods and services for survival. We also see the ingenuity and agony of women whose husbands lost their jobs, fell ill, drank up their wages, deserted their families, or died.Working Families explores the complex variety of responses of working-class families to their new lives within industrial capitalist society, and offers new ways of looking at the industrial revolution in Canada.Walking in the Sacred Manner
By Mark St. Pierre. 1995
Walking in the Sacred Manner is an exploration of the myths and culture of the Plains Indians, for whom the…
everyday and the spiritual are intertwined and women play a strong and important role in the spiritual and religious life of the community. Based on extensive first-person interviews by an established expert on Plains Indian women, Walking in the Sacred Manner is a singular and authentic record of the participation of women in the sacred traditions of Northern Plains tribes, including Lakota, Cheyenne, Crow, and Assiniboine. Through interviews with holy women and the families of women healers, Mark St. Pierre and Tilda Long Soldier paint a rich and varied portrait of a society and its traditions. Stereotypical images of the Native American drop away as the voices, dreams, and experiences of these women (both healers and healed) present insight into a culture about which little is known. It is a journey into the past, an exploration of the present, and a view full of hope for the future.The Wind Is My Mother
By Bear Heart. 1996
With eloquent simplicity one of the world s last Native American Medicine Men demonstrates how traditional tribal wisdom can…
help us maintain spiritual and physical health in today s worldAboriginal People and Colonizers of Western Canada to 1900
By Sarah Alexander Carter. 1999
The history of Canada's Aboriginal peoples after European contact is a hotly debated area of study. In Aboriginal People and…
Colonizers of Western Canada to 1900, Sarah Carter looks at the cultural, political, and economic issues of this contested history, focusing on the western interior, or what would later become Canada's prairie provinces.This wide-ranging survey draws on the wealth of interdisciplinary scholarship of the last three decades. Topics include the impact of European diseases, changing interpretations of fur trade interaction, the Red River settlement as a cultural crossroad, missionaries, treaties, the disappearance of the buffalo, the myths about the Mounties, Canadian 'Indian' policy, and the policies of Aboriginal peoples towards Canada.Carter focuses on the multiplicity of perspectives that exist on past events. Referring to nearly all of the current scholarship in the field, she presents opposing versions on every major topic, often linking these debates to contemporary issues. The result is a sensitive treatment of history as an interpretive exercise, making this an invaluable text for students as well as all those interested in Aboriginal/Non-Aboriginal relations.Living with Animals
By Michael Pomedli. 2014
Within nineteenth-century Ojibwe/Chippewa medicine societies, and in communities at large, animals are realities and symbols that demonstrate cultural principles of…
North American Ojibwe nations. Living with Animals presents over 100 images from oral and written sources - including birch bark scrolls, rock art, stories, games, and dreams - in which animals appear as kindred beings, spirit powers, healers, and protectors.Michael Pomedli shows that the principles at play in these sources are not merely evidence of cultural values, but also unique standards brought to treaty signings by Ojibwe leaders. In addition, these principles are norms against which North American treaty interpretations should be reframed. The author provides an important foundation for ongoing treaty negotiations, and for what contemporary Ojibwe cultural figures corroborate as ways of leading a good, integrated life.The Indian Capture of Jacob (Kneisle) Nicely
By Ronald Earl Nicely. 2014
The Four-Mile Run, located near the town of Ligonier, PA, was the scene of many conflicts and captures during the…
period of time from 1760 through 1790. The story of the (Kneisle) Nicely family is but one of the many stories from this area. The Knusli Mennonite ancestors originated in Zurich Switzerland and traveled through London to Philadelphia and then to Lancaster, PA in 1717. The (Kneisle) Nicely descendant line later moved onto a homestead near the Four-Mile Run Circa 1761. This book covers their journeys and the Indian capture of one of the family members, Jacob Kneisle. It is a remarkable story covering his capture and his life after his capture and the reuniting of his descendants with the other branches of the family 228 years after his capture. Nicely also presents several other capture stories to give the reader a historic view of the dangerous conditions that existed in the area of the Four-Mile Run during the Revolutionary War. His interest in genealogy led him to the capture of his 3 Great Granduncle and his research eventually aided in reconnecting with the descendants of Jacob Kneisle (Nicely) who was known by his Native American name of Tsu-Ka-We or Crow.Blacksnakes Path
By William Heath. 2012
This splendid novel about an unsung hero of American history carries its prodigious learning lightly in order to tell vividly…
the authentic story of William Wells's remarkable life. Blacksnake's Path recreates an entire period (1770-1812), showing how the Indians lived, fought for their homeland, and dealt with defeat. Because Wells was always the man in the middle, moving between two clashing cultures, the novel also dramatizes the lives of the pioneers who settled the territory north of the Ohio River. In 1784, when he was thirteen, Wells was captured in Kentucky by the Miami and taken to Indiana, where he was adopted by the village chief and named Blacksnake. He experienced a vision quest, learned to hunt, went on the warpath, married, and fathered a son. On 4 November 1791 he fought by the side of the great Miami war chief Little Turtle at St. Clair's Defeat, the biggest victory the Indians ever won against the U. S. Army. His second wife was the chief's daughter Sweet Breeze. A year later Wells switched sides and became head scout for General Mad Anthony Wayne at the decisive battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 and was the interpreter between Wayne and Little Turtle at the Treaty of Greenville. For the remainder of his life, Wells served as Indian Agent for the Miami, taking Little Turtle and other chiefs to visit presidents Washington, Adams, and Jefferson in Philadelphia and Washington. In the early nineteenth century he was at the center of the conflict between Governor William Henry Harrison's land greed and Tecumseh's militant resistance. Wells died a martyr at the Fort Dearborn Massacre in 1812. Thus Blacksnake's Path tells the astonishing story of Wells's true adventures in an exciting narrative that provides a memorable and moving picture of the old Northwest frontier.Navajo and Hopi Art in Arizona: Continuing Traditions
By Rory O'Neill Schmitt. 2016
Arizona's Navajo and Hopi cultures span multiple generations, and their descendants continue to honor customs from thousands of years ago.…
Contemporary artists like Hopi katsina doll carver Manuel Chavarria and Navajo weaver Barbara Teller Ornelas use traditional crafts and techniques to preserve the stories of their ancestors. Meanwhile, emerging mixed-media artists like Melanie Yazzie expand the boundaries of tradition by combining Navajo influences with contemporary culture and styles. Local author Rory Schmitt presents the region's outstanding native artists and their work, studios and inspirations.Globalizing Confederation: Canada and the World in 1867
By Marcel Martel, Jacqueline Krikorian, Adrian Shubert. 2017
Globalizing Confederation brings together original research from 17 scholars to provide an international perspective on Canada’s Confederation in 1867. In…
seeking to ascertain how others understood, constructed or considered the changes taking place in British North America, Globalizing Confederation unpacks a range of viewpoints, including those from foreign governments, British colonies, and Indigenous peoples. Exploring perspectives from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, France, Latin America, New Zealand, and the Vatican, among others, as well as considering the impact of Confederation on the rights of Indigenous peoples during this period, the contributors to this collection present how Canada’s Confederation captured the imaginations of people around the world in the 1860s. Globalizing Confederation reveals how some viewed the 1867 changes to Canada as part of a reorganization of the British Empire, while others contextualized it in the literature on colonization more broadly, while still others framed the event as part of a re-alignment or power shift among the Spanish, French and British empires. While many people showed interest in the Confederation debates, others, such as South Africa and the West Indies, expressed little interest in the establishment of Canada until it had profound effects on their corners of the global political landscape.Ninigret, Sachem of the Niantics and Narrangansetts: Diplomacy, War, and the Balance of Power in Seventeenth-Century New England and Indian Country
By Julie A. Fisher, David J. Silverman. 2014
Ninigret was a sachem of the Niantic and Narragansett Indians of what is now Rhode Island from the mid-1630s through…
the mid-1670s. For Ninigret and his contemporaries, Indian Country and New England were multipolar political worlds shaped by ever-shifting intertribal rivalries. In the first biography of Ninigret, Julie A. Fisher and David J. Silverman assert that he was the most influential Indian leader of his era in southern New England. As such, he was a key to the balance of power in both Indian-colonial and intertribal relations.Ninigret was at the center of almost every major development involving southern New England Indians between the Pequot War of 1636-37 and King Philip's War of 1675-76. He led the Narrangansetts' campaign to become the region's major power, including a decades-long war against the Mohegans led by Uncas, Ninigret's archrival. To offset growing English power, Ninigret formed long-distance alliances with the powerful Mohawks of the Iroquois League and the Pocumtucks of the Connecticut River Valley. Over the course of Ningret's life, English officials repeatedly charged him with plotting to organize a coalition of tribes and even the Dutch to roll back English settlement. Ironically, though, he refused to take up arms against the English in King Philip's War. Ninigret died at the end of the war, having guided his people through one of the most tumultuous chapters of the colonial era.Seeing and Being Seen: The Q'eqchi' Maya of Livingston, Guatemala, and Beyond
By Hilary E. Kahn. 2006
The practice of morality and the formation of identity among an indigenous Latin American culture are framed in a pioneering…
ethnography of sight that attempts to reverse the trend of anthropological fieldwork and theory overshadowing one another.In this vital and richly detailed work, methodology and theory are treated as complementary partners as the author explores the dynamic Mayan customs of the Q'eqchi' people living in the cultural crossroads of Livingston, Guatemala. Here, Q'eqchi', Ladino, and Garifuna (Caribbean-coast Afro-Indians) societies interact among themselves and with others ranging from government officials to capitalists to contemporary tourists.The Karankawa Indians of Texas: An Ecological Study of Cultural Tradition and Change
By Robert A. Ricklis. 1996
Popular lore has long depicted the Karankawa Indians as primitive scavengers (perhaps even cannibals) who eked out a meager subsistence…
from fishing, hunting and gathering on the Texas coastal plains. That caricature, according to Robert Ricklis, hides the reality of a people who were well-adapted to their environment, skillful in using its resources, and successful in maintaining their culture until the arrival of Anglo-American settlers. The Karankawa Indians of Texas is the first modern, well-researched history of the Karankawa from prehistoric times until their extinction in the nineteenth century. Blending archaeological and ethnohistorical data into a lively narrative history, Ricklis reveals the basic lifeway of the Karankawa, a seasonal pattern that took them from large coastal fishing camps in winter to small, dispersed hunting and gathering parties in summer. In a most important finding, he shows how, after initial hostilities, the Karankawa incorporated the Spanish missions into their subsistence pattern during the colonial period and coexisted peacefully with Euroamericans until the arrival of Anglo settlers in the 1820s and 1830s. These findings will be of wide interest to everyone studying the interactions of Native American and European peoples.Of Summits and Sacrifice
By Thomas Besom. 2009
In perhaps as few as one hundred years, the Inka Empire became the largest state ever formed by a native…
people anywhere in the Americas, dominating the western coast of South America by the early sixteenth century. Because the Inkas had no system of writing, it was left to Spanish and semi-indigenous authors to record the details of the religious rituals that the Inkas believed were vital for consolidating their conquests. Synthesizing these arresting accounts that span three centuries, Thomas Besom presents a wealth of descriptive data on the Inka practices of human sacrifice and mountain worship, supplemented by archaeological evidence. Of Summits and Sacrifice offers insight into the symbolic connections between landscape and life that underlay Inka religious beliefs. In vivid prose, Besom links significant details, ranging from the reasons for cyclical sacrificial rites to the varieties of mountain deities, producing a uniquely powerful cultural history.Inka Settlement Planning
By John Hyslop. 1990
Before the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century A.D., the Inka Empire stretched along the Pacific side of South America,…
all the way from Ecuador to northwest Argentina. Though today many Inka researchers focus on the imperial capital of Cuzco, Peru, and surrounding areas, ruins of Inka settlements abound throughout the vast territory of the former empire and offer many clues about how the empire was organized, managed, and defended. These outlying settlements, as well as those in the Cuzco area, form the basis for John Hyslop's detailed study Inka Settlement Planning.Using extensive aerial photography and detailed site maps, Hyslop studies the design of several dozen settlements spread throughout the empire. In addition to describing their architecture and physical infrastructure, he gives special emphasis to the symbolic aspects of each site's design. Hyslop speculates that the settlement plans incorporate much iconography expressive of Inka ideas about the state, the cosmos, and relationships to non-Inka peoples—iconography perhaps only partially related to the activities that took place within the sites. And he argues that Inka planning concepts applied not only to buildings but also to natural features (stone outcrops, water sources, and horizons) and specialized landscaping (terracing).The Worlds of the Moche on the North Coast of Peru
By Elizabeth P. Benson. 2012
The Moche, or Mochica, created an extraordinary civilization on the north coast of Peru for most of the first millennium…
AD. Although they had no written language with which to record their history and beliefs, the Moche built enormous ceremonial edifices and embellished them with mural paintings depicting supernatural figures and rituals. Highly skilled Moche artisans crafted remarkable ceramic vessels, which they painted with figures and scenes or modeled like sculpture, and mastered metallurgy in gold, silver, and copper to make impressive symbolic ornaments. They also wove textiles that were complex in execution and design. A senior scholar renowned for her discoveries about the Moche, Elizabeth P. Benson published the first English-language monograph on the subject in 1972. Now in this volume, she draws on decades of knowledge, as well as the findings of other researchers, to offer a grand overview of all that is currently known about the Moche. Touching on all significant aspects of Moche culture, she covers such topics as their worldview and ritual life, ceremonial architecture and murals, art and craft, supernatural beings, government and warfare, and burial and the afterlife. She demonstrates that the Moche expressed, with symbolic language in metal and clay, what cultures in other parts of the world presented in writing. Indeed, Benson asserts that the accomplishments of the Moche are comparable to those of their Mesoamerica contemporaries, the Maya, which makes them one of the most advanced civilizations of pre-Columbian America.The First New Chronicle and Good Government: On the History of the World and the Incas up to 1615
By Roland Hamilton. 2009
One of the most fascinating books on pre-Columbian and early colonial Peru was written by a Peruvian Indian named Felipe…
Guaman Poma de Ayala. This book, The First New Chronicle and Good Government, covers pre-Inca times, various aspects of Inca culture, the Spanish conquest, and colonial times up to around 1615 when the manuscript was finished. Now housed in the Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark, and viewable online at www. kb. dk/permalink/2006/poma/info/en/frontpage. htm, the original manuscript has 1,189 pages accompanied by 398 full-page drawings that constitute the most accurate graphic depiction of Inca and colonial Peruvian material culture ever done. Working from the original manuscript and consulting with fellow Quechua- and Spanish-language experts, Roland Hamilton here provides the most complete and authoritative English translation of approximately the first third of The First New Chronicle and Good Government. The sections included in this volume (pages 1-369 of the manuscript) cover the history of Peru from the earliest times and the lives of each of the Inca rulers and their wives, as well as a wealth of information about ordinances, age grades, the calendar, idols, sorcerers, burials, punishments, jails, songs, palaces, roads, storage houses, and government officials. One hundred forty-six of Guaman Poma's detailed illustrations amplify the text.The Native Americans of the Texas Edwards Plateau, 1582-1799
By Maria F. Wade. 2003
The region that now encompasses Central Texas and northern Coahuila, Mexico, was once inhabited by numerous Native hunter-gather groups whose…
identities and lifeways we are only now learning through archaeological discoveries and painstaking research into Spanish and French colonial records. From these key sources, Maria F. Wade has compiled this first comprehensive ethnohistory of the Native groups that inhabited the Texas Edwards Plateau and surrounding areas during most of the Spanish colonial era.Much of the book deals with events that took place late in the seventeenth century, when Native groups and Europeans began to have their first sustained contact in the region. Wade identifies twenty-one Native groups, including the Jumano, who inhabited the Edwards Plateau at that time. She offers evidence that the groups had sophisticated social and cultural mechanisms, including extensive information networks, ladino cultural brokers, broad-based coalitions, and individuals with dual-ethnic status. She also tracks the eastern movement of Spanish colonizers into the Edwards Plateau region, explores the relationships among Native groups and between those groups and European colonizers, and develops a timeline that places isolated events and singular individuals within broad historical processes.Chiefs, Scribes, and Ethnographers
By James Howe. 1970
The Kuna of Panama, today one of the best known indigenous peoples of Latin America, moved over the course of…
the twentieth century from orality and isolation towards literacy and an active engagement with the nation and the world. Recognizing the fascination their culture has held for many outsiders, Kuna intellectuals and villagers have collaborated actively with foreign anthropologists to counter anti-Indian prejudice with positive accounts of their people, thus becoming the agents as well as subjects of ethnography. One team of chiefs and secretaries, in particular, independently produced a series of historical and cultural texts, later published in Sweden, that today still constitute the foundation of Kuna ethnography. As a study of the political uses of literacy, of western representation and indigenous counter-representation, and of the ambivalent inter-cultural dialogue at the heart of ethnography, Chiefs, Scribes, and Ethnographers addresses key issues in contemporary anthropology. It is the story of an extended ethnographic encounter, one involving hundreds of active participants on both sides and continuing today.Narrative Threads: Accounting and Recounting in Andean Khipu
By Jeffre Quilter, Gary Urton. 1922
The Inka Empire stretched over much of the length and breadth of the South American Andes, encompassed elaborately planned cities…
linked by a complex network of roads and messengers, and created astonishing works of architecture and artistry and a compelling mythology - all without the aid of a graphic writing system. Instead, the Inka's records consisted of devices made of knotted and dyed strings - called khipu - on which they recorded information pertaining to the organisation and history of their empire. Despite more than a century of research on these remarkable devices, the khipu remain largely un-deciphered. In this benchmark book, thirteen international scholars tackle the most vexed question in khipu studies: how did the Inkas record and transmit narrative records by means of knotted strings? The authors approach the problem from a variety of angles. Several essays mine Spanish colonial sources for details about the kinds of narrative encoded in the khipu. Others look at the uses to which khipu were put before and after the Conquest, as well as their current use in some contemporary Andean communities. Still others analyze the formal characteristics of khipu and seek to explain how they encode various kinds of numerical and narrative data.