Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Native American Anthropology'

Town Creek is a prehistoric Native American site in central North Carolina. The Mississippian period occupation, from about A.D. 1150-1350, saw the most intensive use of the site. The community transformed from a residential village during the first half of the occupation to a necropolis later on. The cemeteries were created within the original public and domestic structures, the largest of which is Structure 7, the focus of this thesis. According to historic accounts of Southeastern Indian groups, communities were comprised of ranked clans made up of multiple kin groups that maintained separate household spaces. Through visual analysis and the spatial analysis of the distribution of burial attributes that include burial depth, age, sex, grave goods, body positioning and body orientation, I identify five spatially discrete groups within the Structure 7 cemetery. I argue that these five groups represent smaller social groups within the clan. The first group is a Central Square cluster that includes key members from the smaller social groups in the cemetery. There burials were arranged in a square, a formation repeated throughout Southeastern Indian ideology and site architecture. A small, Central cluster enclosed by the Central Square cluster, is consistent with ritual activity, as the interred are all children without any grave goods or other distinguishing attributes. A cluster in the northern part of the cemetery is made up entirely of adult males and children. This Northern cluster is interpreted as a politically-based grouping, as adult males most often held positions of political power in historic native groups. The children interred are likely kin or youth in line for positions of significant social status. Alternatively, they could represent ritual offerings associated with the interments of the adult males. Adult males, adult females, and children were found in the Southeastern and Southwestern clusters, which led to their interpretation as kin groups. Each of these groups was distinguishable through the distribution of specific artifact types and body positioning. The presence of all five of these groups contributed to the 50 person burial population in Structure 7, making it the largest cemetery at Town Creek. Its large size indicates that those interred in the Structure 7 cemetery were part of the largest and /or longest lasting group in the Town Creek community. Should other clans at Town Creek have had similar organization, the burial attribute patterning identified through this analysis may assist in the interpretation of other cemeteries at the site.

The Toltec Mounds site (3LN42) (A.D. 700-1050) in central Arkansas has intrigued archaeologists for decades. Although it dates well within the Woodland Period and has many features characteristic of a Woodland Period site, including grog-tempered pottery and a reliance on hunting and gathering, its mound-and-plaza layout is an architectural design suggestive of the later Mississippi Period (A.D. 1000-1500). This confusion is addressed in this thesis by examining two ceramic assemblages from different building stages of Mound D, the last mound to be altered at the site. The ceramics show an affiliation with northeastern Arkansas that has been underemphasized in the past, and that may provide more information on Toltec's relationships with its neighbors through the end of the Woodland Period.

This thesis discusses the process and results of research gathered from a field season on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota. By engaging in a community mapping project with Oglala Lakota elders, I show the benefits and reason behind the theory of participation. The project intends to "map" the indigenous tiospaye groups in the Porcupine District, and ends up gathering narrative representations of place rather than explicitly cartographic ones, a reification of the theorized "dwelling space." A discussion of the mapping project leads to a wider explication of the general practice of mapping indigenous lands throughout history. How indigenous perceptions of place and landscape are represented through acts of cartography is discussed to show the potential for empowerment or disempowerment of indigenous worldviews. The thesis concludes that a divestment of power to local communities is necessary for truly sustainable development, and further that the knowledge and perceptions of the traditional Lakota elders needs to be validated on their own terms in order to decolonize the relationship between their tiospayes and the tribal government.

Since the late 1980s, Canadian museum personnel have been actively engaged in collaboration with Aboriginal communities on issues to do with exhibition design and collections management. Despite these collaborative successes, tensions between museum employees and Aboriginal community members are commonplace, indicating that problems still remain within the relationships that have developed.

This thesis examines the implications of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada for the future of museum practice. It argues that unresolved colonial trauma is preventing those in the museum field from moving past an initial phase of relationshipbuilding to a successful era of partnership. When viewed through the lens of trauma, the museum field is heavily influenced by denial on the part of museum personnel as to the extent of violence committed against Aboriginal peoples at Indian Residential Schools and the resulting level of dysfunction present in current relationships between Aboriginal communities and non-Aboriginal museum employees. I provide a revised account of Canadian history, which includes the aspects of colonialism that are most often censored, in order to situate these problems as part of the historical trauma that is deeply embedded in Canadian society itself.

John Ralston Saul’s concept of the Métis nation is used as a framework for reconciliation, portraying Canada as a country that is heavily influenced by its Aboriginal origins despite the majority belief that the national culture has been derived from European social values. As a response to this proposition, the Circle is presented as the primary Canadian philosophical tenet that should guide both museum practice and Canadian society in the future.

This study examines the tradition of beaded capes among the Lower Colorado River Yuman groups, with the goal of understanding the meaning and cultural significance that the capes held in the past and continue to hold for those that wear and create them today. Questions posed by this study ask how and to whom do beaded capes hold meaning; and why were the beaded capes overlooked by collectors if they are culturally significant? As a marker of River Yuman identity and artistic expertise, the lack of historic beaded capes that are held within museum collections is surprising, with only twenty-two museums across the United States and Europe housing a composite total of fifty-eight River Yuman beaded capes. This study attempts to answer the proposed questions by conducting interviews with River Yuman beadworkers and community members, regarding their perspectives on the meanings and symbolism presented by beaded capes, and the cultural significance of these items. In contrast, this study examines the views of Euro-American collectors that were collecting beaded capes in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries when others were not. An understanding of outsider perspectives and motivation for collecting beaded capes is achieved through analysis of collector's field notes, journals, and museum accession files. Combining ethnography, archival research, and museum collections-based research, this study seeks to present a more detailed understanding of the River Yuman beaded cape as a marker of gender and ethnic identity. This research addresses the existing voids in knowledge about the cultural significance that the beaded capes hold for Quechan (Yuma) and Pipa Aha Macav (Mojave) people, and introduces that information to outsiders, creating a record of the views of River Yuman community members on the contemporary meanings that the beaded capes hold.

The Xicaque, a people of colonial Honduras, confronted Spanish settlers who sought their acculturation through diverse strategies. When Spanish settlers implemented policies such as entrada, reducción or misión, the Xicaque or Xicaque capitanes responded with dissidence and flight. Despite the foundation of a few misiones the Xicaque progressively became avoidant of the Spanish settlers who continued to seek their change by Spanish policy, at the Spanish misiones or at their homelands. This aversion became more pronounced in 1751 when a smallpox epidemic decimated the Xicaque populations at the misiones. Aside from this general distrust that existed between the Spanish and the Xicaque, the Xicaque did engage in trade outside of the previously discussed channels made by Spanish policy. Yet, the overarching pattern of avoidance would characterize Xicaque/Spanish interaction until 1821. Unlike previous scholarship, this study of the Xicaque ethnohistory offers the most complete description of Xicaque culture during the colonial period. Furthermore, it analyzes interaction between the Xicaque and the Spanish since the inception of contact, circa 1676, towards 1821. The broadest range of contact between the Xicaque and the Spanish studied to date.

In this ethnographic study I demonstrate how eight Barrow, Alaska entities communicate during meetings and how different Barrow groups perceive the stakeholder engagement process as it has taken place in the past forty years with development organizations. This research was motivated by the limited research on locals’ perspective on development meetings. Nearly all the participants were men and identified themselves as Iñupiat; most had spent significant time in Barrow and in stakeholder engagement meetings. Interviews and participant observations reveal the complex communication practices in stakeholder engagement meetings including local and external norms, the expression of common local concerns, nonverbal communication patterns, and the use of the Iñupiaq language. While many participants were tired of repeating their concerns, experienced meeting burnout, and were frustrated by outside groups “checking the box” (just going through the motions without real engagement), they also considered that the stakeholder engagement process has improved due to the increased benefits and diminished risk associated with development projects. Furthermore, participants’ explanations of the oil “seasons,” a term they use to describe fluctuating market conditions, align with the frequency distribution analysis conducted on stakeholder engagement meetings over the last decade. Recommendations derived from this research include a need for sharing of stakeholder perceptions and concerns, modifying cultural awareness sessions, consolidating all organizations’ stakeholder engagement meetings, and changing the format of public development organization meetings.

This thesis examines resilience among the Point Lay Iñupiat in the context of climate change. Resilience is manifest in the ability of community members to maintain meaningful subsistence practices and activities despite ongoing changes in weather, ice, and resource conditions. Twenty-one Point Lay Iñupiat were interviewed for this thesis. Respondents were divided into three cohorts: youths (ages 18-29), adults (ages 30-49), and elders (ages 50-70+). Respondents shared changes in weather, ice, and resource conditions. Respondents also shared community concerns, including concerns not attributable to climate change. Received responses were sorted and compared by cohort to identify trends in weather, ice, and resource conditions, as well as to identify adaptive and maladaptive strategies for coping with climate change and other stressors impacting the community. Whether the community can maintain meaningful subsistence practices and activities if local changes in weather, ice, and resource conditions remain unchanged or intensify is also questioned.

Within the space of a battle to halt ski resort expansion and snowmaking on the San Francisco Peaks, a mountain in northern Arizona, a coalition has emerged of indigenous activists (primarily Diné), Euroamerican environmentalists, and anarchists. The resulting collaboration, Mountain Defense, goes beyond usual models of environmentalist-indigenous alliances as temporary and incommensurate. This dissertation explores the development of the Mountain Defense movement over time, the motivations of activists from divergent backgrounds in opposing snowmaking, the social interactions and negotiations of identity within this group, and the public discourse by which they construct a message about this space and threats to it. Ethnographic fieldwork was undertaken from 2009 to 2015; key methods of data collection included participant observation, interviews, archival research, and collection of spoken, print, and online communication. This data was analyzed for emergent themes as well as the ways in which meaning was produced between parties. Situating Mountain Defense within scholarship on place-making, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), and social constructionism, this dissertation explicates how the movement has articulated a hybrid knowledge, including layered conceptualizations of sacred land and syntheses of sacred and scientific idioms in expressing the dangers of snowmaking technology. This research also speaks to the complex dimensions and continuing salience of Diné relationships with the San Francisco Peaks and the ways in which snowmaking and expansion threaten these.

This thesis is a critical study of two exhibits, First Encounters Spanish Exploration in the Caribbean and A Tribute to Survival. The objective of the thesis was to understand if and how indigenous activists, using the media as tool, were able to change curatorial approaches to exhibition development. Chapter 1 is broken into three sections. The first section introduces the exhibits and succinctly discusses the theory that is applied to this thesis. The second section discusses the objectives of the project and the third provides a brief outline of the document. Chapter 2 discusses the historical background of American museums in an attempt to highlight changes in curatorial attitudes towards the public, display, interpretation, and authority. Chapter 3 gives a more in-depth overview of the methodology and materials utilized in the thesis. Chapter 4 is a critical analysis of the literature for both First Encounters and A Tribute to Survival. Chapter five is a summary of the thesis and offers a conclusion of the effectiveness of using the media as a tool.

The negative statistics pertaining to American Indian women education should cause concern for everyone. The data reflect that American Indian women graduate high school behind all other demographic categories. In contrast, all participants of this study graduated high school and ascended to various levels of higher education. This paradox lends itself to further investigation despite opposing views of some scholars who believe there is nothing more to add. This research explored the existence of a correlation between culture and education for American Indian women who served in the pow wow princess role. Members of the American Indian women were called-upon for their cultural insights and tacit knowledge that is unknown to many outsiders. Interviewing pow wow princesses and exploring the role they fulfilled as a pow wow princess within the American Indian community produced information and data that was used to analyze the existence of a correlation between positive educational outcomes of American Indian women who have served in the pow wow princess role. This research helped to create a better understanding and essence of the pow wow princess role from the perspective of American Indian women who served in this role and being able to apply gained knowledge to other areas of the American Indian body of research. The design of this research employed a qualitative mixed methods approach that was used to conduct field research and gather data through administering the American Indian Enculturation Scale survey designed by Winderowd, Montgomery, Stumblingbear, Harless, and Hicks (2008) and conducting personal interviews with a questionnaire developed by the researcher that triangulated the selected instruments with theories contained within the body of research. The findings of this study suggest there is a correlation between the pow wow princess role and positive educational outcomes of American Indian women serving in this role. These findings support and add to the existing body of research.

This study focuses on how secular, governmental, and ecclesiastical Hispanic Empire institutions influenced the response and resistance of San Francisco Native American groups from 1769 to 1846. This project draws on late 18th and early 19th century primary Spanish documents and secondary sources to help understand the context of indigenous people's adaptive and response behaviors during this period as well as the nuances of their perspective and experience. Using both electronic and physical documents from a number of archival databases, primary Spanish documents were translated and correlated with baptismal and death mission records. This allowed for formulating alternative perspectives and putting indigenous response and resistance into context. The results of this study indicated that when acts of resistance to the colonial mission system led by charismatic Native American leaders are placed into chronological order, it appears these responses did not consist of isolated incidents. Rather, they appear to be connected through complex networks of communication and organization, and formal Native American armed resistance grew more intensive over time.

This thesis presents an investigation of body image and connection with nature among American Indian female adolescents. This mixed method study incorporating the use of focus groups and survey for data collection examined the perspective and voice of teen girls from a rural American Indian community. The thesis considers how modern western influences play a role in American Indian teen girl’s development and views of beauty and body image. This research provides perspective on American Indian adolescent girls’ perceptions of their body image, as well as their perceptions regarding their connection to the natural world. Participants experienced an array of outdoor activities and most of the participants claim they have had or have a connection with the nature world and enjoy the outdoors. The research discovered the importance of cultural identity and how it can support a positive sense of self and a positive body image among American Indian female adolescents. The study provides insight and understanding regarding adolescent girls in American Indian communities, thereby allowing greater understanding in initiatives towards the development of all female American Indian adolescent adventure programming that is both meaningful and relevant to the culture. The research suggests the participants are influenced by their community and culture, focusing on the inner beauty or self-esteem of a person rather then the physical aspect of a person. Most of the participants like being out in nature and claim to have a connection with the natural world.

The degree of accuracy in portrayals of Navajo culture at Salmon Ruins Heritage Park and Rock Art Ranch was assessed by comparing the Navajo structures assembled at each site to archaeological, ethnographic and historical data for traditional Navajo construction practices. Comparison and analysis revealed different degrees of accuracy in the portrayal of features with cultural and functional importance. Authentic practices were presented in a historical framework to permit the temporal characterization of each site. The aggregate of the temporal data from features at both sites was consistent with Navajo sites of the early twentieth century. The results of this study suggest a bias in contemporary portrayals of Navajo culture favoring the most extensively documented, and the more recent, aspects of Navajo culture.

Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute) have inhabited the southern Great Basin for thousands of years, and consider Nuvagantu (where snow sits) in the Spring Mountains landscape to be the locus of their creation as a people. Their ancestral territory spans parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and California. My research identifies and describes the heterogeneous character of Nuwuvi ecological knowledge (NEK) of piñon-juniper woodland ecosystems within two federal protected areas (PAs) in southeastern Nevada, the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area (SMNRA) and the Desert National Wildlife Refuge (DNWR), as remembered and practiced to varying degrees by 22 select Nuwuvi knowledge holders. I focus my investigation on four primary aspects of NEK. First, drawing from data obtained through ethnoecological research, I discuss how Nuwuvi ecological knowledge evolved through protracted observation and learning from past resource depletions, and adapted to various environmental and socio-economic drivers of change induced since Euro-American incursion. Second, I argue that Nuwuvi management practices operate largely within a framework of non-equilibrium ecology, marked by low to intermediate disturbances and guided by Nuwuvi conceptions of environmental health and balance. These practices favor landscape heterogeneity and patchiness, and engender ecosystem renewal, expanded ecotones, and increased biodiversity. I then consider the third and fourth aspects of NEK as two case studies that consider NEK at the individual, species, population, habitat, and landscape scales. These case studies operationalize NEK as a relevant body of knowledge and techniques conducive to collaborative resource stewardship initiatives with federal land management agency partners. In the first case study I suggest that the Great Basin piñon pines are Nuwuvi cultural keystone species (CKS), evaluating their central importance to Nuwuvi according to several criteria including number of uses, role in ritual and story, and uniqueness relative to other species. In the second case study I contend that local social institutions regulated Nuwuvi resource use in the past and in some cases continued to do so at the time of study. These local social institutions included a system of resource extraction and habitat entrance taboos that may have mitigated impacts and supported sustainable resource use and conservation. The implications of this research are that Nuwuvi ecological knowledge, disturbance-based adaptive management practices, and resource and habitat taboos are relevant to contemporary land management concerns in piñon-juniper woodlands, offering complementary approaches to adaptive management as practiced in the SMNRA and the DNWR despite divergent epistemological foundations. My research contributed to the Nuwuvi Knowledge-to-Action Project, an applied government-to-government consultation, collaborative resource stewardship, and cultural revitalization project facilitated by The Mountain Institute among seven Nuwuvi Nations, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Individual burials are always representative of both individuals and collective actors. The physical remains, material culture, and represented practices in burials can be used in concert to study identities and social personas amongst individual and collective actors. These identities and social personas are the result of the interaction between agency and structure, where both individuals and groups act to change and reproduce social structures.

The three burials upon which this study is based are currently held in the collections of the Milwaukee Public Museum. They are all indigenous burials created in Wisconsin in the 19^th century. Biological sex, stature, age, and pathologies were identified from skeletal analysis and the material culture of each burial was analyzed using a Use/Origin model to attempt to understand how these individuals negotiated and constructed identities within a colonial system.

Throughout the history of the National Park Service, the question of whether Native American’s still have rights to traditionally used natural resources found within park lands has been debated. This debate is largely held in political, legal, and philosophical arenas, but there are ethnographic and ecological questions that need to be addressed in order for policy makers to make informed decisions. Addressing these questions also provides insight into how cultures develop sustainable harvesting practices. One of the parks that has been addressing traditional plant harvesting is Mount Rainier National Park, which has been working with the Nisqually Indian Tribe to develop a collecting agreement that would allow members of the Tribe to harvest twelve species of plants. In this dissertation, I ask two questions: first, how do members of the Nisqually Tribe traditionally harvest these plants? My other question is: what are the biological effects of harvesting beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax (Pursh) Nutt.) and pipsissewa ( Chimaphila umbellata (R. BR.) Spreng,), and peeling bark of western redcedar (Thuja plicata Donn. Ex D. Don)? I used a combination of ethnographic and ecological methods to answer these questions. Based on the metrics I used, the Nisqually practices do not decrease the abundance of beargrass and pipsissewa. The traditional harvest of cedar bark does not change the tree’s secondary growth rate. The lack of measureable change in these three species is a product of limiting the amount of biomass harvested to within the plants’ range of tolerance to damage. Results suggest that the Nisqually’s methods of harvesting are based upon traditional ecological knowledge. The results of this research will help Mount Rainier managers and the Nisqually Tribe to develop policy that allows the Tribe to utilize these plants while not interfering with the park’s mission.

The Town Creek mound site, located in Montgomery County, North Carolina, is classified as Mississippian based on the archaeological evidence for intensive maize agriculture, the presence of complicated stamped ceramics, and the presence of an earthen platform mound. In my research, I studied hinterland sites within a 40-km radius of the mound site to determine how Mississippian settlement patterns in the surrounding region changed through time. I used ceramic analysis and the presence and absence of diagnostic artifacts to create an occupational history of hinterland sites. I also used spatial analysis to delineate polity boundaries and compare spatial patterns to others established in the region. When ceramic and spatial data were combined, patterns emerged suggesting that fewer hinterland sites were occupied during the height of Town Creek’s occupation, and more hinterland sites were occupied when Town Creek’s population was dwindling. These patterns suggest that as people moved away from Town Creek, they were relocating within the mound site’s immediate vicinity. Spatial analysis also showed a break in hinterland sites at 18 km during all of Town Creek’s occupation, indicating that the administrative center at Town Creek had an influence of at least 18 km.

Using a memory archaeology paradigm, this dissertation explored from 2010 to 2012 the ways people used place-based narratives to create and maintain the sacredness of four historic battlefields in Montana: Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument; Nez Perce National Historical Park- Bear Paw Battlefield; Nez Perce National Historical Park- Big Hole National Battlefield; and Rosebud Battlefield State Park. This research implemented a mixed-methods approach of four data sources: historical research about on-site interpretation and land management of the battlefields; participant observations conducted during height of tourism season for each battlefield; 1,056 questionnaires administered to park visitors; and 32 semi-structured interviews with park personnel. Before formulating hypotheses to test, a preliminary literature review was conducted on three battlefields (Culloden, Fallen Timbers, and Isandlwana) for any observable patterns concerning the research domain.

This dissertation tested two hypotheses to explain potential patterns at the four battlefields in Montana related to on-site interpretation of primary sources, the sacred perception of battlefields, and the maintenance and expression of place-based cultural heritages and historical knowledge. The first hypothesis examined whether park visitors and personnel perceived these American Indian battlefields as nationally significant or if other heritage values associated with the place-based interpretation of the sacred landscapes were more important. Although park visitors and personnel overall perceived the battlefields as nationally important, they also strongly expressed other heritage values. The second hypothesis examined whether battlefield visitors who made pilgrimages to attend or participate in official on-site commemorations had stronger place-based connections for cultural heritage or historical knowledge reasons than other visitors. Overall, these commemoration pilgrims had stronger connections to the battlefields than other park visitors.

Closer comparisons of the four battlefields demonstrated that they had both similar patterns and unique aspects of why people maintained these landscapes as sacred places.