Native American Societies Research Articles

Ancient DNA reveals an early adoption of horse culture by Native Americans

Native Americans of the Plains and Rocky Mountains are renowned for their horsemanship. Taylor et al. recently used ancient DNA and other bioarcheological approaches to document how horses dispersed throughout America and transformed Native American societies following their introduction by the Spanish in 1519, well before the arrival of European settlers.

Abstract C112: Understanding and addressing cancer disparities among American Indians in North Carolina: The Southeastern cancer health equity partnership

Abstract North Carolina (NC) is home to the largest American Indian population in the Eastern United States (approximately 300,000 residents, about 2.8% of the total NC population), represented by eight state and federally recognized tribes (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Sappony, Occaneechi Band of Saponi Nation, Meherrin, Haliwa Saponi, Coharie, Lumbee, Waccamaw Siouan) and four urban Indian organizations (Metrolina Native American Association, Guilford Native American Association, Triangle Native American Society, Cumberland County Association for Indian People). This population experiences significant health disparities largely related to adverse social determinants of health and limited access to health care. With regards to cancer, disparities exist for incidence and mortality for certain cancer, although there are limited data available with regards to cancer screening stage at diagnosis, treatment and survivorship. Furthermore, evidence suggests that racial misclassification contributes to a significant underestimation of the true cancer incidence and mortality in this population. To address the cancer care needs of NC American Indians, a unique collaboration was established in 2021 among the leadership of the Community Outreach and Engagement programs at the three NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in North Carolina (Duke Cancer Institute, University of North Carolina Lineberger Cancer Center, Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center). The collaboration, entitled, The Southeastern American Indian Cancer Health Equity Partnership (SAICEP), has as its mission to "understand and address the cancer-related health needs of American Indian communities in our catchment areas and beyond." SAICEP includes: (1) a quarterly speakers' series, featuring nationally recognized experts in the area of American Indian cancer research and care; (2) educational outreach and engagement activities at tribal and state cultural events; and, (3) cutting-edge culturally respectful research to understand and address cancer disparities at the tribal and state level. Partnerships have been established with tribal leaders across the state as well as researchers at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke in the traditional homeland of the Lumbee tribe (the largest tribe in the state). Future endeavors will include partnerships with tribes in other states in our catchment areas (Virginia, South Carolina). Citation Format: Ronny A. Bell, Tomi Akinyemiju, Stephanie B. Wheeler. Understanding and addressing cancer disparities among American Indians in North Carolina: The Southeastern cancer health equity partnership [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 15th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2022 Sep 16-19; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr C112.

Haunted Memory, Trauma, and Recovery in Louise Erdrich’s The Stone

While the ghost is almost always connected with the source of terror, psychological disorder, traumatic memory, unfinished task, or dormant desire, could it also be a guide to collective memory and recovery, especially for Native American society? This study aimed to read the haunting phenomenon in Louise Erdrich’s The Stone as literary work that could give a deeper understanding of the relation among haunting, collective memory, trauma, and recovery. It answered two questions: 1) How the haunting narrated past collective memory and system of power to the living, and 2) How the relationship between the memory and the present living might establish recovery. To analyze the text, this study used the haunting theory by Avery Gordon. The main data was collected from Louise Erdrich’s The Stone. The result revealed that 1) the haunting in this work was related to the demand of Ojibwe memory in the reservation era, that was the demand to be remembered; 2) the traumatic event was not over and continues to occur in the present, and 3) this text developed new mode of practicing testimony through the act of remembrance of the past collective memory.

Convulsed States: Earthquakes, Prophecy, and the Remaking of Early America by Jonathan Todd Hancock

Reviewed by: Convulsed States: Earthquakes, Prophecy, and the Remaking of Early America by Jonathan Todd Hancock Adam Jortner Convulsed States: Earthquakes, Prophecy, and the Remaking of Early America. By Jonathan Todd Hancock. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. 208 pages. Cloth, paper, ebook. By any measure, 1811 was a bad year. It had itinerant prophets predicting doom, comets in the sky, a theater fire, a November war in the Old Northwest, and the shattering New Madrid earthquakes in December that tossed the Mississippi River around the Missouri bootheel. No wonder one nineteenth-century commentator called it an “Annus Mirabilis” (12)—year of miracles. But 1811 has yet to receive the microscopic examination of other critical years; in popular and political histories, 1776, 1861, and 1968 still crowd out 1811. Jonathan Todd Hancock aims to change that with Convulsed States, a monograph that centers the quakes among associated contemporary disasters as a way of generating “a continental, cross-cultural perspective on prophecy and revivalism, state formations, and understandings of environmental change across Native American, African American, and Euro American societies” (3). How did the quakes, once drafted into religion, politics, and culture, he asks, change the peoples of the Americas? Did this bad year shift America from a Jeffersonian to a Jacksonian persuasion? And how did literally unstable land affect a metaphorically unstable U.S. land policy? Hancock tackles these big questions in a series of thematic chapters, beginning with an exploration of how different communities experienced the earthquakes and concluding with an examination of how the federal response to the quakes both initiated a flood of land speculation and shaped Indian policy. Hancock does not dwell on the many dramatic contemporary accounts of the earthquakes themselves. As the book points out, some of the most popular stories about the quakes were likely “fable and burlesque” (15); contemporaries (and historians) recognized that U.S. newspapers at the time did not diligently pursue accuracy but reprinted whatever they could get their hands on.1 The oft-repeated claim that the New Madrid quakes caused church bells to ring in Boston, Hancock notes, probably derives from a misreading of “Charlestown” (Massachusetts) for “Charleston” (South Carolina). As for the Mississippi River running backwards? It could have happened, Hancock notes, but only in certain places, not along the whole river. [End Page 662] The quakes unquestionably did desolate New Madrid, however, prompting a variety of governmental responses. In 1815, for the first time, Congress appropriated relief funds for Americans. These took the form of free public lands, which in turn initiated “decades of speculation, fraud, and legal wrangling” (111) that ultimately forced the Quapaw nation off their land in Arkansas. Hancock also points to the federal government’s conflicts with the region’s Native American prophets, some of whom, he suggests—especially the Red Stick prophets—drafted the earthquake into their preaching. Moreover, the Red Sticks’ defeat in 1814 led directly to Andrew Jackson’s mass appropriation of Creek land in Alabama. The fear and uncertainty provoked by the quakes, Hancock argues, resulted in the seizure of Indigenous land. In between describing the quakes and the land policy that followed them, Convulsed States takes readers through contemporary earthquake explanations and associated phenomena—the wonders that made 1811 the Annus Mirabilis. The perspectives on such phenomena articulated in the political and religious preaching of Native American prophets receive much attention. Along with the rise of the Red Sticks in Creek territory, Hancock devotes most of his attention to the Shawnee Prophet, Tenskwatawa, who received credit for predicting the earthquake, while noting that other Native American prophets may have adopted ideas about earthquakes as divine punishment. Christian evangelists also sought to make hay from the earthquakes. Convulsed States focuses on Nimrod Hughes and others who declared that the End Was Nigh, words that may have gained added urgency in the wake of New Madrid. From there, Hancock launches into a condensed overview of religious responses to a host of other troubles in the Annus Mirabilis—northern lights, comets, local intrigues, and rumors of war with Britain. The book allots a good amount of space to these religious upheavals, but it never quite identifies what (if...

American Indian Ideologies in The Round House

This paper focuses on the ideologies in the Native American context as represented in Louise Erdrich’s The Round House. In this paper, I intend to examine the connection between the change in the belief system and its effects on the socio-cultural practices of indigenous communities. I argue that behind the ethical crisis and change in indigenous ideologies, these elements play the keyholes: the imposition of foreign values in the interest of colonial authority, intercultural interactions, and the rise of individualism due to the loss of indigenous cultural memory. One of the key elements that keep the indigenous ideologies alive is folklore. Traditionally, the indigenous folklores work as effective means to circulate the ideologies that shape the lifestyle of the Native American people. However, due to the external influences, the story listening culture has declined, and its impact surfaces as ecological crisis and changes in their way of living. The consequences of the ethical crisis manifest in the key principles that guide the tribal lifestyle. For instance, ecological sustainability, collective responsibility, and social welfare influence the shifting belief system that promotes individualism, materialistic gain, and competitiveness. Similarly, colonial intervention promotes capitalism by exploiting natural resources and adopting other unethical means. To testify to my assumption, the ethical degeneration in the Native American society as the effect of the loss of indigenous ideological impact, I have examined The Round House and the folklores narrated within it.

Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Lullaby”: A Pantheistic View

This study highlights the pantheistic perspectives of the Native American society depicted in Leslie Marmon Silko’s short story “Lullaby”. The protagonist’s divine and strong attachment to the objects of the natural world emboldens her to face several dangers in her life. The dominant ways of the Western world lead the central character Ayah into complete chaos. But the superior power of nature forces her to face internal and external struggles. She never curses her fate but tries to move with the ways of the world, tells readers about her willingness to be assimilated into an alien culture and retains her faith in nature and its objects. Nature acts as a guiding light in her life. She lives her life by singing traditional songs. The ideas discussed in the study are socially significant in the current century because we can see how man tries to ignore power of nature and how his unnatural ways disrupt the balance of our natural world.

Taciturnity in Native American Etiquette: A Cree Case

Ethnographers of speaking have distorted the realities of communicative events in native American societies by focusing exclusively on speech. The Cree of northern Alberta, along with many other native peoples, place far greater emphasis on the use of silence and on pause between turns at talk. Listening, rather than speaking, is the highly valued communicative skill. Lack of understanding of different communicative Systems is responsible for considerable inter-ethnic conflict.

ON THE TIMING OF THE OLD COPPER COMPLEX IN NORTH AMERICA: A COMPARISON OF RADIOCARBON DATES FROM DIFFERENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXTS

ABSTRACTThe Old Copper Complex (OCC) refers to the production of heavy copper-tool technology by Archaic Native American societies in the Lake Superior region. To better define the timing of the OCC, we evaluated 53 (eight new and 45 published) radiocarbon (14C) dates associated with copper artifacts and mines. We compared these dates to six lake sediment-based chronologies of copper mining and annealing in the Michigan Copper District. 14C dates grouped by archaeological context show that cremation remains, and wood and cordage embedded in copper artifacts have ages that overlap with the timing of high lead (Pb) concentrations in lake sediment. In contrast, dates in stratigraphic association and from mines are younger than those from embedded and cremation materials, suggesting that the former groups reflect the timing of processes that occurred post-abandonment. The comparatively young dates obtained from copper mines therefore likely reflect abandonment and infill of the mines rather than active use. Excluding three anomalously young samples, the ages of embedded organic material associated with 15 OCC copper artifacts range from 8500 to 3580 cal BP, confirming that the OCC is among the oldest known metalworking societies in the world.

The Cherokee and Wyandot Companies on the Overland Trails to California: Histories of Indigenous Migration and the Settler Gaze, 1849–1856

The popular memory of the nineteenth century American West has long fixated on the thousands of trail emigrants who famously crossed the North American continent in search of wealth, adventure, and new lives. Historical and scholarly narratives have explored the ways that these massive overland migrations threatened, altered, and devastated Native American societies of the West. Often neglected in these historical narratives, however, are the many Native Americans who participated in these migrations, founded their own overland companies, and blazed some of the most important trail routes across the continent. Among the most numerous were several companies of Cherokee and Wyandot people who left Indian Territory for California, where they would participate in the Gold Rush. This article explores the complex histories and memories of these Indigenous migrants and settlers, from their journeys across the trails, their experiences in Gold Rush California, and their relations with other Native and settler communities.

Contestation of Discourse on Alcoholism among Native Americans in Joy Harjo’s The Reckoning (2002)

This study aims at revealing how the discursive practices and the discourse on alcoholism in the Native Americans is produced and contested in a short story entitled The Reckoning by Joy Harjo. The problem in this study is approached by Foucauldian concept of discourse production procedure. The method applied here is the Foucauldian discourse analysis by examining the problem through the process of formation including external and internal exclusion. Central to the analysis is that alcoholism is produced as taboo through the mother character which limits the general understanding about alcoholism; hence this discourse is possible to produce by the subject whose credentials can validate the truth. This discourse is also affirmed by the contextual prohibition which authoritatively can state the truth about alcoholism. This is further contested in the current society of how being an alcoholic would be considered as a non-native American way of life. The result indicates that alcoholism among Native American society becomes the discourse within which constraints produce considerable barriers to expose or address to this topic

Sporting Indianness: challenging the cinematic representation of Native American athletes

This article examines a singular yet overlooked facet of the Indigenous reality evoked in film: the figure of the Native American athlete. The cinematic portrayal defined here as Sporting Indianness – the singular ethos of Native American athletes – ought to be concurrently recognized and put forth, in order both rethink and challenge the social depictions of sport culture’s significance in Native American societies. Thanks to a double reading simultaneously charting and reappraising the depiction of Indigenous communities and their athletes, this article seeks to demonstrate that behind the customarily heroic portrayal of football players, of lacrosse teams or rodeo enthusiasts, the meticulous analysis of films devoted to Native American athletes can unveil the fragile reality of a depleted community whose connection to sport is often used as a means of survival.

Contextualising Queer Theory: Sex and Gender in the American Philosophy of Judith Butler <i>v</i>. Native American Theory and Cultures

As the scholarship and conversation regarding LGBTQ+ issues expand and gain more visibility, there is still one group and one history especially that is left out of this discussion: indigenous cultures. Indeed it is primarily white writers who are credited for opening up the definition of concepts such as gender, and although such writers have without a doubt helped bring the issue into the focus of contemporary society, the views they are representing are not new and certainly do not originate in any white, Western theory. This paper explores Judith Butler’s theorisations surrounding gender and sex from her book, Gender Trouble, in comparison to Native American scholarship and culture. Butler’s writing has transformed the way in which contemporary society views gender and sex by bringing the idea of performativity into mainstream media, but this article aims to show that the ideas and concepts she discusses in her work are not new; many Native American societies have held such views for centuries. Views and concepts discussed in this article include the multifariousness of sex (that is, sex as a spectrum rather than a binary, and sex as being non-definitive of person), and the diversity of gender (specifically gender as a social construct, as independent from sex, derived from character rather than biology, and as variable and fluid). By examining quotes from Butler alongside examples of the existence and indeed prominence of these views in Native American cultures, this article demonstrates that the concepts outlined by Butler can be seen to pre-exist her theorisations by centuries in both Native American culture and Indigenous scholarship.

Politician in Public, Plotter in Private: How Thomas Jefferson Conquered the West and Robbed Native Americans of Their Birthright

The article (entitled “Politician in Public, Plotter in Private: How Thomas Jefferson Conquered the West and Robbed Native Americans of Their Birthright”) posits that President Thomas Jefferson’s actions have created a historical arc that has irrevocably positioned Native Americans as poor, second class citizens compared to those of European ancestry. On the most fundamental level, the article argues that Jefferson enhanced the power of the government to take Indian land by pairing the sanguinary Doctrine of Discovery with a calculated introduction of debt into Native American society that permitted the “legal” foreclosure of their land. More specifically, the paper develops three areas that illustrate Jefferson’s views and methods which conspired to estrange Indians from their property. The first part examines how Jefferson’s prejudice against Native Americans manifested itself in his expropriation of Indian remains. The second explains the actual methods through which Native lands were acquired. The third analyzes how Jefferson’s use of the Doctrine of Discovery and its corollary, the right of first refusal, reconstrued property laws to allow the government to subjugate Native American land. Particularly pernicious is the dichotomy Jefferson exhibited in public and in private with respect to Native Americans—a dichotomy which the article highlights in an effort to understand Jefferson’s true motives and views.

Slavery in Alabama: A Call to Action

Slavery in Alabama: A Call to Action Kelly Kennington (bio) For the entirety of its 200-year history, Alabama has been plagued by racial inequality and injustice. The state gets considerable attention from historians and the general public for its Civil Rights-era history of activism, bravery, and violence. But after two centuries of fighting for equity, Alabama continues to lead the nation in some of its bleakest statistics, including the size and treatment of the prison population, poverty rates, and racial health disparities.1 Few scholars would argue with the contention that one of the significant roots of these problems is the state’s history of slavery. On the eve of the American Civil War, Alabama had the nation’s fourth largest enslaved population in terms of overall numbers and the percentage of enslaved people in the population. The 1860 census lists 435,080 people living in slavery in Alabama, constituting a staggering forty-five percent of the state’s population.2 The enslaved men, women, and children who built the state’s grandiose antebellum mansions [End Page 3] and government buildings, cleared the fields, and toiled to produce the wealth of the early state’s leaders have too often faded to the background of Alabama’s history as it is discussed in schools, in popular culture, and even in historical scholarship. Of course, there are numerous exceptions to this statement, but this potential overgeneralization is necessary, if only to emphasize and encourage our historians, teachers, and leaders to work harder to foreground this inescapable and essential history. Alabama must grapple with its full history to trace the origins of modern problems and seek a way forward. The history of slavery in Alabama is a story worth telling, and much of this rich history is still waiting to be unearthed and elaborated on by the next generation of scholars and students. This essay provides a brief overview of slavery in Alabama by discussing the existing historical scholarship; more importantly, it hopes to encourage future research on the subject. Alabama’s history of slavery has gotten more attention in the past year because of the opening of the Equal Justice Initiative’s new Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, in Montgomery in April 2018.3 Thousands of visitors have toured the new museum’s exhibits detailing the slave trade and slavery in the state’s capital city. This renewed interest and attention provides an opportunity for further research into the many subjects connected to the institution of slavery in Alabama which, to this point, have been woefully understudied. Although scholarly histories of slavery have included Alabama in some of their broad discussions, the last statewide study specifically devoted to slavery in Alabama is almost seventy-five years old.4 In addition, much of the scholarship touching on slavery in Alabama that has appeared in more recent popular and scholarly articles, books, and textbooks relies too heavily on this 1950 account or takes problematic sources, like the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Slave Narratives, at face value.5 It is time for an updated survey of the [End Page 4] state’s history of slavery or, at least, new scholarship focusing on more specific topics on the history of slavery in Alabama. While this brief article cannot accomplish either of these feats, it will lay out some potential topics relating to slavery in the state and suggest possible directions that are worthy of new scholarly treatments and popular interest. ________ Any history of slavery in Alabama must begin with Native American practices because the bulk of the modern state’s territory spent centuries in the hands of Creek and other Indian nations. This article will primarily discuss Creek practices of captivity and slavery, but it also draws on the broader scholarship on Native American slavery.6 In Creek and other Native American societies, slavery was one piece of a collection of captivity practices that originated with taking prisoners after battles fought against neighboring tribes. After capture, the captives could then be symbolically tortured and killed, adopted into Creek families, or enslaved. Some of these captives were used to replace fallen warriors or other members of the town.7 For...

A New History of Kentucky by James C. Klotter and Craig Thompson Friend

Reviewed by: A New History of Kentuckyby James C. Klotter and Craig Thompson Friend A. Glenn Crothers (bio) A New History of Kentucky, 2nded. By James C. Klotter and Craig Thompson Friend. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2018. Pp. xviii, 563. $44.95 cloth) Kentucky has not lacked in histories of the state. As early as 1874 Richard H. Collins published his two-volume A History of Kentucky, a chronicle of data about the state to that date. Numerous state histories followed in Collins's wake, including William Elsey Connelly and E. Merton Coulter's 1922 five-volume treatment, Temple Bodley and Samuel M. Wilson's 1928 four-volume effort, Thomas D. Clark's lengthy one-volume history, first published in 1937, and Steven Channing's more accessible 1977 survey. The 1997 publication of Lowell H. Harrison and James C. Klotter's A New History of Kentuckynonetheless represented a significant historiographical moment, providing readers a comprehensive overview of the state's history by two of its most respected historians. In the twenty years since, however, historians of Kentucky were busy and the second edition of A New History of Kentucky, with Craig Thompson Friend taking on the years before 1865 (Harrison passed away in 2011) and Klotter covering the years thereafter, offers readers a text that reflects both recent scholarship and brings the story up to the twenty-first century (though a county map, which appeared in the front endpaper of the first edition, is oddly omitted). In accessible prose, Friend and Klotter's text recounts Kentucky's history from its earliest Native American residents to the election of Republican Governor Matt Bevin in 2015. Friend's portion of A New History of Kentucky—the first nine chapters—constitutes more than a revision of the fourteen chapters Harrison contributed to the first edition. Though he covers the same time period, Friend has reorganized, rethought, and re-contextualized the material, in the process offering a fresh and much needed [End Page 317]reinterpretation of early Kentucky history. Though politics remains a primary concern, Friend's portion of the text reflects the way historians broadened their approach to studying the past, making the histories they tell richer and more inclusive. This change is apparent from the opening pages of A New History of Kentucky, where Friend includes an account of the first settlement of the state by Indigenous peoples and the ways Native American societies changed in the centuries before Europeans invaded (rather than explored) the region. Likewise, and again reflecting recent scholarship, Friend reframes eighteenth-century Kentucky as a "middle ground," a place where a diverse range of humans mingled, worked, disagreed, and figured "out how to live with each other," rather than as a "frontier" in which "uncivilized" Native Americans retreated before European invaders (pp. 18–19). Including the Indigenous perspective enables Friend to present the violence in the early Ohio Valley from the Seven Years' War through the War of 1812 as a product of Native American efforts to retain their homeland. Friend's narrative also emphasizes how changing concepts of gender—both femininity and masculinity—and honor shaped the cultural, military, and political life of early and antebellum Kentucky. Gender, Friend reveals, influenced everything from the military tactics employed by early Kentuckians, to the expectations, limitations, and life trajectories of frontier and antebellum women, to the decisions and appeals of politicians (including their propensity for violence). Friend also includes useful discussions of the increasing refinement of antebellum Kentucky society, the influence of romanticism on the state, and the importance of religious revivalism. Equally important, Friend emphasizes the significance of slavery in Kentucky from the earliest days of European settlement and the experience and resistance of enslaved people. He rejects the canard—repeated by generations of state historians—that slavery was somehow more "mild" in Upper South states like Kentucky (p. 125). "Slavery," Friend emphatically states, "was a brutal system" that denied the humanity of its victims and subjected them to lives of unremitting toil and frequent violence (p. 123). The destruction of Black families as a [End Page 318]result of the growing interstate slave trade—before the system's demise slaveholders forcibly removed over...

Archaeological Perspectives on Warfare on the Great Plainsed. by Andrew J. Clark and Douglas B.

Reviewed by: Archaeological Perspectives on Warfare on the Great Plainsed. by Andrew J. Clark and Douglas B. William C. Meadows Archaeological Perspectives on Warfare on the Great Plains. Edited by Andrew J. Clark and Douglas B. Bamforth. Louisville, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2018. 422 pp. Illustrations, maps, references cited, index. $99.00, cloth. This book brings together several prominent Plains archaeologists to examine what is known regarding warfare of non- state Native American societies in the Great Plains. Their contributions are divided into four sections—an introduction to what is known about Great Plains warfare, emic views through Plains rock art and tribal pictographic calendars, fortifications as evidence of violence, and warfare in society and Plains history—followed by an afterword. This volume presents an excellent combination of qualitative and quantitative data from both excavation and documentary sources. Overall, combat victims appear in the archaeological record more often in the southern and northwestern portions of the Plains during the Woodland Period, while large scale violence is clearest in the northeastern portions of the Plains during the Plains Village Period. This work discusses the many causes of Plains warfare and the different ways in which Plains peoples went to war geographically and temporally, as well as examples of instances in which war did not occur. In presenting a deep history of warfare on the Plains, this volume demonstrates that factors of in-migration of new populations, extra-regional economies and interactions, fluctuations in material conditions, and social factors of belief and social status were all likely factors in Plains warfare and often related to ethnogenesis. While the presence of osteological evidence in post- and perimortem mutilation is often noted in archaeology, what it can tell us is often lacking. This work follows this direction with the presentation of new hypotheses for postmortem mutilation. Kendall's discussion of subtle differences in scalping victims at the Crow Creek Site, based on age and gender, raises important questions regarding factors of status and belief, even when difficult to address. Bleed and Scott employ approaches from military theorists in battlefield archaeology to examine two cases of United States–Cheyenne conflict. The inclusion of some ethnographic sources, old and recent, on the Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, Plains Apache, and Plains Indian military societies would better clarify the nature of these sodalities (343–45, 353–54), which extended back at least into the late 1700s, regarding variation in social organization, seasonality, functions, shifts from uni-society to mixed war parties among some groups, and the unique trajectory of the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers as a tribal division. The varied role and uses of scalps, as well as sites such as Cutthroat Gap (1833), the Battle of the Washita (1868), and Massacre Canyon (1873), could also be more fully addressed. However, the larger patterns and new avenues of inquiry offer contributions for future work. This work is frank about the extent of our knowledge: "As we turn to these topics, we enter a domain where it is harder to say what we know and easier to say what we are not sure of" (25). Overall, this is a rich, broadly encompassing, and well-written volume that will be of great benefit for a wide range of Plains scholars; I believe it will become a seminal work in the field. William C. Meadows Department of Sociology-Anthropology Missouri State University Copyright © 2020 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Relational Identities and Other-Than-Human Agency in Archaeology

Relational Identities and Other-Than-Human Agency in Archaeology

Exploring the introduction of European dogs to North America through shoulder height

AbstractThe introduction of domesticated species to new environments has been used to identify colonisation events in the archaeological record but rarely provides the opportunity to investigate colonists' selection of particular breeds or stock. This analysis employs morphometrics, the measurement of skeletal landmarks, supported by historic documentation to explore the intersection between colonists' breed preferences and species translocation. In doing so, this analysis provides insight into the differential effects of human selective breeding on domestic dog's (Canis familiaris) physical characteristics in Native American and European societies. Historic sources suggest that European colonists selectively imported large dog breeds capable of defending settlements and livestock, acting as war dogs, and aiding hunters. Colonists' dogs are reputed to have been significantly larger than Native American dogs. This study compares standardised measurements taken on bones to estimate shoulder height. We find that dog populations in England and North America spanning the period 0–1,800 AD exhibit an almost identical average stature; however, the range of shoulder height variation in European dogs is far greater than seen in eastern Native American dog populations. Dogs in colonial American contexts are statistically larger than both Native American and European dog populations, supporting documentary accounts that colonists selectively imported breeds from the largest available in Europe.

Native American Stereotypes in Literature

Historically, Western White society has portrayed Native American societies as utopias that we canlook to for political, spiritual, and artistic inspiration. For example, Columbus’s original “Letters ofDiscovery” began this tradition by writing the natives as a primitive, pure, communal society, andMontaigne’s “Of the Cannibals” continued this tradition with his similar portrayal of native peoples.Such portrayals ultimately lead to harmful stereotypes, expectations, and marginalization of NativeAmerican people by White society. With the aid of Robert Berkhofer Jr’s The White Man’s Indian,this essay explores the idea of the noble savage in conjunction with utopian ideals and breaks downthe process by which Native ways of life have been falsely portrayed as utopias. Additionally, itexplores the consequences of such stereotypical depictions and looks at attempts to dispel suchutopian myths.

4 Political Ecology and the Event: Calusa Social Action in Early Colonial Entanglements

ABSTRACTThere are many examples of colonial entanglements resulting in shifts in religions, practices, subsistence, and political structures, largely linked to inequalities between the colonized and the colonizers. However, there are also examples in which practices, particularly among Native American societies, persisted in the context of social situations that intertwined peoples with diverse histories. At the time of Spanish arrival, the Calusa of southwestern Florida were a large‐scale, hierarchical society with supra‐community integration and were able to maintain high degrees of autonomy. Our focus here is to explicate the early colonial world of the Calusa. Specifically, we want to understand why early European interactions take such a dramatically different course in southwestern Florida than in other areas of Spanish colonization. To do so we use political ecology and recent scholarship on eventful archaeology to consider Calusa and Spanish social and political action. Our work focuses on interactions between the Spanish and the Calusa during the early and mid‐sixteenth century (ca. 1513 to 1569 CE). We argue that because the Calusa were fisher‐gatherer‐hunters, lacked maize agriculture, and had their capital on the defensible island of Mound Key, Spanish‐Calusa interactions and events transpired in a fundamentally different context compared to other Spanish outposts and colonies. With this example, we show how various events, knowledge, and traditions of the Calusa of southern Florida all worked to create a vastly different colonial entanglement that resulted in the Spanish abandonment of the area for some time.