Native Heritage Research Articles

Limited Efficacy of aHaemophilus influenzaeType b Conjugate Vaccine in Alaska Native Infants

The prevention of invasive Haemophilus influenzae type b disease requires a vaccine that is effective when administered during the first six months of life. The infants of Alaska Natives are at particularly high risk of invasive H. influenzae type b disease. To evaluate the protective efficacy of a H. influenzae type b polysaccharide-diphtheria toxoid conjugate vaccine (polyribosylribitol phosphate-diphtheria toxoid [PRP-D]), we enrolled 2102 Alaska Native infants in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in which either the vaccine or a saline placebo was administered at approximately two, four, and six months of age. After 3969 subject-years of follow-up and 32 episodes of H. influenzae type b disease, the overall incidence of invasive disease was not reduced significantly in the vaccinated subjects (6.0 cases per 1000 patient-years), as compared with the placebo controls (9.6) or with other Alaska Native infants (6.0). After one, two, or three doses there was no significant protective efficacy with the vaccine; after three doses the efficacy was only 35 percent (95 percent confidence interval, -57 to 73). The lack of efficacy was not related to the age at onset of disease, age at immunization, type of disease, degree of Alaska Native heritage, time after immunization, or year of the study. Levels of H. influenzae type b anticapsular antibody in recipients of the vaccine became significantly higher than levels in those who received placebo only after the second and third doses. Even after the third dose, only 48 percent of the vaccinated infants had antibody levels of more than 0.1 microgram per milliliter (geometric mean titer, 0.18). Antibody responses did not vary with the level of maternally acquired antibody, degree of Alaska Native ancestry, or age at time of the first or second immunizations, but they increased with increasing age at time of the third dose (P less than 0.001). We found no evidence that the PRP-D vaccine provides significant protection, at least for Alaska Native infants, against invasive diseases caused by H. influenzae type b. The ineffectiveness of the vaccine paralleled its limited immunogenicity.

John Howard Sissons (1892-1969)

Dubbed a living legend in his own lifetime, the late Honourable John Howard is still remembered as a staunchly independent, even idiosyncratic, pioneer judge during the critical years 1955-66 in the Northwest Territories of Canada. ... As recently as January 1990, Natural History ... published an article entitled Images of Justice, which features some of the Inuit carvings donated by Judge Sissons ... to the Sissons-Morrow Collection on display in the Court House at Yellowknife. These carvings and the article based on them illustrate the extraordinary period during which held office as the only resident judge of what was then the Territorial Court of the Northwest Territories in the eleven-year period following his appointment to that office in 1955. Each of the carvings depicts, with a good deal of artistic licence, a scene that calls up the facts of a case that came before the Territorial Court (renamed the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories in 1972) either in Sisson's time or that of his successor the (now late) Mr. Justice William George Morrow. ... The collection is believed to be unique and draws many visitors to the Court House who would otherwise not go there. ... Tempering the rigours of the Criminal Code and of the rules of evidence and criminal procedure to meet the exigencies of the situation before him, frequently decided the case (or directed the jury to do so) with a view to ensuring that justice was done with due regard for the cultural factors present. He saw himself, and no doubt acted, as the champion of the underdog, usually the accused person in a criminal case. He would, nevertheless, convict an accused where the accused was clearly shown to be guilty and the victim of the offence had clearly been wronged by the accused, .... Native customs in relation to marriage and child adoption were recognized by in a series of cases in the 1960s. The precedents that he set in respect of child adoptions by native custom were later upheld by the Court of Appeal of the Northwest Territories and are still frequently applied by the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories. An important element of the native heritage has in this way been preserved by the courts following his early lead. ...

Chaucer's Native Heritage

Chaucer's Native Heritage

Chaucer's Native Heritage. Alexander Weiss

<i>Chaucer's Native Heritage</i>. Alexander Weiss

Chaucer’s Native Heritage by Alexander Weiss

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER ALEXANDER WEISS. Chaucer'sNativeHeritage. American University Stud­ ies, Series 4. English Language and Literature, vol. 11. New York, Berne, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1985. Pp. iv; 247. $29.25. Alexander Weiss has written what is, on several counts, an old-fashioned book. Chaucer's Native Heritage argues first of all for the existence of a definable national character, embodied in the writing of its people and epitomized in the work of individual geniuses like Geoffrey Chaucer. Moreover, the traits of genius emerge in naturalistic, lifelike poetry. What Weiss calls "poetry in the finest sense of the word" (p. 42) comes chiefly from illusionistic recreation: a text is "eminently believable" because "we seem to be overhearing this conversation as we would if we were actually present" (p. 155); "We see, we hear, we feel-we experience" (p. 39) when poetry succeeds. For Chaucer studies, this amounts to a revival of the dramatic theory, extended here beyond the CT to the early translations, the LGW, the Roman, and the Trot/us so that it virtually describes the greatness of the "great" poetry. Weiss's arguments stipulate a distinctive national style, transcendently present in this sceptered isle in disregard of time, circumstance, means of production, or horizons of expectation. This heritage, which marks all genuinely English medieval poetry, consists largely in linguistic survivals, such as diction, idiom, "clear and straight-forward grammatical construc­ tions" and an "eminently natural syntactic structure" (p. 194), all deriving from Old English accentual verse. This "conversational style" also takes in "melancholic tone, verbal and structural repetition, and visual con­ creteness" (p. 121), and, between Beowulfand Chaucer, finds its clearest expression in Middle English lyrics. The lyric's articulation of "conversa­ tional style"-in this analysis, equivalent to naturalistic representation­ involves a simple, expository manner that establishes a participatory inti­ macy with the audience. The designation of Englishness comprises not only inherent features of native texts, but contrasts with other national poetical stereotypes. Pro­ fessor Weiss provides a selective analysis of troubadour and Proven�al poetry, the exclusive purpose of which is to show what Old and Middle English poetry is not (p. 49 ff.). In its "too self-consciously sophisticated" style (p. 131), French poetry is internally complex, distant, overtly crafted, abstract-a beautiful object rather than an intense experience. This antith­ esis forces some unexpected conclusions: that Chaucer "has no concern for 258 REVIEWS 'craft' but only for 'sentence'" (p.90); that the "naturalness of his transla­ tion" establishes the Roman's essential "Englishness" (p. 204); or that "Chaucer's 'ABC,' far from preserving the spirit and manner of the original ...belongs, in spirit and manner as well as in tone and style, firmly in the tradition established by the early Middle English lyricists" (p. 168). The same spirit transforms Italian sources: "The difference in purpose, form and tone between Chaucer's version of this speech and Boccaccio's suggests Chaucer's close ties with the tradition of Old English poetry" (p. 105). The necessary circularity involved in fixing the priority of the genius of English or English geniuses constrains other arguments. If continental poetry is urbane and cool, English writing is expository and intense, "primarily concerned with teaching a moral and virtuous lesson" (p.104)- "the recognition of which can be beneficial to us and guide us to a better life" (p.89)."For Chaucer poetry must be, above all, truthful... an honest representation of life" (p. 88). This Polonius-like aphorism apparently points back to the experiential and lifelike in poetry (pp.49, 130, 140, and so on). The intuitive, positivist assumptions behind such commentary account perhaps for the disregard of historical considerations: the central argument about native heritage is, despite some asseverations to the contrary, in no way historical.But vast gaps in time, context, and the fundamental resources and structures of cultural meaning mark the discus­ sions of non-English poetry as well: how, for example, may a poem by the Count of Poitiers be profitably compared with an early Middle English lyric? what ground, if any, do they share in terms of language, poetic craft, political and social setting, literary allusion, erudition, notions oflove and...

The Navajo nation's struggle for educational self-determination

Developing nations across the world have in the past and are still today struggling to establish systems of education which meet the cultural and societal needs of their peoples. Such is the case of the native American Indian tribe known as the Navajo, living on a 6000 square mile reservation in the western United States. The Navajo nation is a semi-sovereign nation having the rights of internal government including commerce, law enforcement, social services and, in a few respects, education. Presently, the tribe is struggling to gain control over the various governmental entitles furnishing educational services to its children. Its goal is to develop its own independent educational system much as any other developing nation might do. The Navajo tribe is not alone among American Indian groups located primarily in western United States who desperately wish to preserve their unique native heritage, language, and culture. These groups feel that by control of their children's schools tribal cultures can be preserved and even strengthened. The Navajo tribe is the largest group with the greatest amount of political influence. If the Navajo can control and develop their own system of schools, either separate or in partnership with the federal government and the several state governments, the path for other tribes will be opened. Thus, the success or failure or the Navajo effort to develop and control a Navajo ‘system’ of schools is critical to the survival and enhancement of native American cultures in the United States.

A Native Heritage: Images of the Indian in English-Canadian Literature by Leslie Monkman

A Native Heritage: Images of the Indian in English-Canadian Literature by Leslie Monkman