non-Native Americans Research Articles

Encyclopedia of American Indian history

This new four-volume encyclopedia is the most comprehensive and up-to-date resource available on the history of Native Americans, providing a lively, authoritative survey ranging from human origins to present-day controversies. From the origins of Native American cultures through the years of colonialism and non-Native expansion to the present, Encyclopedia of American Indian History brings the story of Native Americans to life like no other previous reference on the subject. Featuring the work of many of the field's foremost scholars, it explores this fundamental and foundational aspect of the American experience with extraordinary depth, breadth, and currency, carefully balancing the perspectives of both Native and non-Native Americans. Encyclopedia of American Indian History spans the centuries with three thematically organized volumes (covering the period from precontact through European colonization; the years of non-Native expansion (including Indian removal); and the modern era of reservations, reforms, and reclamation of semi-sovereignty). Each volume includes entries on key events, places, people, and issues. The fourth volume is an alphabetically organized resource providing histories of Native American nations, as well as an extensive chronology, topic finder, bibliography, and glossary. For students, historians, or anyone interested in the Native American experience, Encyclopedia of American Indian History brings that experience to life in an unprecedented way. * Approximately 450 entries within four separate volumes * Approximately 110 contributors from among the foremost scholars in the fields, including Troy Johnson on self-determination movements, Richard King on sports mascots, and Jon Rehyner on recovery of Native languages * Hundreds of images, including illustrations, photographs, and maps * A series of helpful research tools rounding out the fourth volume, including an extensive chronology, topical bibliography, and a comprehensive index

Successful thalidomide therapy for actinic prurigo in a European woman

Actinic prurigo is a rare, often difficult-to-treat, idiopathic photodermatosis. Actinic prurigo is divided into a hereditary form appearing in the Native American population and a sporadic form occurring in non-Native Americans. We present a 28-year-old Caucasian woman who developed typical clinical signs and symptoms of actinic prurigo, just as had her mother and grandmother. The patient and her mother were HLA-A24 and HLA-DR 4 with the subtype HLA-DRB1*0408. Based on clinical symptoms and the HLA pattern, the diagnosis of actinic prurigo was made. Treatment with thalidomide led to resolution of the disease. This case report of a Caucasian woman suffering from a hereditary form of actinic prurigo questions the established classification of actinic prurigo into a hereditary Native American form and a sporadic form occurring in the non-Native American population.

Erfolgreiche Thalidomidtherapie einer kaukasischen Patientin mit hereditärer aktinischer Prurigo

Actinic prurigo is a rare, often difficult-to-treat, idiopathic photodermatosis. Actinic prurigo is divided into a hereditary form appearing in the Native American population and a sporadic form occurring in non-Native Americans. We present a 28-year old Caucasian woman who, similar to her mother and grandmother, developed typical clinical symptoms of actinic prurigo. The assessment of the HLA pattern in our patient and her mother revealed the presence of HLA-A24 and HLA-DR 4 with the subtype HLA-DRB1*0408. Based on clinical symptoms and the HLA pattern the diagnosis of actinic prurigo was established in our patient. Treatment with thalidomide led to the disappearance of clinical symptoms. This case report of a Caucasian woman suffering from a hereditary form of actinic prurigo questions the established classification of actinic prurigo into a hereditary Native American form and a sporadic form occurring in the non-Native American population.

The mythical Jim Thorpe: Re/presenting the twentieth century American Indian

This article examines the social significance of Jim Thorpe as a pivotal figure in twentieth-century American history, exploring representations of Thorpe in the context of his life and times, the entities that produced these representations, and the social consequences of their productions. In a century in which attitudes about, definitions of and policies towards Native Americans were dramatically reshaped, Thorpe's life story had tremendous popular appeal and symbolic significance for both Native Americans and non-Native Americans. A closer look at how this story was framed, by whom and for what purposes, offers critical insights into the role that representations played – and continue to play – in producing, legitimating and occasionally challenging systems of power and privilege in the United States.

Interactions between the Mississippi Choctaw and European Americans through the sport of Toli

Toli or stickball is a Native American sport with pre-Columbian roots that remains an important sport for many Native American groups, especially the Mississippi Choctaw. In 1989 a toli team was created at the University of Georgia, which subsequently established regular matches with a Choctaw team. This paper offers an analysis of matches staged in the late 1990s. Despite the ritualized violence, this study finds that the shared experience of playing toli acts as a catalyst for integration. It is suggested, moreover, that the sport serves an integrative function on several levels: cross-gender, intra-group and cross-cultural. Exploring the nature of toli and ethnic identity, it makes suggestions for increased interaction between Native Americans and non-Native Americans through sport.

Great Expectations, Great Disappointments: American Indians and the Emergence of Modern American Culture

Philip J. Deloria. Indians in Unexpected Places. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. xii + 300 pp. Notes and index. $24.95. During the summer of 2003, I was traveling by car through the northwestern quarter of the state of Montana, like so many summer tourists, on my way to Glacier National Park. The route westward from Interstate 15 to the park takes one through the middle of the Reservation of the Blackfeet Indian Nation. One sight I saw on this drive was most unexpected and has stayed with me since. In the town of Browning, near the Museum of the Plains Indian, a hand-made sign had been erected. Painted on the sign were the names of the Blackfeet who were serving in the Iraq War, along with a message of support for the troops and the military campaign of Operation Iraqi Freedom, then only months old. While I am not sure exactly what I expected to see while traveling through an Indian reservation, I had certainly not expected to see this. Upon reflection, this evidence of a community like any other in the United States, with youth who undertook military service, evoking the pride and support of their community, should not have shocked me. As a historian exposed to recent scholarship that has illuminated the service of American Indian peoples in the United States military during the twentieth century, I should not have been surprised at all by this evidence of the service of American Indians in the American armed forces.1 But in this case the scholar had a taken a backseat to the tourist. As a American white man born, raised, and educated on the American eastern seaboard, I knew I was traveling through an Indian reservation (still something new for me) and was on the lookout for the exotic—perhaps for an alien culture that stood apart from the mainstream of American culture, implicitly and explicitly offering critiques of its content and existence. I subconsciously ignored the evidence all around me of the Blackfeet Indians' appropriations of American modernity (paved roads, split-level houses, convenience stores); I ignored all of the reservation landscape's testimonies to the on-going juxtaposition of, and negotiation between, "Indian-ness" and "American-ness." Oblivious to [End Page 387] the reality of modern Indian life all around me, it took a simple sign that would have been a natural part of the landscape in most American communities in 2003 to dispel my illusion and to challenge the conventional wisdom I had received over the course of a lifetime of what an American Indian was and what it meant to be Indian. I came back to this experience several times while reading Philip J. Deloria's collection of essays, Indians in Unexpected Places. Deloria's book is explicitly concerned with two things that were brought home to me during my 2003 trip. First, Deloria is interested in understanding the expectations non-Native Americans have brought, and continue to bring, to their encounters with American Indians. Deloria argues that these expectations are the products of a set of images—stereotypes—that are products of a discourse and ideology of colonialism that remains part and parcel of modern American culture. Second, Deloria also wants to remind his readers that these stereotypes that condition expectations have a history of their own, and it is a history, surprisingly, with many Native actors in it. Deloria uses the period between 1890 and 1930 to demonstrate the ubiquity of negotiation between Indian and American cultural identities, both by Indian individuals and by communities. Yet while Indian peoples attempted to appropriate the forms and accoutrements of an emerging modern (largely white) American culture—film, music, sports, the automobile—to define themselves, this dominant culture pushed back and imposed a different set of definitions of what it meant to be Indian. Through the five discreet, yet related, essays in Indians...

The National Museum of the American Indian as Cultural Sovereignty

On September 21, 2004, more than twenty-five thousand Native Americans gathered together on the Washington Mall to celebrate the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). As a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, I, too, participated in that moment, which was beautiful for so many reasons because of the physical beauty of the NMAI building and grounds, because of the cultural significance and even sacred connotation of so many objects in the museum, because of the more than sixty-five thousand nonNative Americans who joined the celebrations, and because the sun came out that morning after a solid week of rain. The thousands of people present that day seemed to understand that the National Museum of the American Indian is more than just a museum. As NMAI Director, W. Richard West (Southern Cheyenne) reflected, There was just this kind of power in the air for Native people. But somehow it was almost the same for non-Indians who were there. They sensed, lots of them, the sixty-five thousand who watched the procession, that there was something very fundamental going on that day.1 Even in 1989, when Congress passed Public Law 105-189 establishing a National Museum of the American Indian as part of the Smithsonian, those involved knew something fundamental was occurring. Introduced by Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawai'i and then Representative Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Northern Cheyenne) of Colorado, the bill significantly embodied the cultural resurgence that had been growing in Indian country for a number of years, a resurgence that took a more clearly limned shape and form and a stronger, more insistent voice in the public arena.2 consciousness recognized and acknowledged, in the words of poet Simon Ortiz (Acoma), that This America has been a burden of steel and mad death but also saw, in the

The National Museum of the American Indian: Sharing the Gift

The American Indian Quarterly 29.3 & 4 (2005) 361-383 [Access article in PDF] The National Museum of the American Indian Sharing the Gift Amanda J. Cobb We have lived in these lands and sacred places for thousands of years. We thus are the original part of the cultural heritage of every person hearing these words today, whether you are Native or non-Native. We have felt the cruel and destructive edge of the colonialism that followed contact and lasted for hundreds of years. But, in our minds and in history, we are not its victims. As the Mohawks have counseled us, "It is hard to see the future with tears in your eyes." W. Richard West, NMAI Opening Ceremony Beginnings Over twenty-five thousand American Indians from over five hundred Indigenous nations journeyed from their homes to the National Mall in Washington dc to witness the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) on September 25, 2005. They journeyed to participate in the largest gathering of Native peoples in modern history, to celebrate a symbolic moment in the long, long histories of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and to honor their own survivance. As a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, I too traveled from my current home in New Mexico to Washington dc—a place Native Americans have journeyed to often, a place we have come to know a little too well, a place we had almost forgotten was Indian Country once, is Indian Country still. But at the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian, a Native place, we were reminded. [End Page 361] It was a day for acknowledging and considering journeys. Indigenous Americans from as far north as Alaska and as far south as Chile traveled to Washington dc, reminding us that Native Americans have long journeyed to places up and down the Western hemisphere and that the current boundaries of nation-states have never been our cultural boundaries. The words of NMAI director W. Richard West (Southern Cheyenne), quoted above, reminded us of our journey from pre-contact through colonization to cultural revitalization—a journey of cultural continuance and survivance. Finally, on the day of the NMAI opening, the participants of the Native Nations Procession made another journey, walking past the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum to the National Museum of the American Indian—a very short journey a very long time in coming. Click for larger view Figure 1 Native Nations Procession Aerial View. Courtesy of the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall, Washington DC, September 21, 2005. The Journey to a Native Place The significance of the path of the procession was not lost. After all, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History is the museum, the paragon of all that museums have meant to Native peoples and to those [End Page 362] people who have collected, named, studied, and displayed Native Americans and their cultures. For Native people there is nothing natural about natural history museums. Museums have long been understood as buildings that house collections—collections of art, scientific specimens, or other artifacts or objects considered to be of permanent value because of their rarity, uniqueness, and so on—for display. Because Native Americans have long been understood by collectors as scientific specimens, as objects of permanent value because of their rarity, uniqueness, and so on, Native remains and artifacts have been housed in museums, frequently in natural history museums, and displayed—dinosaurs to the left, Indians to the right. As colonizing forces in the Americas, museums cannot be underestimated. Historically, through the research, study, and systematic collection of Native remains and artifacts, museums have objectified Native Americans, believing them to be a vanishing race of primitive people. This practice, which developed and continued in the United States during through the formative years of the new republic, has deeply impacted both Native and non-Native Americans in several significant ways. Museological systems contributed to the establishment of strict boundaries between Native and non-Native cultures, which resulted in a hierarchical relationship...

Genetic structure and gene flow in Gran Chaco populations of Argentina: evidence from Y-chromosome markers.

The Gran Chaco region of central South America has been settled by humans for only the last 4,000-5,000 years. To investigate population structure and variation in this region's indigenous population, we scored males from tribes of the Argentinean part of the Gran Chaco (Pilagá, Wichí, and Toba, representing two major language groups, the Mataco and Guaycurú) for a number of Y-chromosome polymorphisms. The markers included eight microsatellites (DYS19, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS437, DYS438, and DYS439) and the unique native American single nucleotide polymorphism, DYS199. Sixty males (77%) from the total sample carried the DYS199T chromosome, and these were the focus of the present analysis. Unlike most other native Americans, Gran Chaco males show a moderate level of diversity at the DYS19 locus but still less than that seen in non-native Americans. The FST value for Y-chromosome markers in Gran Chaco was 0.107, a value that is more than double that found for mtDNA haplogroups in the same tribes but is not particularly high compared with other Y-chromosome studies. Phylogenetic trees based on all eight microsatellites showed relatively poor correlation of the tribes with either geography or language, and this is possibly explained by their ecology. They are seasonal hunters living in small bands, and under such circumstances drift will be a powerful evolutionary force. An UPGMA tree based on five microsatellites (DYS19, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, and DYS393), however, showed a more positive relationship, suggesting that DYS437, DYS438, and DYS439 may behave differently from the other microsatellites. No association was found between maternal and paternal lineage distributions. The time to the most recent common ancestor of the DYS199T chromosome is calculated to lie between 13,000 and 26,000 years. This range is consistent with estimates from other Y-chromosome studies as well as with estimates from mtDNA and the archeology of the colonization of South America. We conclude that the male lineages present in the contemporary Gran Chaco population reflect the level of diversity found in South America and that the region's male founders did not carry a restricted gene pool.

Outcomes of variceal bleeding after endoscopic therapy in native and non-native Americans

Outcomes of variceal bleeding after endoscopic therapy in native and non-native Americans

Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains?

In the past decade the repatriation of Native American skeletal remains and funerary objects has become a lightning rod for radically opposing views about cultural patrimony and the relationship between Native communities and archaeologists. In this unprecedented volume, Native Americans and non-Native Americans within and beyond the academic community offer their views on repatriation and the ethical, political, legal, cultural, scholarly, and economic dimensions of this hotly debated issue. While historians and archaeologists debate continuing non-Native interests and obligations, Native American scholars speak to the key cultural issues embedded in their ancestral pasts. A variety of sometimes explosive case studies are considered, ranging from Kennewick Man to the repatriation of Zuni Ahayu:da. Also featured is a detailed discussion of the background, meaning, and applicability of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, as well as the text of the act itself. Devon Abbott Mihesuah is Professor of Applied Indigenous Studies at Northern Arizona University. She is the author or editor of several works, including Natives and Academics: Researching and Writing about American Indians (Nebraska 1998) and The Roads of My Relations.

Using the sweat lodge ceremony as group therapy for navajo youth

The sweat lodge ceremony can be seen as a culturally relevant approach to group therapy in working with Navajo youth. This article describes the sweat lodge ceremony used at a residential treatment center located on the Navajo Nation and compares the ceremony to modern group work by identifying Yalom's (1995) 11 therapeutic factors of group therapy within the ceremony. Other psychotherapeutic features of the ceremony also are discussed. In addition, considerations for widespread use of the ceremony with Native Americans and non-Native Americans are given as well as recommendations for future research.

Indian Gaming—

This study surveyed employment trends in Arizona's Native American casinos and discovered that only at the level of hourly line employees do Native Americans edge out non-Native Americans. In management positions, non-Native Americans continue to outnumber Native Americans. Moreover, a recent decrease in new Native American entry-level managers bodes poorly for tribal self-management. Those trends appear to be a function of tribe size and, according to casino human-resources directors, the lack of managerial skills in most tribal populations. Human-resources officers indicated they were relatively unlikely to find qualified Native American applicants for senior and midlevel management, somewhat more likely to find qualified Native Americans for entry-level management, and considerably more likely to find them for hourly entry-level jobs. Thus all Arizona tribes need to make greater efforts, through mentoring and management-development programs, to increase substantially the numbers of Native Americans in casino management positions. The record of promoting Native Americans to management has been mixed. Of those casinos that provided opening-year versus current-year figures, Native Americans made some advances into senior-management positions since the opening of those casinos. In fact, Native Americans now outnumber non-Native Americans as senior managers at selected casinos (although not for the entire sample). At the level of hourly employees, the percentage of Native Americans has also increased. In the case of entry-level managers, however, the percentage of Native Americans has decreased, from 50 percent at opening to 39 percent today.

Indian Gaming: Are tribal employees being promoted to management positions in arizona casinos?

This study surveyed Arizona's Native American casinos and discovered that only at the level of hourly line employees do Native Americans edge out non-Native Americans.

Brief communication: first evidence of LSAMAT in non-native Americans: historic Senegalese from west Africa.

To date, the distinctive dental wear pattern known as LSAMAT, or "lingual surface attrition of the maxillary anterior teeth," has been documented in prehistoric samples from Brazil, Panama, and Puerto Rico only. However, new data from a historic Senegalese sample reveals the first example of this wear pattern outside the Americas. The Senegal LSAMAT is present in 45% of 22 adult crania, and is associated with a caries rate of 40% in 38 adults (6.7% of 534 permanent teeth). A correlation between LSAMAT and caries was also observed in the Latin American samples. In these cases, it was hypothesized that LSAMAT was caused by the specialized consumption of an abrasive, high carbohydrate food, such as manioc. Manioc is a common cultigen in Senegal; thus, it may have also caused the African LSAMAT. The chewing of sugar cane could have been an additional, contributing factor.

Cross Cultural Interpretation and Valuing of Northwest Coast Art by Natives and Non-Native Americans

Cross Cultural Interpretation and Valuing of Northwest Coast Art by Natives and Non-Native Americans

Nutrition and cancer among American Indians and Alaska natives

More than a third of all cancers in the United States are thought to be attributable to various nutritional factors, and major changes in nutrition have been experienced by American Indians and Alaska Natives in the past century. The published literature was reviewed to summarize the relationship between diet and cancer, to summarize what is known about the past and current diet of American Indians and Alaska Natives, and to consider whether nutrition might play a role in their current or future risk of cancer. Epidemiologic studies show a consistent pattern of lower risk for cancers of the colon and lung among those who eat larger amounts of fruits and vegetables and higher risk for cancers of the colon and prostate for those who eat larger amounts of fat. Limited data indicate that the diets of American Indians and Alaska natives are similar to the current average American diet, that is, high in fat and low in fruits and vegetables. Diet is an important factor for several major cancers. Although the cancer rates among many Native American groups are currently lower than among non-native Americans, they seem to be increasing. Cancer rates among Native Alaskans are already much higher than for non-native Americans. Nutrition-related cancers are likely to increase in the future among Native Americans as a result of past changes in diet. However, Native Americans may have a stronger cultural basis than do non-native Americans to adopt traditional principles of the value of good foods and physical activity to achieve future nutritional improvements to reduce cancer risk.

Nutrient-Health Associations in the Historic and Contemporary Diets of Southwest Native Americans

Nutritional characteristics and associated lifestyle factors, e.g. activity level, contribute to at least four (heart disease, cancer, cirrhosis and diabetes) of the 10 leading causes of Native American mortality and morbidity. Over the past three centuries, Native American diet and activity levels have changed dramatically. In the Southwest, high-fiber, nutrient-dense precontact foods requiring a moderate level of regular physical activity to gather, hunt and process have been replaced with readily accessible, low-fiber, high-fat and high-sugar foods and beverages. Changes in diet and activity levels have been accompanied by a shift in epidemiological patterns. Intervention trials among both Native Americans and non-Native Americans demonstrate that consumption of a high-fiber, low-fat diet and regular physical activity can be used not only in the treatment but perhaps more importantly in the prevention or delay of disease onset.

The health of Native Americans: toward a biocultural epidemiology

This comprehensive review of the health of Native Americans in Canada and the United States presents historical trends in population and health status from pre-European contact to the present day. These are examined in terms of three groups of diseases: infectious diseases, chronic diseases, and injuries. The author discusses the etiology and pathogenesis of different diseases in each group, and considers the genetic and environmental risk factors involved. The incidence of disease among Native Americans and non-Native Americans are compared and variations among Native Americans belonging to different geographical, cultural and linguistic groups are examined. The Health of Native Americans integrates anthropology and epidemiology to demonstrate the interaction of biology and culture on disease causation, distribution and control offering a promising approach to understanding and improving the health status of Native Americans.

Images of native americans still photography

Abstract For most people the image of Native Americans has been defined primarily by John Wayne movies and the Buffalo nickel. The image of the “Redman”, whether noble or savage, has become a distorted and seldom challenged part of the American myth. The existence of such a situation is partly the result of ignorance. It is also partly the result of racism, for the story of the way non-Native Americans have dealt with Native Americans is not a pretty one. We have seen Native Americans as we want to see them, rather than as they were and are. One factor in shaping our concepts has been the still photograph. Photographs were taken for a variety of reasons, and the examination of some examples raises numerous questions about the “reality” of the images of Native Americans as well as about photography's role in capturing or influencing those images.