Plains Tribes Research Articles

Cognitive Impairment and Social Determinants of Health Among Indigenous Women.

Cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) pose significant challenges for Indigenous populations, necessitating urgent research. Limited evidence suggests that high rates of ADRD among Indigenous peoples are associated with social determinants of health (SDOH), such as education, income, health literacy, religion, and social engagement. Collaborating with a Northern Plains tribe, participants were recruited 123 self-identified Indigenous women aged 40-70 through a comprehensive recruitment strategy. Employing the SDOH framework, the research assessed cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease knowledge (ADK), utilizing the Ascertain Dementia 8 and Alzheimer's disease knowledge scales (ADK-30). The investigation examined the relationships between selected SDOH variables and cognitive impairment status. More than half of the participants showed signs of cognitive impairment, which correlated with lower income and education levels. Increased knowledge about Alzheimer's disease, particularly in terms of treatment management and its life impact subscales, was associated with lower odds of cognitive impairment. Conversely, higher levels of depressive symptoms and participation in religious activities were linked to increased odds of cognitive impairment. The findings underscore the importance of culturally grounded tools and SDOH frameworks tailored to Indigenous contexts in addressing ADRD disparities. Future research should integrate historical and cultural factors to advance health equity within Indigenous communities, ultimately mitigating the impact of ADRD and promoting overall well-being.

Discerning Sound Ethnobiology in the realm of Ethnomusicology: A Study of Deori Folk Musical Instruments

Folk music has always been known to be the best source of connecting us to our culture and keeping our identity alive as an individual and as a group. The concept of melody and the artistic pursuit of musical composition were probably unknown to early players of musical instruments. A musical instrument is used to make musical sounds. Once humans moved from making sounds with their bodies-for example, by clapping-to using objects to create music from sounds, musical instruments were born. The purpose and meaning of musical instruments differs from region to region and from culture to another. Instruments have special significance in music. The Deoris belong to the Sino-Tibetan family of Mongoloid stock. They are considered to be one of the communities found in Assam and some parts of Arunachal Pradesh in North- East India. The word ‘Deori’ means the offspring of Gods and Goddesses. The Indian Constitution has regarded the Deoris as a scheduled tribe of Assam and they are considered to be a small plains tribe. The Deoris have their own language which is the Deori language. Customarily the Deoris are divided into four clans namely ‘Dibongiya, Tengaponiya, Bongiya, Patorgoyan’ which are present till date. This paper studies the vitality of sound ethnobiology, ethics of instruments, crafting and classification of musical instruments in the field of Ethnomusicology. Musical instruments are constructed in a broad array of styles and shapes, using many different materials. It mainly explores and discerns the variety of Deori traditional musical instruments from a closer proximity in the realm of material culture under the broader context of folklore. The crafting processes and the materials used for the making of the musical instruments of the Deoris is discussed in a detailed manner.

A cross-cultural study of the life history of stone pipes in the plains

This study documents the life history of Native American stone pipes in the Plains from the eighteenth century to the early twenty-first century. Source material derives from twenty-first century interviews, ethnographic, and ethnohistoric documents. Interviews with Native American pipestone carvers at Pipestone National Monument in Minnesota were conducted in 2013. Additional documentation is from ethnohistoric and ethnographic observations from Plains Tribes over three centuries. Important issues highlighted in this research include the identity of the carvers, variation in stone used for pipes, variation in the types of carving tools, and the importance of recycling red pipestone.

Early Childbearing, Family Support, and Staying in School in a Northern Plains American Indian Reservation

American Indian youth experience teen birth and school dropout at higher rates than other racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Early childbearing is associated with adverse health and socioeconomic outcomes, including attenuated education. However, kinship childrearing norms among Northern Plains tribes can support positive experiences of early childbearing. Using a community based participatory research framework, this mixed methods exploratory study engaged high school students from a Northern Plains reservation community to examine youth perceptions of family support and belief in ability to stay in school should they have a child. We elicited youth observations of facilitators and inhibitors to academic achievement for young parents. This research supports the need for strengths-based, gender specific, and family inclusive sexuality education to support young people in their reproductive choices in reservation settings. We highlight the utility of including youth as coauthors and co-researchers in future studies.

Growth and Development of Ethnic Consciousness among the Plain Tribes of Assam

Growth and Development of Ethnic Consciousness among the Plain Tribes of Assam

Colonial Intervention to a New Equation of Politics in India’s Northeast

Colonialism has its impact on Indian politics and society even after the colonialism. Pre-colonial Assam was able to maintain its independent status till 1826. After incorporating into the company’s holdings, colonialists gradually extended their controls to the hill areas surrounding the Assam and Bengal plains. Subsequent to annexing the hills, the areas were designated as “tribal” areas and continued to be ruled as a distinct administrative regime. However, the strategy of divide and rule system had fundamentally changed the practices of both hills and the plains. For segregating the hills from the plains, a line was drawn, known as Inner line of 1873. The gradual separation and sharpening of identity had led to the formation of ‘Bordoloi Sub-committee to render autonomy to the hill people. However, the recommendation made by the ‘Bordoloi Sub-committee’ were not able to fulfil the aspirations of the hill tribes, and they started demanding for more autonomy in the form of statehood, backed by insurgent activities, which paved the way for the reorganisation of Assam. And in the present juncture, the Plain tribes of Assam have been demanding for re-reorganisation of Assam. Hence, this study specifies the colonial subjectivity and subjugation and its consequences to new equations of contemporary politics.

A qualitative analysis of pain meaning: results from the Oklahoma Study of Native American Pain Risk (OK-SNAP)

ABSTRACT The most widely accepted definition of pain considers it a sensory and emotional experience associated with potential or actual physical harm. However, research tends to generalize findings from predominantly European American samples thereby assuming universality across cultures. Because of the high prevalence of pain within the AI group, it is important to consider whether their conceptualization of pain is similar to the universal definition. To accomplish this aim, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 152 AIs (primarily Southern Plains and eastern Oklahoma tribes) and 150 NHWs. Both groups were asked questions including what words describe hurtful experiences, the purpose of painful experiences, individual and culture-specific meanings of pain, and what constituted the opposite of pain. Many similarities were found between groups as well as differences. For example, NHWs used the word pain more often to describe physically hurtful experiences and were more likely to consider pain to be a signal or warning of an abnormality or pathology. By contrast, only AIs reported culture-specific meanings of pain, such as references to AI rituals or ceremonies. These observed differences are attenuated by small effect sizes. These findings are important to consider when hypothesizing the differences in pain among cultural groups.

Painting Culture, Painting Nature: Stephen Mopope, Oscar Jacobson, and the Development of Indian Art in Oklahoma by Gunlög Fur

Reviewed by: Painting Culture, Painting Nature: Stephen Mopope, Oscar Jacobson, and the Development of Indian Art in Oklahoma by Gunlög Fur Jennifer McLerran Painting Culture, Painting Nature: Stephen Mopope, Oscar Jacobson, and the Development of Indian Art in Oklahoma. By Gunlög Fur. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019. Pp. xii, 356. $34.95, ISBN 978-0-8061-6287-4.) In Painting Culture, Painting Nature: Stephen Mopope, Oscar Jacobson, and the Development of Indian Art in Oklahoma, Gunlög Fur presents highly engaging accounts of the lives of two icons of the twentieth-century Native American fine art movement. Swedish American artist and academic Oscar Jacobson and Kiowa painter Stephen Mopope are her subjects. Employing a methodology based in concurrent histories, Fur focuses on the divergences and intersections of Jacobson’s and Mopope’s lives and on the ways the two influenced one another through complex entanglements. In 1927 Jacobson provided Mopope and five other Kiowas with an extraordinary and unparalleled educational and professional opportunity, bringing the young artists to the University of Oklahoma to study easel painting. He also arranged for them to study mural painting with fellow Swedish immigrant artist Olle Nordmark at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Jacobson’s actions were unprecedented. No other American university had such a program, and it was not until much later in the twentieth century that Native students studied art at American universities in significant numbers. Under Jacobson’s mentorship and promotion, the group of painters who became known as the Kiowa Five gained international recognition and went on to long and successful art careers. What began as a teacher-student relationship that crossed social and cultural boundaries grew into a long-lasting friendship and professional affiliation between Jacobson and Mopope, which contributed significantly to the development of a twentieth-century Native American fine art tradition. Mopope was born on the Oklahoma reservation where his southern plains tribe had been forcibly removed in the 1870s. Jacobson was a Swedish immigrant who was raised in the Swedish American enclave of Lindsborg, [End Page 516] Kansas. After graduating from Yale University, he became an art professor at the University of Oklahoma, where he remained for the rest of his career. Given their backgrounds, Jacobson and Mopope seem like an unlikely pairing. However, as Fur argues, both were members of diasporic communities; and although they experienced dislocation in different ways, each experienced restrictions and loss as a result of their outsider status. Fur argues for the importance of viewing Jacobson’s experience of immigration and Mopope’s experience of dispossession as interdependent and complexly interlinked. While she never loses sight of the greater social inequality Native Americans have experienced relative to Swedish immigrants, she posits that displacement and loss may have served as common points of identification that allowed Jacobson and Mopope to forge and maintain a fruitful alliance. Fur uses published scholarly studies, archival sources, oral histories, and memoirs to reconstruct the lives of Jacobson and Mopope. Mopope’s grand-daughter Vanessa Paukeigope Jennings and Jacobson’s wife, Sophie Brousse Jacobson, who wrote under the pen name Jeanne d’Ucel and completed several unpublished manuscripts on her husband’s life and work, were especially important sources of information. Fur points out that, while scholarship on Swedish immigrants to North America is abundant, histories of interactions between Scandinavian newcomers and American Indians are rare, and such retellings tend to lump all European immigrants together as one indistinguishable group. Fur’s previous scholarship on Swedish immigrant communities in North America and Karen V. Hansen’s Encounter on the Great Plains: Scandinavian Settlers and the Dispossession of Dakota Indians, 1890–1930 (New York, 2013), which Fur cites as influential on her work, are notable exceptions. Historical accounts of Jacobson’s work with the Kiowa artists are numerous. However, Fur provides a richer and more nuanced accounting than her predecessors. Her writing is elegant and engaging, and the narratives she presents are compelling. Anyone with an interest in twentieth-century Native American art will want to read Painting Culture, Painting Nature. Jennifer McLerran Northern Arizona University Copyright © 2020 The Southern Historical Association

Claims to Native Identity in Children’s Literature

This commentary essay examines several individuals who wrote books for children and made claims to Native identity that are fraudulent, or otherwise problematic. Asa Carter, for example, posed as a Cherokee named “Forrest Carter” and published The Education of Little Tree, put forth as the autobiography of someone who had been on the Trail of Tears. So popular that it was published in Korean, Turkish, Czeck, Slovenian, and Spanish, in 1997 Little Tree became a feature film. Although the author’s fraud was exposed in The New York Times, the book continues to be published. Jamake Highwater, posing as a Blackfoot/Cherokee, won the most prestigious children’s literature award, the Newbery Honor given by the American Library Association, for Anpao: An American Indian Odyssey, in 1978. Paul Goble is a British writer who loved American Indian stories so much that he moved to the United States to live near Plains tribes, where he was given a Native name. Both that name and the ways he spoke of the gift led people to believe that he had been adopted into the Lakota tribe. Like Carter and Highwater, but more prolific, Goble’s books sell well in a market that retains narrow and stereotypical views of Native peoples. The essay concludes by discussing the ways that the works of Carter, Highwater, and Goble impact publishing today.

Relational Identities and Other-Than-Human Agency in Archaeology

Relational Identities and Other-Than-Human Agency in Archaeology

They Are Happy (An Ecosystem Study of Bodo tribe of Assam, India)

They Are Happy (An Ecosystem Study of Bodo tribe of Assam, India)

The Impact of Individual and Parental American Indian Boarding School Attendance on Chronic Physical Health of Northern Plains Tribes.

This study investigated the relationship of American Indian boarding school attendance and chronic physical health. We hypothesized boarding school attendance would be associated with an increased number of chronic physical health problems. We also examined the relationship between boarding school attendance and the 15 chronic health problems that formed the count of the chronic health conditions. American Indian attendees had a greater count of chronic physical health problems compared with nonattendees. Father's attendance was independently associated with chronic physical health problems. Attendees were more likely to have tuberculosis, arthritis, diabetes, anemia, high cholesterol, gall bladder disease, and cancer than nonattendees.

Native Elder and Youth Perspectives on Mental Well-Being, the Value of the Horse, and Navigating Two Worlds

Purpose: Native American youth experience significant challenges to mental well-being. As part of a larger study to evaluate hope and resilience in a Plains tribal population, the purpose of this study was to learn from Native American elders and youths what they feel is needed to for youth to grow up healthy on the reservation, and to identify connections between horse use and mental well-being. Sample: Six Native American elders and eight Native American youths from the same Plains tribe. Method: The research team conducted Talking Circles with youths and elders. During the Talking Circles, participants identified community-specific questions for inclusion in a resilience measurement and provided personal stories regarding the relevance of the horse to well-being. Findings: Both groups felt cultural traditions and language, education, relationships, and interactions with horses have significant roles in enhancing identity development and resilience in youth. However, elders indicated that tribal youth seem to struggle in navigating two worlds. Elders expressed that for youth to be well, they need to return to traditional ways within the realms of culture, language, education, and relationships. On the other hand, the youths were more confident in their ability to navigate two worlds, and wished to seek opportunities to blend their traditional and contemporary lives. Conclusion: The challenges of navigating two worlds for Native Americans are experienced across generations. Both youths and elders said that resilient youth are able to successfully navigate these challenges when they: (a) know their indigenous identity, (b) participate in cultural activities, (c) have strong family ties, and (d) are able to learn in an environment where their culture is championed. We propose that future efforts must include community-based participatory methods in the development of interventions that include use of the horse to strengthen Native American youth resilience and foster health and well-being. Keywords: American Indian health, resilience, identity, mental well-being, horses DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14574/ojrnhc.v18i2.542

Home on the Range: The Impact of the Cattle Trails on Indian Territory

This paper addresses how the cattle trails affected the Native American tribes in Indian Territory. There has been a plethora of research done on finding the cattle trails, life as a cowboy, and the economics of the cattle trade, but precious little is said about its impact on the Indians, whose land the trails went through. This paper examines the role of cattle in tribes prior to relocation, how the Five Civilized/Eastern Tribes utilized cattle and interacted with early cattle trails, and how the Western Plains Tribes reacted to cattle trails moving westward. The cattle trails provided for a new economy in Indian Territory that allowed the Native Americans to survive and thrive as they became involved in the cattle industry; however, that same economic development was misused to justify the elimination of reservations and open the land to white settlement.

Ethnomycological Notes on Haploporus odorus and other Polypores in Northern Fennoscandia

This study focuses on the use of polypores in northern Fennoscandia, especially the now rare Haploporus odorus, which was once used by Sami and Swedish peasantry in the north. However, other taxa that were culturally salient are also discussed. Polypores have been used for health-related, technical and other purposes. The use of some of the taxa, such as Fomes fomentarius and Fomitopsis betulina, has been widely known over Eurasia and beyond, while Haploporus odorus has been utilized only by the North American Plains tribes and in northern Scandinavia. From cultural historical information, ethnographical data and observations reported in travelogues, the ethnomycological significance of five bracket fungi species in northern Fennoscandia has been identified.

Spirituality and mental health status among Northern Plain tribes

ABSTRACTSpirituality measures often show positive associations with preferred mental health outcomes in the general population; however, research among American Indians (AIs) is limited. We examined the relationships of mental health status and two measures of spirituality – the Midlife Development Inventory (MIDI) and a tribal cultural spirituality measure – in Northern Plains AIs, aged 15–54 (n = 1636). While the MIDI was unassociated with mental health status, the tribal cultural spirituality measure showed a significant relationship with better mental health status. Mental health conditions disproportionately affect AIs. Understanding protective factors such as cultural spirituality that can mitigate mental health disorders is critical to reducing these health disparities.

Kiowa Belief and Ritual by Benjamin R. Kracht

Reviewed by: Kiowa Belief and Ritual by Benjamin R. Kracht Andrew McKenzie Kiowa Belief and Ritual. By Benjamin R. Kracht. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017. viii + 334 pp. Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $75.00 cloth. In 1935 an ethnographic research group from the Santa Fe Laboratory spent the summer collecting oral accounts from Kiowa elders about tribal lifeways and history before the reservation period. They collected and typed their thousand-plus pages of roughly organized field notes but never published them. Benjamin Kracht brings this lost research to light, synthesizing its data with later research and his own fieldwork to produce a highly informative account of the pre-reservation Kiowa religion and its lingering effects on modern Kiowa beliefs. Particularly interesting is the extended portrayal of Kiowa beliefs of power and its positive and negative effects on people’s lives. Readers progress through various manifestations of this power in the natural world, among individuals, in a collective sense through the Sun Dance, and in sacred material objects like the Táimé bundles. Kracht weaves the many strands of information about the past into a coherent pattern, and finishes each chapter by linking the pattern to the observations he has made over the last three decades, clarifying how the modern versions of these beliefs informs contemporary Kiowa Christianity and religiosity. Kracht consistently links elements of Kiowa belief to elements found in the belief systems of other Plains tribes. The comparisons he draws add the Kiowa experience to our understanding of intertribal connections in trade and culture. The exposition is fully clear, except for its reliance on using other ethnographers’ linguistic transcriptions without phonetic standardization. This choice, especially concerning the work of the Santa Fe students, who spoke no Kiowa, obscures the identity of some concepts and people whose name recurs under wildly different spellings. It thus becomes more difficult for non-Kiowa speakers to draw certain lines of continuity beyond what Kracht explicitly spells out. This book provides a comprehensive account of traditional Kiowa beliefs. It should hold a place alongside classic works of Kiowa ethnography like Mooney’s Calendar History. It makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Plains indigenous religion, and offers Kiowa community members an engaging link to their indigenous heritage. [End Page 249] Andrew McKenzie Department of Linguistics Indigenous Studies Program University of Kansas Copyright © 2018 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Depredation and Deceit: The Making of the Jicarilla and Ute Wars in New Mexico

Gregory F. Michno's book fills an important historiographical gap in New Mexico's history regarding Native American tribes and related Indian policies during New Mexico’s early Anglo-American territorial period (1848-1912). Long before that time, Spanish colonial (1598-1821) and Mexican territorial (1821-1848) officials had enforced a dual Indian policy, one for mountain and plains tribes, another for Indian pueblos. Fearing a deal gone wrong in which New Mexico could be overrun by numerous plains or mountain tribes, Spanish officials and, later, Mexican officials in New Mexico, banned trade with such tribes as the Utes, Apache and Comanche, with the exception of the Pueblo Indians, within the region.

Mitochondrial DNA Sequencing of Middle Neolithic Human Remains of Ling-Ding Site II: Implication for the Social Structure and the Origin of Northeast Coast Taiwaneses

There is a consensus that gene flow characterizing modern Mainland Chinese arrived in Taiwan during the last 400 years, mostly from East China. However, primary genetic studies of ancient human remains of the middle Neolithic era, revealing inconsistencies between the archaic genes profile and that of modern Mainland Chinese, raised debates about the time of arrival of modern Chinese in Taiwan. To resolve this problem, this study focuses on the analysis of 3000 years BP human remains excavated from the Neolithic east coast archeological Ling-Ding site II near Hualien in Taiwan. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) recovered from five archeological human remains was analyzed to elucidate their genealogy, and to characterize their genetic relationship with the present-day aboriginal and non-aboriginal people of Taiwan. Five mtDNA haplogroups were characterized from the Ling-Ding site II skeletons, C4a2, N9a1, B4c1b2a, Z, and B4b. Except for mtDNA haplogroups B4c1b2a, commonly seen among the present-day central Taiwan Aborigines and scarce in the heavily sinicised Taiwan western plain tribes, all other haplogroups were common to urban Taiwanese and modern Mainland Chinese. It is proposed that a middle Neolithic gene flow, characterizing Modern Mainland East Asians, was introduced to Taiwan by settlers who reached the East coast of Taiwan in Hualien (Ling- Ding site II) and co-habited with Taiwan Mountain tribe Aborigines. The findings of this study may be relevant for the understanding of the middle Neolithic peopling of Taiwan by non-Austronesian speakers.

The relationship of five boarding school experiences and physical health status among Northern Plains Tribes.

American Indian (AI) boarding school attendance is related to poor physical health status; however, little is known about how specific aspects of this experience contribute to poor health. Five experiences (age of first attendance, limited family visits, forced church attendance, prohibition on practicing AI culture and traditions, and punishment for use of AI language) may be independently associated with physical health status in adulthood. We expected the effect to be greater for those who began boarding school at older ages. Data on AI boarding school attenders (n = 771) came from the AI-Service Utilization, Psychiatric Epidemiology, Risk and Protective Factors Project. Multiple linear regression models examined the association of these five experiences with physical health status. Additionally, we conducted a separate set of regressions to test for an interaction effect of age of first attendance. Each of the five experiences noted above were independently associated with poorer physical health status compared to those who did not have these experiences. An interaction effect for those punished for use of AI language and who were aged 8 or older was confirmed. Findings are consistent with reports that boarding school attendance is related to poor AI adult health. To inform AI health programs, the relationship of specific diseases and boarding school attendance should be considered.