Warrior Society Research Articles

The Cuiloni, the Patlache, and the Abominable Sin: Homosexualities in Early Colonial Nahua Society

The Cuiloni, the Patlache, and the Abominable Sin: Homosexualities in Early Colonial Nahua Society

Sankari on kuollut – Eläköön sankari

Heroic narratives tell about past exemplary figures that were often warriors in a European context. Narratives about warrior heroes served the interests of the highest strata of an aristocratic warrior society in which the narratives were created and preserved. The same applies to Icelandic Family Sagas, which derive from heroic poetry both by content and social function. Although saga heroes vary, they share characteristics such as bravery connected to fatalism and a strong sense of honour. Heroic characteristics are at their most extreme at the moment of death, of which there are numerous examples in the saga literature. However, sagas depend on genealogical and historical tradition and sometimes even the greatest of warriors die natural deaths, neutral in heroic terms. Grettis saga, the Saga of Grettir, is one of the latest Family Sagas. The death of Grettir represents a brave stand against fate, reaching the level of a myth, whereas the death of his brother Illugi represents the social aspects of heroism, significant in the Icelandic Commonwealth. Together they support each other and form an entity that illustrates well the Icelandic form of heroism.

Myth as a mobilizing force in Attic warrior society

This paper focuses on the mobilizing role of symbols and specifically on the workings of mythical theatre. Attic theatre is understood as a symbolic performance in which the comic and the tragic genres represented processes of ‘over-distancing’ and ‘under-distancing’, respectively. Instead of conceiving of tragedy as just an aesthetic or critical medium, the tragic genre is viewed as part of a complex cultural and social process that serves as a mobilizing force around the fundamental values of the polis, e.g. the warrior and his hebe. A number of cult practices are discussed in order to demonstrate the importance of warrior symbolism in Attic society. Furthermore, it is argued that the tragic performance does not present a positive and ideal image, but a violation of the social order (‘the warrior’). The Children of Herakles and other tragedies are analysed in order to illustrate the argument.

Fiefs and Vassals in Scotland: A View from Outside

In 19941 published a book in which I attempted a reinterpretation of the evidence in medieval sources about fiefs and vassalage in England, France, Germany, and Italy but not Scotland.1 Its argument was that neither the relationship that medieval historians call vassalage nor the kind of property that they call fiefs took their shape from the warrior society of the earlier Middle Ages. Rather, the evidence suggests that they owed it to the more bureaucratic governments and estate adminis trations that developed from the twelfth century, and to the arguments of the professional and academic lawyers who appeared alongside. In so far as some of the obligations and terminology that historians associate with fiefs are to be found in earlier sources, they are found chiefly in doc uments that record the relations of great churches with their tenants. This may be partly because so much of our information about the earlier period comes from records preserved by churches, but we need to con sider how far it is right to use the relations of bishops or abbots with their tenants as evidence of relations between kings and lay nobles, or between the nobles and their own followers. They were surely different. Although we have less evidence about the property of laymen before the twelfth century apart from what they held as tenants of churches, we have enough to show that the rights and obligations attached to land do not seem to have generally conformed to the feudal pattern, while such evidence as we have of political relations suggests that they were not based exclusively on the individual, interpersonal bonds medieval histo rians associate with vassalage. Before the twelfth century nobles and free men did not generally owe military service because of the grantor even the supposed grant to them or their ancestors of anything like fiefs. However they had acquired their lands, they normally held them with as full, permanent, and independent rights as their society knew. Whatever service they owed, they owed, sometimes in rough proportion to their status and wealth, not because they were vassals or tenants of a lord, but as what can be better thought of as property-owners, because they were subjects of someone more like a ruler. So far as words go, great men were

Ganienkeh: Haudenosaunee Labor-Culture and Conflict Resolution

Controversy has surrounded the Mohawk community of Ganienkeh in upstate New York since its inception and, to this day, passionate opinions accompany any consideration of Ganienkeh. 1 For the last dozen years, many have argued that Ganienkeh is merely a legal shelter for profiteering endeavors (such as Indian gaming or trafficking tobacco and alcohol) and the warrior society often associated with them. Others suggest that such endeavors do not fully represent the Ganienkeh community, and that, to whatever extent they are part of recent life at Ganienkeh, they are necessary adjustments to changing economic, political, and legal conditions and not signs of wholesale corruption. Far from academic, this disagreement has been at the root of violent tensions within Haudenosaunee government and society. 2 Unfortunately the intensity and complexity of recent developments and debates obscures a different story of Ganienkeh. Ganienkeh's founding was a rare case of Indigenous people reclaiming land from the United States. What motivated the Ganienkeh Mohawks to move so boldly, what sustained them during the years of conflict resulting from their action, and what can be learned from the Ganienkeh conflict and its resolution? Contemporary perceptions and understandings of Ganienkeh are too charged to provide sufficient context to answer questions about Ganienkeh's origins or its broader significance to Haudenosaunee-American interaction and other conflicts arising from that interaction. Therefore, without denying their significance, this article will set aside more recent controversies associated with Ganienkeh and ground an analysis of the conflict in sources generated during the conflict itself. When the Ganienkeh conflict is viewed outside the controversies of today, Haudenosaunee labor-culture stands out as a motivating and sustaining force within the Ganienkeh community as it sought to re-establish its claim on Haudenosaunee land and a Haudenosaunee way of life. Two aspects of the Ganienkeh conflict are the focus of this paper: the public discourse pertaining to the dispute and the negotiation process between the [End Page 1] state of New York and the Ganienkeh Mohawks which sought to end it. 3 I will begin by presenting historical and scholarly background on the Ganienkeh conflict. Then I will primarily attempt to show that differences between Haudenosaunee and American labor-cultures strongly contributed to the cause and continuation of the dispute while also providing a common focal point for public and official communication between otherwise disparate parties. In the process I hope this discussion of the Ganienkeh conflict connotes the possibility that labor concerns should figure prominently in discourse about other conflicts and Indigenous life in general. The Beginning of the Ganienkeh Conflict May is a precious "between time" in the Adirondack mountains of New York State when the snow is finally melting, the whine of recreational snowmobiles is fading, and stampedes of summer residents and tourists have not yet doubled or tripled a town's population. The small communities of Moose Lake and Eagle Bay probably spent 13 May 1974, like most days in May, subtly shifting the conversation from complaints about snow to complaints about mud and generally enjoying the "month between." The dawn of 14 May, however, found early arrivals for the summer season of 1974. Under cover of darkness a well-armed group of Mohawks had traveled down from reservations along the Canadian-U.S. border and occupied some six hundred acres of nearby state land, which encompassed a closed girl's camp and a body of water called Moss Lake. As a standoff developed between local residents, the New York State Police, and the Mohawks, the obscure mountain communities near Moss Lake quickly became national news. It was soon clear that, unlike tourists, the Mohawks were not leaving after the fall foliage passed. Over a year later, on 6 July 1975, The New York Times ran an article by Richard Severo describing the ongoing conflict. 4 Severo recounted that in 1797 Joseph Brandt, a Mohawk of disputed status, signed away nine million acres of Mohawk land to New York State for fifteen...

Revisiting Democratic Justice : A response to critics

I should start by thanking my critics, not least because for the most part I have been carefully and appreciatively read. In a couple of instances where my views have been misconstrued, as by Fishkin on Apartheid and inequality of opportunity and by Shiffrin on loyal opposition, this does not require much of a response since both acknowledge my actual views later in their commentaries than in the offending passages. Accordingly, I will not dwell on these issues except to reiterate that Apartheid ran afoul of several of my presumptions against hierarchy (it was avoidable, ossified, and created massive externalities and exit costs for those on whom it was imposed); that systematic inequality of opportunity of the kind invoked by Bernard Williams's warrior society violates my injunction against non-self-liquidating hierarchies at least; and that with respect to loyal opposition my argument is that unless there are opportunities for loyal opposition, disloyal opposition will be both forthcoming and legitimate. As I put it on p. 48 of Democratic Justice: "the more democratically those who win in battles over collective decisions conduct themselves in victory, the stronger is the obligation on the defeated to ensure that their opposition be loyal rather than disloyal—and vice versa."

Women in Russia and Ukraine

1. Introduction: women's studies and women's issues in Russia, Ukraine and the postSoviet states Rosalind Marsh Part I. Women in History: From the Seventeenth to the Twentieth-Century: 2. Peter the Great's two weddings: changing images of women in a transitional age Lindsey Hughes 3. Women in a warrior society: Don Cossack women 1860-1914 Shane O'Rourke 4. Teacups and coffins: the culture of Russian merchant women, 1850-1917 Catriona Kelly 5. Vera Figner and revolutionary autobiographies: the influence of gender on genre Hilde Hoogenboom 6. Equality and difference in women's history: where does Russia fit in? Linda Edmondson Part II. Women in the USSR and Post-Soviet Russia: Sexuality, Identity, Health and Reproduction: 7. Managing the female organism: doctors and the medicalization of women's paid work in Soviet Russia during the 1920s Janet Hyer 8. Innocence and sexuality in Soviet medical discourse Susan Gross Solomon 9. Abortion and women's health in Russia and the former Soviet Union Christopher Williams 10. The status of gays and lesbians in Russian-Soviet-Russian society James Riordan 11. Young women and subcultural lifestyles: a case of 'irrational needs'? Hilary Pilkington 12. 'Fullfrontal': perestroika and sexual politics Elena Stishova Part III. Women and Work: 13. Why be a shock worker or a Stakhanovite? Mary Buckley 14. Industrial working conditions and the political economy of female labour Donald Filtzer 15. 'Generals without armies, commanders without troops': Gorbachev's 'protection' of female workers Melanie Ilic 16. The return of the family farm: a future for women? Sue Bridger 17. The post-Soviet woman in the move to the market: a return to domesticity and dependence Lynne Attwood Part IV. Feminism and Politics in Russia and Ukraine: 18. The 'woman question' and problems of maternity in post-communist Russia Elena Sargent 19. The Russian women's movement Rosalind March and Anastasiia Posadskaia 20. Feminism and post-communist Ukrainian society Solomea Pavlychko 21. Christian virgin or pagan goddess: feminism versus the eternally feminine in Ukraine Marian J. Rubchak.

Gourds of the Kiowa Tia Piah Society

Construction techniques used in making gourd rattles for the Kiowa Tia Piah Society (a hereditary warrior society) are examined. As a member of the Memphis Tia Piah Society (a clan of gourd dancers which can trace its foundation to the Kiowa nation), this writer has been privileged to observe firsthand many of the current customs. Tribal elders, headmen, and friends have provided much information about those ancient customs from which these are derived. This work draws upon both written and oral tradition as well as research done as a participant–observer for a number of years. A brief history of the Kiowa Tia Piah Society is provided. Gourd rattles in their various forms are some of the oldest musical instruments found on the Great Plains of North America. Currently, gourds are made from traditional bottle gourds, small tin cans, large (military) salt shakers, and metal tea balls. An anthropological emic model has been followed throughout. [Work supported by LECAPSR.]

A time to bury the dead

At the Leon River Medicine Wheel, safely hidden in a central Texas forest, far from paved roads, they always begin the reburial ceremony with a flag song. The first thing erected at the cemetery after the tall protective fence was a flagpole. Carrying the colors is a privilege of the warrior societies—now called veterans' organizations in deference to white opinion. At this particular ceremony, the Kiowa Black Leggings do the honors, and the drum is in fine form.

Women and Inheritance in Japan's Early Warrior Society

In the second half of the Kamakura age (1190–1333), Japan's elite warrior society began to undergo a gradual but radical structural transformation. The outline of this change was the shift from a divided to a unitary inheritance practice, with a progressive consolidation of family property and authority into one “chief” (sōryō), to the exclusion of his brothers and sisters. Kinship relations changed accordingly. As in the twelfth-century Mâcon described by Georges Duby, there was a progressive emphasis on lineal solidarity, along with a trend toward multiplication of independent branch lines. Through this shift, each warrior family sought territorial and organizational cohesion—a requirement for survival in an atmosphere of intensified social unrest and competition.

The Rhetoric of Solidarity in the Poema del Cid

The Poema del Cid presents its message in a manner that is compelling in its apparent simplicity. Many readers have felt the poem's force, yet the means by which it is achieved still invite systematic examination from a number of vantage-points. Appreciation of the work's persuasive techniques must center on the hero. His exemplarity, his power as a model of ideal attitudes and behavior, attracts the reader, as it did the original audience, because of the wholeness of his character, in which actions and feelings are so closely identified as to be scarcely distinguishable. This unity of characterization, reinforced by the poem's harmony of form and content, leaves little room for deviant interpretations of the work by individual hearers. The poem holds firmly before them the hero's steadfastness and the seasoned maturity that gives him the strength to meet any challenge or reversal, and so draws them into the orbit of his personality and his world of values. His feelings and goals-the proper goals of the warrior society of twelfth-century Spain-become theirs. Through this dual identification, the poem achieves deep human significance and fulfills a valuable educational function.' It conveys those feelings and goals not by means of commentary, reflection, or abstraction, but through action. Audience identification accordingly implies not inactive ad-

`The Civilizing Process': Some Remarks on Elias's Social History

The theory of the `civilizing process' claims to be based on a detailed empirical history. In this essay, an analysis is made of the basic premisses of Elias's interpretations of `warrior society' and the absolutist state. In the former case these are the propositions that the early mediaeval period was one of near-chaos, and that the mediaeval knight lived without significant contact with monetary relations. In the case of absolutism, Elias's model of the political structure of the court is founded on a theory of the monrach's manipulation of contests between bourgeoisie and aristocracy, and the belief that the aristocracy of this period, like their warrior predecessors, were largely divorced from any direct concern with `economic rationality'. All these propositions are contested, and alternative interpretations offered for some of the evidence Elias cites.

The Canadian Sioux

Canadian are descendants of Santees, Yanktonais, and Tetons from the United States who sought refuge in Canada during the 1860s and 1870s. Living today on eight reserves in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, they have been largely neglected by anthropologists and historians and are the least well-known of all the groups. This study, by a long-time student of and other Indian cultures, fills that gap in the literature. Based on fieldwork done in the 1970s supplemented by written sources, The Canadian Sioux presents a descriptive reconstruction of their traditional culture, many aspects of which are still practiced or remembered by Canadian today although long forgotten by their relatives in the United States. It is rich in detail and presents an abundance of new information on topics such as tribal divisions, documented history and traditional history, warfare, their economy, social life, philosophy and religion, and ceremonialism. Nearly half the book is devoted to Canadian religion and describes such ceremonies as the vision quest, medicine feast, medicine dance, sun dance, warrior society dances, and the Ghost Dance. A welcome addition to American-Indian ethnography, James H. Howard's study provides a valuable overview of Canadian culture and a fine introduction to these little-known groups. late James H. Howard was a professor of anthropology at Oklahoma State University at the time of his death in 1982. His many publications include The Warrior Who Killed Custer: Personal Narrative of Chief Joseph White Bull (1968, also published by the University of Nebraska Press) and Shawnee: Ceremonialism of a Native American Tribe and Its Cultural Background (1981).

‘Stoning and Fire’ at hillfort entrances of southern Britain

Abstract Hillfort defences of southern Britain divide into the wall‐and‐fill forts of the Hallstatt period and the Low Dump and High Dump forts of the La Tene period. The earlier entrances tend to be short, narrow and timber‐lined, with gate‐houses: like wall‐and‐fill forts, they responded to tactics of attack with sword, spear and axe, designed to batter in the gate. They protected the aristocratic heirs of the heroic warrior society of the Later Bronze Age. The later entrances, at the great bi‐and tri‐vallate hillforts of Wessex and the Welsh Marches, tend to be long and stone‐lined, with projecting passages instead of gate‐houses. They developed in response to specialised tactics of attack by ‘stoning and fire’ and the threat of organised mass armies. Their hillforts were not urban settlements, but hill‐top refuges into which whole communities huddled in terror from the ravaging armies of neighbouring clans.

People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies 1830-1879 with an Epilogue 1969-1974

People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies 1830-1879 with an Epilogue 1969-1974

Igede Funeral Masquerades

T he Igede1 of Nigeria's Benue State are located both culturally and geographically in the shatter zone north of the middle Cross River bordering on the tropical forest. Most of the population of approximately 180,0002 are farmers who live in scattered villages. Although they speak a distinct language and have different origins, the Igede have been identified since colonial times with their neighbors to the northwest, the Idoma. Administratively they have accepted the latter designation to the extent that the current Och' Idoma, the paramount chief of Idoma, is from Igede. Several traditional associations, like the Achuku secret society and the Anjenu possession cult, are common to both groups.3 In addition, the Igede and Idoma have cultural ties to other groups in the area southeast of the Niger-Benue confluence. For example, the New Yam Festival, warrior societies, and the funeral as the dominant rite of passage also exist among the Iyala, Igala, and Ibo. Consequently, elements relating to Igede funeral ritual discussed here may also be applicable to nearby peoples. The Igede funeral, as the most significant of the life-cycle rituals, is the most elaborately celebrated. Indeed, it is only in this context that full-size masks appear, as part of the performance complex of the village music associations.4 In commemorating the passage of a community member's spirit into the ancestral realm, a funeral renews the relationship between the world of the living and the world of the spirits and reaffirms traditional values and perceptions. As a receptacle for supernatural forces, the mask invests the ceremony with ancestral authority Its presence confirms that the deceased was a responsible member of society and belonged to an association of political, religious, and social importance, and it projects this status into the afterlife.

People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies, 1830-1879, with an Epilogue, 1969-1974

Journal Article People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies, 1830–1879, with an Epilogue, 1969–1974. By Peter John Powell. New York: Harper and Row, 1981 Get access Francis Paul Prucha Francis Paul Prucha Marquette University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 70, Issue 2, September 1983, Pages 383–384, https://doi.org/10.2307/1900211 Published: 01 September 1983

Pan-Indianism in Native American Music and Dance

In my 1955 paper on the subject (Howard 1955) I defined PanIndianism as the process by which certain American groups are losing their tribal distinctiveness and in its place are developing a generalized, nontribal Indian culture. Some of the elements in this culture are modifications of old tribal customs, others are reworkings of elements from the major White culture, while a third group of elements are innovations peculiar to Pan-Indianism itself. The content of that part of Pan-Indianism which is Indian-derived stems largely from the PrairiePlains culture area, though there are minor elements from the Northeast (certain costume items), the Southeast (the Leading or Stomp dance) and the Southwest (the Pueblo-style Eagle dance). Since 1955 Pan-Indianism has proceeded apace in its diffusion. The principal manifestations of Pan-Indianism that involve music and dance are the intertribal pow-wow in the secular sphere and peyotism in the religious sphere. In the pow-wow the principal dance forms are a modified version of the Hethushka or War dance (also known as Omaha dance, Grass dance, Hot dance and Wolf dance in various tribal settings), which has been stripped of most of its warrior society and religious features and has been opened to participation by both sexes; the Round dance; and, since 1970, the Gourd dance. It may be followed, depending upon the locale, by the Leading or Stomp dance, the Forty-nine dance, or the Owl dance as an after-pow-wow feature. All of these dance forms have an accompanying repertoire of music as does the Peyote religion. Before I discuss the spread of these forms in their Pan-Indian setting I would like to anticipate a criticism often leveled at the concept of PanIndianism, a criticism based upon a misunderstanding of the concept. This is that Pan-Indianism is nothing more than intertribal diffusion, and that Native Americans have always enjoyed giving and receiving new religious cults, dances, and musical forms and that many ceremonies such as the Sun dance, Midewiwin, and Drum religion, which enjoy a wide areal distribution, are hence Pan-Indian. I am quite aware of this sort of diffusion but I do not regard it as Pan-Indianism. In the days when cultures were more or less intact, the borrowing of a new warrior society

People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies 1830–1879, With an Epilogue 1969–1974 by Father Peter John Powell

People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies 1830–1879, With an Epilogue 1969–1974 by Father Peter John Powell

People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies, 1830-1879, with an Epilogue, 1969-1974

People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies, 1830-1879, with an Epilogue, 1969-1974