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Intersecting Systems of Knowledge and the Politics of Documentation in Southwesternist Anthropology, 1880-1930

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Intersecting Systems of Knowledge and the Politics of Documentation in Southwesternist Anthropology, 1880-1930 Secretsharers: Intersecting Systems of Knowledge and the Politics of Documentation in Southwesternist Anthropology, 1880-1930 by Adam Fulton Johnson A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) in the University of Michigan 2018 Doctoral Committee: Professor Howard Brick (Co-Chair) Associate Professor John Carson (Co-Chair) Professor Philip Deloria, Harvard University Associate Professor Elizabeth F. S. Roberts Assistant Professor Joy Rohde Adam Fulton Johnson [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0002-5683-8449 © Adam Fulton Johnson 2018 Acknowledgements Some relationships need not be documented and publicized. But other forms should: in particular, acknowledgements for contributions to my intellectual and personal life. I should first recognize the diligence, candor and encouragement of my brilliant dissertation co-chairs, Howard Brick and John Carson. Not everyone is lucky enough to find inspiring and supportive advisors. Phil Deloria, who joined the project late and without much proof that I had anything to say, gave important feedback and has shaped the future of this project at the book level. Liz Roberts and Joy Rohde, also dissertation committee members, provided loads of advice and encouragement as the dissertation came to a close. I want to expressly thank other friends and colleagues from my time in the University of Michigan’s History Department: Robyn d’Avignon, Juanita Bernal, Secil Binboga, Allison Caine, Abigail Celis, Kevin Donovan, Shannon Dowd, Kimberly Harn, Zehra Hashmi, Drew Haxby, Gabriel Horowitz, Rachel Miller, Davide Orsini, Emma Park, Andres Pletch, Amanda Reid, Richard Reinhardt, and Nik Sweet. Brenden Beck, Michael Casper, and I found ourselves in doctoral programs at the same time, though at different institutions. Special thanks go to Daniel Williford, who kindly read all of my chapters and offered detailed feedback. The support of Michigan’s Science and Technology Studies groups helped my project along. Past and present, thank you: Finn Brunton, Paul Edwards, Gabrielle Hecht, Dan Hirschman, Emily Merchant, Johnathan Puff, Christian Sandvig, Perrin Selcer, Alexandra Stern, and Katie Wataha. Colleagues in other places stimulated my thinking in ways they may not recognize. Let me acknowledge their contributions here. At the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (and a related conference at the German Historical Institute): Maria Avxentevskaya, Dan Bouk, Lorraine Daston, Sebastian Felten, Donatella Germanese, Hansun Hsiung, Lily Huang, Philipp Lehmann, Kyrill Kunakhovich, Christine von Oertzen, Martha Poon, Theodore Porter, John Sabapathy, and Hannah Turner. Members of the History of Anthropology Newsletter and participants in the “Indigenous Hospitalities” working group sessions (at conferences and over Skype) have kept me intellectually engaged and, most ii importantly, kept our field vibrant. Special thanks to Nick Barron, Ira Bashkow, Iris Clever, Rosanna Dent, John Gee, Hilary Leatham, Adrianna Link, Joanna Radin, John Tresch, Laurel Waycott, Isaiah Wilner, and Adrian Young. A summer fellowship at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe provided time for writing and growth. It was my good fortune to meet Erin Debenport, Louise Lamphere, Nancy Lewis, and Khalil Johnson at SAR. Artists Max Early (Laguna) and Norvin Johnson (Diné) impressed me greatly, and I’m happy they still check in on me. Michael Brown and Lara Holt have both offered ongoing, much-appreciated intellectual support. Special thanks go to Deborah Winslow and my fellows cohort, Liam Brady, Devaka Premawardhana, Melissa Melero (Fallon Paiute-Shoshone), and Jackson Rushing. Additional thanks to Maria Spray, Brian Vallo (Acoma), and Dominick LaCapra. The American Philosophical Society has been an excellent resource for the history of anthropology. I’d like to thank Patrick Spero and Brian Carpenter for helping me orient my research. The APS provided a breakthrough in my research. I hope to work in their wonderful library again soon. On the opposite coast, I remember fondly my time at the Southwest Museum. Liza Posas and Mallory Furnier were not only encouraging and helpful, but also welcoming friends in Los Angeles. The Huntington Library’s generous support was essential for research and writing. Thanks to Juliana Barr for lunches in the Chinese Pavilion. An assortment of people have contributed to my scholarly journey, and they too deserve recognition: Erika Bsumek, Allison Colborne, Jay Cook, James Faris, Gillian Feeley-Harnik, Ramón Gutiérrez, Tomas Jaehn, Mark Jarzombek, Anthony Mora, Nancy Parezo, Harriet Ritvo, Kristal Smentek, Thomas Trautmann, and Michael Witgen. Surely, I’m forgetting some, and I hope they will forgive me. To my parents, Bill and Denise: I could never adequately articulate how deeply I appreciate your love. I’m so happy that my parents, my sisters, Claire and Emma, and our dogs, Francisco and Gui, are a part of my life. Katy Holihan, my partner, is so important to me. Convention has it that partners go last, after all creative synonyms for “support” and “encouragement” have been exhausted. I’ll accept that, and leave it as understood that she’s the most important person to me. Finally, to everyone who has taken the time to read this work, in part or whole: Thank you, too. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii List of Images v Abstract vi Introduction 1 Chapters 1 — The Paper Technologies of Ethnological Data Accumulation 25 2 — Documenting the Ineffable: Navajo Singers and the Science of Ceremonialism 59 3 — Secrets of Pueblo Thought: Compartmentalization and the Contours of Knowledge Access 100 4 — The Price of Fear: Shifting Valuations of Information and Clandestine Exchange Relationships 132 5 — Remote and Assisted Ethnography: New Models of Ethnological Data Production 160 Conclusion 201 Images 209 Bibliography 212 iv List of Images Image 1 – George Gibbs’s Schedule 209 Image 2 – Examples of Morgan’s Schedule Blanks 210 Image 3 – Pueblo Ecumene Map 211 v Abstract This dissertation examines shifting relationships between Anglo anthropologists and indigenous informants in the Southwestern United States, 1880–1930. Through an in-depth study of Southwesternist anthropological fieldwork, this dissertation explores the politics of ethnographic documentation, presenting anthropologists’ strategies and motivations for obtaining certain sorts of ethnographic data, and the management of ethnographic inquiry by indigenous communities that hosted (or tolerated) anthropologists. Southwesternist ethnographers pioneered fieldwork immersion in the 1880s and 1890s, but soon found that both Pueblo and Navajo social restrictions on the free flow of knowledge complicated attempts to produce ethnographic documentation of ceremonial practices. Ethnographers, in response to resistance to public documentation, forged more intimate, even clandestine, relationships with select informants to obtain novel and “secret” information. Despite the idea that modern anthropology is rooted in participant observation, Secretsharers reveals a turn away from it in the early twentieth century, toward tactics that isolated individual informants to provide in-depth cultural information on sensitive issues about which an Anglo (or any outsider) could not openly ask. Southwesternist ethnographers grappled with the professional tensions of discretion and disclosure in their inquiries among Pueblo and Navajo communities. On the one hand, anthropologists needed to practice discretion regarding the sensitive components of sacred events and the identities of their informants. On the other hand, scientific standards demanded disclosure of ethnographic documentation to be considered a contribution to “scientific” knowledge. Even as anthropologists sought indigenous “secrets,” they worked to keep their ethnographic publications “secret” from the communities they presumed to describe. The disjunction between scientific epistemological standards and Pueblo and Navajo beliefs in the importance of contextualized, situated knowledge spotlights the unforeseen consequences of information accumulation and dissemination within scientific knowledge production—the presumption that the science of humankind has a “right to know,” regardless of risks to “secretsharing” informants or to the integrity of sacred, situated knowledge systems. vi Introduction Beginning in the late 1800s, Pueblo and Navajo Indian communities received a new sort of Anglo visitor, men and women calling themselves anthropologists, who came asking questions about their traditional beliefs, languages, and lifeways. These anthropologists came clutching pens and notepads; they asked different questions than other non-Indians, more familiar outsiders such as missionaries, government bureaucrats, traders, or local farmers and ranchers. For one, anthropologists were particularly interested in the language of each indigenous community, even though many Pueblos and Navajos could speak Spanish, the longstanding trade language of the region. They were also interested in aspects of local spiritual life. Whereas a history of spiritual repression from Catholic and later Protestant missionaries lived on in many an Indian community’s memory, a history surely known to all Indian groups in the Southwest, the reasons for newcomers’ interest could not be readily apprehended. At first, the outsiders asked basic questions of everyday life: how the people grew crops or raised their sheep, or what they called the seasons and the
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