Pristine Aborigines Or Victims of Progress? the Western Shoshones in the Anthropological Imagination

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Pristine Aborigines Or Victims of Progress? the Western Shoshones in the Anthropological Imagination Current Anthropology Volume 50, Number 6, December 2009 849 Pristine Aborigines or Victims of Progress? The Western Shoshones in the Anthropological Imagination by Richard O. Clemmer In the anthropological literature, the Western Shoshones as presented by Julian Steward loom large as a group of people who adapted as best they could to scarce resources in the high interior desert areas of North America: Utah and Nevada. Steward’s work has become entrenched and enshrined as unassailable, at least from a methodological point of view. I suggest that Steward’s Shoshones are an example of a tradition that has become entrenched in the discipline of anthropology, resulting in its constant replication as a form of particular intellectual authority despite the development of new approaches. Attention is focused on Steward’s actual data and the historical circumstances that produced them. In light of these historical circumstances, it might be more accurate to conceptualize Steward’s Shoshones as “victims of progress” than as a pristine group of hunter-gather-foragers. Examination of three cases of Western Shoshone subsistence along the Humboldt River in 1828–1829, Ruby Valley and vicinity in the 1860s, and the mountains and valleys of south-central Nevada in the 1860s and 1870s supports and illustrates this point. The Western Shoshone Mystique landers and the Trobriand Islanders, the Western Shoshones carry a revered anthropological mystique. In the anthropological literature, the Western Shoshones loom Steward’s work has become entrenched and enshrined as large as a group of people who adapted as best they could to unassailable, at least from a methodological point of view. scarce resources in the high interior desert areas of North Not that there have not been critics and dissenters. The orig- America: Utah and Nevada. Until Lee introduced the !Kung inal dissenters to the wider implications of Steward’s theo- into anthropology (Lee 1968, 1979, 1984), the Western Sho- retical statement focused squarely on the very resources of shones were presented as the quintessential hunter-gather- the Great Basin that Steward downplayed: riparian resources. foragers getting by on scarce resources. The assumption with The view that neither Steward nor Jennings (1957, 1968, which anthropology as a discipline greeted the introduction 1973), who based his concept of the “desert culture” on Stew- of the Western Shoshones into its kit bag of case studies ard’s (1938) work, did not sufficiently take lakeshore resources (Steward 1938, 1955) was that, as with Radcliffe-Brown’s An- into account has long been held by archaeologists Heizer daman Islanders, Malinowski’s Trobriand Islanders, and Ni- (1956, 1966), Napton (1969, 55), Rozaire (1963), and Swan- muendaju’s (1942) Serente, these were “pristine” peoples, un- son (1966), among others (Davis 1966; Rhode 1999, 37). They affected by contact with the outside world until the were later joined by ethnographer Stewart (1980). Other crit- introduction of horses and armed warfare. In fact, Steward ics, particularly Rappaport (1967, 1968) and Crum (1987, (1955) himself certainly gave this impression: his chapter on 1990, 1999, 123), have criticized Steward for portraying West- the Western Shoshones in his highly influential Theory of ern Shoshone culture as primarily “gastric” and have “criti- Culture Change distinctly contrasted the “aboriginal times” of cized Steward and his followers for neglecting environmental the Western Shoshones with the time when their “territory phenomena other than food resources” (Vayda and McCay was occupied by white settlers” (1955, 112), clearly implying 1975, 295). And finally, recent reexamination of Julian Stew- that the previous 12 pages of description (1955, 101–112), ard as an anthropologist and as a major influence in the based on his 1938 monograph did, in fact, present Shoshones academic world (Blackhawk 1999; Clemmer, Myers, and Rud- and their culture in a pristine state. Like the Andaman Is- den 1999; Kerns 2003; Patterson and Lauria-Perricelli 1999; Pinkoski 2008a) certainly compels close attention to the spirit Richard O. Clemmer is Professor and Chair of the Department of of the times and the state of the discipline that to a large Anthropology at the University of Denver (Sturm Hall 146, 2000 earned him his important place in anthropological theory (cf. East Asbury, Denver, Colorado 80208, U.S.A. [[email protected]]). Harris 1968, 644–670). This paper was submitted 3 VII 08 and accepted 6 X 08. However, my focus here is on a different issue. I wish to ᭧ 2009 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2009/5006-0004$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/646607 This content downloaded from 134.121.167.211 on March 15, 2016 15:02:59 PM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 850 Current Anthropology Volume 50, Number 6, December 2009 refocus attention to Steward’s actual data and the historical the discipline of anthropology that result in the constant rep- circumstances that produced them. This refocus requires at- lication of particular intellectual authorities, almost like the tention to one particular issue: probable availability of and reenactment of rituals or the construction of a myth that access to ecological resources and consequent population lev- reaffirm the discipline’s image of itself and the social structure els within the historical context in which Shoshones and their that maintains it. One of these traditions is that a body of relationships to resources were first observed, that is, between ethnographic data exists that constitutes the foundation of 1828, the year of first systematic intrusion and observations anthropological assumptions and that this body of data can by Europeans, and the early 1860s, the earliest period that be constantly invoked and reinvoked to provide a basis for Steward’s consultants—whom he was interviewing in 1935 subsequent anthropological research, even when new ap- and 1936—could have remembered with any accuracy. Several proaches brought in from other disciplines or developed reexaminations of historical circumstances give reason to within anthropology itself urge resettling of that foundation question the assumption of “aboriginality.” This assumption on firmer ground. Space constraints preclude an exhaustive underlies Steward’s work and is denoted in the title of his review of all of Steward’s data here; however, I would like to groundbreaking ethnography, Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Socio- examine Western Shoshone subsistence in three areas and political Groups, and is reinforced in several chapters of his time periods: the Humboldt River in 1826–1829; Ruby Valley heavily influential Theory of Culture Change. In 1987 I sug- and vicinity in the 1860s; and the mountains and valleys of gested that the large numbers of emigrants trooping through south-central Nevada in the 1860s and 1870s, particularly the Western Shoshone country with ox-drawn wagons, mules, Reese River Valley and vicinity. and horses along the Humboldt River road each summer, especially between 1848 and 1860, would have severely com- promised the degree to which resources would have been Newe: The Western Shoshone People available to Western Shoshones. The emigrants poached game animals, shot wild fowl, secured fish, and grazed their animals The Western Shoshones, or the Newe, were historically Uto- wherever they found a bit of grass. In turn, Shoshones selec- Aztekan-speakers who were linguistically related to Utes and tively took a horse or steer whenever they could do so. Despite Paiutes and who made their living by gathering, foraging, occasionally successful retaliation by emigrants, Shoshones hunting, fishing and doing a little farming here and there. seem to have successfully maintained a presence along the They call themselves “Newe,” “Nuwa,” or “Numa,” or a var- Humboldt, although perhaps in diminished numbers. Thus, iation on one of those terms depending on dialect, and are although their use and occupation of this part of their ter- identifiable as “Shoshone” on the basis of cultural and lin- ritory was not prevented, it was certainly altered. In 1999 guistic criteria. Anthropologists categorize them as either Fowler et al. (1999) documented Western Shoshones’ quick “western,” “northern,” or “eastern” not only on the basis of adaptation to the mining economy far to the west, in Death geographical location but also on the basis of shared cultural Valley in the 1860s, by growing crops and selling them to the characteristics. For Eastern Shoshones, home was the Wind miners. Steward made mention neither of the emigrants and River Range and the headwaters of the Green and Wind rivers their possible impacts nor the homesteads and cash-cropping just to the south and west of it. They rode their horses south that his consultants undoubtedly remembered and probably to the Plains to hunt bison in the late summer and early fall talked about. Nor did he mention anything about Death Valley and into the Snake River drainage in the summer to trade Shoshones’ involvement in the mining economy (Fowler et with other Shoshones and with the Nez Perce. Because they al. 1999, 56, 57). were mounted, they had the largest geographical range of any I wish to extend this critical reexamination of Steward’s of the Great Basin groups, but they were constantly on the presentation of the Western Shoshones and to suggest two lookout against Blackfeet, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe who things about the place of the Western Shoshones in the an- clashed with them when they came down from the north to thropological literature. First, if Western Shoshones are to hunt the bison in Wyoming. Among their resources, they have a place in that literature, it might be more accurate to relied heavily on bison as well as on pronghorn antelope, conceptualize them as “victims of progress” (e.g., Bodley mule deer, elk, fish, and rabbits. Their horse-based lifestyle 1990) or perhaps as reluctant participants in it than as a engendered a degree of political and military cohesion that pristine group of hunter-gather-foragers.
Recommended publications
  • WAU - Whereabouts Unknown Account Information
    WAU - Whereabouts Unknown Account Information WESTERN REGION 24 July 2018 Name Tribe EASTERN NEVADA FIELD OFFICE AHUMADA, SHARLENE G TE-MOAK WEST SHOSHONE (ELKO) ALVARADO, AMY A GOSHUTE INDIANS, UT ALVARADO, ROSIE S GOSHUTE INDIANS, UT ASTA, DELORES* GOSHUTE INDIANS, UT ATKINS, MARTIN DANIEL WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV BACON, LINDSEY D WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV BAIR, MARLENE GOSHUTE INDIANS, UT BAKER, TOBY* RUBY VALLEY RESERVATION BARNET, DARLENE A WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV BARREDO, BRENDA L TE-MOAK WEST SHOSHONE (ELKO) BEAR, GARTH GOSHUTE INDIANS, UT BEGAY, BETTY G GOSHUTE INDIANS, UT BENEVENTE, JOAN ROBERTA TE-MOAK WEST SHOSHONE (ELKO) BERAUN, CAROLONA P WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV BITT, ANITA J WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV BROADWAY, DEBORAH TE-MOAK WEST SHOSHONE (ELKO) BUFFALO, MERLE WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV BUFFALO, MIRINDA WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV CAMAS, EUGENE WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV CHARLEY, KENNETH TE-MOAK WEST SHOSHONE (ELKO) CHARLIE, LATIEA D TE-MOAK WEST SHOSHONE (ELKO) COFFEY LETONSA, DWAYNE MAX* WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV CONKLIN, JARED J TE-MOAK WEST SHOSHONE (ELKO) COTA, SELENE WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV DAVIS, TIMOTHY L WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV Page 1 of 5 WAU - Whereabouts Unknown Account Information WESTERN REGION 24 July 2018 Name Tribe DECKER, KEITH WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV DICK, CHARLENE L DUCKWATER SHOSHONE TRIBE DICK, THERESA MARGARET TE-MOAK WEST SHOSHONE (ELKO) DICK, VICKIE A WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV DIXON, MALANIE R WESTERN SHOSHONE INDIANS, NV DOUGHERTY, SHAUN L TE-MOAK WEST
    [Show full text]
  • State and Private Forestry, Tribal Relations Regions 1 & 4 Tribes Of
    State and Private Forestry, Tribal Relations Regions 1 & 4 Tribes of Interest by State State Tribe(s) Idaho Coeur D’ Alene Tribe Idaho Nez Perce Tribe Idaho Kootenai Tribe of Idaho Idaho Shoshone-Bannock Tribes Montana Blackfeet Nation Montana Chippewa Tribe Montana/Wyoming Crow Nation Montana Fort Belknap Indian Community Montana Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux Tribes Montana Northern Cheyenne Tribe Montana Rocky Boys Chippewa Cree Montana Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes Montana Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians Nevada Battle Mountain Band (Shoshone) Nevada/California Benton Paiute Nevada/California Bishop Colony (Paiute-Shoshone) Nevada/California Bridgeport Indian Colony (Paiute) Nevada Carson Colony (Washoe) Nevada Dresslerville Community (Washoe) Nevada Duckwater Shoshone Tribe Nevada Elko Band (Western Shoshone) Nevada Ely Shoshone Nevada Fallon Colony (Paiute and Shoshone) Nevada Fort McDermitt Nevada Las Vegas Paiute Nevada Lovelock Paiute Nevada Moapa Band of Paiute Nevada Pyramid Lake Paiute Nevada Reno-Sparks Colony (Washoe, Paiute, Shoshone) 1 State Tribe(s) Nevada Shoshone-Paiute Tribes Nevada South Fork Band Council Nevada Stewart Community Council Nevada Summit Lake Paiute Tribe Nevada Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Nevada/California Timbi-sha Shoshone Band Nevada Walker River Paiute Tribe Nevada/California Washoe Tribe: Includes: Carson, Dresslerville, Stewart, Washoe, Reno-Sparks, Woodsfords Colonies Nevada Wells Band Colony Nevada Winnemucca Colony Council (Paiute and Shoshone) Nevada/California Woodsfords
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond Nature and Culture
    Book Reviews Perspectives from Gene Anderson’s Bookshelf Beyond Nature and Culture Philippe Descola. Translated by Janet Lloyd. 2013. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Xxii +463 pp. $35.00 (paperback), $65.00 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-22621-236-4 (paperback), 978-0-22614-445-0 (hardcover). Reviewed by Eugene N. Anderson Reviewer address: Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA. Email: [email protected] Received: April 8, 2015 Volume: 6(1):208-211 Published: December 19, 2015 © 2015 Society of Ethnobiology Recently, anthropologists have been concerned with is the latest stage in our field’s history of paying the “ontological turn,” a recent term for an old serious attention to what “the natives” say, as tendency in the field. Anthropologists have always opposed to writing it off as mere myth or error. looked at local worldviews, cosmologies, philoso- Indigenous and traditional people are at least as good phies, and knowledge systems. Recently, a deeper and at thinking as anyone else, and ignoring their philoso- more philosophical concern for such things has led to phy is as foolish as ignoring their now-famed wider use of the term ontology, which is the field of knowledge of plants and animals. Some of the philosophy concerned with what is, what is not, and conclusions reached in traditional societies may seem what might be. Closely related fields include episte- strange, but some philosophers in the European mology—the study of what we can and can’t know, tradition have rather different ideas too, after all. It is and how we know it—and phenomenology, the study the underlying perceptions and basic principles that of what we think we know: what “phenomena” we matter, and they are what Descola studies.
    [Show full text]
  • Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone Land Use in Northern Nevada: a Class I Ethnographic/Ethnohistoric Overview
    U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Bureau of Land Management NEVADA NORTHERN PAIUTE AND WESTERN SHOSHONE LAND USE IN NORTHERN NEVADA: A CLASS I ETHNOGRAPHIC/ETHNOHISTORIC OVERVIEW Ginny Bengston CULTURAL RESOURCE SERIES NO. 12 2003 SWCA ENVIROHMENTAL CON..·S:.. .U LTt;NTS . iitew.a,e.El t:ti.r B'i!lt e.a:b ~f l-amd :Nf'arat:1.iern'.~nt N~:¥G~GI Sl$i~-'®'ffl'c~. P,rceP,GJ r.ei l l§y. SWGA.,,En:v,ir.e.m"me'Y-tfol I €on's.wlf.arats NORTHERN PAIUTE AND WESTERN SHOSHONE LAND USE IN NORTHERN NEVADA: A CLASS I ETHNOGRAPHIC/ETHNOHISTORIC OVERVIEW Submitted to BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT Nevada State Office 1340 Financial Boulevard Reno, Nevada 89520-0008 Submitted by SWCA, INC. Environmental Consultants 5370 Kietzke Lane, Suite 205 Reno, Nevada 89511 (775) 826-1700 Prepared by Ginny Bengston SWCA Cultural Resources Report No. 02-551 December 16, 2002 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ................................................................v List of Tables .................................................................v List of Appendixes ............................................................ vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................1 CHAPTER 2. ETHNOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW .....................................4 Northern Paiute ............................................................4 Habitation Patterns .......................................................8 Subsistence .............................................................9 Burial Practices ........................................................11
    [Show full text]
  • Anthropology in Israel: Professionals in Stormy Days
    History of Anthropology Newsletter Volume 31 Issue 2 December 2004 Article 4 1-1-2004 Anthropology in Israel: Professionals in Stormy Days Orit Abuhav Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/han Part of the Anthropology Commons, and the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons Recommended Citation Abuhav, Orit (2004) "Anthropology in Israel: Professionals in Stormy Days," History of Anthropology Newsletter: Vol. 31 : Iss. 2 , Article 4. Available at: https://repository.upenn.edu/han/vol31/iss2/4 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/han/vol31/iss2/4 For more information, please contact [email protected]. West, W. Richard et al. 2000. The Changing Presentation of the American Indian: Museums and Native Cultures. Washington, DC: National Museum of the American Indian-Seatde, WA: University ofWashington Press. ANTHROPOLOGY IN ISRAEL: PROFESSIONALS IN STORMY DAYS OritAbuhav Beit Berl College, Israel This overview seeks to draw the history of anthropology in Israel in broad stokes and with a contextual perspective from the mid-1920s to the beginning of the 21st century.1 Studies of the characteristics of national anthropologies have assumed that the state-a social/political/bureaucratic/ cultural/national body-is a legitimate unit of analysis. National anthropologies deal with the sociopolitical and historical context of producing anthropological knowledge. The linkage between processes of nation building and anthropology in 50-year-old Israel makes the literature on anthropologies in the new independent states and the developed world relevant to the Israeli case (Ben Ari and Van- Bremen, forthcoming; Alatas, 2001). Some works that deal with the complex center- periphery relations in anthropology, such as Gerholm and Hannerz (1982) and Gupta and Ferguson (1997), shed light on the discipline in Israel.
    [Show full text]
  • Julian H. Steward: a Contributor to Fact and Theory in Cultural Anthropology” in Process and Pattern in Culture: Es- Says in Honor of Julian H
    NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES JULIAN HAYNES S TE W ARD 1902—1972 A Biographical Memoir by RO BE R T A. MANNERS Any opinions expressed in this memoir are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences. Biographical Memoir COPYRIGHT 1996 NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS WASHINGTON D.C. Courtesy of the University of Illinois JULIAN HAYNES STEWARD January 31, 1902–February 6, 1972 BY ROBERT A. MANNERS ULIAN HAYNES STEWARD, ANTHROPOLOGIST, was born in Wash- Jington, D.C., the son of Thomas G., chief of the Board of Examiners of the U.S. Patent Office, and Grace Garriott, whose brother, Edward Garriott, was chief forecaster of the U.S. Weather Bureau. In an autobiographical sketch prepared for the National Academy of Sciences, Steward remarked that nothing in his family background or in his early education accounted for his later interest in anthropology. On the other hand, his school and neighborhood in the suburbs of Washington involved him in close association with the children of writ- ers, senators, representatives, doctors, and “generally per- sons of some distinction” who apparently did contribute to a developing interest in intellectual matters. When he was sixteen, Steward was admitted to the newly established Deep Springs Preparatory School (now Deep Springs College), a school located near Death Valley and devoted to the development of practical skills and to the promotion “of the highest well-being.” At this time, he said This memoir was originally prepared for inclusion in the multivolume American Na- tional Biography to be published by Oxford University Press.
    [Show full text]
  • Leslie White (1900-1975)
    Neoevolutionism Leslie White Julian Steward Neoevolutionism • 20th century evolutionists proposed a series of explicit, scientific laws liking cultural change to different spheres of material existence. • Although clearly drawing upon ideas of Marx and Engels, American anthropologists could not emphasize Marxist ideas due to reactionary politics. • Instead they emphasized connections to Tylor and Morgan. Neoevolutionism • Resurgence of evolutionism was much more apparent in U.S. than in Britain. • Idea of looking for systematic cultural changes through time fit in better with American anthropology because of its inclusion of archaeology. • Most important contribution was concern with the causes of change rather than mere historical reconstructions. • Changes in modes of production have consequences for other arenas of culture. • Material factors given causal priority Leslie White (1900-1975) • Personality and Culture 1925 • A Problem in Kinship Terminology 1939 • The Pueblo of Santa Ana 1942 • Energy and the Evolution of Culture 1943 • Diffusion Versus Evolution: An Anti- evolutionist Fallacy 1945 • The Expansion of the Scope of Science 1947 • Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropology: A Rejoinder 1947 • The Science of Culture 1949 • The Evolution of Culture 1959 • The Ethnology and Ethnography of Franz Boas 1963 • The Concept of Culture 1973 Leslie White • Ph.D. dissertation in 1927 on Medicine Societies of the Southwest from University of Chicago. • Taught by Edward Sapir. • Taught at University of Buffalo & University of Michigan. • Students included Marshall Sahlins and Elman Service. • A converted Boasian who went back to Morgan’s ideas of evolutionism after reading League of the Iroquois. • Culture is based upon symbols and uniquely human ability to symbolize. • White calls science of culture "culturology" • Claims that "culture grows out of culture" • For White, culture cannot be explained biologically or psychologically, but only in terms of itself.
    [Show full text]
  • Is Archaeology Anthropology?
    Is Archaeology Anthropology? Deborah L. Nichols, Dartmouth College Rosemary A. Joyce, University of California, Berkeley Susan D. Gillespie, University of Florida Archeology is anthropology...save that the people archeology studies happen to be dead. —Braidwood (1959:79) n a famous phrase, Philip Phillips (1955:246-247) of archaeology, some of them quite successful (notably Istated that "New World archaeology is anthropology at Boston University and Calgary University; Ferrie 2001; or it is nothing." A few years later, Robert Braidwood Wiseman 1980, 1983), recent events have brought this made a similar characterization for the Old World (see issue greater attention and garnered more broad-based epigraph). That these well-established archaeologists support for separation. They have also provoked equally were motivated to make such pronouncements indicates passionate arguments from the other side. a sense of uncertainty even then of the relationship be- Most visible among the recent proposals for an au- tween archaeology and anthropology. This uncertainty tonomous archaeology was the forum "Archaeology Is has not abated, and nearly 50 years later the relationship Archaeology" organized by T. Douglas Price at the 2001 has become more strained. Archaeology in the United Society for American Archaeology meeting (reported in States, as in many other countries, is viable outside of Wiseman 2001,2002). It motivated a Point-Counterpoint anthropology. Academically it is housed in nonanthro- exchange among James Wiseman (2002), Robert Kelly pology departments, institutes, and interdisciplinary pro- (2002), and Susan Lees (2002) in the SAA Archaeologi- grams at a number of universities. Most professional cal Record, with Kelly (SAA President) and Lees (co- archaeologists are employed outside the academy where editor of American Anthropologist) arguing against their identity as anthropologists (if it exists) is often separation from anthropology.
    [Show full text]
  • Frank Temoke Hereditary Chief of the Western Shoshone
    Testimony of Frank Temoke Hereditary Chief of the Western Shoshone The following testimony is not written in Frank Temoke's own words, but rather as I interpret his meaning. Keep in mind that Frank was raised in a period when whites and Indians communicated in simple terms, a language often referred to as pigeon English. Having been raised among the native Shoshone People and having them a my playmates during my growing years, I must say that I am as comfortable with such language as any english, and believe that the following is very close to the language Frank would use if he had command of modern English. ~1Y~~ For the purpose of passing along testimony of how I remember things as they happened during my lifetime, and things told me by people who have gone before me, I am having the following put in writing. For background it is important that it's understood that although I was not born until 1903, many of the old ways remained during much of my lifetime. My people worked at jobs provided on ranches and mines, and even the railroad, but only for short periods. Much of the time we spent living in our old way. School to Indians seemed unimportant and neither my wife, Theresa, nor I ever learned to read. But not being educated has not stopped us from doing what we have felt was right, and learning all we could during our lives. I am proud that before I retired in 1972, I managed the Circle Bar Ranch for Charles and Peggy Evans here i~ Ruby Valley.
    [Show full text]
  • The Transformation of Cultural Anthropology : the Decline of Ecology and Structure and the Rise of Political Economy and the Cultural Construction of Social Reality*
    The Transformation of Cultural Anthropology : The Decline of Ecology and Structure and the Rise of Political Economy and the Cultural Construction of Social Reality* William P. MITCHELL" Deux principales approches dominent la recherche anthropologique actuelle aux Etats-Unis : l'économie politique et la construction cultu­ relle de l'« autre », motifs qui ont largement remplacé les analyses éco­ logiques et strucluralo-symboliques proposées il y a encore dix ans. Cet article rend compte de ces développements dans l'ethnographie des Andes de ces vingt-cinq dernières années. Dans les Andes, pendant les années 1970 et 1980, de nombreux cher­ cheurs ont étudié l'écosystème vertical, stimulés par l'hypothèse de l'ar­ chipel vertical de John Murra et l'écologie culturelle de Julián Steward et Marvin Harris. L'hypothèse de Murra et le fort zeitgeist écologique des années 1970 ont orienté la recherche andine pendant plus de deux This is a slightly revised version of a talk presented to the Five Field Update panel of the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges at the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA, November, 1992. I am grateful to the Monmouth University Grants and Sabbaticals Committee for supporting various aspects of my research. Barbara Jaye read several drafts of the paper and has provided me many helpful suggestions. I am grateful to Monica Barnes, Jane Freed, Sean Mitchell, Barbara Price and Glenn Stone for their comments on the paper. I also thank Constance Sutton and Sean Mitchell for demonstrating to me the utility of incorporating identity and construction into issues of class and power.
    [Show full text]
  • A Traditional Use Study of the Hagerman
    A TRADITIONAL USE STUDY OF THE I HAGERMAN FOSSIL BEDS NATIONAL MONUMENT L.: AND OTHER AREAS IN SOUTHERN IDAHO Submitted to: Columbia Cascade System Support Office National Park Service Seattle, Washington Submitted by: L. Daniel Myers, Ph.D. Epochs· Past .Tracys Landing, Maryland September, 1998 PLEASE RETURN TO: TECHNICAL INFORMATION CENTER DENVER SERViCE CENTER NATIONAL PARK SERVICE TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ii List of Figures and Tables iv Abstract v CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION l OBJECTIVES l FRAMEWORK OF STUDY 2 STUDY AREAS 4 STUDY POPULATIONS 5 DESIGN OF SUCCEEDING CHAPTERS 5 CHAPTER TWO: PROTOCOL AND STRATEGIES. 7 OBJECTIVES 7 CONTACT WITH POTENTIAL CONSULTANTS 7 SCHEDULING AND APPOINTMENTS 8 QUESTIONNAIRE 8 INTERVIEW SPECIFICS 10 CHAPTER THREE: INTERVIEW DETAILS 12 OBJECTIVES 12 SELF, FAMILY, AND ANCESTORS 12 TRIBAL DISTRIBUTIONS AND FOOD-NAMED GROUPS 13 SETTLEMENT AND SUBSISTENCE 13 FOOD RESOURCES . 14 MANUFACTURE GOODS 15 INDIAN DOCTORS, MEDICINE, AND HEALTH 15 STORIES, STORYTELLING, AND SACRED PLACES 15 CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS AND ISSUES 16 CHAPTER FOUR: COMMUNITY SUMMARIES OF THE FIRST TIER STUDY AREAS 17 OBJECTIVES 17 DUCK VALLEY INDIAN RESERVATION 17 FORT HALL INDIAN RESERVATION 22 NORTHWESTERN BAND OF SHOSHONI NATION 23 CHAPTER FIVE: COMMUNITY SUMMARIES OF THE SECOND TIER STUDY AREAS 25 OBJECTIVES 25 DUCK VALLEY INDIAN RESERVATION 25 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Craters of the Moon 25 City of Rocks National Reserve and Bear River Massacre . 25 FORT HALL INDIAN RESERVATION 26 Craters of the Moon 26 City of Rocks . 28 Bear River Massacre ·28 NORTHWESTERN BAND OF SHOSHONI NATION 29 Craters of the Moon 29 City of Rocks . 29 Bear River Massacre 30 CHAPTER SIX: ASSESSMENT AND RECOMMENDATIONS 31 OBJECTIVES 31 SUMMARY REVIEW 31 STUDY AREAS REVIEW 3 3 RECOMMENDATIONS 3 5 REFERENCES CITED 38 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 41 APPENDIX A 43 APPENDIX B 48 APPENDIX C 51 iii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: Map of Southern Idaho showing Study Areas 3 Figure 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Julian Steward
    Julian Steward Background Julian Steward was born in Washington, D.C., the second child of the chief of the Board of Examiners of the US. Patent Office. As a freshman at the University of California in 1921, he took an introductory course in anthropology taught by Alfred Kmeber, Robert Lowie, and Edward Winslow Gifford. The next year he transferred to Cor- nell, where he got his B.A. The president of Cornell, Livingston Farrand, himselfan anthropologist, advised him to return to California. He did so, and at Berkeley Steward and his fellow students (including William Dun- can Strong, Lloyd Warner, and Ralph Beals) gained a concern for the role of physical environment in culture from Carl Sauer of the geography department. Steward spent his summers in archaeological and ethnographic studies along the Columbia River and in the Owens Valley. During this period he discovered the Eastern Mono practice of systematically irrigat- ing wild seed plants and tubers, even though they did no planting or culti- vation. During 1929 hifcompiled a description and trait analysis of petm- glyphs in California, Njvada, Utah, Arizona, and Lower California. His analysis uncovered indications of chronology and function, but the tedi- ous work discouraged further interest in the culture trait approach. The same year he finished his doctorate with a dissertation entitled The Ceremonial Buffoon of the American Indian (published in 1931). 320 Julian Steward Steward spent the years of the Great Depression at the universities of Michigan, Utah, and California. He worked primarily on Great Basin archaeology, especiallycave sites on the ancient terraces of the Great Salt Lake Region.
    [Show full text]