Through his many works calling for the evolution of indigenous theory, Duane Champagne has emphasized the importance of recovering indigenous voices such as Chilocco Indian Industrial School graduate Mack Setima's and documenting forms of cultural continuity. According to Champagne, case studies such as K. Tsianina Lomawaima's scholarship on…

In this article, the author explores some of the most prominent ways that cultural revitalization has been contemplated within Anishinaabe and anthropological arenas of discourse. She draws reflexively on her own personal positionality and academic theoretical background as well as on her observations of how Anishinaabe anti-clear-cutting…

This article explores possibilities for extending aboriginal language education opportunities into the urban domain based on qualitative research in Vancouver, British Columbia. The author argues that aboriginal language revitalization efforts have a place in the city, as demonstrated by emerging language ideologies of urban aboriginal people…

Plant species utilized by Cherokees have been documented by several authors. However, many of the traditional uses of plants were lost or forgotten in the generations following the Trail of Tears. The pressures of overcoming the physical and psychological impact of the removal, adapting to a new landscape, rebuilding a government, rebuilding…

On November 17, 1903, fifteen miles from the nearest railway station and fifty miles northwest of the capital of the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, a fire engulfed the Cherokee Orphan Asylum. After the fire the Cherokee Nation relocated the homeless children to the nation's Insane Asylum in Tahlequah, where Sequoyah School stands today. The…

Gerald Vizenor is one of several American Indian writers who reflect on the place of objects as they are displayed for cultural consumption, questioning the role of museums particularly in housing and displaying those objects. In light of such works of literature the author argues that in different ways each of these writers presents a critique of…

The term "first contact" usually conjures up an image of a group of European soldiers landing on a beach in the New World, their ship anchored just offshore, while a large group of Natives approaches the soldiers. On both sides there is caution but also curiosity. Beyond the physical collision of two different peoples there is also a…

Kanaka Maoli are under constant threat of becoming exiles in their homeland. With the steady encroachment of development such as new luxury subdivisions on Moloka'i, high-rise condominiums in Waikiki, and new multi-million-dollar homes on the beaches of all the major islands, they are being pushed off their land and replaced by new wealthy…

As neocolonial institutions designed to assimilate American Indians to European American cultural and religious values, social institutions, and economic practices, most schools run by the federal government and missionaries during the first part of the twentieth century sought to suppress all or most aspects of their young students' Indian…

Metaphorical teachings derived from objects and observations of daily life may provide a way to bridge the gap between the deeply religious values at the center of life for Navajo elders and the mechanized, fast-paced world of Navajo youth who find traditional teachings confusing or irrelevant. Examples of such teachings are provided. (SV)

Traditional Indigenous Knowledge (IK) systems must be recovered and promoted by academics, indigenous knowledge holders, and political leaders by dismantling colonialism and state government control. While Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) has received attention due to its focus on management of natural resources and conservation, non-native…

This essay investigates how various perspectives differ and converge in the span of an afternoon, thus illustrating how divergent narratives, through their very difference, enhance one's understanding of the past. The case study of the 1925 Fort Union Indian Congress points to the process of narrativizing experience and underscores how meaning is…

Discusses types of culture, levels of acculturation, and ethnic identity among various Indian groups in the Southeast. Argues that these groups have perpetuated their distinctiveness and strengthened their political identities as Indians through processes of modernization, and that the recent acquisition of modern political and business acumen has…

This article describes aspects of a unique relationship between an ancient agricultural practice and the culture that it sustains. Hopi agriculture, known as "dry farming" because it relies strictly on precipitation and runoff water (along with hard work and prayer), has kept the Hopi culture intact for nearly a thousand years. But aside from the…

In the early 1940s Dakota anthropologist Ella Deloria began talking to her mentor, feminist anthropologist Ruth Benedict, about the possibility of transforming her ethnographic research into a novel that would bring Plains Indian culture to life for the American reading public. In writing Waterlily, a historical novel that documented early…