Autobiographical Notes on a Career in Applied Anthropology

1990 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 2-16
Author(s):  
Omer Stewart

Dr. Stewart served as discussant for the Santa Fe paper session "Working On, Working For, and Working With American Indians" from which this special issue of PA is drawn. His most visible applied anthropology role has been as expert witness. He reports that between 1950 and 1983 he testified in numerous Indian Claims cases on behalf of the Chippewa, Shoshone, Ute, Southern Paiute, Northern Paiute, Klamath, Washo, Gosiute, and Indians of California, helping these groups receive awards from the Indian Claims Commission in excess of $200 million. Most recently, he was involved in the San Juan Southern Paiute effort to obtain federal acknowledgement as a tribe. However, Dr. Stewart is best known for his testimony on behalf of members of the Native American Church who have sued state courts for the legal right to practice the peyote religion openly. His work in this area has spanned the thirty years from 1960 through the present. Dr. Stewart discussed the origins of anthropological concern with the peyote religion and his own role in defending its practice in his 1983 Malinowski Award address at the SfAA meetings in San Diego, CA. The following are excerpts from the full text of that address, reprinted with permission from Human Organization 42(3), Fall 1983, pp. 189-194.

1999 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Lurie

Nancy Oestreich Lurie is curator emerita of anthropology, Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM). This article draws upon her first-hand knowledge of the American Indian scene including ongoing research with the Ho-Chunk Nation (formerly Winnebago) that began in 1944; lasting friendships made with Indian people across the country while serving as assistant coordinator to Sol Tax during the American Indian Chicago Conference; and association as an action anthropologist in the founding of the Wisconsin Winnebago government under the Indian Reorganization Act, the Menominee's drive to repeal their termination, and the establishment of the Milwaukee Indian Community School and the Potawatomi Bingo-Casino enterprise in Milwaukee. Her work as an expert witness in cases before the U.S. Indian Claims Commission and federal and state courts familiarized her with the history and effects of federal Indian policy. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1998 meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, where the results of discussion enriched and helped to clarify the present version. In addition to published sources cited, this account rests in large part on personal recollections, particularly of the American Indian Chicago Conference, and on the Indian affairs file of newspaper clippings and tribal and intertribal newspapers maintained since 1972 in the Anthropology Department at the Milwaukee Public Museum.


Author(s):  
Clarissa T. Kimber ◽  
Darrel McDonald

Peyote is one of the best-known plant sources for a psychedelic experience. This small cactus is also associated in the popular mind with North American Indians and Hippies. Although its ritual use is thought to be over 7,000 years old (Furst 1989, cited in Schaefer 1996: 141), its use by Indians of the Native American Church (NAC) is less than 100 years old. The peyote button is the essential ingredient in the ritual ceremony associated with NAC meetings and is referred to as “the medicine” by those who regard the button as a god-being and ingest it as a sacrament (Slotkin 1956: 29; Smith and Snake 1996: 80, 91, 105–6). Even more recently, non-Indians have formed churches (the Neo American Church) to follow the Peyote Way or Road (Trout 1999: 47). Secular uses of peyote are as medicine, especially for topical application to the skin on open wounds (Schultes 1940), for divination to discover something lost or when possible attacks of the enemy will occur; or for mind-altering experiences of a nonreligious nature, that is, for recreation. These nonritual (profane) uses have a long history, but peyote’s more significant sacred use in the United States, as measured by numbers of participants, has been in force for little more than 100 years. Various plants are called peyote in Mexico (Schultes 1938: 157), and their usage in the public and official literature of Texas and the United States has not been precise over the years (Morgan 1976: 12, La Barre 1975: 14–17). The major confusion over the common name among field anthropologists and government officials has been with the mescal bean, or Texas mountain laurel [Sophora secundiflora (Ort.) DC]. This hardy, small tree produces a hard, highly toxic, red seed, which has had a long history of ritual use by Amerinds (La Barre 1975: 15). The distribution of the mescal bean is on the southern edge of the Edwards Plateau, on the caliche cuestas in the Rio Grande Plains, and in the mountains of the Trans-Pecos. The native Americans of this region strung the beans into necklaces or bracelets, and a shaman might have passed down to another shaman some of these items as important paraphernalia.


1995 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 288-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip A. May ◽  
James R. Moran

Purpose. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of a wide range of potentially useful strategies to address the prevention of alcohol misuse among American Indians. This broad approach to the review is useful because the extreme heterogeneity of the American Indian population requires that health promotion professionals explore many options and tailor their activities to specific communities. Search Method. A literature search was initiated through MEDLINE using the following key words: prevention, alcohol, substance abuse, American Indian, and Native American. The search yielded 29 articles from the years 1982 through 1994. These articles, along with 45 previously identified in three overview articles, form the basis of the review and discussion in this paper. Summary of findings. As a group, American Indians experience many health problems that are related to alcohol misuse. Comparison of Indians to non-Indians shows that the age of first involvement with alcohol is younger, the frequency and amount of drinking is greater, and negative consequences are more common. Health promotion programs that address these issues must take into account American Indian heterogeneity and should use a comprehensive approach that addresses both heavy drinking and the sequelae of problems related to alcohol misuse. Major Conclusions. Important concepts for providing health promotion services to this population are: cultural relevance must be carefully planned and monitored; individuals in the local community must be involved; the drunken Indian stereotype must be addressed; and community empowerment should be an important goal.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip M. Winkelman

Abstract The ways new games typically develop might be viewed as a continuum ranging from very gradual “evolution” based on mutations introduced to a single progenitor during play or recall, to sudden “intelligent design” based on a purposeful and original combination — or even invention — of ludemes independent of any particular lines of transmission. This paper argues that two proprietary 20th-century games, C.A. Neves’s Fang den Hut! and Lizzie Magie’s The Landlord’s Game, were developed in a different way, a bit outside the typical continuum. It analyzes the games’ general typologies, and specific ludemes, concluding that both games are modern adaptations of traditional Native American games encountered, not through play or even contact with players, but through the seminal ethnographic publications of Stewart Culin. Specifically, Fang den Hut! derives from Boolik via Games of the North American Indians, and The Landlord’s Game derives from Zohn Ahl via Chess and Playing-Cards.


Author(s):  
Thomas W. Cutrer

Deals with the Union’s attempt, during a greater civil war in the East, to retain control of the Western frontier and, in particular, the Santa Fe Trail and other routes to California, in the face of Native American—particularly Apache and Navajo—resistance.


2021 ◽  
pp. 165-171
Author(s):  
Sabrina V. Pratt

Abstract The City of Santa Fe, New Mexico's Creative Tourism Initiative ran from 2009 to 2015. It began as a result of Santa Fe's membership in the United Nations Educational and Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Creative Cities Network. Santa Fe joined the network in 2005, and that same year a UNESCO representative involved in forming the Creative Cities Network brought up the concept of creative tourism as an economic development tool. Santa Fe, population 84,683 (US Census Bureau, 2019), is known for its history, arts, and culture in a southwestern US state that shares a border with Mexico. As a crossroads for Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and European culture, plus a beautiful desert and mountainous landscape, tourism is one of New Mexico's primary industries. The Creative Tourism Initiative, led by the City of Santa Fe, developed a robust selection of creative tourism experiences and promoted them. The City assigned staff members of its Arts Commission, the city's arts agency, to design and implement the programme. This study tackles how CTI promotes Santa Fe, in terms of training, their website, and other marketing channels.


Author(s):  
Frank Graziano

This chapter opens with detailed analysis of deculturation policy during the Spanish, Mexican, and American governance of New Mexico and the Pueblos. In the more recent history it includes discussion of the Code of Indian Offenses, the General Allotment Act (Dawes Act), the Carlisle Indian School, the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians (Hiawatha Asylum), and the evolving policies of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. These introductory remarks are followed by analyses of a 1935–1940 conflict at Santo Domingo (Kewa) Pueblo, when Archbishop Rudolph Gerken attempted to change traditional practice of Catholicism and to house a resident priest and sisters at Santo Domingo; and of a conflict at Isleta Pueblo that culminated when Monsignor Frederick Stadtmueller was removed in handcuffs by the pueblo governor in 1965. The Native American ministry of the archdiocese and native resistance to dogma are also considered more generally. Visiting information for Kewa and Isleta is included.


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