Wakunza: Uses of Yuwipi Medicine Power in Contemporary Teton Dakota Culture1

Abstract

The Dakota belief in wakuⁿza or “supernatural retribution” is examined as an aspect of contemporary Sioux religion. Belief in this power is reported to be a significant mechanism in the maintenance of social control within Sioux communities on and off the reservation by insuring the chastisement of social deviants. Animistic spirits rather than individuals are attributed with possessing the power to administer justice and reprimand those committing transgressions of the Dakota moral order. Two alternative hypotheses regarding the uses of wakuⁿza are proposed.     

Theories Of Culture Change Relevant to the Study Of the Dakota Indians

Abstract

In the literature various theories of culture change have been developed relevant to the Dakota Indians. These theories of change can be grouped under the headings of psychological, social, and cultural change.

Psychologically the changes in Dakota personality are seen as developing from the child-rearing process. Social change has been regarded as reflecting the changing values within the family circle due to pressure from white culture. Culture change has been hypothesized as due to indoctrination in the Dakota value system during childhood. It is this persistence of Dakota values which is the main deterrent to the acceptance of many non-Indian skills.     

The Culture of Migration in Southern Mexico

The Culture of Migration in Southern Mexico . Jeffrey H. Cohen. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004. 195 pp.     

Social Identity and Culture Change on the Southern Northwest Coast

Driven by the participation of Native American people in the contemporary political, cultural, and academic landscape of North America, public and academic discussions have considered the nature of contemporary American Indian identity and the persistence, survival, and (to some) reinvention of Native American cultures and traditions. I use a case study—the historical anthropology of the Native American people of the Oregon coast—to examine the persistence of many American Indian people through the colonial period and the subsequent revitalization of "traditional" cultural practices. Drawing on archaeological data, ethnohistorical accounts, and oral traditions, I offer a reading of how, set against and through an ancestral landscape, traditional social identities and relationships of gender and authority were constructed and contested. I then consider how American Indian people negotiated the new sets of social relationships dictated by the dominant society.     

Paradigmatic Processes in Culture Change

Paradigmatic processes in culture change are defined, in the sense of Thomas Kuhn, as the consequence of long-continued deliberate effort by numbers of persons to innovate within a recognized technical, artistic, or intellectual tradition (or "school" or "discipline"). The evolving paradigm will often, after a certain point of development, attract exploitation; there will then occur various functionally entailed social-cultural consequences; and ultimately efforts will be made to rationalize the change in religious, ethical, and philosophical terms.     

Constructing Tibetan Culture: Contemporary Perspectives.

Constructing Tibetan Culture: Contemporary Perspectives. Frank J. Korom. ed. St-Hyacinthe, Quebec: World Heritage Press, 1997. 230 pp.