Notes on the Weasel in Historic Plains Indian Culture

Abstract

One of the smaller mammals of the Creat Plains is the short-legged, slender-bodied, agile and aggressive weasel. The historic Indian tribes of this region did not eat the weasel, but the northern tribes snared these animals in winter to obtain their handsome white pelts. Winter weasel pelts were coveted items in both intratribal and intertribal trade and were used by many tribes to decorate war bonnets, and the finest men’s shirts and leggings. Whole weasels were sometimes tied to shields as war medicine, and some Siouan tribes carv, ed representations of the weasel at the ends of their wooden war clubs. Among the Plains Indians the association of the weasel with warriors’ clothing and weapons appears to have been derived from their recognition of the fighting qualities of the weasel.     

The Evolution of Plains Indian Kin Terminologies:

Abstract

The striking similarity in basic terminological pattern among Plains tribes, and the absence of this pattern elsewhere in North America, is not accounted for by existing general theories of the evolution of kin terminologies. The development of this pattern is explained here in terms of a theory which abandons the assumption that terminological patterns are reflections of social structure. It is argued that the basic process in this development was the tactical or metaphoric extension of sibling terms to cross-cousins as a response to the increased importance of solidarity under the conditions of Plains life, and the subsequent incorporation of this extension into the meanings of the sibling terms. This hypothesis not only accounts for the distribution of terminological patterns in the Plains area, but illuminates the general relationship of kin terminology to social structure.     

A Center of Primary Sources for Plains Indian History

Abstract

Preservation of the nation’s Indian records is recogni: zed as a task of national importance. Public access to government documents and data is now possible at ten regional records centers across the country. The material stored provides detailed and analytic accounts of daily activity and business at Indian agencies. The nature and content of the data relevant to Plains Indian agencies is described in this paper.     

The Role of Light in the Emergence of Weeds: Using Camelina microcarpa as an Example

When modelling the emergence of weeds, two main factors are considered that condition this process: temperature and soil moisture. Optimum temperature is necessary for metabolic processes that generate energy for growth, while turgor pressure is necessary for root and shoot elongation which eventually leads to seedling emergence from the soil. Most emergence models do not usually consider light as a residual factor, but it could have an important role as it can alter directly or indirectly the dormancy and germination of seeds. In this paper, inclusion of light as an additional factor to photoperiod and radiation in emergence models is explored and compared with the classical hydrothermal time (HTT) model using Camelina microcarpa as an example. HTT based on hourly estimates is also compared with that based on daily estimates. Results suggest that, although HTT based models are accurate enough for local applications, the precision of these models is improved when HTT is estimated hourly and solar radiation is included as a factor.     

The Stylistic Development of Plains Indian Painting And Its Relationship to Ledger Drawings.

Abstract

This paper attempts to trace the stylistic development of Plains Indian figurative hide painting. Beginning with its possible origins in the petrographs and bark drawings of the pre-and early historic Northeast and Southwest it ends with the ledger drawings of the late 19th century. The early (pre 1860) hides are shown to have indicated events through a form ofvisual shorthand in contrast to the detailed refinement of the illustrated scenes on later hides. The ledger drawings include both traditional warfare themes and scenes from reservation life, ending with views of the white world drawn in the white man’s manner. One drawing by Bears Heart, a Cheyenne prisoner in Florida, is examined in some detail and in relationship to the historical, biographical and cultural world in which it was created.     

The Concept of an Altithermal Cultural Hiatus in Northern Plains Prehistory

The concept of a cultural hiatus, when it is believed the Northern Plains was essentially abandoned by prehistoric bison-hunting cultures because of extremely adverse climatic conditions in the interval 5500–3000 B.C. has become generally entrenched in archaeological thought and literature. However consideration of the current palynological data and climatic models indicate that a grassland environment which supported a viable bison population existed at this time. Examination of the archaeological data indicates the lack of evidence for human occupation is a result of sampling, geological variables and nonrecognition of the artifact types in surface collections. It is concluded that the area supported a viable human population at this time whose primary adaptive strategy centered around the communal hunting of bison.     

Variability between Scales: Predictors of Nomadism in Birds of an Australian Mediterranean-climate Ecosystem

Nomadism in animals is a response to resource distributions that are highly variable in time and space. Using the avian fauna of the Mediterranean-climate region of southcentral Australia, we tested a number of variables to determine if they predicted nomadism. These variables were species body mass, the distance in body mass terms to the edge of a body mass aggregation, and diet (for example, seeds, invertebrates, nectar, or plants). We utilized two different classifications of the avifauna that diverged in their definition of nomadic to build two different predictive models. Using both classifications, distance to the edge of a body mass aggregation was found to be a significant predictor of nomadism. There was also evidence that nomads tend to feed on nectar and tend to be large. The significance of the variables body mass and diet (nectar) may reflect the greater energy requirements of large birds and the inherent variability of nectar as a food source. The significance of the variable distance to the edge of a body mass aggregation provides further evidence of inherent variability in resources between domains of scale. The edges of body mass aggregations are hypothesized to be areas of increased resource variability that reflect the transition from one scale of landscape pattern to another. Received 14 November 2000; accepted 27 June 2001.     

Indian Boarding Schools And Ethnic Identity: An Example From The Southern Plains Tribes Of Oklahoma

Abstract

In the late 1800s, boarding schools sponsored by the United States government were created for the education and socialization of American Indian youth. These institutions gradually and purposefully pursued a policy of total assimilation of American Indians into the mainstream of society. The boarding schools failed in their ultimate goal to assimilate Indians. Surprisingly, however, they did attain limited acceptance among many Oklahoma Indians. The segregationist policies of the boarding schools are interpreted as having inadvertently perpetuated the formation of an Indian identity. Frequent visiting by family, segregation of Indian from non-Indian students, and symbolic association of the boarding schools with federal government obligations are identified as factors which contributed to the maintenance of this identity.     

Cellulose as an Architectural Element in Spatially Structured Escherichia coli Biofilms

Morphological form in multicellular aggregates emerges from the interplay of genetic constitution and environmental signals. Bacterial macrocolony biofilms, which form intricate three-dimensional structures, such as large and often radially oriented ridges, concentric rings, and elaborate wrinkles, provide a unique opportunity to understand this interplay of “nature and nurture” in morphogenesis at the molecular level. Macrocolony morphology depends on self-produced extracellular matrix components. In Escherichia coli, these are stationary phase-induced amyloid curli fibers and cellulose. While the widely used “domesticated” E. coli K-12 laboratory strains are unable to generate cellulose, we could restore cellulose production and macrocolony morphology of E. coli K-12 strain W3110 by “repairing” a single chromosomal SNP in the bcs operon. Using scanning electron and fluorescence microscopy, cellulose filaments, sheets and nanocomposites with curli fibers were localized in situ at cellular resolution within the physiologically two-layered macrocolony biofilms of this “de-domesticated” strain. As an architectural element, cellulose confers cohesion and elasticity, i.e., tissue-like properties that—together with the cell-encasing curli fiber network and geometrical constraints in a growing colony—explain the formation of long and high ridges and elaborate wrinkles of wild-type macrocolonies. In contrast, a biofilm matrix consisting of the curli fiber network only is brittle and breaks into a pattern of concentric dome-shaped rings separated by deep crevices. These studies now set the stage for clarifying how regulatory networks and in particular c-di-GMP signaling operate in the three-dimensional space of highly structured and “tissue-like” bacterial biofilms.