The Identity and Demography of the Plains-Ojibwa

Abstract

One of the largest Indian tribes of the northern praries is the Bungi or Plains-Ojibwa, Despite their importance in the historic period they go unmentioned in most histories. In large part this is due to semantic confusion in their identification by writers and official agencies.

In language, social organization, art, ceremonial, and costume the Plains Ojibwa is a distinct ethnic group. Although they are descended from Woodland groups, 150 years of separate political and cultural existence has made them a distinct tribe.

The gradual migration of small Ojibwa groups unto the Plains began near the end of the 18th century. By 1800 those living west of the Red River of the North were beginning to be thought of as a distinct group. However, confusion as to their irlentity has persisted.

At present 2 ethnic groups make up the Plains-Ojibwa, a “full-blood” minority group and a metis group which, although basically PlainsOjibwa with some Cree admixture, has a large amount of French as well as other European blood.     

Contraceptive Charms Among the Plains Indians

Abstract

Although Clark Wissler and Sister M. Inez Hilger have recorded the use of contraceptive charms by the Blackfoot and Arapaho, the Piegan specimen illustrated here may be unique to museum collections. Indications that use of these charms survived into the middle years of the present century suggest the possibility of obtaining more detailed information about their use among other tribes of Plains Indians through field work.     

The Comanche Kinship System in Historical Perspective1

Abstract

An historical study of the Comanche kinship system throws new light on processes of kinship change. The Comanche are an unique group which underwent a long neriod of acculturation with little or no change in its system of kinship termirnology. Before the turn of the 18th century the Conanche were closely associated with the Northern Shoshoni of the Great Basin. In earlier times the Comanche, like the Northern Shoshoni, had a culture similar to the Westerr; Shoshoni groups of later periods, Toward the end of the 18th century both the Comanche and the Northern Shoshoni acquired the horse; this event produced numerous changes in Comanche culture, Later, when the Comanche migrated to the Southern Plains, further changes took place in their social organization.

In spite of these changes, the Comanche system of kinship terminology rermained remarkably stable. Both in pre-Plains and pre-horse times the Comanche had a balanced division of labor, bilocal residence, bilateral groups of kin, bilateral descent, and Hawaiian nomenclature. After their acquisition of the horse and their migration to the Plains, the bicentered division of labor became natricentered; and bilocal residence changed to natrilocal, But Comanche descent remained bilateral and ownership, private and individualized. This suggests that the stability of the descent and ownershin systems made for stability in kinshio terminology.     

The Tribe as a Unit of Subsistence: Nomadic Pastoralism in the Middle East

Among Middle Eastern pastoral nomads some "tribes" can best be described as "units of subsistence": they exploit an area providing multiannual subsistence. Tribesmen sometimes control this area; more usually they control part of it and share the rest with other nomads and with settled people. Small corporate groups afford the tribesman security and, through genealogical links, mediate his formal membership of the tribe. The unit of subsistence is articulated mainly by networks of institutionalized relationships. Corporate groups join forces only for defense, and then their alliances cut across tribal lines. Under external pressure the unit of subsistence may develop formal leadership and a small standing militia. This administrative setup is in the literature often associated with the corporate groups and called "tribe." While coexisting with a unit of subsistence, this "tribe" is not necessarily identical with it in area or population . [ecology, genealogies, Middle East, pastoral nomads, tribe]     

Local Knowledge,Subsistence Harvests,and Social–Ecological Complexity in James Bay

Ecosystems are complex and difficult to predict and control. Western science-based societies have tended to simplify ecosystems to manage them. Some indigenous and other rural groups who interact closely with a given resource system seem to have developed practices that are adapted to live with complexity. This paper examines how indigenous Cree hunters in James Bay, subarctic Canada, understand and deal with ecological complexity and dynamics, and how their understanding of uncertainty and variability shape subsistence activities. The focus is the Canada goose (Branta canadensis) hunt which is adaptive to shifts and changes in local and regional conditions. Ecological understandings of Cree hunters allow them to account for and deal with a very large number of variables at multiples scales. The Cree deal with these variables qualitatively, an approach consistent with some scientific ways of dealing with complexity, such as adaptive management and fuzzy logic.     

Gifts of Pride and Love: The Cultural Significance of Kiowa and Comanche Lattice Cradles

Gifts of Pride and Love: The Cultural Significance of Kiowa and Comanche Lattice Cradles. Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University, Bristol, RI, 1998; Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK, December 4, 1999-February 2000; Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ, April 20-July 16, 2001; Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, August 27, 2000-January 16, 2001; National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Gustav Heye Center, New York, NY, March-May 2001; Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, Norman, OK, June-September 2001; Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, Ledyard, CT, October 2001-January 2002.
Gifts of Pride and Love: Kiowa and Comanche Cradles. Barbara A. Hail. ed. Bristol, RI: Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University, 2000. 135 pp.     

The Identity of La Salle’S Pana Slave

Abstract

In June 1682 Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was presented with a “Pana” boy by the Illinois Michigamea Indians. The boy told La Salle of his history as a captive in four Indian tribes. He described Indian village locations and listed the tribes which had “many” horses. The significance of the information for which he was the source depends on the tribal identity of the captive. It has been suggested in anthropological literature that “Pana” indicated “Pawnee,” Ponca, Arikara, Wichita, even Apache. After examination of evidence-linguistic, cultural, historical - it seems most likely he was a Southern Pawnee, a Wichita. If this was so, then his information substantiates the theory of Kroeber, Brant and others that some Kiowa Apaches were still living in the southern Plains in the late 17th century.     

The Grass Valley Horse

Abstract

The head and part of the neck of a baked clay horse figurine from an archaeological site in Lander County is described. It suggested the presence of the Grass Valley horse in Central Nevada reaffirms the strong cultural ties between the PlateauShoshone and the buffalo hunting; horse-nomad Shoshone of the Western Plains, ties already indicated by Shoshone pottery and other plains type artifacts indigenous to the area.     

Origin of the Peyote Religion in The United States

Abstract

Peyotism in the United States was dependent upon the Peyote cactus, Lophophora williamsii, which has a very limited distribution along the lower Rio Grande River, centered around Laredo, Texas. The Lipan Apache Indians in the vicinity of Laredo,,1760to 1850’s, learned of the properties of Peyote and the ritual for its use from Coahuiltecan-speaking Carrizo and Tonkawa and in turn taught Peyotism to the Comanche and Kiowa.     

The Function of Ceremonial Sexual Intercourse Among the Northern Plains Indians

Abstract

Sexual intimacy as a means of transferring spiritual power appears to have been a Mandan-Hidatsa ceremonial trait borrowed by three Algonkian Plains tribes as part of the graded men’s societies complex. The Algonkian tribes modified the rite, which in the village tribes emphasized the role of father’s clan. The Arapaho emphasized the cosmic symbolism of the rite, the Atsina made it a test of self-discipline, and the Blackfoot stressed the dangerous power commanded by those who performed it. These modifications parallel the differences in kinship structure between village and nomadic Plains tribes discussed by Eggan.     

A Shoshonean Origin for the Plains Shield Bearing Warrior Motif

Abstract

The shield bearing warrior is a distinctive motif characteristic of the rock art of the Northwestern Plains. It also occurs commonly in the eastern Great Basin as an element of Fremont rock art. Detailed similarities between Plains and Great Basin shield figures suggest cultural relationships between the two areas. This has led some authors to propose that the motif originated in the Northwestern Plains and diffused to the Great Basin. Others argue that the motif spread from the Great Basin to the Plains. Relative dates recently obtained for shield figures at Northwestern Plains sites support the latter hypothesis. A Shoshonean origin for the Northwestern Plains shield figures is suggested by the dates, and the coincidence between the distribution of the motif, the distribution of diagnostic Shoshonean artifacts. and the ethnohistorically known range of the Plains Shoshone. It is suggested that the Shoshone borrowed the motif from the Fremont Culture during a period of interaction between the two groups.

The shield bearing warrior, a distinctive motif that depicts a pedestrian warrior whose body is represented by a large circular shield (Fig. 1), is frequently encountered in the rock art of the western United States. It is especially common at sites on the Northwestern Plains and in the eastern Great Basin (Fig. 2).     

White Contact And Cultural Disintegration Among The Kiow A Apache

Abstract

By means of documentary sources and field data, the history and white contactsof the Kiowa Apache are traced from 1837 to about 1910. A reconstruction is presented, in broad outlines, of the impact of removal, diminished sources of subsistence, disease and land allotment, upon Kiowa Apache society and culture. Nativistic movements, towards the close of the period, are briefly mentioned asresponses to cultural disintegration.     

The Gore Pit Site: An Archaic Occupation in Southwestern Oklahoma and a Review Of the Archaic Stage in the Southern Plains

Abstract

The Gore Pit site (34CM131), which is within the city limits of Lawton, Comanche County, Oklahoma, has been revealing evidence of Archaic occupation through excavation and surface collection since 1963. The site is contained in the bottom of a large borrow pit which was sera ped to a depth of 15 to 20 feet by he Highway Department.The pit is on the active flood plain of East Cache Creek and borders the creek a few feet to the east. The artifacts recovered by surface collection include projectile points, scrapers, scraper planes, Clear Fork gouges, andgrinding stones and basins. Three burned rock middens were excavated, one of which yielded radiocarbon dates, 6030 + 300 B.P. (Bastian 1964) and 6145+ 130 B.P. (GX1558). In the spring of 1968, a partially preserved, semiflexed human burial was discovered in the pit. There were no associated artifacts. A radiocarbon date obtained from the apatite fraction of the bone resulted in a determination of 7100+350 B.P. (GX2009). The earliest Archaic on the Southern Plains is presently dated around 6000 B.P. However, there is a paucity of dated and documented sites for the preceding 2000 years. Archaic subsistence patterns occur at least 2000 years earlier in areas to the west and east. The origin and age of the earliest Archaic in the Southern Plains remains undetermined. The Archaic must ultimately be identified on the basis of subsistence patterns and not on the basis of projectile point styles.     

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.     

Climate,Acculturation, And Costume A History Of Women’S Clothing Among The Indians Of The Southern Plains

Abstract

This paper accepts Clark Wissler’s dictum, offered as long ago as 1915, in his pioneer study of Plains Indian clothing, that for such perishable objects as costume “real historic data is usually available.” Applying a combination of evidence provided by dated, first-hand, written observations, early drawings and later photographs, as well as selected well documented specimens preserved in museum collections to a study of historic Southern Plains Indian women’s body costume one finds that south of the northern limit of 180 frost-free days the prevailing women’s attire prior to the mid-19th century was a skin skirt and a poncho of the same material. In warm weather the poncho was often omitted sometimes exposing a wearer’s profusely painted or tattooed mammae. By the 1820s some women of affluent families made their garments of trade cloth. By the 1850s a long, trade cloth dress, with kimono sleeves and inset gores was becoming fashionable. This garment, in turn, was superceded among women of status by a three piece skin dress after buckskin became relatively scarce. The two piece skin dress which Wissler proposed as the “plains style” was never typical of the tribes of the Southern Plains. Rather the evidence argues against culture area uniformity in women’s clothing, while suggesting that climate and acculturation resulting from white contact strongly influenced a variety of dress styles among the women of the plains tribes. Indeed the body garments worn by women on the Southern Plains prior to 1850 strikingly resemble those depicted on classic figurines from Vera Cruz, Mexico, while they differed totally from garments worn by women of Northern Plains tribes during early historic times.     

Molecular phylogeny of the beetle tribe Oxypodini (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Aleocharinae)

This is the first study to comprehensively address the phylogeny of the tribe Oxypodini Thomson and its phylogenetic relationships to other tribes within the staphylinid subfamily Aleocharinae. Using the hitherto largest molecular dataset of Aleocharinae comprising of 4599 bp for representatives of 22 tribes, the Oxypodini are recovered as non‐monophyletic. Members of the tribe belong to three distantly related lineages within the Aleocharinae: (i) the Amarochara group as sister clade to the tribe Aleocharini, (ii) the subtribe Tachyusina within a clade that also includes the tribes Athetini and Hygronomini, (iii) all other Oxypodini in a clade that also includes the tribes Placusini, Hoplandriini and Liparocephalini. Based on the inferred phylogeny, five subtribes of the Oxypodini are recognized: Dinardina Mulsant & Rey, Meoticina Seevers, Microglottina Fenyes, Oxypodina Thomson and Phloeoporina Thomson. The following changes in the classification of the Aleocharinae are proposed: (i) Amarochara Thomson is removed from the Oxypodini and placed in the tribe Aleocharini; (ii) the subtribe Taxicerina Lohse of the Athetini is reinstated as tribe Taxicerini to include Discerota Mulsant & Rey, Halobrecta Thomson (both removed from the Oxypodini) and Taxicera Mulsant & Rey; (iii) the subtribe Tachyusina Thomson is excluded from the Oxypodini and provisionally treated as tribe Tachyusini; (iv) the oxypodine subtribe name Blepharhymenina Klimaszewski & Peck is placed in synonymy with the subtribe name Dinardina Mulsant & Rey.     

Was There a Northwestern Plains Sub-Culture? An Ethnographical Appraisal*

Abstract

On the basis of an examination of economy, political organization, intertribal warfare, religious life, and other factors, there is no justification for regarding the Northwestern Plains as a distinct division of the Plains Indian Culture Area.