Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons^™

Soldiers Unknown, Charley Reed

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

Review of Soldiers Unknown. Author Chag Lowry and artist Rahsan Ekedal. Pechanga, California, Great Oak Press, 2019. 119 Pages; Price $29.95 Paperback

Ka’M-T’Em: A Journey Toward Healing, Elizabeth Jackson

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

Review of: Ka’m-t’em: A Journey Toward Healing. Kishan Lara-Cooper and Walter J. Lara Sr. Temecula, Great Oak Press, 2019. 327 Pages; Price $18.95 Paperback

“Light Is The Normal Course Of Events, Darkness Is Only A Temporary Interruption”: Lessons From Lucy Thompson, Elizabeth Mcclure

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

Che-Na-Wah Weitch-Ah-Wah Lucy Thompson (1856–1932), a Yurok medicine woman, was born in Pecwan on the Klamath River in California. She is one of the first Native American women authors known for her book To the American Indian: Reminiscences of a Yurok Woman (1916). Written in Wiyot territory, in what is now Myrtletown, just outside the city limits of the City of Eureka. Her purpose was to preserve her people’s stories, and to tell the truth about the historical genocidal targeting Indigenous Californians. She also expressed concern for the continued stewardship of Klamath River. Lucy used her skills as a storyteller …

Defining Genocide In Northwestern California: The Devastation Of Humboldt And Del Norte County’S Indigenous Peoples, Gavin W. Rowley

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

In recent years, historians and the American public have increasingly debated whether or not the crimes that have been committed against Native Americans in the United States constitute genocide. Although the Humboldt and Del Norte region was conquered by Euro-Americans later than the rest of the US, genocidal crimes were prevalent within the counties of Humboldt and Del Norte in Northwestern California. The genocide committed against the Indigenous Peoples there were carried out by vigilante groups with the support of the California state government as well as the US federal government. I argue not only that genocide, as defined by …

Ishi And The California Indian Genocide As Developmental Mass Violence, Robert K. Hitchcock, Charles A. Flowerday

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

Ishi represents a form of sentimental folk reductionism. But he can be a teaching tool for the California Indian Genocide, John Sutter also. His mill was where gold was discovered – setting off a frenzied settlement in which Indians were legally enslaved and slaughtered, finally ending a decade after the Emancipation Proclamation. They had already experienced wholesale devastation under Spanish and Mexican colonization. The mission system itself was inhumane and genocidal. It codified enslavement and trafficking of Indians as economically useful and morally purposeful. Mexican administration paid lip service to Indian emancipation but exploited them ruthlessly as peons. The California …

Continued Disembodiment: Nagpra, Cal Nagpra, And Recognition, Brittani R. Orona, Vanessa D. Esquivido

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

Tribes in California have a long and complicated history fighting for the repatriation of their ancestors and cultural items from institutions, more specifically universities and Anthropology departments. With the passing of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) (1990), Cal NAGPRA (2001), and the United Nation Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) (2007), many Tribes continue to ask the question, why are basic human rights not afforded to them? These policies, created out of Indigenous human rights initiatives, are a façade that hinders full repatriation efforts. The university is an appendage of the settler state and reproduces …

We Are A Part Of The Land And The Land Is Us: Settler Colonialism, Genocide & Healing In California, Kaitlin Reed Ph.D.

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

This essay proposes that the history of California includes the intended destruction and decimation of native cultures, including their forced removal, illegal land acquisition, slavery, separation of families, and outright murder enacted by the private citizenry and governmental agencies during European contact can be defined as genocide as outlined by the United Nations Geneva Convention, 1948. The lasting legacy of contact on aboriginal lifeways and tradition, as well as the recent resurgence of native traditions and culture is addressed to suggest that the health and healing of native communities lies in reconciling the past to make passage into the future.

“To Destroy In Whole Or In Part”: Remembering Our Past To Secure Our Future, Jack Norton Jr

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

This essay proposes that the history of California includes the intended destruction and decimation of native cultures, including their forced removal, illegal land acquisition, slavery, separation of families, and outright murder enacted by the private citizenry and governmental agencies during European contact can be defined as genocide as outlined by the United Nations Geneva Convention, 1948. The lasting legacy of contact on aboriginal lifeways and tradition, as well as the recent resurgence of native traditions and culture is addressed to suggest that the health and healing of native communities lies in reconciling the past to make passage into the future.

The New Beginnings Newsletter, October 2020, Shana Harming

Wokini Initiative: The New Beginnings Newsletter

Content includes:
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
South Dakota's Indian Reservations
Assessment and Grant Specialist Position Available
Featured Events
Book of the Month: Highway of Tears
Lakota Words of the Month

Leadership Through An Indigenous Lens, Kelley Mccall

Buder Center for American Indian Studies Research

Indigenous leaders are found throughout history, across the globe. Indigenous leaders have been present long before European settlers colonized lands. These leaders possessed qualities, worked within frameworks, and created strategies to successfully lead their people and nations. For the purposes of this brief, examples used will be of American Indians/First Nations leaders.

Distinction Between Indigenous And Western Cultural Conceptions Of The Earth And Its Relation To The Environment, John M. Zak

Student Publications

The differences between Indigenous and Western cultural conceptions of the Earth is a major cleavage between both communities and a source of tension and misunderstanding. Native American religious beliefs in communal ethics, the belief in the Earth and nature more broadly being a source of spiritual fulfillment and enlightenment, has encouraged Native Americans to work to safeguard the environment they feel a spiritual connection to. This is contrasted in Western notions of human centrality that encourages Western consumer economies to exploit resources for commercial profit that has led to the dispossession of Native lands and desecration of its sacredness in …

Girl Talk: How Friendships Between Moravian And Native Women Sustained The Moravian Mission At Shamokin Pennsylvania, 1742–1749, Lindsay R. Richwine

Student Publications

From 1742 to 1755, Moravian missionaries attempted to establish a mission at the Indian town of Shamokin. While the Moravians failed to convert any native peoples, they succeeded where other missionaries failed by maintaining a continued presence. By using evidence from sources such as the Shamokin mission diary, this project asserts that it was the friendships forged between Native and Moravian women in the early years of the mission that integrated the Moravians into the community at Shamokin. Through an examination of the lives of the women present at Shamokin in this period, this project situates itself within existing research …

Indian Boarding School History: An Analysis Of Two Letters From The Perris Indian School, Erica Maien Ward

History in the Making

This paper is not meant to be the traditional research paper. It is a brief look into the documents researchers find and analysis while researching on a topic. The documents provide a view into the people and policies of that time period. The two letters that will be analyzed later in this paper are examples of Indian boarding schools’ policies that had direct effect on the lives of the students and their families.1 In the turn of the twentieth century, Indian boarding schools were still operating on the premise of assimilation of the American Indian into the "white culture." Hopefully, …

Home Sweet Home, Adam Black

Indian Head Rock Project

An article published in the Portsmouth Daily Times on September 22, 2020 on the relocation of Indian Head Rock to South Shore Rotary Park.

Making The Case For Genocide, The Forced Sterilization Of Indigenous Peoples Of Peru, Ñusta P. Carranza Ko

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Peru’s national health program Programa de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar (PSRPF) aimed to uphold women’s reproductive rights and address the scarcity in maternity related services. Despite these objectives, during PSRPF’s implementation the respect for women’s rights were undermined with the forced sterilization of women predominantly of indigenous, poor, and rural backgrounds. This study considers the forced sterilization of indigenous women as a genocide. Making the case for genocide has not been done previously with this particular case. Using the normative markers of the Genocide Convention, this study categorically sets forced sterilization victims from the state-led-policy as victims of genocide, …

Ecocide Is Genocide: Decolonizing The Definition Of Genocide, Lauren J. Eichler

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

I demonstrate how the destruction of the land, water, and nonhuman beings of the Americas constitutes genocide according to Indigenous metaphysics and through analysis of the decimation of the American buffalo. In Genocide Studies, the destruction of nonhuman beings and nature is typically treated as a separate, but related type of phenomenon—ecocide, the destruction of nonhuman nature. In this article I follow in the footsteps of Native American and First Nations scholars to argue that ecocide and the genocide of Indigenous peoples are inextricably linked and are even constitutive of the same act. I argue that if justice is to …

Chicanx Murals: Decolonizing Place And (Re)Writing The Terms Of Composition, Nora K. Rivera

English Faculty Articles and Research

Drawing from an interpretive decolonial framework that understands multimodal writing as the act of creating co-composed knowledge, this article analyzes Chicanx murals as multimodal compositions that exemplify the continuation of the Aztec tlacuilolitztli practice of writing with images. This work also invites rhetoric and composition scholars to reexamine Western understandings of history, particularly the history of writing.

Eating The Heart Of Weetigo World: Decolonial Imaginaries In The Stories Of Louise Erdrich And Tomson Highway, Rebecca Lynne Fullan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation asks what the decolonial possibilities of fiction are in the context of the settler colonial imaginaries particular to the United States and Canada. The ongoing process of settler colonialism demands various forms of conversion from Indigenous people: ecological/land based, religious, educational, legal, familial, but the construct of “conversion” obscures Indigenous worldviews, and indeed worlds, which function according to different principles. I interpret Erdrich and Highway's work in the context of Anishinaabe and Cree narratives and story-structures. These offer examples of what can constitute broader decolonial imaginaries, through which perception and creation of other, more liveable worlds is possible. …

Northwest Coast Native Art Beyond Revival, 1962–1992, Christopher T. Green

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Histories of “primitivism” in the avant-garde show that Euro-American modernism was always engaged in the appropriation of nonwestern and Indigenous art, with particular interest in Northwest Coast Native art forms by the Surrealists, Abstract Expressionists, and Indian Space Painters. However, there has been little consideration for how Northwest Coast Native artists chose to engage with the styles and tenets of Western modern art. To date, the history of post-war Northwest Coast Native art has been dominated by what is known as the Renaissance, a narrative in which artists pursued a neo-traditional style in modern times through the recovered and revival …

Congreso Internacional Sobre Iconografía Precolombina, Barcelona 2019. Actas., Victòria Solanilla Demestre Editora

Zea E-Books Collection

Victòria Solanilla Demestre, Introducción Actas Congreso • Melissa Mattioli, The Ramey Incised Pottery of Cahokia (IL) USA: Diffusion and Reinterpretation of its Iconographic Message • Luís Abejez y Cristina Corona Jamaica, Iconografía en el paisaje. Vida cotidiana y prácticas sociales en el arte rupestre en el noreste de México • Patricia Ochoa Castillo, Figurillas masculinas con atributos de rango, del Centro de México, durante el Formativo • Anabel Villalonga Gordaliza, Ancestros, nahuales y hombres (I). Las host figurines teotihuacanas: hacia una definición, caracterización tipológica y acercamiento iconográfico • Marina Valls i García, Vida y Sacrificio: Los nueve rituales para la …

De La Atlántida Clásica A La Atlántida Precolombina: Un Viaje Del Corto Maltese, Isabel Bargalló Sánchez, Montserrat Bargalló Sánchez

Congreso internacional sobre iconografía precolombina, Barcelona, 2019. Actas.

Hugo Pratt fue un virtuoso de la plasmación de símbolos e ideas a través de unas viñetas inigualables y de unos guiones insuperables y perfectamente documentados. Su última novela gràfica, Mû, el misterio del continente perdido, es el viaje de Corto Maltese a tierras mesoamericanas, de su encuentro con Mû, con las colonias que quedaron después de su destrucción, con unas referencias al mundo de los antiguos mayas, pero también a otros pueblos de Mesoamérica, muy bien construidas. Con una simbología muy cuidada, eligiendo rigurosamente los referentes, nos acerca a una historia de Mû, de la Atlántida, de las teorías …

Xipe Tótec Y El Binomio Vida-Muerte En La Cosmovisión Mesoamericana, María Montserrat Camacho Ángeles

Congreso internacional sobre iconografía precolombina, Barcelona, 2019. Actas.

El principio básico de la cosmovisión de los pueblos mesoamericanos fue sin duda la observación de su entorno natural, para ellos las deidades o fuerzas sagradas habitan en el cielo, la tierra y el inframundo, lugares que en sí mismos contienen los opuestos complementarios: vida-muerte, entre muchos otros. Este artículo explica los elementos del binomio vida-muerte que caracterizan a Xipec Tótec, deidad mesoamericana de gran relevancia.

The Mesoamerican Cosmovision’s basic principle was, to be sure, the observation of the natural environment for those cultures, the gods or goddesses or sacred forces which live on the sky, earth and the underworld; …

Vida Y Sacrificio: Los Nueve Rituales Para La Luz La Vida Y El Maíz, Marina Valls I García

Congreso internacional sobre iconografía precolombina, Barcelona, 2019. Actas.

El Códice Borgia presenta uno de los rituales más complejos de toda la liturgia mesoamericana; el conocido como “los nueve rituales para la luz, la vida y el maíz”. El presente estudio es la primera entrega de una serie de artículos en los que se realiza una revisión crítica e interpretativa del ceremonial litúrgico, representado entre las páginas 29 y 42 del documento. Con el objetivo de una mejor comprensión de todo el imaginario reflejado, se plantea una aproximación interdisciplinar que permita apreciar la gran cantidad de figuras poéticas visuales y sutilezas que conforman el discurso religioso y artístico mesoamericano, …

Ancestros, Nahuales Y Hombres (I). Las Host Figurines Teotihuacanas: Hacia Una Definición, Caracterización Tipológica Y Acercamiento Iconográfico, Annabel Villalonga Gordaliza

Congreso internacional sobre iconografía precolombina, Barcelona, 2019. Actas.

En 1934 George Vaillant adquirió en Ahuizotla una inédita escultura de barro cuyo cuerpo contenía pequeñas figurillas hechas a molde. No sería hasta 1976 cuando por primera vez Warren Barbour, designó como host figurines o figurillas tipo huésped, a un conjunto de figurillas huecas de cerámica, en posición sedente, que contenían en su interior a otras figurillas hechas a molde que procedían de Teotihuacán. Aunque generalmente habían aparecido en entierros y depósitos de ofrendas en la antigua urbe, también existen ejemplares que proceden de lugares más distantes de Mesoamérica. El propósito de este estudio preliminar consiste en revisar las host …

The Ramey Incised Pottery Of Cahokia (Il) Usa: Diffusion And Reinterpretation Of Its Iconographic Message, Melissa Mattioli

Congreso internacional sobre iconografía precolombina, Barcelona, 2019. Actas.

Una interpretación iconográfica adaptada y adoptada por toda la zona Mississippiana. Cahokia es el asentamiento más antiguo y más grande en la América del Norte precolombina. Situado a pocos kilómetros de la actual ciudad de St. Louis, MO (USA), este sitio arqueológico se convirtió en el mayor asentamiento Mississippiano desde la mitad del siglo XI hasta su abandono, al final del siglo XIV. El modelo cosmológico Mississippiano, trasmitido a través de la iconografía de la cerámica Ramey Incised, generalmente está relacionado con los mundos superior e inferior. Tradicionalmente, se reconoce que la presencia de la cosmógrafia de estilo Cahokiano fuera …

Pars Pro Toto: “La Parte Por El Todo”. Una Aproximación Al Estudio Del Significado En La Iconografía Del Perú Precolombino, Marisa Sánchez David

Congreso internacional sobre iconografía precolombina, Barcelona, 2019. Actas.

La comprensión de la imagen en las antiguas sociedades precolombinas nos acerca a comprender las mentalidades de los pueblos del pasado. Nos ilustran sobre cómo se vivieron los cambios y la evolución en estas sociedades y que trascendencia tuvieron para los miembros de cada comunidad. Partiendo de la tipología de objetos encontrados en las sociedades precolombinas, y acotando este hecho a algunas culturas de la geografía peruana, podemos observar la ofrenda de cerámicas en forma de alguna parte concreta del cuerpo (como en el caso de las culturas Moche, Wari, entre otras). La representación de un brazo, un pie, una …

Elementos Chavinoides En Textiles De Paracas Y Cerámicas De Nasca, Uwe Carlson

Congreso internacional sobre iconografía precolombina, Barcelona, 2019. Actas.

La cultura Chavin, luego de la creación de su imagen, tuvo una influencia duradera en todas las culturas subsiguientes del antiguo Perú. Los fundamentos de esta imagen y sus variaciones fueron particularmente visibles en la significativa influencia de la cultura Paracas, que surgió al mismo tiempo, produciendo de esta manera la evidencia más notable del arte textil peruano antiguo. Esto no sólo desde el punto de vista técnico textil, sino sobre todo desde el punto de vista iconográfico. Si la creación de una imagen llamativa divina es sorprendente, es aún más notable que en Paracas se repita en todos sus …

Contextualizando Una Colección Maya Olvidada Proveniente De Chich’En, Cobán, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, Julia Montoya

Congreso internacional sobre iconografía precolombina, Barcelona, 2019. Actas.

La colección maya de la Universidad de Gante, Bélgica, cuenta con 130 piezas de cerámica y 84 piezas de lítica, entre ellas, jadeíta, piedra serpentina, obsidiana, sílex y cuarzo. El estudio se inició en 2016 con la identificación y localización del sitio de proveniencia, el cual se visitó en 2017. Las fases de documentación y registro fotográfico de las piezas han sido realizadas. En este artículo se hace una breve descripción del sitio arqueológico Chich’en y se analizan aspectos del contexto geográfico, histórico y religioso que determinaron su relevancia desde el período Clásico hasta el Posclásico Tardío. El estudio está …

La Fascinante Revelación De Las Formas Esquemáticas Precolombinas, Luz Helena Ballestas Rincón

Congreso internacional sobre iconografía precolombina, Barcelona, 2019. Actas.

No hay duda de que las formas son un vehículo de comunicación. En el mundo precolombino, ciertas formas fueron codificadas hasta el punto de representar en signos aspectos relevantes para la sociedad. Algunas son de tipo esquemático, por lo cual muchas veces se han determinado como “ornamentales” sin embargo, en la cultura material, formas básicas del diseño como son el círculo, la cruz y la espiral, tuvieron simbolismo implícito que quizás se escapa a nuestra percepción pero que podrían provenir de los atributos de seres de la naturaleza o de los objetos. Mediante el reconocimiento y el análisis de la …

Iconografía Prehispánica En Entornos Virtuales: The Age Of Empires Ii, Natalia Moragas Segura, Manuel J. González Manrique

Congreso internacional sobre iconografía precolombina, Barcelona, 2019. Actas.

En este estudio analizamos el videojuego de éxito masivo Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, en su extensión The Conquerors para vislumbrar el alcance de las visiones estereotipadas del mundo mesoamericano. Por un lado, la escasa presencia las culturas precolombinas en los mass media, y por otro, el escaso interés de los productores culturales en indagar en estas civilizaciones dan lugar a un páramo divulgativo donde los estándares culturales tornarán inmutables para el gran público.

In this article we analyzed the massive hit video game Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, in its extension The Conquerors …