Indigenous Studies Commons^™

Níksókowaawák As Axiom: The Indispensability Of Comprehensive Relational Animacy In Blackfoot Ways Of Knowing, Being, And Doing, Sandra Bartlett Atwood, Ninna Piiksii (Chief Bird) Mike Bruised Head, Mark W. Brunson, Aahsaopi (State Of Being) Laverne First Rider, Tim Frandy, James Maffie, Aakaomo'tsstaki (Many Victories) Michelle Provost, Miiniipokaa (Berry Child) Peter Weasel Moccasin, Itsiipootsikimskai

Environment and Society Student Research

This paper outlines a proposal, based on Blackfoot worldview, for a collective method to stand alongside Western qualitative and quantitative methods and highlights the value of collective methods in collaborative social-ecological research. Neither qualitative nor quantitative methods are adequate to disclose a world where all things are alive, where “objects” are subjects—agentive beings in their own right. Most Indigenous cultures understand and experience the world as a network of living beings, a collective, with whom they are interrelated/connected and therefore, any efforts to collaborate with Indigenous peoples must acknowledge comprehensive relational animacy. Applying coproduction principles in concert with Blackfoot ways …

Dams, Roads, And Bridges: (Re)Defining Work And Masculinity In American Indian Literature Of The Great Plains, 1968-Present, Joshua Tyler Anderson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In the study of contemporary American Indian literature, the definition of work and the characterization of Native and non-native laborers—farmers, ranchers, lawmen, smugglers, Indian Affairs agents, academics, activists, "traditionalists," tour guides, artists, among others—are rarely the lenses that scholars use to interpret the texts. Instead, issues of class and labor often take a backseat to those of cultural survivance and traditional and/or "mix-blood" identity, resistance to historical and ongoing acts of colonialism, reassertion of treaty rights and cultural practices, and reclamation of land and cultural artifacts. However, although the canon of contemporary Native literatures warrants close attention to these issues, …

Natural-Born Proud, S. R. Martin Jr.

All USU Press Publications

A young man from Monterey and his younger brother go on their first deer hunt with their minister father and his friends. The setting is 1950s northern California, in country where, from the right height, one can see Mt. Shasta in one direction, Mt. Lassen in the other. It is a region of small, insular towns, and although it is a familiar hunting ground for the Reverend and his buddies, not everyone there welcomes black hunters. Father and son both shoulder their pride, and a racial confrontation seems inevitable.

Among the lessons young Satch learns is the sometime advantage of …

William Clark Indian Diplomat, H. Bert Jenson

English Faculty Publications

WILLIAM CLARK IS BEST KNOWN for his role in the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition. Meriwether Lewis died two years after that trek-in 1808, but William Clark settled in Missouri and lived on for more than three decades, serving as Indian agent, territorial governor, and later, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis. Post-expedition America (1806-1840) was a time when the country looked inside itself for definition, a time when starry-eyed Argonauts peered out through the misty landscape of dreams that many times cloaked fear, reality, and propriety. They looked to settlenlent in the West, where opportunities based in land …

Living With Stories, William Schneider

All USU Press Publications

In essays about communities as varied as Alaskan Native, East Indian, Palestinian, Mexican, and African American, oral historians, folklorists, and anthropologists look at how traditional and historical oral narratives live through re-tellings, gaining meaning and significance in repeated performances, from varying contexts, through cultural and historical knowing, and due to tellers' consciousness of their audiences.

The People Of Bear Hunter Speak: Oral Histories Of The Cache Valley Shoshones Regarding The Bear River Massacre, Aaron L. Crawford

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Cache Valley Shoshone are the survivors of the Bear River Massacre, where a battle between a group of US. volunteer troops from California and a Shoshone village degenerated into the worst Indian massacre in US. history, resulting in the deaths of over 200 Shoshones. The massacre occurred due to increasing tensions over land use between the Shoshones and the Mormon settlers. Following the massacre, the Shoshones attempted settling in several different locations in Box Elder County, eventually finding a home in Washakie, Utah. However, the LDS Church sold the land where the city of Washakie sat, forcing the Shoshones …

The Arc And The Sediment, Christine Allen-Yazzie

All USU Press Publications

Gretta Bitsilly, gin-steeped mother of two and self-proclaimed expert at standing outside the margins of ethnicity and peering in, has been all but eclipsed by the world that eludes her--as a wife, a writer, a skeptic in "the other land of Zion," Utah. Gretta has set off to Fort Defiance, Arizona, where she hopes to convince her Navajo husband, who has escaped not from his family but from alcoholism, to come home.

Over a sputtering two-steps-forward, one-step-back desert journey, Gretta is diverted by chance, seizures, an inconstant memory, and the disjointed character of her irresolute quest.

She is fueled by …

Shoshonean Peoples And The Overland Trails, Dale L. Morgan

All USU Press Publications

This compilation of Dale Morgan's historical work on Indians in the Intermountain West focuses primarily on the Shoshone who lived near the Oregon and California trails.

Three connected works by Morgan are included: First is his classic article on the history of the Utah Superintendency of Indian Affairs. This is followed by a previously unpublished history of early relations among the Western Shoshoni, emigrants, and the government along the California Trail. The book concludes with an important set of government reports and correspondence from the National Archives concerning the Eastern Shoshone and their leader Washakie. Morgan heavily annotated these for …

A Navajo Legacy: The Life And Teachings Of John Holiday, H. Bert Jenson

English Faculty Publications

WITHOUT A DOUBT, Robert McPherson is one of the most prolific and conscientious writers on the Navajo people in this generation, and an advocate of their life ways, history, and place in American society. He is consummately careful not to breech the right of literary sovereignty native peoples everywhere are exerting over their own culture and heritage. In this latest work one perceives certain humility about his approach to such things, and one enters into the dialogue on that same premise. As co-author/editor, he is gracious in his acknowledgement of those who helped him bring the work to print: Baxter …

Beneath These Red Cliffs, Ronald L. Holt

All USU Press Publications

In this new and updated edition---with a foreword by Lora Tom, chairwoman of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah---Holt recounts the survival of a people against all odds. A compound of rapid white settlement of the most productive Southern Paiute homelands, especially their farmlands near tributaries of the Colorado River; conversion by and labor for the Mormon settlers; and government neglect placed the Utah Paiutes in a state of dependency that ironically culminated in the 1957 termination of their status as federally recognized Indians. The recognition and attendant services were not restored until 1980, but the act revived the Paiutes' …

Coyote Steals Fire, Northwest Band Shoshone Nation

All USU Press Publications

"Coyote was tired of being cold," says this traditional Shoshone tale about the arrival of fire in the northern Wasatch region.

Members of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation developed the concept for this retelling in collaboration with book arts teacher Tamara Zollinger. Together, they wrote and illustrated the book.

Bright watercolor-and-salt techniques provide a winning background to the hand-cut silhouettes of the characters. The lively, humorous story about Coyote and his friends is complemented perfectly by later pages written by Northwestern Shoshone elders on the historical background and cultural heritage of the Shoshone nation.

An audio CD with …

The Anguish Of Snails: Native American Folklore In The West, Barre Toelken

All USU Press Publications

After a career of working and living with Native Americans and studying their traditions, Barre Toelken has written this sweeping study of Native American folklore in the West. Within a framework of performance theory, cultural worldview, and collaborative research, he examines Native American visual arts, dance, oral tradition (story and song), humor, and patterns of thinking and discovery to demonstrate what can be gleaned from Indian traditions by Natives and non-Natives alike. In the process he considers popular distortions of Indian beliefs, demystifies many traditions by showing how they can be comprehended within their cultural contexts, considers why some aspects …

Pedro Pino, E. Richard Hart

All USU Press Publications

Pedro Pino, or Lai-iu-ah-tsai-lu (his Zuni name) was for many years the most important Zuni political leader. He served during a period of tremendous change and challenges for his people. Born in 1788, captured by Navajos in his teens, he was sold into a New Mexican household, where he obtained his Spanish name. When he returned to Zuni, he spoke three languages and brought with him a wealth of knowledge regarding the world outside the pueblo. For decades he ably conducted Zuni foreign relations, defending the pueblo's sovereignty and lands, establishing trade relationships, interacting with foreigners-from prominent military and scientific …

Termination’S Legacy: The Discarded Indians Of Utah, H. Bert Jenson

English Faculty Publications

STARTING IN 1954 the Federal Government terminated onehundred plus Indian tribe across the Unit d States. All have subsequently been reinstated, that is, with one exception: the so called mixed-blood Utes in the Uintah Basin of Northeastern Utah. It is this still disenfranchised group of people that form the stimulus driving R. Warren Metcalf's book Termination's Legacy: The Discarded Indians of Utah. It is about these people that he writes; it is their cause he champion.

So They Understand, William Schneider

All USU Press Publications

Illustrated with numerous stories collected from Alaska, the Yukon, and South Africa and further enlivened by the author's accessible style and experiences as a longtime oral historian and archivist, So They Understand is a comprehensive study of the special challenges and concerns involved in documenting, representing, preserving, and interpreting oral narratives. The title of the book comes from a quotation by Chief Peter John, the traditional chief of the Tanana Chiefs region in central Alaska: "In between the lines is something special going on in their minds, and that has got to be brought to light, so they understand just …

Native American Oral Traditions, Larry Evers, Barre Toelken

All USU Press Publications

This collection provides a benchmark that helps secure the position of collaboration between Native American and non-Native American scholars in the forefront of study of Native oral traditions. Seven sets of intercultural authors present Native American oral texts with commentary, exploring dimensions of perspective, discovery, and meaning that emerge through collaborative translation and interpretation. The texts studied all come from the American West but include a rich variety of material, since their tribal sources range from the Yupik in the Arctic to the Yaqui in the Sonoran Desert.

This presentation of jointly authored work is timely: it addresses increasing interest …

Newe Hupia: Shoshoni Poetry Songs, Beverly Crum, Earl Crum, Jon P. Dayley

All USU Press Publications

This collection presents written texts of songs in Shoshoni and English, with both figurative and literal translations, and is packaged with a CD containing performances of the songs by Earl and Beverly Crum. The songs fall into several categories based on the contexts of their performances, such as dance songs, medicine songs, and handgame songs. The texts are framed with an introduction and commentary discussing the cultural background, meaning, forms, and performance contexts of the songs; Shoshoni language; and methodology. Glossaries of Shoshoni terms are appended. As the first major linguistic study of Shoshoni songs, Newe Hupia is an important …

The Northern Navajo Frontier 1860-1900, Robert S. Mcpherson

All USU Press Publications

The Navajo nation is one of the most frequently researched groups of Indians in North America. Anthropologists, sociologists, historians, and others have taken turns explaining their views of Navajo history and culture. A recurrent theme throughout is that the U.S. government defeated the Navajos so soundly during the early 1860s that after their return from incarceration at Bosque Redondo, they were a badly shattered and submissive people.

The next thirty years saw a marked demographic boom during which the Navajo population doubled. Historians disagree as to the extent of this growth, but the position taken by many historians is that …

The Washakie Letters Of Willie Ottogary, Matthew E. Kreitzer

All USU Press Publications

Writings by American Indians from the early twentieth century or earlier are rare. Willie Ottogary's letters have the distinction of being firsthand reports of an Indian community's ongoing social life by a community member and leader. The Northwestern Shoshone residing at the Washakie colony in northern Utah descended from survivors of the Bear River Massacre. Most had converted to the Mormon Church and remained in northern Utah rather than moving to a federal Indian reservation. For over twenty years, local newspapers in Utah and southern Idaho regularly published letters from Ottogary reporting happenings-personal milestones and health crises, comings and goings, …

The Journey Of Navajo Oshley, Robert S. Mcpherson

All USU Press Publications

Ak'é Nýdzin, or Navajo Oshley, was born sometime between 1879 and 1893. His oral memoir is set on the northern frontier of Navajo land, principally the San Juan River basin in southeastern Utah, and tells the story of his early life near Dennehetso and his travels, before there were roads or many towns, from Monument Valley north along Comb Ridge to Blue Mountain. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Anglos and Navajos expanded their use and settlement of lands north of the San Juan. Grazing lands and the Anglo wage economy drew many Navajos across the river. Oshley, …

Sagwitch, Scott R. Christensen

All USU Press Publications

The Northwestern Shoshone knew as home the northern Great Salt Lake, Bear River, Cache, and Bear Lake valleys-northern Utah. Sagwitch was born at a time when his people traded with the mountain men. In the late 1850s, wagons brought Mormon farmers to settle in Cache Valley, the Northwestern Shoshone heartland. Emigrants and settlers reduced Shoshone access to traditional village sites and food resources. Relationships with the Mormons were mostly good but often strained, and the Shoshone treatment of migrants, who now traveled north and south as well as west and east through the area, was increasingly opportunistic. It only took …

Usable Pasts, Tad Tuleja

All USU Press Publications

In Usable Pasts, fourteen authors examine the manipulation of traditional expressions among a variety of groups from the United States and Canada: the development of a pictorial style by Navajo weavers in response to traders, Mexican American responses to the appropriation of traditional foods by Anglos, the expressive forms of communication that engender and sustain a sense of community in an African American women's social club and among elderly Yiddish folksingers in Miami Beach, the incorporation of mass media images into the "C&Ts" (customs and traditions) of a Boy Scout troop, the changing meaning of their defining Exodus-like migration to …

Indian Self-Rule, Kenneth R. Philp

All USU Press Publications

Now back in print, this important collection of first-hand accounts from individuals who had leading roles in Indian-white relations is a necessary reference for anyone interested in the modern Indian experience.

Reviewing fifty years of Indian history since the Indian Reorganization Act was passed during FDR's New Deal administration, the contributors include Indian leaders and activists from a wide cross-section of America's varied native communities.

When Our Words Return, Phyllis Morrow, William Schneider

All USU Press Publications

The title to this interdisciplinary collection draws on the Yupik Eskimo belief that seals, fish, and other game are precious gifts that, when treated with respect and care, will return to be hunted again. Just so, if oral traditions are told faithfully and respectfully, they will return to benefit future generations. The contributors to this volume are concerned with the interpretation and representation of oral narrative and how it is shaped by its audience and the time, place, and cultural context of the narration. Thus, oral traditions are understood as a series of dialogues between tradition bearers and their listeners, …