Gifts from the Thunder Beings

Gifts from the Thunder Beings
Author: Roland Bohr
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2014-05-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0803254385

Gifts from the Thunder Beings examines North American Aboriginal peoples’ use of Indigenous and European distance weapons in big-game hunting and combat. Beyond the capabilities of European weapons, Aboriginal peoples’ ways of adapting and using this technology in combination with Indigenous weaponry contributed greatly to the impact these weapons had on Aboriginal cultures. This gradual transition took place from the beginning of the fur trade in the Hudson’s Bay Company trading territory to the treaty and reserve period that began in Canada in the 1870s. Technological change and the effects of European contact were not uniform throughout North America, as Roland Bohr illustrates by comparing the northern Great Plains and the Central Subarctic—two adjacent but environmentally different regions of North America—and their respective Indigenous cultures. Beginning with a brief survey of the subarctic and Northern Plains environments and the most common subsistence strategies in these regions around the time of contact, Bohr provides the context for a detailed examination of social, spiritual, and cultural aspects of bows, arrows, quivers, and firearms. His detailed analysis of the shifting usage of bows and arrows and firearms in the northern Great Plains and the Central Subarctic makes Gifts from the Thunder Beings an important addition to the canon of North American ethnology.

Restoring a Presence

Restoring a Presence
Author: Peter Nabokov
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2016-01-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 080615408X

Placing American Indians in the center of the story, Restoring a Presence relates an entirely new history of Yellowstone National Park. Although new laws have been enacted giving American Indians access to resources on public lands, Yellowstone historically has excluded Indians and their needs from its mission. Each of the other flagship national parks—Glacier, Yosemite, Mesa Verde, and Grand Canyon—has had successful long-term relationships with American Indian groups even as it has sought to emulate Yellowstone in other dimensions of national park administration. In the first comprehensive account of Indians in and around Yellowstone, Peter Nabokov and Lawrence Loendorf seek to correct this administrative disparity. Drawing from archaeological records, Indian testimony, tribal archives, and collections of early artifacts from the Park, the authors trace the interactions of nearly a dozen Indian groups with each of Yellowstone’s four geographic regions. Restoring a Presence is illustrated with historical and contemporary photographs and maps and features narratives on subjects ranging from traditional Indian uses of plant, mineral, and animal resources to conflicts involving the Nez Perce, Bannock, and Sheep Eater peoples. By considering the many roles Indians have played in the complex history of the Yellowstone region, authors Nabokov and Loendorf provide a basis on which the National Park Service and other federal agencies can develop more effective relationships with Indian groups in the Yellowstone region.

Cultural Responses to Altithermal (Atlantic) Climate Along the Eastern Margins of the North American Grasslands: 5500 to 3000 B.C.

Cultural Responses to Altithermal (Atlantic) Climate Along the Eastern Margins of the North American Grasslands: 5500 to 3000 B.C.
Author: Anthony P. Buchner
Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 1980-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1772820911

Palaeo-ecological data from central North America are synthesized in order to demonstrate the effects of the Altithermal or Atlantic Climatic Episode (circa 5500 to 3000 B.C). on vegetation. Against this environmental backdrop, Early Middle Prehistoric archaeological complexes are considered with particular attention to site setting, exploitation strategies and site distribution with comparisons to both earlier (Plano) and later (late Middle Prehistoric) complexes in the same region.

Dispossessing the Wilderness

Dispossessing the Wilderness
Author: Mark David Spence
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 204
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780195142433

National parks like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Glacier preserve some of this country's most cherished wilderness landscapes. While visions of pristine, uninhabited nature led to the creation of these parks, they also inspired policies of Indian removal. By contrasting the native histories of these places with the links between Indian policy developments and preservationist efforts, this work examines the complex origins of the national parks and the troubling consequences of the American wilderness ideal. The first study to place national park history within the context of the early reservation era, it details the ways that national parks developed into one of the most important arenas of contention between native peoples and non-Indians in the twentieth century.

Homeland

Homeland
Author: Larry Lahren
Publisher: Cayuse Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780978925109