<p>This dissertation contributes to Indigenous archaeology, particularly along the Northwest Coast, the Coast Salish region and the territory of the Squamish Nation. I examine the regional archaeological sequence and provide an Indigenous perspective of time and space of Squamish Nation territory. Closer examination of this region’s archaeological record focuses on the occurrence of suitable igneous tool stone sources and their use over the past 10,000 years. A full understanding of these lithic sources comes from three different perspectives Squamish Nation culture, the archaeological and geological records.</p> <p>I propose that lithic sources are important places of the Squamish Nation cultural landscape and that the distributions of certain material types is linked to Squamish Nation place names and oral histories. Expanding this concept outward, I consider the distribution of the occurrence of these materials from 25 archaeological sites ranging from sea level ocean shore to mountainous alpine contexts. I then examine lithic source materials and artifacts from these sites on a visual and chemical basis (X-Ray Fluorescence) to illustrate the varying importance of certain lithic materials across Squamish Nation territory. Resulting analysis demonstrates that these materials have varying spatial and temporal distributions that relate to predominant themes of Squamish Nation oral history, concepts of Transformation and Mythical Beings. Material distributions, place names, oral history related to the region’s archaeological record are discussed under different theoretical frameworks of the Northwest Coast building from culture history, processual, post processual, and humanist perspectives cumulating at a Indigenous perspective of lithic sources and flaked stone artifact distributions.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Using the Mohr Site as a case study, this project examines the role of pottery in Shenks Ferry mortuary features. Following an analysis of the mortuary pottery, the resulting information is compared with pottery from the general site assemblage as well as with descriptions of pottery from other Shenks Ferry sites. In addition, an inventory of the Mohr Site grave good assemblage has been created. The assemblage at the Mohr site is especially rich and is particularly noteworthy given the nature and number of the burials discovered; no other current collection has as much variety or quantity as is seen at this site. The pottery recovered from Mohr exhibits characteristics typical of pottery found at other Shenks Ferry Sites and in other Shenks Ferry burials. The ceramic evidence challenges the traditional assumption that the Mohr site is a transitional Lancaster-Funk Phase site. Likewise, the length of time this site was occupied is also debatable. Mortuary vessels at Mohr are predominately associated with extended burials oriented to the east. There are also correlations between mortuary vessels types and age and sex. Possible connections between other grave goods and age, sex, and body position and between body position and season of interment are also discussed. Additional research employing methods such as residue analysis to compare information regarding the contents of the mortuary and non-mortuary Mohr Site pottery as well as further evidence produced by additional excavations or more in-depth analysis of current grave material collections will provide further insight into Shenks Ferry mortuary ritual and is necessary in order to fully understand this site and its place in the chronology of the Shenks Ferry Complex. / Anthropology

American schooling and Indigenous peoples share a coarse relationship mired by devastating periods of forced removal, indoctrination, and brutal assimilation methods. Over the course of more than a century of failed education policy—though often veiled in good intentions—Indigenous peoples have yet to witness a comprehensive Indigenous education program that fundamentally honors the federal trust responsibility of the United States government. On the contrary, with a contemporary approach of apathy, invisibility, and institutionalization, it is not difficult to see the legacy of settler colonialism continuing to wield its oppressive influence on Indigenous communities. Wolfe’s (2006) claim that “invasion is a structure, not an event” (p. 388), prompts the recognition of the coloniality of power—referring to the interpellation of modern forms of exploitation and domination, long after the termination of formal colonial operations. This decolonizing interpretive approach of this dissertation served to: a) examine the historical and philosophical foundations of colonizing epistemicides and their impact on contemporary Indigenous education; and b) move toward the formulation of a decolonizing Indigenous curricular framework for contemporary Indigenous education. Grounded in Antonia Darder’s (2012, 2019) critical bicultural theory and a decolonizing interpretive methodology, this qualitative study examined the complex factors facing the indigenization of education, while implicating the pernicious impact of epistemicides and a culture of forgetting. The study provided a robust framework by which to situate a particular curricular approach through a set of five decolonizing principles that aim to shape a meaningful reflection of Indigenous consciousness. A commitment to these decolonizing principles necessarily means an emancipatory re-reading of Indigenous relations within the scope of contemporary education. It calls on educational leaders to paradoxically ground their decision-making in the ancestral teachings of Indigenous communities, for a genuine reimagination of self-determination and sovereignty in the contemporary moment.

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The purpose of this study was to explore the development of sexuality in relation to one's overall sense of identity. The most popular measures of identity development assess identity in a number of life's domains ( e.g., politics, religion, occupation, values, friendships, dating, gender roles, and recreation/leisure), but none of the measures include an assessment of identity development in the domain of sexuality. Measures of sexuality have typically been limited to measures of sexual orientation or surveys of sexual experiences. The purpose of this research was to explore identity formation and development within the domain of sexuality, but not limited to sexual orientation and sexual experience. Toward that endeavor, a measure was constructed based on Marcia's ( 1966) identity status paradigm and modeled after Balistreri, Busch-Rossnagel, & Geisinger' s (1995) Ego Identity Process Questionnaire (EIPQ). The development of this measure was an attempt to capture a more comprehensive summation of a person's sense of sexuality than has previously been measured, including the areas of sexual knowledge, experience, motivation, values, orientation, relationships, and desire. Participants were undergraduate students (N=121) from a medium size suburban college campus in the Southern U.S. All participants completed an anonymous survey including a demographic questionnaire, our sexual identity survey, the EIPQ, a measure of sexual adjustment, a measure of identity distress, and a psychological symptom measure. Our sexual identity survey had very good internal consistency with a reliability alpha coefficient of .895. Sexual identity was significantly correlated with ego identity and all the sexual adjustment variables. Sexual identity development variables predicted sexual adjustment over and above (and better than) ego identity development variables, even when controlling for psychological adjustment and identity distress, thus providing evidence of incremental validity for our sexual identity construct. These results are encouraging because they suggest that it is appropriate to consider sexuality as another identity domain.

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This thesis examines the relationship between French female Catholicism during the 17th century and representations of Huron women’s spirituality in Relations des Jésuites. I argue that the nuances of French dévote culture highlight the elevated status of women in Huron indigenous society. These portraits of Huron women by the Jesuits inspired French women to breach the cloister and become missionaries, resulting in newfound religious freedoms for dévotes achieved through imperialistic efforts against the Huron nation.

The Native American characters in Love Medicine and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian experience prejudice from other Native Americans and suffer from internalized norms and values. This study examines whether or not the prejudice the fictional characters in Love Medicine and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indianexperience and express as Native Americans unite them as a community or not. It also investigateshow they view white society andif the Native American characters have prejudice against the members of their own tribal community. The analysis is partially based on postcolonial theory and focuses on terms such as internalisation, acculturation and prejudice. The thesis found that the communitiesare united on the premises that they conform to the Native American norms but any deviation from these norms has the potential to divide them.

Bear Lodge/Devils Tower National Monument, a spectacular rock formation in northeastern Wyoming, has a multiplicity of meanings, not all of which were fully acknowledged until the 1990s. It is widely known as a geologic wonder, the first national monument, a marker of local and pioneer heritage, and a premier rock climbing area. In the 1980s and ‘90s, however, the National Park Service began to acknowledge that the Tower also holds cultural and historical meaning for the Northern Plains tribes, dating back long before the colonization of the American West. Some of the tribes expressed to the Park Service that they were offended by rock climbers desecrating the Tower, a sacred site, leading the Park Service to seek to compromise between these competing uses of this public land. The controversy over climbing at Bear Lodge/Devils Tower was, and remains, a debate over history, and this thesis examines the historical foundations for the discourses of climbers, local white residents, tribal members, and the Park Service, as these various groups asserted their claims to this public space. This thesis contends that the language used by climbers and local white residents in arguing against the Park Service’s accommodation of tribal cultures and beliefs appropriated the languages of spirituality and tradition used by the tribes, and sought to delegitimize the tribal claims to the Tower. The Park Service is complicit in controlling the discourses surrounding the Tower and erasing the traditions and complex history of the Northern Plains tribal ties to this sacred place.