Abstract not available.

<p> The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore the value of leadership development programs from the perspectives of leaders in a First Nation, located in Canada. The goal of the study was to explore the perceptions of tribal leaders on the cultural appropriateness and perceived benefits of leadership development programs. A purposeful sampling criterion was used to select seven participants for the study. Multiple sources were used for evidence collection: in-depth interviews, observations, Council meeting minutes, and an annual audit report. Analyzing the data involved comparison and cross-case analysis techniques to synthesize the findings and identify recurring themes. The findings and conclusions showed rich descriptions of 17 sub-themes divided into three themes: seven sub-themes address the value and meaning of leadership, four sub-themes deal with the adequacy of leadership development programs, and six sub-themes focus on the cultural appropriateness of leadership development programs. The importance of retaining and preserving the cultural values and beliefs in leadership roles among the leaders of this First Nation was evident. This study may contribute to the cultural-appropriateness of leadership development programs focusing on the cultural traditions and ways of life of First Nation people.</p>

<p> The Xicaque, a people of colonial Honduras, confronted Spanish settlers who sought their acculturation through diverse strategies. When Spanish settlers implemented policies such as <i>entrada, reducci&oacute;n</i> or <i> misi&oacute;n,</i> the Xicaque or Xicaque <i>capitanes</i> responded with dissidence and flight. Despite the foundation of a few <i> misiones</i> the Xicaque progressively became avoidant of the Spanish settlers who continued to seek their change by Spanish policy, at the Spanish <i> misiones</i> or at their homelands. This aversion became more pronounced in 1751 when a smallpox epidemic decimated the Xicaque populations at the <i> misiones.</i> Aside from this general distrust that existed between the Spanish and the Xicaque, the Xicaque did engage in trade outside of the previously discussed channels made by Spanish policy. Yet, the overarching pattern of avoidance would characterize Xicaque/Spanish interaction until 1821. Unlike previous scholarship, this study of the Xicaque ethnohistory offers the most complete description of Xicaque culture during the colonial period. Furthermore, it analyzes interaction between the Xicaque and the Spanish since the inception of contact, circa 1676, towards 1821. The broadest range of contact between the Xicaque and the Spanish studied to date.</p>

<p> This study analyzed intercultural communication and cross-cultural hurdles between a multinational mining company, &ldquo;the Company,&rdquo; and the indigenous Western Shoshone community in Northern Nevada. Standpoint theory, as presented by Wood (2004), was the framework used to analyze the engagement methods utilized by the Company and the local tribal organizations to identify communication barriers between the two groups. This study explored an external perception of the Company and the general mining industry from tribal employees, as well as the unique perspective of those participants who bring a Native American standpoint to their position of employment within the Company. Research data was derived from focus groups of the Company employees of Native American descent and targeted interviews with external Native American stakeholders. The focus group participants varied by departmental function, tenure, and standing across multiple geographic operations, while the interview participants were employed by two different tribal organizations. Focus group and interview data each highlighted a discernable gap in the Company&rsquo;s current outreach with the local Native American communities and indicated key areas for improvement. Both internal and external participants recommended improvements to the Company&rsquo;s communications strategy and provided specific examples of culturally effective outreach methods and topics. These disparities originated from differing cultural perspectives and standpoints between the Company and the Native American communities. Through improved dialogue practices and communication outreach, this intercultural relationship can progress.</p>

<p> This thesis interweaves the theories of Jungian psychology with the Native American Winnebago tribe&rsquo;s trickster mythology in order to identify what the role of the trickster is in the process of research. With an alchemical hermeneutic and heuristic methodological approach, the researcher becomes the subject of the thesis. In this intertwining of ideas and heuristic methodology, the trickster archetype traps the researcher in such a way that promotes assimilation of unconscious material through the use of dream work, shadow integration, and the exploration of countertransference and individuation. This thesis emphasizes the hermeneutics aspects of psychotherapy and explores the therapeutic relationship from a Jungian perspective. In documentation of the personal experience of the researcher, the trickster helps to illuminate that which is not understood.</p>

<p> American Indian music and dance traditions unilaterally contain the following three elements: singing, dancing, and percussion instruments. Singing and dancing are of the utmost importance in American Indian dance traditions, while the expression of percussion instruments is superfluous. Louis W. Ballard has composed a piece of music for percussion ensemble which was inspired by the music and dance traditions of American Indian tribes from across North America. The controversy that this presents is relative to the fact that there is no American Indian tradition for a group comprised exclusively of percussion instruments. However, this percussion ensemble piece, <i> Cacega Ayuwipi</i>, does exhibit the three elements inherent to all American Indian music and dance traditions. <i>Cacega Ayuwipi</i> is consistent with American Indian traditions in that the audience must see the instruments, watch the movements of the percussionists, and hear the percussive expressions in order to experience the musical work in its entirety.</p>

<p> The examination of the tools that prehistoric people crafted for subsistence and related practices offers distinctive insights into how they lived their lives. Most often, researchers study these practices in isolation, by tool type or by material. However, by using a relational perspective, my research explores the tool assemblage as a whole including bone, stone and shell. This allows me to study the changes in tool industries in relation to one another, something that I could not accomplish by studying only one material or tool type. I use this broader approach to tool manufacture and use for the artifact assemblage from Crystal River (8CI1) and Roberts Island (8CI41), two sequential Middle and Late Woodland Period (A.D. 1-1050) archaeological sites on the central Gulf coast of Florida. The results of my research show that people made different choices, both in the type of material they used and the kind of tools they manufactured during the time they lived at these sites as subsistence practices shifted. Evidence of these trends aligns with discrete changes in strata within our excavations. The timing of depositional events and the artifacts found within each suggest people also used the sites differently through time. These trends exemplify the role of crafting tools in the way people maintain connections with their mutable social and physical world.</p>

<p> Within the space of a battle to halt ski resort expansion and snowmaking on the San Francisco Peaks, a mountain in northern Arizona, a coalition has emerged of indigenous activists (primarily Din&eacute;), Euroamerican environmentalists, and anarchists. The resulting collaboration, Mountain Defense, goes beyond usual models of environmentalist-indigenous alliances as temporary and incommensurate. This dissertation explores the development of the Mountain Defense movement over time, the motivations of activists from divergent backgrounds in opposing snowmaking, the social interactions and negotiations of identity within this group, and the public discourse by which they construct a message about this space and threats to it. Ethnographic fieldwork was undertaken from 2009 to 2015; key methods of data collection included participant observation, interviews, archival research, and collection of spoken, print, and online communication. This data was analyzed for emergent themes as well as the ways in which meaning was produced between parties. Situating Mountain Defense within scholarship on place-making, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), and social constructionism, this dissertation explicates how the movement has articulated a hybrid knowledge, including layered conceptualizations of sacred land and syntheses of sacred and scientific idioms in expressing the dangers of snowmaking technology. This research also speaks to the complex dimensions and continuing salience of Din&eacute; relationships with the San Francisco Peaks and the ways in which snowmaking and expansion threaten these. </p>

<p> The goals of this research were to determine if the mode of mineralization and the geology of two abandoned uranium and vanadium mining districts that border the Crow Reservation might be a source for contaminants in the Bighorn River and a source of elevated uranium in home water wells on the Reservation. Surface and spring waters of the Crow Reservation have always been greatly respected by the Crow people, valued as a source of life and health and relied upon for drinking water. Upon learning that the Bighorn River has an EPA 303d impaired water listing due to elevated lead and mercury and that mercury has been detected in the fish from rivers of the Crow Reservation this study was implemented. Watersheds from both mining districts contribute to the Bighorn River that flows through the Crow Reservation.</p><p> Initial research used the National Uranium Resource Evaluation database to analyze available geochemistry for the study areas using GIS. The data showed elevated concentrations of lead in drainages related to the mining areas. The data also showed elevated uranium in many of the surface waters and wells that were tested as a part of the study on the Crow Reservation. The author attended meetings and presented results of the National Uranium Resource Evaluation data analyses to the Crow Environmental Health Steering Committee. Thus, both uranium and lead were added to the list of elements that were being tested in home water wells as part of a community based participatory research project addressing many issues of water quality on the Crow Reservation. Results from home wells tested on the reservation did show elevated uranium. </p><p> Rock samples were collected in the study areas and geochemically analyzed. The results of the analyses support a Permian Phosphoria Formation oil source of metals in the two mining districts. Structural data support fracturing accompanied by tectonic hydrothermal brecciation as a process that introduced oil and brines from the Bighorn Basin into the deposits where the uranium vanadium deposits later formed.</p>

<p> This thesis is a critical study of two exhibits, <i> First Encounters Spanish Exploration in the Caribbean</i> and <i> A Tribute to Survival</i>. The objective of the thesis was to understand if and how indigenous activists, using the media as tool, were able to change curatorial approaches to exhibition development. Chapter 1 is broken into three sections. The first section introduces the exhibits and succinctly discusses the theory that is applied to this thesis. The second section discusses the objectives of the project and the third provides a brief outline of the document. Chapter 2 discusses the historical background of American museums in an attempt to highlight changes in curatorial attitudes towards the public, display, interpretation, and authority. Chapter 3 gives a more in-depth overview of the methodology and materials utilized in the thesis. Chapter 4 is a critical analysis of the literature for both <i>First Encounters</i> and <i> A Tribute to Survival</i>. Chapter five is a summary of the thesis and offers a conclusion of the effectiveness of using the media as a tool.</p>