The Ais were a Native American group who lived along the Atlantic shoreline of Florida south of Cape Canaveral. This coastal population’s position adjacent to a major shipping route afforded them numerous encounters with the Atlantic world that linked Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas. Through their exploitation of the goods and peoples from the European shipwrecks thrown ashore, coupled with their careful manipulation of other Atlantic contacts, the Ais polity established an influential domain in central east Florida during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The pre-contact peoples of Florida’s east coast, including the ancestors of the Ais, practiced a maritime adaptation concentrated on the exploitation of their bountiful riverine, estuarine, and marine environments. The Ais then modified their maritime skills to cope with the opportunities and challenges that accompanied European contact. Using their existing aquatic abilities, they ably salvaged goods and castaways from the Spanish, French, English, and Dutch vessels dashed on the rocks and reefs of Florida’s coast. The Ais’ strategic redistribution of these materials and peoples to other Florida Native Americans, the Spaniards of St. Augustine, and other passing Europeans gained them greater influence. This process, which I call indigenous wrecking, enabled the Ais to expand their domain on the peninsula. Coastal Florida Native Americans’ maritime abilities also attracted the attention of Europeans. In the late seventeenth century, English buccaneers and salvagers raided Florida’s east coast to capture indigenous divers, whom they sent to work the wreck of a sunken Spanish treasure ship located in the Bahamas. The English subsequently sold the surviving Native American captives to other Caribbean slave markets. Despite population losses to such raids, the Ais and other peoples of the east coast thrived on Atlantic exchange and used their existing maritime adaptation to resist colonial intrusions until the start of the eighteenth century. This dissertation thus offers a narrative about Native Americans and the Atlantic that is unlike most Southeastern Indian stories. The Ais used their maritime adaptation and the process of indigenous wrecking to engage and exploit the arriving Atlantic world. In the contact era, the Ais truly became Atlantic Ais.

The present study comparatively examined the socio-political and economic transformation of the indigenous Sámi in Sweden and the Indian American in the United States of America occurring first as a consequence of colonization and later as a product of interaction with the modern territorial and industrial state, from approximately 1500 to 1900. The first colonial encounters of the Europeans with these autochthonous populations ultimately created an imagery of the exotic Other and of the noble savage. Despite these disparaging representations, the cross-cultural settings in which these interactions took place also produced the hybrid communities and syncretic life that allowed levels of cultural accommodation, autonomous space, and indigenous agency to emerge. By the nineteenth century, however, the modern territorial and industrial state rearranges the dynamics and reaches of power across a redefined territorial sovereign space, consequently, remapping belongingness and identity. In this context, the status of indigenous peoples, as in the case of Sámi and of Indian Americans, began to change at par with industrialization and with modernity. At this point in time, indigenous populations became a hindrance to be dealt with the legal re-codification of Indigenousness into a vacuumed limbo of disenfranchisement. It is, thus, the modern territorial and industrial state that re-creates the exotic into an indigenous Other. The present research showed how the initial interaction between indigenous and Europeans changed with the emergence of the modern state, demonstrating that the nineteenth century, with its fundamental impulses of industrialism and modernity, not only excluded and marginalized indigenous populations because they were considered unfit to join modern society, it also re-conceptualized indigenous identity into a constructed authenticity.

This project addresses the need for more authentic multicultural curriculm in the elementary schools within California, specifically concerning Native Americans in Alaska Natives. This projects supports the need to include Alaska Natives in the California History/Social Science curriculum for fifth grade.

The Concept of Duality in Culture and Myths of Lakota Indians The purpose of the dissertation is to explore and research the broad topic of culture of Lakota Indians from the perspective of secondary abstraction inspired by the structuralist approach to anthropology. The concept of duality is perceived here as a general concept which is - as it is our belief - present across various categories and areas of Lakota culture, both in the past and in the present. The dissertation is conceived as a set of chapters each of which deals with a different area of Lakota culture from the perspective of this secondary abstraction. First, we specify and define our understanding of duality and show how the original approach of structural anthropology has been modified in the course of time by postmodernists' critique. The theoretical introduction is followed by studies of four areas of Lakota culture in which the concept of duality is shown. The first two topics - Lakota myths and traditional visual art of the Lakota - are based primarily on ethnographical data collected by other researchers of the area. On the other hand, the other two areas - Lakota identity and the phenomenon of contemporary summer powwows in Lakota reservations - are based largely on the author's research in this area in summer 2014 and 2015....

Chemical Characterization of Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium by Gas Chromatography – Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) to Assess Potential Therapeutic Phytochemicals and Toxicological Concerns Using Simulated Use Conditions By Regina Ballentine Virginia Commonwealth University, 2019 Director: Sarah C. Rutan, Professor, Department of Chemistry Currently, there is an increasing demand for natural therapies and herbal products to treat various ailments. It is generally believed that natural therapies have fewer side-effects than traditional western medicine; however, they are often used in different strengths and formulations without consistency of the levels of target compounds or knowledge about toxicity. Due to this growing trend, a comprehensive chemical evaluation of plants used for medicinal purposes is necessary. Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium is a plant that has been used historically by Native Americans as an herbal medicine. It is a flowering plant belonging to the Asteraceae family indigenous to the Eastern United States. There are documented accounts of the Native Americans using the herb therapeutically. Reportedly, they used the plant to prepare tea and as filler for bedding. Additionally, they smoked the plant material. To date, there has been little research published on the chemical composition of this plant. Thus, the objective of this work was to conduct a chemical survey of P. obtusifolium using methodologies that would simulate the three historical routes of administration (tea, bedding material, and smoke inhalation). To determine the types of compounds that may be found in the plant, initial experiments using pressurized solvent extraction (PSE) with an ethanolic solvent were performed followed by analysis using gas chromatography – mass spectrometry (GC-MS) in scan mode. This extraction technique enabled a broad range of compounds to be identified. For the analysis of the tea, the leaves and the flowers were ground and analyzed separately. The “tea” simulation was then performed using a water extraction which was then back extracted into dichloromethane for GC-MS analysis in Selected Ion Monitoring (SIM) mode. Seventeen target compounds (terpenes, terpinoids, flavanoids, etc.) were quantified using this method. A bedding material simulation was performed using headspace solid phase micro-extraction (HS-SPME) to collect the volatile and/or semi-volatile components of the headspace. The compounds collected on the SPME fiber were then analyzed by GC-MS in scan and SIM modes to qualitatively and quantitatively determine the types of chemical compounds (most of which were terpenes) that may be off-gassed from bedding material. This analysis compared levels of compounds in two different crop years and four terpene compounds were quantified. To simulate smoking of the plant material, the leaves and flowers were fashioned into smoking articles. Sample collection was performed by a smoking machine and smoke condensate was collected. The smoke condensate was then analyzed by GC-MS in scan mode. As combustion and pyrolysis of plant material are known to produce toxic products, specific potentially harmful compounds were investigated and quantified. This chemical analysis of P. obtusifolium identified target compounds that can be found in the three simulated usage forms. Identification of these compounds gives insight on why the Native Americans may have used P. obtusifolium as an herbal medicine. Among the detected compounds, there were many unknowns. Elucidating these unknown compounds will be important in the effort to understand the full chemical profile of this plant.

Background Since anthropometric variables are critical to the creation of pulmonary nomograms for FVC, FEV1, and other volumes and capacities, it is logical that anthropometric variables also influence the values of the maximal respiratory pressures (MRPs). Since nomograms are race-specific, it is important that tribe-specific tables of normal maximal inspiratory pressure (MIP) and maximal expiratory pressure (MEP) be developed. To date normal tables for MRPs do not exist for Navajo children. Objective Therefore the purpose of this study was to derive MRP normative reference values for Navajo children in the age range of 6-14 years. Methods - Participants and Measurements A cross-sectional study was undertaken with a representative sample of 534 healthy children, ages 6-14 years, attending Navajo Nation elementary schools in Arizona. MIP and MEP were measured. Results Test results from 275 girls and 259 boys met American Thoracic Society quality control standards and showed that MRPs all increased with height. Mean MIP in cm H2O was 77 for boys and 67 for girls with lower limits of 44 and 40, respectively. Mean MEP in cm H2O was 75 for boys and 66 for girls with the lower limits of 42 and 38, respectively. Conclusion Since the data were collected from the population of interest, the resulting MIP and MEP reference equations should be used when testing Navajo children ages 6-14 years.

Background Since anthropometric variables are critical to the creation of pulmonary nomograms for FVC, FEV1, and other volumes and capacities, it is logical that anthropometric variables also influence the values of the maximal respiratory pressures (MRPs). Since nomograms are race-specific, it is important that tribe-specific tables of normal maximal inspiratory pressure (MIP) and maximal expiratory pressure (MEP) be developed. To date normal tables for MRPs do not exist for Navajo children. Objective Therefore the purpose of this study was to derive MRP normative reference values for Navajo children in the age range of 6-14 years. Methods - Participants and Measurements A cross-sectional study was undertaken with a representative sample of 534 healthy children, ages 6-14 years, attending Navajo Nation elementary schools in Arizona. MIP and MEP were measured. Results Test results from 275 girls and 259 boys met American Thoracic Society quality control standards and showed that MRPs all increased with height. Mean MIP in cm H2O was 77 for boys and 67 for girls with lower limits of 44 and 40, respectively. Mean MEP in cm H2O was 75 for boys and 66 for girls with the lower limits of 42 and 38, respectively. Conclusion Since the data were collected from the population of interest, the resulting MIP and MEP reference equations should be used when testing Navajo children ages 6-14 years.

In the last two decades, a shift in the museological paradigm has changed the way in which Native American history and culture is interpreted and represented to the general public. As legal mandates and growing institutional pressures increasingly call for the integration of tribal representatives into the decision-making bodies of museums and authoritative institutions, cross-cultural collaboration and partnerships have increased significantly. With little precedent guiding public historians and museum professionals through this new and complex system of collaboration, the path unfolding in the journey towards the “indigenization”; of museums has been marked with achievements and challenges that have both taught and tested historical professionals. The following is a case study that examines the ways in which this unfolding shift in Native American representation manifested itself in the reconstruction of a Chinookan plankhouse in the early 21st century. With a common objective of educating visitors about the significant cultural and natural history of the former site of the Cathlapotle village, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Chinook Indian Nation teamed up to design, fund, construct and interpret the Cathlapotle Plankhouse in Ridgefield, Washington. Despite sharing a common goal for the reconstruction of a full-scale Chinookan plankhouse, different motivations and agendas guided the decision-making process and required both partners to make compromises that challenged each other’s understanding and expectations of the project. In this work, I analyze how these two organizations navigated the rewarding yet challenging realm of cross-cultural collaboration to create a meaningful and significant heritage site for a wide range of user groups. From this analysis, I hope to provide public historians and museum professionals a detailed example of a cross-cultural partnership that will assist them as they move forward through a continuously unfolding and largely uncharted system of collaboration.

Abstract Elliott, E. 2022. Monsters versus Humans – A Comparative Study of the Storytelling about Sasquatch and Stallo This essay aims to get a deeper knowledge of how indigenous peoples have created discursive narratives to explain and understand the inexplicable occurrences in existence. The study has compared the discourses about Sasquatch and Stallo, figures from the lore of indigenous peoples in North America and northern Europe respectively, to see if and how they relate. By looking at traditional Sasquatch stories of Native American tribes in North America, and traditional Stallo stories of the Sami people in northern Europe, it has been possible to compare the contents of the storytelling to reveal both differences and similarities. Keywords: Sasquatch, Stallo, indigenous people, Native Americans, Sami, North America, Europe, ethnology, folklore / Abstrakt Elliott, E. 2022. Monster mot människor – En komparativ studie av berättandet om Sasquatch och Stalo Denna studie syftar till att få en djupare förståelse för hur ursprungsbefolkningar har skapat diskursiva narrativ för att förklara och förstå de oförklarliga inslagen i tillvaron. Studien har jämfört diskurserna om Sasquatch och Stalo, figurer från berättartraditioner hos ursprungsbefolkningar i Nordamerika respektive norra Europa, för att se om och hur de relaterar till varandra. Genom att se på traditionella berättelser om Sasquatch bland ursprungsbefolkningen i Nordamerika, och traditionella berättelser om Stalo bland samerna i norra Europa, är det möjligt att jämföra innehållet i berättandet för att finna både skillnader och likheter. Nyckelord: Sasquatch, Stalo, ursprungsbefolkning, ursprungsamerikaner, samer, Nordamerika, Europa, etnologi, folklore

The diploma thesis deals with the issue of representations of Native Americans in Czech written sources from the 16th century which are related to the topic of european overseas exploration. Special emphasis is placed on the formation of representations of corporeality in the context of discourses present in the early modern literary production and on the representations of gender relations that discourses of the body help to produce in texts. Apart from other things, the textual representations were influenced by the europocentric interpretation of the world which emerging from christian discourse at that time. As well, the work shows how the practices of othering of American Indians and their societies are produced in analyzed sources. The othering was realized, beside other things, in the context of dichotomous discourses of civilization and barbarism, religious discourse and the discourse of power. Emphasis is also put on the changes and mutual similarities of discourses in the written sources. In order to analyze representations of American Indians, the work uses the method of Foucalt's discursive analysis. The work also uses the constructivist theory of representation and the theory of hegemonic gender configurations. Key words Native Americans, corporeality, gender, otherness, textual...