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This study examines the tradition of beaded capes among the Lower Colorado River Yuman groups, with the goal of understanding the meaning and cultural significance that the capes held in the past and continue to hold for those that wear and create them today. Questions posed by this study ask how and to whom do beaded capes hold meaning; and why were the beaded capes overlooked by collectors if they are culturally significant? As a marker of River Yuman identity and artistic expertise, the lack of historic beaded capes that are held within museum collections is surprising, with only twenty-two museums across the United States and Europe housing a composite total of fifty-eight River Yuman beaded capes. This study attempts to answer the proposed questions by conducting interviews with River Yuman beadworkers and community members, regarding their perspectives on the meanings and symbolism presented by beaded capes, and the cultural significance of these items. In contrast, this study examines the views of Euro-American collectors that were collecting beaded capes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when others were not. An understanding of outsider perspectives and motivation for collecting beaded capes is achieved through analysis of collector's field notes, journals, and museum accession files. Combining ethnography, archival research, and museum collections-based research, this study seeks to present a more detailed understanding of the River Yuman beaded cape as a marker of gender and ethnic identity. This research addresses the existing voids in knowledge about the cultural significance that the beaded capes hold for Quechan (Yuma) and Pipa Aha Macav (Mojave) people, and introduces that information to outsiders, creating a record of the views of River Yuman community members on the contemporary meanings that the beaded capes hold.

A Thesis submitted to The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine. / American Indians and American Native (AI/AN) populations have faced health disparities for a period of time. Although their incidence for some chronic diseases such as cancer, may be lower than the general population, they suffer from the poorest survival rates of any ethnic group. As the AI/AN populations age and live longer with chronic disease as seen with the rest of the general population, the discussion of palliative care is becoming more important. Currently, there is not a lot of literature about palliative care that is specific to the AI/AN population. The paucity of research serves as an impetus to learn and examine the need of available palliative care resources for the AI/AN populations. We present the analysis of twenty interviews with staff members of local hospice organizations and hospitals. The interview questions ask participants about their views and experiences in delivering palliative care. Through these discussions, we investigate the current needs, social and cultural barriers, and the infrastructure of how palliative care is accessed and delivered.

This thesis is a content analysis of the first phase of Cherokee Phoenix, the first American Indian newspaper started during a time of turmoil--the era of Removal. The Cherokee Phoenix began publication in New Echota, Cherokee Nation on February 21, 1828 with Elias Boudinot as the first editor. Its last publication in this location was on May 31, 1834. The paper was re-enlivened later as the Cherokee Advocate and again as the Cherokee Phoenix. This paper was meant to be printed weekly (on Thursdays), but this did not always happen. A content analysis looking for themes of `assimilation,' endurance, `survivance,' resiliency, struggle, adaptation, and `peoplehood' was undertaken. The goal was to `re-write' the history that already exists about the Cherokee Phoenix and Cherokee people, by proposing and providing evidential support for a more complex and messy explanation as to why the Cherokee Phoenix started and continued to be published.

Contemporary Indigenous women's literature illustrates how American Indian women facilitate adaptation from "traditional" communities to diverse urban communities. The objective of this study is to examine how Northern Athabascan women lead in communities which are not exclusive to these Indigenous peoples. The use of Athabascan values such as self-sufficiency, hard work, practice of traditions, caring, sharing, family relations, and respect for elders and others, can be seen as one example of how women lead in non-"traditional" communities. This thesis examines Athabascan women leaders who have worked at two seasonal Native-owned hotels in Alaska as a case study to examine how women lead. By analyzing the women of Doyon Tourism Inc. through the framework of Athabascan values, evidence of cultural continuity can be seen through the sustained use of "traditional" values.

The invasion of the Western Hemisphere by empire-building Europeans brought European forms of rhetoric to the Americas. American Indians who were exposed to European-style education gradually adopted some of the cultural ways of the invaders, including rhetorical forms and operations that led, via literacy in European languages, to autobiographical writing, historical consciousness, and literary self-representation. This dissertation uses rhetorical criticism to analyze autobiographical discourse of six eighteenth-century American Indian writers: Samuel Ashpo, Hezekiah Calvin, David Fowler, Joseph Johnson, Samson Occom, and Tobias Shattock. Their texts are rhetorically interrelated through several circumstances: all of these men were educated in a missionary school; most of them probably learned to read and write in English at the school; they left the school and worked as teachers and Christian missionaries to Indians, sharing similar obstacles and successes in their work; and they are Others on whom their teacher, Eleazar Wheelock, inscribed European culture. The six Indian writers appropriate language and tropes of the encroaching Euro-American culture in order to define themselves in relation to that culture and make their voices heard. They participated in European colonial culture by responding iv to, and co-creating, rhetorical situations. While the Indians' written discourse and the situations that called forth their writing have been examined and discussed through a historical lens, critiques of early American Indian autobiography that make extensive use of rhetorical analysis are rare. Thus this dissertation offers a long-overdue treatment of rhetoric in early American Indian autobiography and opens the way to rhetorical readings of autobiography by considering the early formation of the genre in a cross-cultural context.

After its abandonment in the 1980s, threat has re-emerged as an area of theoretical importance in understanding social movement mobilization (Jasper 1998). This case study examines the role of threat in mobilizing members of a movement to empower the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation (a small tribal community in NC). The study explores threats and the emotions that make them up, while also investigating the relevance of other prominent assumptions embedded in mobilization theories. The study employed mixed methodologies including focus groups, individual interviews, and participant observation. Findings supported the idea that threats may be partially responsible for creating mobilization, but also suggest that prominent threats faced by this community complicate the ways in which threat is understood. The findings also shed light on limitations of the prominent Weber-Michels model for movement growth/decline, and highlight potential areas of interest for future research with Indigenous communities.

The purpose of the study was to develop an ethnohistorical record of the American Indian Movement with an emphasis placed on portraying of the Indian view of the organization. In the course of the study, the movement was examined to determine its validity as a social organization within Indian society. To accomplish the task, the movement's social roles were assessed on four levels: the individual level, the social group level, the Indian societal level and the greater American societal level. Two main research strategies were employed in the data collection process. First, participant-observation was carried out during a two-year term as a non-Indian member of the movement. Much of the data collected gave indication of the internal social structure and social dynamics of the organization. Secondly, interviews were conducted during the membership period and additionally, during a three-year period as a resident on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The data collected in this manner included firsthand accounts movement activities and public opinion of the movement. Findinds. 1. The American Indian Movement functions within Indian society on the individual level as a social enclave to aid socially disenfranchised Indian individuals re-enter Indian society. 2. On the social group level, the movement presents a viewpoint on socio-political issues that differs from the monolithic position typical of the IRA tribal governments. 3. The American Indian Movement serves Indian society as a catalyst for social change, an endorsing force for tradition and culture, and as an advocate on behalf of Indian people. 4. The movement functions as a social reform movement to the greater American society by bringing Indian issues to the levels of national and international attention. 5. Structurally, the American Indian Movement is a formal social organization with a blend of traditional and acculturated social components. The American Indian Movement is clearly a valid functioning social organization within Indian society. The movement has successfully integrated socially to all levels of society. Although the efforts and strategies employed by the movement have been sensationalized by the media and provoked a negative controversial image, the American Indian Movement has made positive contributions to Indian society.

Thesis (D.W.S.)--Institute for Worship Studies, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Anthropology, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.