<p> This research focuses on the problem of how early pottery in New York State is defined and analyzed. Many traditional models suggest early pottery developed from an earlier steatite stone bowl technology. Thus far, studies that examine early pottery in the Northeast, called the Vinette Type Series, focus on the potential functions, archaeological contexts, and surface appearance of these vessels and fail to account for the social practices and technological choices inherent within these artifacts. This dissertation reevaluates early pottery using a non-typological approach. In the place of descriptive analysis, this research uses petrography, experimental geo-archaeology, and technical choice and agency theories to identify the different types of temper present in early ceramic vessels. This study also looks at the patterns of different technical choices made by early potters. The redefinition of early ceramic technology using post-modern theories allows the author to better understand the social practices involved in the rise of ceramic technology. The ceramic technological patterns identified are then compared with steatite stone bowl technology. This study concludes that early ceramic technology is more closely related to the practices of earth oven convection cooking than it is to any other cooking artifact. A reclassification of early ceramic fabrics is presented and the traditional early ceramic Vinette type categories are rejected.</p><p>

Abstract not available.

This paper is an investigation into appropriate forms of reparation to compensate survivors and descendants of survivors of Indian Residential Schools for loss of culture. Indian Residential Schools perpetrated serious individual abuses upon pupils; however, Aboriginal peoples as a group also sustained a serious harm -- an injury to their culture. Whereas tort law and alternative dispute resolution mechanisms have provided redress for individual losses, a group-oriented reparations solution is required to compensate for cultural loss. This paper will set out the historical record of the school policy, and investigate the nature of the loss, i.e. culture, and its intergenerational relationships. The methods by which common law courts have dealt with contemporary cultural loss claims will be outlined, as well as the reparations scheme that has been implemented by the Canadian government. After analyzing the legal and non-legal responses to claims for loss of culture, a legislative solution will be offered that aims to protect and promote Aboriginal culture as it stands in Canada today.

This dissertation investigates several topics in the morphology, syntax and semantics of the Nez Perce verb and verbal clause. The first part of the dissertation focuses on the morphological segmentation of the Nez Perce verb and on the semantic description of the verb and clause. Chapter 1 provides a grammar sketch. Chapter 2 discusses the morphology, syntax and semantics of verbal suffix complexes for tense, space, aspect and modality. Chapter 3 investigates the modal suffix o'qa, which is variously translated can, could (have), would (have), should, may, and must, and used to make circumstantial, deontic and counterfactual claims. I argue that this suffix has only a non-epistemic possibility meaning, and that apparent necessity meanings are artifacts of translation. Chapter 4 investigates the future suffix u', generally translated will. Based on evidence from truth-value judgment tasks, conjunctions of u' sentences describing incompatible states of affairs, and negation, I argue that u' sentences have non-modal truth conditions. I also discuss challenges to this analysis from free choice licensing and from certain acceptable conjunctions of incompatible u' sentences. The second part of the dissertation explores the syntax of the verb and clause as revealed by the system of case-marking. Nez Perce case follows a tripartite pattern, with no case on intransitive subjects, and both ergative and objective cases in transitive clauses. Transitive clauses may alternatively surface with no case, however. I show that caseless transitive clauses in Nez Perce come in two syntactically and semantically distinguished varieties. In one variety, the subject binds a possessor phrase within the object. Chapter 6 takes up this construction together with possessor raising, which I analyze as involving movement to a &thetas;-position. I argue that the absence of case under possessor-binding reflects an anaphor agreement effect. In the other variety of caseless clause, the object is a weak indefinite. Chapter 7 concludes that such objects are not full DPs. In chapter 8, I propose a morphological theory of case-marking which captures the cased/caseless distinction for transitive clauses. Both ergative and objective cases are analyzed as morphological results of the syntactic system of agreement.

Thisiinvestigation focuses on the decision making relative to plants by Native Americans on one of the oldest and most continuously occupied reservations in the United States, the Mashantucket Pequot Nation. Within an agency framework, I explore the directions in which decision making about plants were changing from 1675-1800 A.D. I evaluate plant macroremains, specifically progagules (seeds), recovered from ten archaeological sites and the historical record from the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation, located in southeastern Connecticut. I demonstrate how decision making about plants related to food and medicinal practices during the Colonial Period were characterized by heterarchical choices that allowed the Mashantucket Pequot to retain their sense of economic and cultural autonomy from their colonizers. This type of problem-directed agency analysis will aid in placing Indigenous individuals and communities into the contexts of colonization as more active participants in their own past, and as long-term stewards of the environment. More specifically, this dissertation shows that even as small a space as the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation is a rich testimony to the 11,000-year history, and continues to provide important information about how households and communities (re)conceptualize their socio-natural worlds under the most severe constraints.

For each parent, raising a child is a daunting task and it is even a harder undertaking for parents belonging to minority communities due to discrimination, and limited occupational and educational opportunities. Prior studies have shown high dropout rates from high school among Native American (NA) women, resulting in a lack of basic knowledge about raising children. The purpose of this research study was to synthesize, analyze, and better understand the lived experiences of NA mothers who are raising their children outside the reservation. This qualitative study relied on 4 theories: historical trauma theory, systems theory, acculturation theory, and strengths perspective theory. The researcher interviewed 9 NA mothers from the federally recognized Crow Tribe of Montana who grew up on Indian reservations. The interviews were analyzed to develop emerging themes in NVivo 11 software, using the four-step method of inductive analysis described by Moustakas (2004). Using a phenomenological approach, the results revealed a subtheme that entailed personal, structural, and societal struggles of NA women living today. Exposure to their culture, feelings of being sheltered, and family relationships are critical for NA women. In a different environment, NA women experience acculturation stress; they feel disconnected and are challenged to maintain their relationships with relatives in the reservation. It is important to understand their challenges and lived experiences and to identify the root causes of these problems for positive social change. The results of the study demonstrated the need to further improve current policies, systems, and interventions focused on the cultural and environmental contexts of NA families living in more contemporary times.

No description available.

No description available.

<p> This dissertation constructs an indigenous theology of mission by interrogating the general differences between Western epistemological traditions influential in Christian theology and indigenous epistemologies and ways they could broaden Christian missiological discourse. By employing the pedagogical and political ethics of indigenous worldviews and an intercultural theology, the dissertation seeks to reframe three main (largely unspoken) undercurrents in missiology to date: 1) in church and society, what the global north has given to the global south has always been conditional (specifically expectations of realignment to hegemonic perspectives and practices); 2) that dialogue between the dominant and marginalized has been to solve indigenous 'problems'; and 3) that the current world economic perspective based on competition for scarce resources is not life-giving. The indigenous intercultural theology proposed offers the following three responses: 1) that the current `dependency' model of missiology is unsustainable; 2) that dialogue between the dominant and the oppressed is the end, not a means to an end; and 3) that acknowledging differences doesn't present a challenging competition for resources, but rather changes the discourse to say that the world hold enough resources for <i>all</i>.</p><p> The first chapter summarizes the context of indigenous peoples in Canada and sets out the methodology and states that intercultural dialogue in the objective. Chapter Two sets out some of the problematic Western epistemological traditions that have influenced Christian theology and offers counter-narratives from an indigenous epistemological perspective. Chapter Three raises questions that warrant responses from contemporary missiology. Chapter Four starts to integrate the indigenous epistemological perspectives from Chapter Two with the missiological issues outlined in Chapter Three, recognizing the risks in writing missiology from an indigenous perspective. Chapter Five addresses the heart of the constructive theological task of the dissertation by highlighting the strengths of indigenous Christian perspectives to answer: If indigenous hearts are broken by Christianity, what is it in Christian theology that is life giving at all? Chapter Six presents a conclusion and an invitation for intercultural dialogue.</p>

<p>Native American Adolescents between 15 and 24 years of age have the highest rate of suicide compared to their other race peers in the same age group. Recent statistics provided by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) indicate that in 2011, Native American males between ages 15 and 24 had a suicide rate of 22.8 per 100,000, as compared to white males, 14.3 per 100,000, and black males, 6.3 per 100,000 of the same age (CDC, 2014). Native American females had a rate of 8.0 per 100,000 deaths compared to 3.8 per 100,000 for white females and 2.0 per 100,000 for black females respectively (CDC, 2014). </p><p> A collection of factors such as prolonged generational trauma, substance abuse, untreated mental illness and depression leads to high suicide rates in Native Americans. Using Durkheim&rsquo;s work on suicide as a framework, this study utilizes the National Youth Risk Surveillance Survey (YRBSS) to examine the way in which trauma, depression, substance use, and mental health issues impact the high Native American adolescents&rsquo; suicide rate. An in depth analysis of each factor is provided as well as a discussion of the findings. The dissertation also offers conclusions and social work implications of the study. </p>