Beginning in the late 1630s, a diversity of Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples established under the auspices of Jesuit and, later, Sulpician missionaries a string of village communities in the St. Lawrence Valley. A diversity of peoples, whom the French lumped under the rubrics of “Algonquins”, “Montagnais”, “Hurons”, “Iroquois”, “Abenakis” and “Loups”, migrated to these villages in the hope of bettering their lives in trying times. This dissertation retraces the formation and the early development of these communities, exploring the entangled influence of armed conflict, diplomacy, kinship, and leadership on migration, community-building, and identity formation. The historiography of the St. Lawrence Valley – the French colonial heartland in North America – has tended to relegate these Aboriginal communities to the margins. Moreover, those scholars who have considered the formation of mission villages have tended to emphasize missionary initiative. Here, these villages are reimagined as a joint creation, the result of intersecting French and Aboriginal desires, needs, and priorities. The significance of these villages as sites of refuge becomes readily apparent, the trajectories of individual communities corresponding with the escalation of conflict or with its tense aftermath. What also becomes clear is that the course of war and peace through the region cannot be accounted solely by the relations of the French and Iroquois, or of the French and British crowns. Paying close attentions to the nuanced personal and collective identities of the residents of the mission villages and their neighbours allows us to gain a better understanding of the geopolitics of the northeastern woodlands during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Beginning in the late 1630s, a diversity of Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples established under the auspices of Jesuit and, later, Sulpician missionaries a string of village communities in the St. Lawrence Valley. A diversity of peoples, whom the French lumped under the rubrics of “Algonquins”, “Montagnais”, “Hurons”, “Iroquois”, “Abenakis” and “Loups”, migrated to these villages in the hope of bettering their lives in trying times. This dissertation retraces the formation and the early development of these communities, exploring the entangled influence of armed conflict, diplomacy, kinship, and leadership on migration, community-building, and identity formation. The historiography of the St. Lawrence Valley – the French colonial heartland in North America – has tended to relegate these Aboriginal communities to the margins. Moreover, those scholars who have considered the formation of mission villages have tended to emphasize missionary initiative. Here, these villages are reimagined as a joint creation, the result of intersecting French and Aboriginal desires, needs, and priorities. The significance of these villages as sites of refuge becomes readily apparent, the trajectories of individual communities corresponding with the escalation of conflict or with its tense aftermath. What also becomes clear is that the course of war and peace through the region cannot be accounted solely by the relations of the French and Iroquois, or of the French and British crowns. Paying close attentions to the nuanced personal and collective identities of the residents of the mission villages and their neighbours allows us to gain a better understanding of the geopolitics of the northeastern woodlands during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

The settlement of the claim to fisheries by Maori is a political milestone. The Sealords Deal (the Deal) as it is commonly known, is the first settlement in New Zealand which extinguishes Maori claims to a particular resource. It affects all iwi and proposes the development of a process for the allocation of benefits. As such it needs to be considered in terms of other post-colonial nations� experiences in the resolution of claims to natural resources. Canada, the United States and Australia provide examples of different attitudes and approaches to the resolution of claims to natural resources by their indigenous populations. A typical history of the resolution of claims to natural resources in post-colonial nations begins with initial European contact, followed by increased numbers of settlers which places pressure on governments and the judiciary to justify the acquisition and exploitation of land and other resources. This leaves the indigenous population landless and welfare dependent. This pattern is reflected in judicial decision-making. In New Zealand, the courts initially acknowledged that the rights of Maori to their lands and other resources, existed unless specifically taken away. When pressure for acquisition of land occurred the courts responded by holding that Maori rights to resources only existed if specifically granted by a court or the legislature. This reversed the original presumption of existence of a right unless taken away. It has only been recently that the New Zealand judiciary has reaccepted the common law doctrine of aboriginal title. This brings New Zealand more in line with Canada and the United States, but New Zealand still has some way to go in acknowledging the doctrine of fiduciary obligation of the Crown/government to Maori. It is also helpful to analyse the changes that have taken place in governments� policies that have enabled the creation of an enviroment in which such a settlement can take place. The Labour governments of 1984 and 1987 began a number of policy initiatives which created a socio-economic climate and responsive enviroment favourable to the settlement of such a claim. Changes are also occurring internationally. Indigenous people�s rights are coming to the fore with the proposed Universal Declaration on Indigenous Rights nearly in place. All this change at a national and international level has only been possible by post-colonial nations acknowledging their past in order to move to the future with confidence. The Sealords Deal is an example of an attempt by Maori and the New Zealand government to make this move forward.

abstract: Native American communities face an ongoing challenge of effectively addressing cancer health disparities, as well as environmental racism issues that may compound these inequities. This dissertation identified the shared cultural knowledge and beliefs about cancer in a southwest American Indian community utilizing a cultural consensus method, an approach that combines qualitative and quantitative data. A community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach was applied at all stages of the study. The three phases of research that were undertaken included: 1) ethnographic interviews - to identifying the themes or the content of the participants' cultural model, 2A) ranking of themes - to provide an understanding of the relative importance of the content of the cultural model, 2B) pile sorts - identify the organization of items within specific domains, and 3) a community survey - access whether the model is shared in the greater community. The cultural consensus method has not been utilized to date in identifying the collective cultural beliefs about cancer prevention, treatment or survivorship in a Native American community. Its use represents a methodological step forward in two areas: 1) the traditional ethnographic inferences used in identifying and defining cultural meaning as it relates to health can be tested more rigorously than in the past, and 2) it addresses the challenge of providing reliable results based on a small number of community informants. This is especially significant when working with smaller tribal/cultural groups where the small sample size has led to questions concerning the reliability and validity of health-related research. Results showed that the key consultants shared strong agreement or consensus on a cultural model regarding the importance of environmental and lifestyle causes of cancer. However, there was no consensus found among the key consultants on the prevention and treatment of cancer. The results of the community survey indicated agreement or consensus in the sub-domains of descriptions of cancer, risk/cause, prevention, treatment, remission/cure and living with cancer. Identifying cultural beliefs and models regarding cancer could contribute to the effective development of culturally responsive cancer prevention education and treatment programs. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Anthropology 2011

abstract: Despite a large body of research on stereotypes, there have been relatively few empirical investigations of the content of stereotypes about Native Americans. The primary goal of this research was to systematically explore the content of cultural stereotypes about Native Americans and how stereotypes about Native Americans differ in comparison to stereotypes about Asian Americans and African Americans. Building on a classic paradigm (Katz and Braly, 1933), participants were asked to identify from a list of 145 adjectives those words associated with cultural stereotypes of Native Americans and words associated with stereotypes of Asian Americans (Study 1) or African Americans (Study 2). The adjectives associated with stereotypes about Native Americans were significantly less favorable than the adjectives associated with stereotypes about Asian Americans, but were significantly more favorable than the adjectives associated with stereotypes about African Americans. Stereotypes about Native Americans, Asian Americans and African Americans were also compared along the dimensions of the stereotype content model (SCM; Fiske, et al., 2002), which proposes that stereotypes about social groups are based on the core dimensions of perceived competence, warmth, status, and competitiveness. Native Americans were rated as less competent, less of a source of competition, and lower in social status than Asian Americans, and less competent and lower in social status than African Americans. No significant differences were found in perceived warmth across the studies. Combined, these findings contribute to a better understanding of stereotypes about Native Americans and how they may differ from stereotypes about other racial groups. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Psychology 2013

The purposes of this study were to analyze and describe leisure activities, in order to provide useful data for school administrators, teachers, and writers of textbooks for Indian children. Particular consideration will be given in this field research to the following questions: 1. What are Taos Indian children's preferences for leisure activities? 2. Do children of the same Pueblo but of different sex have similar leisure activities?

Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a major health concern among Navajo Indians. Native Americans and Alaskan Natives (NA/AN) currently have the highest rates of T2DM in the United States (Indian Health Service, 2016). The rate of diabetes on the Navajo Indian reservation is 22% (Partnersinhealth.org, 2009). Major health concerns for patients with T2DM include cardiovascular complications. Treatment is essential to prevent high-risk complications such as, cardiovascular disease (CVD). Purpose: The purpose of this quality improvement project was to implement a clinical decision support tool (CDST) to increase primary care provider awareness of current American Diabetes Association (ADA) statin therapy guidelines. The first objective was to increase the prescription rates of statin medications by 10%. The second objective of this project was to increase the performance target rate by 10%. Setting: This project was implemented at the Gallup Indian Medical Center (GIMC) Family Medicine Clinic. GIMC is located in Gallup, New Mexico. Participants: Participants included primary care providers, six Medical Doctors, two Nurse Practitioners, and one Physician Assistant. Methods: An evidence based clinical support decision tool (CDST) was generated the ADA statin therapy guidelines. Participants were educated on these practice guidelines and the CDST. The CDST was implemented into the electronic health record (EHR) over a four-week period. The provider used the CDST as a point-of-care guide when prescribing statin therapy to those with T2DM. Results: There was a 0.5% increase in the GPRA performance rating at GIMC as well as a 10% increase in prescribed statin therapy medications. There were 253 newly prescribed statin medications during data collection. Conclusion: While this project did not result in significant improvement of statin therapy GPRA performance ratings, a new EHR tool that providers can use to improve patient care was implemented. One outcome was met, there was a 10% increase in statin medication prescriptions. Further studies and future PDSA cycles will be required for testing the effectiveness of CDSTs.

As colonized peoples Native Americans have had a complicated relationship to the United States. They have faced the question of whether they should demand tribal independence or embrace American citizenship. During the early 1970s, when radical ethnic and political movements occupied center stage in the United States, and in 1992, when the 500 year anniversary of Columbus discovery of America was celebrated, the issue of Indian American identification was actualized. The various possible ways in which Native Americans could identify in relation to the United States made their identification often seem contradictory. The same group and even the same individual could  identify as both part of and apart from the United States. Likewise, the same event could trigger different identifications in relation to the United States. How can this be explained? In this thesis I offer an explanation of Indian American identification that combines the perspectives of world view and historical context. Native Americans have related to two different world views, a Western world view which imagines a world made up of states, and a "traditional" Indian world view which imagines a world made up of peoples placed on their lands by the Creator. Different ways of understanding the world impacted how Native Americans understood "America," as USA or Indian ancestral homelands. Different world views provided different images of Native American relationship to the United States. These images could be put forward or be actualized in different contexts. The historical context influenced which images were most commonly chosen. During the 1970s, given the period's generally revolutionary discourse, more separatist images were prominent. In 1992, when a government-to-government relationship between tribal and federal governments was firmly established, Indians chose a more inclusive relationship to the Untied States.

This research examines the relationship between the attitudes of fictional writers and those of society toward American Indians from colonial America to the present. A content analysis was used to validate the hypothesis. In order to show changing attitudes and different schools of thought, this research was arranged into four time periods: "The Ethnocentric Conquerors," "The Ethnocentric Romantics," "The Ethnocentric Acculturationists," and "The Revisionists." The findings demonstrate that there is a close correlation between the attitudes of fictional authors and those of society during a given time period,

With the publication of his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, House Made of Dawn. N. Scott Momaday ended a three-decade hiatus in the production of works written by Native American writers, and contributed to the renaissance of a rich literature. The critical acclaim that the novel received helped to establish Native American literature as a legitimate addition to American literature at large and inspired other Native Americans to write. Contemporary Native American literature from 1969 to 1974 focuses on the themes of the alienated mixed-blood protagonist and his struggle to survive, and the progressive return to a forgotten or rejected Indian identity. For example, works such as Leslie Silko's Ceremony and James Welch's Winter in the Blood illustrate this dual focal point. As a result, scholarly attention on these works has focused on the theme of struggle to the extent that Native American literature can be perceived as necessarily presenting victimized characters. Yet, Native American literature is essentially a literature of survival and continuance, and not a literature of defeat. New writers such as Louise Erdrich, Hanay Geiogamah, and Simon Ortiz write to celebrate their Indian heritage and the survival of their people, even though they still use the themes of alienation and struggle. The difference lies in what they consider to be the key to survival: humor. These writers posit that in order to survive, Native Americans must learn to laugh at themselves and at their fate, as well as at those who have victimized them through centuries of oppression. Thus, humor becomes a coping mechanism that empowers Native Americans and brings them from survival to continuance.