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This thesis examines the display of Navajo baskets and examines some of the possible meanings Navajo baskets can reveal. Acknowledging that the meaning of a work of art changes when it is placed in different environments, the thesis explores what meanings are revealed and what meanings are concealed in basket displays in three venues: the trading post, the natural history museum, and the fine art museum. The study concludes that the fine art museum has the most potential to foster a dialogue about the contemporary Navajo, whose identity is a product of continuity and change. Chapter one discusses the basket's connotation as one of continuity and change, a meaning essential to understanding the contemporary Navajo. It becomes clear that when looking for the meaning of tradition and adaptation, the institutional utterance of an exhibition venue must be one that allows a complex modern Navajo identity to emerge. Chapter two examines the institutional utterance of the trading post. In such a setting, meanings of a mythical past emerge from the basket. The environment of the trading post reveals a romantic view of the Old West that hides the meaning of the contemporary Navajo from patrons and viewers. Chapter three focuses on the natural history museum and the effects of its institutional utterance on the Navajo basket's significance. In this learning environment, the Navajo basket acts as an artifact and meanings emerge about Navajo ritual and history. However, natural history museums often educate audiences through means like curiosity cabinets and living history displays that distance the contemporary Navajo. It is the fine art museum that has the most potential to reveal the adaptive, contemporary Navajo, discussed in chapter four. Art museums validate baskets as art objects when they exhibit them with Western painting and sculpture. Such displays can hide the contemporary Navajo in a discussion of formal elements. However, when an art museum exhibits a basket as a meaningful object, it allows the basket to reveal the Dine's desire for cultural continuity and the long Navajo history of adapting to changing environments.

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Following the social unrest of the 1960s, social scientists in America began to examine the persistence of ethnic identity among groups previously viewed in terms of their assimilation into the dominant culture or their geographical and thus cultural isolation. In 1969 social anthropologist Frederick Barth published his seminal essay on the subject. Ethnic identity, he claimed, can persist despite contact with and interdependence on other ethnic groups.This thesis attempts to effectively combine data from both the ethnohistoric and archaeological records in order to better understand the ethnic identity of Zachariah Cicott, a 19th century fur trader living in the central Wabash Valley. At this time the French families living in the United States had managed to maintain a separate sense of being or ethnic identity.The architectural style of an individuals residence has long been regarded as a reflection of the occupant’s ethnicity. French colonists arriving in North America brought with them a distinct architectural style characterized by the use of hand hewn vertical logs. As French communities spread across the North American landscape this style changed in response to the environment and raw materials at hand. Three ethnohistoric accounts of Cicott’s house make a convincing case for the presence of French architecture at the Cicott Trading Post Site (12Wa59).Archaeological excavations at the Cicott Trading Post Site have provided further evidence for French architecture. Found in association with a linear concentration of limestone, which appears to be the partial remains of the house foundation, were several fragments of pierrotage, a type of French mortar.Taken in conjunction with the ethnohistoric accounts, this limestone foundation and the associated pierrotage may be seen to represent the remains of a piece-sur-piece structure. / Department of Anthropology

Nous avons défini le complexe tabagique selon quatre champs applicables : les pipes à fumer, le tabac, le rôle du tabac dans les rapports Autochtones-Européens et dans les échanges. Le but de ce mémoire est de mieux saisir ce que les pipes à fumer de la période historique nous dévoilent dans le contexte de l’archipel montréalais. Le dépouillement des rapports de fouille a permis de retirer d’innombrables fragments de pipes à fumer que nous retrouvons dans les contextes archéologiques de l’archipel montréalais pour la période 1642−1760. Les récits d’époque nous informent sur les habitudes reliées à la consommation du tabac ainsi que les rôles du tabac et des pipes à fumer dans les relations entre Autochtones et Européens et des processus d’échange. Des recherches sur le tabac sont venues ajouter des éléments cruciaux à ces deux sources d’information. Cette étude a été limitée à l’archipel montréalais, plus une aire de 10 km autour de celui-ci. La période étudiée est de 1642 à 1760. Nous avons constaté que les fragments des pipes à fumer se retrouvent majoritairement dans les zones de contact démontrant ainsi l’importance de ces objets dans les échanges. Ces zones de contact sont les endroits où le métissage prend place. Le tabac, que nous ne pouvons dissocier des pipes à fumer, joue aussi un rôle majeur dans les relations amérindiennes-européennes. Des dons de Nicotiana tabacum ont permis de solidifier des liens de confiance primordiaux entre les deux groupes dans les processus d’échange. Le tabac et les pipes à fumer, ont aussi subit le processus de transfert culturel, mais, le degré varie selon le type de pipes à fumer. / We defined the smoking complex according to four applicable fields: smoking pipes, tobacco, Indigenous -European relations and the role of tobacco in trade. The purpose of this research is to better understand what smoking pipes reveal to us in the context of the Montreal archipelago. The review of the excavation reports allowed us to retrieve information regarding the innumerable fragments of smoking pipes that we find in the archaeological contexts of the Montreal archipelago for the period 1642−1760. The ethnohistorical publications inform us about the habits and customs related to the use of tobacco as well as the roles that tobacco and smoking pipes played in Indigenous-European relations and exchanges. Tobacco studies have also added crucial elements to these two sources of information. This study was limited to the Montreal archipelago, plus an area of 10 km around it. The study period is from 1642 to 1760. We found that the fragments of smoking pipes are mostly found in contact zones demonstrating the cultural importance of these objects. Nicotiana tabacum strengthened bonds of trust between the two groups. These contact zones are the places where métissage takes place. Inseparable from smoking pipes, tobacco also played a major role in Amerindian-European relations. Gifts of Nicotiana tabacum favoured consolidation between the two groups and built the primordial trust necessary in exchange processes. Tobacco and smoking pipes are also part of the process of cultural transfer, but to a variable degree according to the type of smoking pipes.