Introduction
Six Virginia tribes currently seek to achieve federal recognition through acts of Congress. The tribes have formally called upon the National Park Service Jamestown 400, Jamestown 2007, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Jamestown Commission, and the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities to support their claims. The tribes are now required to document their continuous existence for the past 400 years since the tribes were first contacted by Jamestown colonists.
Two Delaware Indian tribes have announced that they wish to build a casino in Northampton County, PA. While Harrisburg decides how to control, as well as expand gaming in the state, the tribes argue that the land was originally stolen from their ancestors, and is rightfully theirs.
“American Mystery” on PBS adapts a Toni Hillerman novel, “Navajo Novel” as a feature film entitled “Thief of Time”. Characters Leaphorn and Chee (Wes Studi and Adam Beach) confront the mysteries of the Anasazi, site looters, and a missing anthropologist. See your local listings for screenings.
2004 marks the 200 th anniversary of the travels of Lewis and Clark (1804-1806) in the newly purchased Louisiana Territory. Numerous exhibits, memorial walks, and gala events celebrate Lewis and Clark’s perilous two year journey to map the new territory, describe native peoples, and open the American West. Preparations are also being made to celebrate another upcoming anniversary, the 400 th anniversary of the British settlement at Jamestown (1607).
While American society celebrates these stories of discovery and settlement alongside a fast- paced world of information gathering and retrieval, numerous stereotypes, erroneous information, and outright misconceptions still exist concerning our continent’s first occupants, Native North Americans. As of the 200 U.S. Census, there are 2,447,989 individuals who claim Native American descent in an overall United States population numbering a total of 281,421,906.
When I realized that students were increasingly interested in learning more about the lifeways and concerns of Native peoples, I decided that it was time to design a more visually-appealing, interactive, and informative website to accompany our class web page. As the website grows and shapes over time, I hope that its use can offer an interactive forum for discussing contemporary Native North American issues and concerns.
Each section of the site is devoted to a particular culture area. Culture areas are heuristic devices created by anthropologists (Wissler 1917; Kroeber 1939) as a way to characterize the degree of cultural similarity in a specific geographical region. While this system is useful to students or those not familiar with Native North America, in fact, the more one studies Native North America, the more one is presented with the fact of great cultural and linguistic diversity within time and space that can not be contained by a dotted line on a map.
The information provided here is designed to be a brief introduction to culture areas and topics; while it is useful to see what has been written by anthropologists of these subjects, please also devote your time to seeing how peoples of these areas represent themselves, and their cultures, through oral tradition, art, literature, and the internet.
Acknowledgements
The Bryn Mawr College Computing Center selected this project for summer 2004. I was fortunate to have been matched with two enthusiastic and competent web-designers, Audrey Flattes, and Garron Segal, who worked during our meetings with great efficiency and professionalism. Thanks are also deservedly cast to Tamara Johnston, curator of the Bryn Mawr College Ethnographic Collections. Tamara has been an invaluable source of knowledge about the Bryn Mawr Collections and Native North American material culture. Not only has Tamara graciously wheeled carts of ethnographic pieces to our class over the past three years, but when I contacted Tamara about my plans for the website, she agreed to help me select images (and in some cases photograph) some of these materials, she was most encouraging and professional. The pieces we selected have been done so with careful attention to issues of provenance, cultural sensitivity, and NAGPRA legislation.
I alone take full responsibility for the content and presentation that you now see here. With time and community input, I hope that we start to see a diversity of subjects, ideas, and voices presented in this virtual space. Please feel free to contact me with your ideas at kwoodhou@brynmawr.edu.
2004