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Plateau Indians 

ANTH 422/522 - Fall 2008

Schedule of Course Topics, Exam and Other Important Dates,
and Reading Assignments


Tentative, Subject to Change

Blackfoot Lodge on the U of I campus, October of 2000

  1. Methodology: The Approach and Perspective

    2.

  2. Winds of Change: Contact with Euro-American Peoples - (Contact History Riverbed)

    • Emerging American Cultural Values

    • Culture Contact Scenarios: Pluralism (incorporation and compartmentalization) and Assimilation (adoption, syncretism, revitalization and disintegration) 

    • The Horse and Smallpox

    • Lewis and Clark and the Fur Trader

    • Missionaries – 1831, Saint Louis and Catholics; Spalding and Whitman and Presbyterians; 1842 and the "Black Robes"

    • Steptoe War of 1858, Nez Perce War of 1877, and other Indian Wars

    • Coeur d'Alene Executive Orders, Nez Perce Treaty of 1855, and the Dawes Act

    • Mining and Environmental Degradation

    • Smohalla, Washat, and the Seven Drums Religion

    • Indian Reorganization Act and Religious Freedom Act

    • Reservation Life: economy, education, government, religion

    • Growth of Tribal sovereignty: Fishing rights and gaming Constitution of 1948 – Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee; Self-Determination include current population and other key issues.

    • The Continuation and Healing of Historical Trauma

    • Readings: 

    • Support Materials:

    • Videos:

      • Cliff SiJohn interview (Web, approx. 60 min., Coeur d'Alene elder provides overview of history and culture and "heart knowledge," follow the links) (TEMPORARILY DOWN)

      • History sections from the Schitsu'umsh, Nimiipu and Warm Springs Web L3 Modules (TEMPORARILY DOWN)

      • Surviving Lewis and Clark: the Nimíipuu Story (35 min., a great introduction to the history of the Nez Perce Tribe, a 2006 film)

      • Sacred Journey of the Nez Perce (60 min., a wonderful overview of some of the Tribes most important history, with reference to Lewis and Clark, Rev. Spalding and the Christian mission, and the Treaties of 1855 and 1863.  With a great chronicle summary of the War of 1877 and its continuing significance for Tribal members today.  All presented by Tribal elders and leaders.  An Idaho Public Television 1996 production.)

      • Hatiya (26 min., life on the Umatilla Reservation ca 1890s)

      • Sacred Mission - 1878-1985 (24 min., interviews of Coeur d'Alenes who experienced the many sides of the Boarding School; produced by the Coeur d'Alene Tribe and directed by Georgia Johnson in 2006)

      • David SoHappy (50 min., the 1982 "salmon scam" on the Columbia)

      • Rebecca Tsosie (51 min., from her 2000 U of I Distinguished American Indian Speaker's Series talk, "Rethinking the Tribal Sovereignty Doctrine: Cultural Sovereignty and the Collective Future of Indian Nations."  Tsosie is Navajo and Professor of Law and the Executive Director of the Indian Legal Program at Arizona State University)

      • Our Land, Our Life (26 min., this 2007 film tells of the struggles of two Western Shoshone sisters, Carrie and Mary Dann, as they seek to retain their treaty rights to their lands in north central Nevada. They graze their animals on the open range outside their ranch - a range that was recognized as Western Shoshone land by the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. In 1974 the U.S. sued the sisters for trespassing on U.S. Public Land. That set off a dispute between the Danns and the United States that raged to the Supreme Court and beyond. The United States has also confiscated over a thousand of their livestock in five terrifying round-ups. After trying to plead their case to various U.S. courts and governmental agencies, they ultimately take their case to the United Nations.  Map of Shoshone Lands)

      • Bush on Tribal Sovereignty (on the difficulty in defining Tribal Sovereignty)

      • Red Man's Greed (South Park 2006) 

     

  3. The World of the Nimíipuu (Nez Perce) and Schitsu’umsh (Coeur d’Alene) - (Indigenous - Animal Peoples Riverbed)

    1. Oral Traditions: Preparing the World for the Coming of the Human Peoples

      • Amo’tqen and the Creator

      • First Peoples/Animal Peoples: Coyote, Crane, Rabbit and Jack Rabbit, Chief Child of the Yellow Root, and "Preparing the world of the coming of Human Peoples."

      • "Landscape" – Monsters, Mountains and Lakes, Camas and Deer, Mi'yep, and Suumesh and Weyekin

      • Mi'yep or "Teachings" – Unity, Equality, Transcendence, Meaning, Life-force, Qualitative, Mystery, Participation, and the Ethic of Sharing; the Indigenous Values of Plateau Peoples

      • Human People's Goal in Life and the Means to Realize that Goal (issues of responsibility, paths and a way of life)

      • Readings:  

      • Videos:

       

    2. Gifts Received and Shared: Perpetuating the World

      1. Storytelling, and the Oral Traditions

        • Issues of Translation and Interpretation: Orality and Literacy

        • Techniques of Storytelling

        • Power in Words

        • Purposes of the Traditions: Integrative, Educate, Entertain, Creative, but not Explanatory

        • Readings: 

        •  Videos:

          • Discussion of "Preparations" to the oral traditions along with many "great stories" in the Schitsu'umsh Web L3 Module (TEMPORARILY DOWN)

      2. Seasonal Round and Home Territories: Digging the Camas, Fishing the Salmon, Gathering the Huckleberries, Hunting the Deer, Collecting the Cedar and Tule Reeds, and the Associated Ceremonials.  Spring: subsistence (gathering and roots), intertribal relations (language, trade and warfare) — Summer: subsistence (fishing and salmon, and buffalo); home territory and travel with horse; clothing, housing and tules, and canoes; religion (vision quest, shamans and healing) — Fall and Winter: subsistence (animals and hunting); social organization (villages, marriage, band leaders, peace and war leaders, and councils; arts, stick game and entertainment; storytelling Creation Stories and the Oral Traditions, e.g., the Coyote Cycle from Celilo Falls to the Heart of the Monster.

        • Readings: 

        • Videos: 

          • Faithful To Continuance (58 min., a wonderful introduction to the arts of the Plateau peoples, including various types of weaving practices and styles, as well as other contemporary arts, all linked to the landscape.  Featuring some of the key artist today.  Mimbres Fever 2002.)

          • Seasons of the Salish  (27 min., great introduction to the seasonal round.)

          • Return to the River (8 min., a rare view of the salmon fishing techniques used at Celilo Falls prior to the destruction of the falls in 1956.  A 1951 documentary by Harry Paget.)

          • The Kalispel (16 min., an overview of the tribe as told by elders.  Done in 2004)

          • Seasonal round pages from the Schitsu'umsh, Nimiipu and Warm Springs Web L3 Modules (TEMPORARILY DOWN)

          • True Salmon Fishing!

      3. Social Relations Among the "Peoples"

        • Intertribal Relations

        • Chiefs and Kinsmen: headmen, bands, family, gender, elders, and giveaways

        • Handgame: a family tradition

        • Readings: 

        • Videos:

      4. Spiritual Relations

      5. Returning to the Mountains: Death, Memorial Give Away, and Preparing the Camp.  

        • Readings: 

          • Frey pp. 240 - 250

      6. Its Home. The goals in life and means to those goals.  "To run with the Coyote."  

        • Readings:  

          • Frey pp.  257 - 268 

  4. Graduate student presentations on other peoples and topical area of the Plateau (each presentation should run a minimum of 30 minutes in length, but no more than 45 minutes: 

Events and Activities include:

Important Dates:

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