Abalone Tales

by Field, Les W.; Seidner, Cheryl; Lang, Julian; Cambra, Rosemary; Silva, Florence

• ISBN13: 9780822342168
• ISBN10: 0822342162
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

For Native peoples of California, the abalone found along the state's coast has remarkably complex significance as food, spirit, narrative symbol, tradable commodity, and material with which to make adornment and sacred regalia. The large mollusk also represents contemporary struggles surrounding cultural identity and political sovereignty.Abalone Tales, a collaborative ethnography, presents different perspectives on the multifaceted material and symbolic relationships between abalone and the Ohlone, Pomo, Karuk, Hupa, and Wiyot peoples of California. The research agenda, analysis, and writing strategies were determined through collaborative relationships between the anthropologist Les W. Field and Native individuals and communities. Several of these individuals contributed written texts or oral stories for inclusion in the book.Tales about abalone and its historical and contemporary meanings are related by Field and his co-authors, who include the chair and other members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, the chair of the Wiyot tribe and her sister, a Point Arena Pomo elder, several Hupa Indians, and a Karuk scholar, artist, and performer. Reflecting the divergent perspectives of various Native groups and people, the stories and analyses of them belie any presumption of a single, unified indigenous understanding of abalone. At the same time, they shed light on abalone's role in cultural revitalization, struggles over territory, tribal appeals for federal recognition, and connections among California's Native groups. While California's abalone are in danger of extinction, their symbolic power appears to surpass even the environmental crises affecting the state's vulnerable coastline.

Table of Contents

About the Series	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction Why Abalone?: The Making of a Collaborative Research Project	p. 1
Artifact, Narrative, Genocide
The Old Abalone Necklaces and the Possibility of a Muwekma Ohlone Cultural Patrimony	p. 19
Abalone Woman Attends the Wiyot Reawakening	p. 50
The "Meaning" of Abalone: Two Different Abalone Projects
Florence Silva and the Legacy of John Boston: Responsibility at the Intersection of Friendship and Ethnography	p. 62
Reflections on the Iridescent One	p. 84
Cultural Revivification and Species Extinction
Cultural Revivification in the Hoopa Valley	p. 109
Extinction Narratives and Pristine Moments: Evaluating the Decline of Abalone	p. 137
Conclusion: Horizons of Collaborative Research	p. 161
Notes	p. 173
References	p. 179
Index	p. 193
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