Native Americans And the Environment

by Harkin, Michael E.; Lewis, David Rich; Antell, Judith; Hosmer, Brian (CON); Krech, Shepard, III (AFT)

• ISBN13: 9780803273610
• ISBN10: 0803273614
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

Native Americans and the Environmentbrings together an interdisciplinary group of prominent scholars whose works continue and complicate the conversations that Shepard Krech started inThe Ecological Indian. Hailed as a masterful synthesis and yet assailed as a problematic political tract, Shepard Krech's work prompted significant discussions in scholarly communities and among Native Americans. Rather than provide an explicit assessment of Krech's thesis, the contributors to this volume explore related historical and contemporary themes and subjects involving Native Americans and the environment, reflecting their own research and experience. At the same time, they also assess the larger issue of representation. The essays examine topics as divergent as Pleistocene extinctions and the problem of storing nuclear waste on modern reservations. They also address the image of the "ecological Indian" and its use in natural history displays alongside a consideration of the utility and consequences of employing such a powerful stereotype for political purposes. The nature and evolution of traditional ecological knowledge is examined, as is the divergence between belief and practice in Native resource management. Geographically, the focus extends from the eastern Subarctic to the Northwest Coast, from the Great Lakes to the Great Plains to the Great Basin. Contributors: Judith Antell, Sebastian F. Braun, Ernest S. Burch Jr., John Dorst, Harvey A. Feit, Dan Flores, Michael E. Harkin, Brian Hosmer, Robert L. Kelly, Shepard Krech III, Stephen J. Langdon, David Rich Lewis, Larry Nesper, Mary M. Prasciunas, Darren J. Ranco, and James H. Schlender.

Author Biography

Michael E. Harkin is a professor of anthropology at the University of Wyoming and the editor of Reassessing Revitalization Movements: Perspectives from North America and the Pacific Islands (Nebraska 2004) and the journal Ethnohistory. David Rich Lewis is a professor of history at Utah State University, the editor of Western Historical Quarterly, and the author of Neither Wolf nor Dog: American Indians, Environment and Agrarian Change.

 

Judith Antell is the director of the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Wyoming. Brian Hosmer is the director of the Newberry Library D’Arcy McNickel Center for American Indian History. Shepard Krech III is a professor of anthropology and environmental studies and the director of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University.

 

Contributors: Judith Antell, Sebastian F. Braun, Ernest S. Burch Jr., John Dorst, Harvey A. Feit, Dan Flores, Michael E. Harkin, Brian Hosmer, Robert L. Kelly, Shepard Krech III, Stephen J. Langdon, David Rich Lewis, Larry Nesper, Mary M. Prasciunas, Darren J. Ranco, and James H. Schlender.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Introduction	p. xix
Shepard Krech and His Critics
Beyond The Ecological Indian	p. 3
The Ecological Indian and the Politics of Representation: Critiquing The Ecological Indian in the Age of Ecocide	p. 32
Myths of the Ecological Whitemen: Histories, Science, and Rights in North American-Native American Relations	p. 52
(Over)hunting Large Game
Did the Ancestors of Native Americans Cause Animal Extinctions in Late-Pleistocene North America?: And Does It Matter If They Did?	p. 95
Rationality and Resource Use among Hunters: Some Eskimo Examples	p. 123
Wars over Buffalo: Stories versus Stories on the Northern Plains	p. 153
Representations of Indians and Animals
Watch for Falling Bison: The Buffalo Hunt as Museum Trope and Ecological Allegory	p. 173
Ecological and Un-ecological Indians: The (Non)portrayal of Plains Indians in the Buffalo Commons Literature	p. 192
Traditional Ecological Knowledge
Swallowing Wealth: Northwest Coast Beliefs and Ecological Practices	p. 211
Sustaining a Relationship: Inquiry into the Emergence of a Logic of Engagement with Salmon among the Southern Tlingits	p. 233
Contemporary Resource Management Issues
The Politics of Cultural Revitalization and Intertribal Resource Management: The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission and the States of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota	p. 277
Skull Valley Goshutes and the Politics of Nuclear Waste: Environment, Identity, and Sovereignty	p. 304
Afterword	p. 343
List of Contributors	p. 355
Index	p. 359
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