In English, I’n-Lon-Schka means "playground of the eldest son." The dance, in which women are allowed only a peripheral role, celebrates traditional masculine values while helping to break down factionalism and feuding within the tribe. The participants, who now number in the hundreds, assemble each June in three Oklahoma communities-Pawhuska, Hominy, and Grayhorse-where the Dance Chairmen, the Drumkeeper (an eldest son of the tribe), and the dance organization have been preparing for the dance throughout the year. The I’n-Lon-Schka is religious in content and continues to establish conduct and ways of living for tribal members.

This two-volume work presents a comprehensive survey of all the ways people celebrate religious life around the globe. Religious Celebrations is an alphabetically organized encyclopedia that covers more than 800 celebratory occasions from all of the world's major religious communities as well as many of the minor faith traditions. The encyclopedia provides a complete reference tool for examining the myriad ways people worldwide celebrate their religious lives across religious boundaries, providing information on numerous celebratory activities never before covered in a reference work. Offering the most comprehensive coverage of religious holidays ever assembled, this two-volume book covers festivals, commemorations, holidays, and annual religious gatherings all over the world, with special attention paid to the celebrations in larger countries. Entries written by distinguished researchers and specialists on different religious communities capture the unique intensity of each event, be it fasting or feasting, frenzied activity or the universal cessation of work, a huge gathering of the faithful en masse or a small family-centered event. The work spotlights celebrations that currently exist without overlooking now-abandoned celebrations that still impact the modern world.

Praise for the previous edition: "This encyclopedia...allows the student to realize the richness and diversity of the Native American beliefs to the forefront of the world religions...Highly Recommended."—Book Report "...recommended for public library, school, and undergraduate reference collections."—Booklist "...the wealth of information...make this useful for both public and academic libraries."—Library Journal Despite a long history of suppression by governments and missionaries, Native American beliefs have endured as dignified, profound, viable, and richly faceted religions. Encyclopedia of Native American Religions, Third Edition is the go-to reference for the general reader that explores this fascinating subject. More than 1,200 cross-referenced entries describe traditional beliefs and worship practices, the consequences of contact with Europeans and other Americans, and the forms Native American religions take today. Coverage includes: Biographies of figures such as Thomas Stillday Jr., an Ojibway and the first Indian chaplain in the Minnesota State Legislature Court cases concerning prisoners' religious rights National and state legislation, such as the Native American Church Bill and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act Religious rights in the military Sacred sites, such as Snoqualmie Falls, and the sacred use of tobacco Tribal court cases involving the participation of non-Indians in Native American religious ceremonies, such as the Sun Dance.

Drawing on a rare family archive and archival material from the Osage Nation, this book documents a unique relationship among white settlers, the Osage and African Americans in Oklahoma. The history of white settlement and colonization is often discussed in the context of the cultural erasure of, and violence perpetuated against, American Indians and enslaved blacks. Conversely, histories of American Indian nations often end with colonial conquest, and exclude the experiences of white settlers. The author's anthropological approach examines the lived experience of individuals--including her own family members--and their nuanced and intersecting relationships as they negotiate cultural and geographic landscapes of oppression and technological change. The art, architecture, body ornamentation, sacred objects, ceremonies and performances accompanying this transformation are all addressed.

First Published in 1997. The present volume contains references and descriptive annotations for 1,497 sources on North American Indian and Eskimo music. As conceived here, the subject encompasses works on dance, ritual, and other aspects of religion or culture related to music, and selected "classic" recordings have also been included. The coverage is equally broad in other respects, including writings in several different languages and spanning a chronological period from 1535 to 1995. The book is intended as a reference tool for researchers, teachers, and college students. With their needs in mind, the sources are arranged in ten sections by culture area, and the introduction includes a general history of research. Finally, there are also indices by author, tribe, and subject.

The Osage empire, as most histories claim, was built by Osage men’s prowess at hunting and war. But, as Tai S. Edwards observes in Osage Women and Empire, Osage cosmology defined men and women as necessary pairs; in their society, hunting and war, like everything else, involved both men and women. Only by studying the gender roles of both can we hope to understand the rise and fall of the Osage empire. In Osage Women and Empire, Edwards brings gender construction to the fore in the context of Osage history through the nineteenth century. Edwards’s examination of the Osage gender construction reveals that the rise of their empire did not result in an elevation of men’s status and a corresponding reduction in women’s. Consulting a wealth of sources, both Osage and otherwise—ethnographies, government documents, missionary records, traveler narratives—Edwards considers how the first century and a half of colonization affected Osage gender construction. She shows how women and men built the Osage empire together. Once confronted with US settler colonialism, Osage men and women increasingly focused on hunting and trade to protect their culture, and their traditional social structures—including their system of gender complementarity—endured. Gender in fact functioned to maintain societal order and served as a central site for experiencing, adapting to, and resisting the monumental change brought on by colonization. Through the lens of gender, and by drawing on the insights of archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, and oral history, Osage Women and Empire presents a new, more nuanced picture of the critical role of men and women in the period when the Osage rose to power in the western Mississippi Valley and when that power later declined on their Kansas reservation.

Despite the world-wide association of music and dance with religion, this is the first full-length study of the subject from a global perspective. The work consists of 3,816 references divided among 37 chapters. It covers tribal, regional, and global religions and such subjects as shamanism, liturgical dance, healing, and the relationship of music, mathematics, and mysticism. The referenced materials display such diverse approaches as analysis of music and dance, description of context, direct experience, observation, and speculation. The references address topics from such disciplines as sociology, anthropology, history, linguistics, musicology, ethnomusicology, theology, medicine, semiotics, and computer technology. Chapter 1 consists of general references to religious music and dance. The remaining 36 chapters are organized according to major geographical areas. Most chapters begin with general reference works and bibliographies, then continue with topics specific to the region or religion. This book will be of use to anyone with an interest in music, dance, religion, or culture.

The Osages at one time controlled most of the territory that is now Missouri and Arkansas. With the encroachment of white settlers, Osage territory steadily decreased. The tribe was removed to a small area in northern Oklahoma. For most of the nineteenth century the Osage were targeted for conversion by both Protestant and Catholic missionaries. During over fifty years of interaction with Presbyterian and Catholic missionaries, the Osage resisted conversion and maintained their traditional beliefs.

This volume is a comprehensive history of of Southern Plains powwow culture - an interdisciplinary, highly collaborative ethnography based on more than two decades of participiation in powwows - addressing how the powwow has changed over time.

The role of objects and images in everyday life are illuminated incisively in Material Vernaculars, which combines historical, ethnographic, and object-based methods across a diverse range of material and visual cultural forms. The contributors to this volume offer revealing insights into the significance of such practices as scrapbooking, folk art produced by the elderly, the wedding coat in Osage ceremonial exchanges, temporary huts built during the Jewish festival of Sukkot, and Kiowa women's traditional roles in raiding and warfare. While emphasizing local vernacular culture, the contributors point to the ways that culture is put to social ends within larger social networks and within the stream of history. While attending to the material world, these case studies explicate the manner in which the tangible and intangible, the material and the meaningful, are constantly entwined and co-constituted.