This is the saga of the Fox (or Mesquakie) Indians' struggle to maintain their identity in the face of colonial New France during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The Foxes occupied central Wisconsin, where for a long time they had warred with the Sioux and, more recently, had opposed the extension of the French firearm-and-fur trade with their western enemies. Caught between the Sioux anvil and the French hammer, the Foxes enlisted other tribes' support and maintained their independence until the late 1720s. Then the French treacherously offered them peace before launching a campaign of annihilation against them. The Foxes resisted valiantly, but finally were overwhelmed and took sanctuary among the Sac Indians, with whom they are closely associated to this day.

A compelling study that charts the influence of Indigenous thinkers on Franz Boas, the father of American anthropology

Studies the causes and events of the tragic Black Hawk War, in which the Sacs and Foxes were finally dispossessed

In recent years, archaeologists and Native American communities have struggled to find common ground even though more than a century ago a man of Seneca descent raised on New York’s Cattaraugus Reservation, Arthur C. Parker, joined the ranks of professional archaeology. Until now, Parker’s life and legacy as the first Native American archaeologist have been neither closely studied nor widely recognized. At a time when heated debates about the control of Native American heritage have come to dominate archaeology, Parker’s experiences form a singular lens to view the field’s tangled history and current predicaments with Indigenous peoples. In Inheriting the Past, Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh examines Parker’s winding career path and asks why it has taken generations for Native peoples to follow in his footsteps. Closely tracing Parker’s life through extensive archival research, Colwell-Chanthaphonh explores how Parker crafted a professional identity and negotiated dilemmas arising from questions of privilege, ownership, authorship, and public participation. How Parker, as well as the discipline more broadly, chose to address the conflict between Native American rights and the pursuit of scientific discovery ultimately helped form archaeology’s moral community. Parker’s rise in archaeology just as the field was taking shape demonstrates that Native Americans could have found a place in the scholarly pursuit of the past years ago and altered its trajectory. Instead, it has taken more than a century to articulate the promise of an Indigenous archaeology—an archaeological practice carried out by, for, and with Native peoples. As the current generation of researchers explores new possibilities of inclusiveness, Parker’s struggles and successes serve as a singular reference point to reflect on archaeology’s history and its future.

These essays explore the blending of structural and historical approaches to American Indian anthropology that characterizes the perspective developed by the late Fred Eggan and his students at the University of Chicago. They include studies of kinship and social organization, politics, religion, law, ethnicity, and art. Many reflect Eggan's method of controlled comparison, a tool for reconstructing social and cultural change over time. Together these essays make substantial descriptive contributions to American Indian anthropology, presenting contemporary interpretations of diverse groups from the Hudson Bay Inuit in the north to the Highland Maya of Chiapas in the south. The collection will serve as an introduction to Native American social and cultural anthropology for readers interested in the dynamics of Indian social life.

Provides a critical analysis of the autobiographies of Indian women

Before European settlers arrived in North America, more than 300 distinct languages were being spoken among the continent's Indigenous peoples. But the Euro-American emphasis on alphabetic literacy has historically hidden the power and influence of Indigenous verbal and nonverbal language diversity on encounters between Indigenous North Americans and settlers. In this pathbreaking work, Phillip H. Round reveals how Native North Americans sparked a communications revolution in their adaptation and resistance to settlers' modes of speaking and writing. Round especially focuses on communication through inscription—the physical act of making a mark, the tools involved, and the social and cultural processes that render the mark legible. Using methods from history, literary studies, media studies, linguistics, and material culture studies, Round shows how Indigenous graphic practices embodied Native epistemologies while fostering linguistic innovation. Round's broad theory of graphogenesis—creating meaningful inscription—leads to new insights for both the past and present of Indigenous expression in a range of forms. Readers will find powerful new insights into Indigenous languages and linguistic practices, with important implications not just for scholars but for those working to support ongoing Native American self-determination.

Gathers stories and songs from thirty-one native groups in North America, including the Inupiaqs, the Lushoots, the Catawbas, and the Maliseets.