From the Paper
" California Indians and Public Education
During the past two centuries, American Indians have endured enormous changes in their history and cultures. The United States government has attempted alternatively to assimilate and terminate their nations. Despite these efforts, they have managed to maintain a tenacious, often perilous hold on their way of life (Campbell vii). Unfortunately, the education system in the United States has often been the means of disseminating policies and attitudes detrimental to American Indians (Campbell vii). Throughout the United States, Indian students have experienced disproportionate levels of school failure in educational systems organized, administered, and controlled by members of the dominant Anglo group (Cummins 3).

The historic pattern of failure of Indian students in the.."

Tags: AMERICAN INDIAN STUDIES, EDUCATION: GENERAL, SOCIOLOGY: SOCIAL PROBLEMS

From the Paper
"Evidence for the practice of cannibalism by the Anasazi people of the American Southwest has been growing during the last three decades. As archaeologists have excavated new sites and re-examined findings from previously explored locations, the taphonomic and forensic analysis of human skeletal remains has led to a hypothesis of cannibalism at as many as 28 Anasazi sites. Though the first suggestion of cannibalism was made in 1902, the absence of any sign of such a practice in the ethnographic literature may have mitigated against thorough investigation of the notion. But with the systematic application of the methods of physical anthropology archaeologists have steadily produced a body of cases in which cannibalism seems the most likely explanation of anomalous states and dispositions of human remains. The reasons behind the practice--whether it was.."

From the Paper
"The Beginning of the American Indian Movement
Introduction
The American Indian Movement (AIM) was born out of the civil unrest and protest of discontented urban populations in the mid-1950s and 1960s in the United States. However, it should be understood that AIM was only one organization in a system of American Indian activism that dates back to centuries of mistreatment of Indian people. Despite its all-inclusive name, AIM was never accepted as a voice by all Indian peoples. Thus, an analysis of the organization, its founding and its success must be placed in the larger context of Indian protest activity, which existed before the founding of AIM and continued in many ways separate throughout AIM's existence.

Early Indian Protest Activity and Collective Action.."

From the Paper
"The treatment of Native Americans by whites in America during the period 1600-1820 illustrates the problems that can develop when people with different cultures come together. When Europeans first reached North America, they found hundreds of Native Americans tribes occupying a land abundant with natural resources. The whites had virtually no respect for the spiritual, cultural, and intellectual riches of the people they referred to as Indians. Whites believed they had "discovered" a new world which was their destiny to dominate. They quickly set about altering the way of life of indigenous people. For the Indians, the consequences of their interaction with whites has most often been tragic.

Prior to the 18th century, there was no national policy on Indians simply because the American nation had not yet come into ..."

Abstract
Although some non-revisionist anthropologists might wince at the thought of comparing social and cultural life within the United States with the social and cultural life within the Navajo reservation, it will become clearly valid upon the realization that -- although the reservation shares the same land mass as the United States -- the Navajo tribe is clearly an indigenous people and culture. Modern cultural anthropology is undergoing the impact of critical revisionist theory. Indeed, structural ethnography, cultural ethnography, and psycho

From the Paper
"THE EFFECTS OF GLOBALIZATION ON CULTURE AND SOCIETY
WITHIN THE UNITED STATES AS COMPARED TO CULTURE AND SOCIETY WITHIN THE NAVAJO NATION

Introduction
Although some non-revisionist anthropologists might wince at the thought of comparing social and cultural life within the United States with the social and cultural life within the Navajo reservation, it will become clearly valid upon the realization that -- although the reservation shares the same land mass as the United States -- the Navajo tribe is clearly an indigenous people and culture. Modern cultural anthropology is undergoing the impact of critical revisionist theory. Indeed, structural ethnography, cultural ethnography, and psycholinguistic ..."

Abstract
The Eleventh Century was the end of one millennium and the beginning of a new one. In many ways, it was a period in which humanity emerged from the Dark Ages that had prevailed throughout Europe through much of the first millennium A.D. even as the Roman Empire changed to the Byzantine empire and others.

From the Paper
"The Eleventh Century was the end of one millennium and the beginning of a new one. In many ways, it was a period in which humanity emerged from the Dark Ages that had prevailed throughout Europe through much of the first millennium A.D. even as the Roman Empire changed to the Byzantine empire and others. We call this the Dark Ages today because its history is somewhat obscure and because much of classical learning was temporarily lost. In the Eleventh Century, certain changes came about showing a new relationship between government and governed after the Battle of Hastings and the creation of the Magna Carta in England. In other parts of the world, other civilizations were either winding down are beginning to flower, depending on history and circumstances. It is these other parts of the world where much of my own interest lies, given that we are only beginning to under ..."

From the Paper
"The structure of the communication system is evident in the stories told by Sherman Alexie in his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and in script of the film made from that book, Smoke Signals. The role of the storyteller in society is also reflected in the structure of the communication system. Alexie is dealing directly with the role of the storyteller in Native American society and with how that role affects the social order, is fed by that same order, and both conveys and creates myths as a result.


In the stories in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, humor is used to present serious subjects, showing that in one sense, the only way to view some issues without crying is to laugh. The stories show the plight of the modern Indian living near his or her birthright but no longer in control of it,..."

Abstract
An examination of the spread of diseases after Columbus (focusing on effects of smallpox), Pre-Columbian Indian health and medicine and diseases in Europe (focusing on the plague).

From the Paper
"Introduction
The 500th anniversary of the first voyage of Columbus to the New World came in 1992, and this event was an occasion for celebration in both Europe and the Americas. It was also the occasion for much bitterness and anger by revisionists who wanted to downgrade the achievement of Columbus because of a perception that his discovery of America in the long run caused more harm than good. One thing that is wrong with the revisionist view is that it holds Columbus personally responsible for all that followed his exploratory journey. In truth, the "discovery" of America was inevitable, and the subsequent events derived from the character of European culture at the time and from the personalities of the various participants, notably the Conquistadors who saw this as the occasion for looting more than..."

From the Paper
"Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Among Native American Populations
Introduction
Native American women of child-bearing age, as a group, are at risk because of the disproportionate consumption of alcohol among these women. Alcohol consumption during pregnancy has been found to be an important factor in the development of may problems in later life for infants born with fetal alcohol syndrome. This research focuses on risk reduction for fetal alcohol syndrome among Native Americans.
Enhanced Risk of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Among Native Americans
The infant mortality rate for Native-Americans is elevated in comparison to that for European-Americans. One of the contributing factors is alcohol abuse among pregnant Native-American women. Young Native-Americans are characterized by high..."

Tags: MEDICAL: DISEASES & DISORDERS, AMERICAN INDIAN STUDIES, DRUGS: ALCOHOL

From the Paper
"In the 1980s the possibility of legal gambling on Indian reservations emerged as a potential means for many Native American peoples to revitalize their societies and pull themselves out of the dependency and poverty that reservation life had brought them. There were many variations in the process of instituting gambling on the reservations--but the primary differences were in the reactions and the efforts of the many tribes. Two examples of Native American groups who sought to institute gaming on a sufficient scale to revitalize their economies were the Mohawk of northern New York and the numerous tribes of southern California. In New York a terrible "Mohawk civil war," as the popular phrase put it, tore apart the Akwesasne, Kahnawake, and Kanesatake reservations (Johansen xxi). But in California the battle over gambling pitted the..."

From the Paper
"As soon as humans crossed the land bridge to the Americas and began to settle here they also began a process of adaptations to their new world. Some of these adaptations would prove successful and some less so, although the definition of human success is sufficiently complex to preclude any simple assessment of various adaptations. This paper briefly reviews the idea of both cultural and biological adaptations before looking specifically at the types of adaptations made by two American Indian groups that settled in Southern California with an attempt to assess the functionality of their choices.


The fact that American Indians have been dramatically reduced in population and power in the last half-millennium indicates that at some level their adaptations were dysfunctional ones. However, a tenet of evolutionary theory is that one can..."

Abstract
This is an examination of one of Alexie's short stories from the collection "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven." In this specific short story the writer discusses how two different characters deal with human mortality and the role humor plays in both their grieving processes.

From the Paper
"In the short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven Sherman Alexie deals with a number of difficult subjects and controversial issues with biting humor. Jimmy Many Horses, the main character in ?The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor,? approaches the idea of his impending death in the same manner. For this evident detachment, his wife leaves him. She returns however, when she discovers that he is as frightened about his illness as she is. Alexie explores the different ways in which two people react to the thought of human mortality and the way in which they finally come to understand one another."

Tags: american, analysis, contemporary, death, humor, literature, minority, native

From the Paper
"The Navajo Indians are perhaps one of the most fascinating of the American Indian groups to study. Their courage, stamina and perseverence as a people speak highly for the psychological and even physical unity which their religion supplies.

The Navajos did not appear in the southwest United States until 1000 - 200 A.D. They had probably come from across the Bering Strait and down along the west coast of the United States although there is some evidence from religious ideas from the Plains Indians woven into their ideas, that they might have first come south along the east side of the Rocky Mountains and then filtered into the southwest.

Once in the southwest the Navajos took advantage of the Hopi ... "

From the Paper
" And damn his treacherous flattery . . .
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land and waiting justice sleeps.
God, give us men!

- excerpt taken from a KKK ritualistic initiation
(Lowe 9)"

From the Paper
"The American Indian Movement (AIM) was an important militant group in the early 1970s. It was founded in Minneapolis in 1968 and was led by Dennis Banks and Russell Means. In November 1972, members of AIM drew attention to the plight of American Indians in modern times by taking over the headquarters of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. A more dramatic statement was made during the period between February and May, 1973, when AIM occupied the town of Wounded Knee in the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. After the Wounded Knee occupation, the United States government made a systematic and concerted effort to disband AIM and other organizations like it. Although the movement had come to an end by the mid-1970s, it had already made an important contribution to the development of Indian rights at that time. By bringing the attention of the American people to ... "