Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Indians of North America – Plateau – Yakama Indians »

This study focuses on the wealth stratification system of the Navajo of the Kaibeto Plateau. The Kaibeto Plateau was settled by the Navajo in the mid-nineteenth century. By the 1930s they had developed an economically and socially stratified society rooted in a livestock economy and influenced by institutions of the surrounding society. In the years since livestock activities have been severely constrained by the federal government: Holdings have been radically decreased and pastoralism has ceased to be the main source of income and subsistence. These changes are described and analyzed. Wealth stratification is conceived of as a phenomenon to be explained and one which has implications for the study of social change. In the 1930s a handful of families owned most of the livestock in the region. These families were, uniformly, descendants of the wealthier and more prominent early settlers. Even after federal programs destroyed the economic advantage these wealthy families possessed, the children of the relatively wealthy have, at least until recent years, continued to prosper (relative to their poorer neighbors) in various ways. They have, on average, higher levels of educational attainment and better occupational profiles. The different responses of individuals at different levels in the social hierarchy have effected the composition of the rural population. More descendants of the wealthy have moved away and/or married individuals from distant communities. Social structures which functioned in the livestock economy to integrate families in the region have disintegrated. The chapter has emerged as an important social and political unit. Although the wealthy families seemed to have dominated chapter politics initially, recent elections indicate a declining influence. The historical facts reported here indicate the importance of social variability in the study of social change. It is argued that the Navajo were never a socially homogeneous group. Thus institutional pressures and shifting government policies have not affected all families in the same manner. Such findings have implications not only for the way in which anthropologists theorize about tribal people and social change, but also have implications for those responsible government officials who seek to formulate solutions to perceived problems on contemporary American Indian reservations.

Long-term human dietary change is a poorly understood aspect of Columbia Plateau prehistory. Faunal assemblages from thirty-four archaeological sites on the Plateau are organized into fifteen aggregate assemblages that are defined spatially and temporally. These assemblages are examined in terms of a focal-diffuse model using ecological measures of diversity, richness and evenness. Variability and patterning in the prehistoric subsistence record is indicated. Major trends in human diet and shifts in subsistence economies are documented and the relationship between subsistence and some initial semi-sedentary adaptations on the Plateau is clarified.

On March 10, 1957, the United States Army Corps of Engineers completed The Dalles Dam and inundated Celilo Falls, the oldest continuously inhabited site in North America and a cultural and economic hub for Indigenous people. In the negotiation of treaties between the United States, nearly one hundred years earlier, Indigenous leaders reserved access to Columbia River fishing sites as they ceded territory and retained smaller reservations. In the years before the dam’s completion, leaders, many of who were the descendants of earlier treaty signatories, attempted to stop the dam and protect both fishing sites from the encroachment of state and federal regulations and archaeological sites from destruction. This study traces the work of Wilson Charley, a Native fisherman, a member of the Yakama Nation’s Tribal Council, and great-grandson of one of the 1855 treaty signatories. More broadly, this study places Indigenous actors on a twentieth-century Columbia River while demonstrating that they played active roles in the protest and management of areas affected by The Dalles Dam.

Using previously untapped archival sources—a substantial cache of letters—my analysis illustrates that Charley articulated multiple strategies to fight The Dalles Dam and regulations to curtail Native’s treaty fishing rights. Aiming to protect the 1855 treaty and stop The Dalles Dam, Charley created Native-centered regulatory agencies. He worked directly with politicians and supported political candidates, like Richard Neuberger, that favored Native concerns. He attempted to build partnerships with archaeologists and landscape preservationists concerned about losing the area’s rich cultural sites. Even after the dam’s completion, he conceptualized multiple tribal economic development plans that would allow for Natives’ cultural and economic survival.

Given the national rise of technological optimism and the willingness for the federal government to terminate its relationship with federally recognized tribes, Charley realized that taking the 1855 treaty to court was too risky for the political climate of the 1950s. Instead, he framed his strategies in the language of twentieth-century conservation, specifically to garner support from a national audience of non-natives interested in protecting landscapes from industrial development. While many of these non-native partners ultimately failed him, his strategies are noteworthy for three reasons. First, he cast the fight to uphold Native treaty rights in terms that were relevant to non-natives, demonstrating his complex understanding of the times in which he lived. Second, his strategies continued an ongoing struggle for Natives to fish at their treaty-protected sites, thereby documenting an overlooked period between the fishing rights cases of the turn of the twentieth century and the 1960s and 1970s. Charley left a lasting legacy that scholars have not recognized because many of his visionary ideas came to fruition decades later. Finally, my analysis of Charley’s letters also documents personal details that afford readers the unique perspective of one Indigenous person navigated through a tumultuous period in the Pacific Northwest and Native American history.

2 v. (xxiii, 627 p.): ill., maps. A print copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries under the call number: KNIGHT E78.O6 E53 1994
A major concern of Columbia Plateau archaeology has been the development of the ethnographic "Plateau pattern." Observed during historic times, this lifeway focused on permanent riverine winter villages and intensive use of anadromous fish, with ephemeral use of interior tributaries and uplands for hunting and root gathering. Constrained by a salvage-driven orientation, past archaeological research on the Plateau has been biased towards major rivers, leaving aboriginal lifeways in the interior to be interpreted on the basis of ethnographic analogy, rather than archaeological evidence. The present study utilizes museum collections from the Pine Creek basin, a small tributary of the John Day River, to provide information on prehistoric lifeways in a non-riverine Plateau setting. Cultural assemblages and features from two sites, 35WH7 and 35WH14, were described, classified, and analyzed with regard to temporal distribution, spatial and functional patterning, and regional ties. At 35WH14, evidence of semisubterranean pithouses containing a rich and diverse cultural assemblage suggests long-term and repeated residential occupation of this site by about 2600 B.P. This contrasts with the ephemeral use predicted for the area by ethnographic accounts. Faunal remains identified from 35WH7 and 35WH14 show a persistent emphasis on deer, and little evidence for use of fish; this non-riverine economic base represents a further departure from the ethnographic "Plateau pattern." At both 35WH14 and 35WH7, large pithouses are not evident in components dating after 900 B.P., reflecting a shift to shorter sojourns at these sites. Use of the Study Area as a whole persists, however, and is marked by a proliferation of radiocarbon-dated occupations between 630 and 300 B.P. Clustering of radiocarbon dates from ten sites in the Study Area shows correlations with regional environmental changes. Both taphonomic and cultural factors are discussed. Reduced human use of the area after 300 B.P. is reflected in an abrupt decline in radiocarbon-dated occupations and the near-absence of Euroamerican trade goods. The role of precontact introduced epidemics is considered. Further consideration of spatial and temporal variability in Late Archaic Plateau prehistory is urged.
Committee in charge: Dr. C. Melvin Aikens, Co-chair; Dr. Don E. Dwnond, Co-chair; Dr. Ann Simonds; Dr. Patricia F. McDowell

This dissertation considers the Native North American repatriation movement as a sociocultural study, in which traditional knowledge and other information accompany returns to tribes. I engage this process with the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla Tribes of northeastern Oregon (the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation) as they present, preserve, and perpetuate tribal history and culture at their museum, Tamástslikt Cultural Institute. I also explore self-representation and Native participation at the Pendleton Round-Up rodeo and "wild west" pageant in the neighboring town of Pendleton, Oregon. Investigating the connectivity between repatriation, collaboration, and representation, I ask how repatriation defines itself beyond the return of objects of cultural patrimony to influence the development of a tribal cultural and historical narrative. I argue that newly developed tribal perspectives are therefore a bi-product of repatriation. By presenting tribal perspectives based in negotiation, repatriation thus leads to self-representation via collaborative processes. Collaborative processes allow for anthropological research and knowledge to be shared, accessed, and controlled by Native communities, thus allowing for multiple forms of repatriation to manifest. Working within a collaborative framework based primarily in grounded and emergent theory, I also brought theories of the diaspora, historical memory, and trauma to bear on my research in hopes of exploring how return is further complicated in both a literal and a figurative sense. I am informed by Native American and Cultural Studies, yet rather than rejecting or discarding the historical relationship of contact between Anthropology and Native America, this dissertation favors a discussion of changes and adjustments within it. My work contributes to the anthropological literature on tribal museums and representation, and to new understandings of the repatriation of identity and knowledge. I also hope to contribute to growing collaborative action/advocacy-based ethnographic models for conducting research with Native North Americans. An applied and collaborative methodology was employed as I assisted in realizing projects initiated by the Tribes' and operating within a particular Native worldview, spanning from curation to interpretation, at Tamástslikt. While remaining separate and distinct, my own dissertation project was nevertheless structured, informed, and achieved alongside, and in conjunction with, tribally controlled projects.