American Indian studies.
Fahad502
perroglyphs_and_oral_tradition.pptxRemember this image!
American Indian technology is really knowledge, not the tools themselves.
-one way of relating to “cosmic cycle”
-reflect maintenance of harmony
(Ridington, in Dickason 1998)
Technology and knowledge
Gilgamesh- written approx. 3-4,000 BP
Maushop/Gluskap stone : Late Archaic (5500-2700BP), Maritime Tradition
Stone was cover on a stone lined hole (cist)
red ochre
Grooved axe
Plummet
White quartz engraving tool
Oldest recorded story?
Plummets
Significance
Variations among a number of Algonquin speaking groups (Mi’kmaq, Wabanaki, Wampanoag, Mohegan, Pequot, Nipmuc, Lenape, Powhaten, etc.)
Algonquin groups of NE have asserted that they have a long history of occupation in the region.
Archaeologists identify sites
and “horizons” with tool styles
Effect: assumption that tool=culture
Therefore: change in tools= change in culture=change in people
Stone w/recognizable motif corroborates oral history of the NE Algonquin people
Algonquin speakers definitely in NE during Archaic
Contradicts Snow (2010, 219-221)
Snow estimates 1000 CE/BP
Diagnostic artifacts+ Identifiable oral tradition suggest as long as 5000 BP to 2700 BP
Identification
“Amerinds perceived the universe as an intricate meshing of personalized powers, great and small, beneficial and dangerous, whose equilibrium was based upon reciprocity”
-Olive Patricia Dickason, 1998
Worldview
Culture hero
Creator
Transformer
Nicolar/Wabanaki:
The Man from Nothing
Created self out of void
Aquinnah: The First/The Great Whaleman (whale hunter)
Gluskap/Klose-kur-beh/Maushop
Intermediary between spirits and physical world
Learn the lessons important to live well in the world
These are passed on through stories
Gluskap also first “storyteller”
Witness to creation of people
(Mi’kmaq tradition)
from lightning sparks that created him
7 women, 7 men
7 bands of the Mi’kmaq
7 recognized territories
Southern NE (Wampanoag/Mohegan)
People created from wood
Gluskap’s role
Artwork as “active agent”
For a specific purpose, not passive enjoyment
Beauty of form = better chance fulfilling purpose
Intermediary between material and spiritual world
Art (music, dance, story, drawing, carving) has a life/spirit of its own
(Dickason, 1998)
View of Art
Evidence for agency
Now?
March sky in Northeast
Polaris
Ursa Minor
Draco
The image records the story and re-enacts the story
- Becomes an actor through ritual use.
- Connects its creator or user directly to the story.
-Also means of marking the time of the ritual (and the story itself)
Story is told in Spring-Cycle of time
Creation cycle
Ritual of “First Foods”
Maushop/Gluskap often honored as one who showed people how to find food
Riverine site: Taunton River, Titicut MA
associations with fish-runs/spawning
Atlantic Salmon
Alewives
Eels* (lamprey)
From this image we know: who
when (time pd/season)
what (they were doing)
why (it was important)
Context
Seven directions:
North, South East West, Above, Below, Center
Algonquin Universe
Diagram 7 levels of creation
3 spirits of creation-
Creator (Keitan)
Sun
Earth
4 anthropomorphic spirits
Gluskap/Maushop
Grandmother, Granny Squannit, Old Squant
Nephew (sometimes brother)
Mother
Imptce. of clan/lineage
Everything has its own spiritual power (manitou)
Power can be called on-have to be careful
Affinity for certain types power allows people to fill certain roles
M’teoulino/Pauwaus= shaman, magical practitioners
P’niese- war captain
‘Owl’- history keeper, news reporter
Sachem, sagamore –chief, paramount chief
*Women could be pauwaus, sachems, sagamores
Manitou/Mntu/M’teoulin/Manidoo
Molly “Molasses” Nicola, M’etoulin
Dickason, Olive Patricia, 1998 “Art and Amerind Worldview.”Earth Water, Air and Fire: Studies in Canadian Ethnohistory . David T. McNabb, ed. University Press, Waterloo. Pp.21-31
Snow, Dean R.
2010 Archaeology of Native North America. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, N. J.
Joan Squannit Avent, Deer/Attucks clan mother,
