The Northern Arapahoes of the Wind River Reservation contradict many of the generalizations made about political change among native plains people. Loretta Fowler explores how, in response to the realities of domination by Americans, the Arapahoes have avoided serious factional divisions and have succeeded in legitimizing new authority through the creation and use of effective political symbols.

Examines the history, culture, and changing fortunes of the Arapaho Indians.

Loretta Fowler offers a new perspective on Native American politics by examining how power on multiple levels infuses the everyday lives and consciousness of the Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples of Oklahoma. Cheyennes and Arapahos today energetically pursue a variety of commercial enterprises, including gaming and developing retail businesses, and they operate a multitude of social programs. Such revitalization and economic mobilization, however, have not unambiguously produced greater tribal sovereignty. Tribal members challenge and often work vigorously to undermine their tribal government's efforts to strengthen the tribe as an independent political, economic, and cultural entity; at the same time, political consensus and tribal unity are continually recognized and promoted in powwows and dances. Why is there conflict in one sphere of Cheyenne-Arapaho politics and cooperation in the other? The key to the dynamics of current community life, Fowler contends, is found in the complicated relationship between the colonizer and the colonized that emerges in Fourth World or postcolonial settings. For over a century the lives of Cheyennes and Arapahos have been affected simultaneously by forces of resistance and domination. These circumstances are reflected in their constructions of history. Cheyennes and Arapahos accommodate an ideology that buttresses social forms of domination and helps mold experiences and perceptions. They also selectively recognize and resist such domination. Drawing upon a decade of fieldwork and archival research, Tribal Sovereignty and the Historical Imagination provides an insightful and provocative analysis of how Cheyenne and Arapaho constructions of history influence tribal politics today.

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.

In what is now Colorado and Wyoming, the Northern Arapahos thrived for centuries, connected by strong spirituality and kinship and community structures that allowed them to survive in the rugged environment. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, as Anglo-Americans pushed west, Northern Arapaho life changed dramatically. Although forced to relocate to a reservation, the people endured and held on to their traditions. Today, tribal members preserve the integrity of a society that still fosters living ni'iihi', as they call it, "in a good way." Award-winning photographer Sara Wiles captures that life on film and in words in Arapaho Journeys, an inside look at thirty years of Northern Arapaho life on the Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming. Through more than 100 images and 40 essays, Wiles creates a visual and verbal mosaic of contemporary Northern Arapaho culture. Depicted in the photographs are people Wiles met at Wind River while she was a social worker, anthropology student, and adopted member of an Arapaho family. Among others pictured are Josephine Redman, an older woman wrapped in a blanket, soft light illuminating its folds, and rancher-artist Eugene Ridgely, Sr., half smiling as he intently paints a drum. Interspersed among the portraits are images of races, basketball teams, and traditional games. Wiles's essays weave together tribal history, personal narratives, and traditional knowledge to describe modern-day reservation life and little-known aspects of Arapaho history and culture, including naming ceremonies and cultural revitalization efforts. This work broaches controversial topics, as well, including the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians. Arapaho Journeys documents not only reservation life but also Wiles's growth as a photographer and member of the Wind River community from 1975 through 2005. This book offers readers a journey, one that will enrich their understanding of Wiles's art—and of the Northern Arapahos' history, culture, and lived experience.

The arrival of European and Euro-American colonizers in the Americas brought not only physical attacks against Native American tribes, but also further attacks against the sovereignty of these Indian nations. Though the violent tales of the Trail of Tears, Black Hawk's War, and the Battle of Little Big Horn are taught far and wide, the political structure and development of Native American tribes, and the effect of American domination on Native American sovereignty, have been greatly neglected. This book contains a variety of primary source and other documents--traditional accounts, tribal constitutions, legal codes, business councils, rules and regulations, BIA agents reports, congressional discourse, intertribal compacts--written both by Natives from many different nations and some non-Natives, that reflect how indigenous peoples continued to exercise a significant measure of self-determination long after it was presumed to have been lost, surrendered, or vanquished. The documents are arranged chronologically, and Wilkins provides brief, introductory essays to each document, placing them within the proper context. Each introduction is followed by a brief list of suggestions for further reading. Covering a fascinating and relatively unknown period in Native American history, from the earliest examples of indigenous political writings to the formal constitutions crafted just before the American intervention of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, this anthology will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students of the political development of indigenous peoples the world over.

This is an annotated bibliography of 20th century books through 1983, and is a reworking of American Studies: An Annotated Bibliography of Works on the Civilization of the United States, published in 1982. Seeking to provide foreign nationals with a comprehensive and authoritative list of sources of information concerning America, it focuses on books that have an important cultural framework, and does not include those which are primarily theoretical or methodological. It is organized in 11 sections: anthropology and folklore; art and architecture; history; literature; music; political science; popular culture; psychology; religion; science/technology/medicine; and sociology. Each section contains a preface introducing the reader to basic bibliographic resources in that discipline and paragraph-length, non-evaluative annotations. Includes author, title, and subject indexes. ISBN 0-521-32555-2 (set) : $150.00.