Ethnology

Catlin, G. 1989: North American Indians. Originally published 1841. Edited by P. Matthiessen. Penguin Nature Library. Penguin Books, New York, USA xxxiii + 522 pages.
Dempsey, H. A. 1994: The Amazing Death of Calf Shirt and Other Blackfoot Stories. Fifth House Ltd, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. 250 pages.
AEU HSS E 99 S54 A489 1994
Dempsey, H. A. 1997: Indian Tribes of Alberta. Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 108 pages.
AEU HSS E 78 A33 D38 Brief introduction to the main First Nations groups in Alberta, including their geographic location, lifeway and economy, and an overview of their history since EuroCanadian contact. Describes Blackfoot, Sarcee, Stoney, Plains Cree, Woodland Cree, Chipewyan, Beaver, Slavey, Ojibwa, Iroquois, Gros Ventre, Shoshoni, Kootenay, and Crow groups. Illustrated with many black-and-white historical photographs. (27/Aug/2006).
Grinnell, G. B. 1962: Blackfoot Lodge Tales: The Story of a Prairie People. Originally published 1892. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. xvii + 310 pages.
AEU BARD E 98 F6 G8
McClintock, W. 1992: The Old North Trail: Life, Legends and Religion of the Blackfeet Indians. Reprinted from the original 1910 edition. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA xii + 538 pages.
AEU HSS E 99 S54 M16
Meili, D. 2006: A Remarkable Collection Coup. Legacy 11(4):14-17.
Describes the reaction of historians, Métis and First Nations people on seeing artifacts from the Earl of Southesk Collection that were purchased by the Royal Alberta Museum in 2006. The artifacts returned to Canada from Scotland. Contains great images of three of the artifacts. (06/Nov/2006).
Neihardt, J. G. 1988: Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. Originally published in 1932. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. xix + 298 pages.
AEU HSS E 99 O3 B615 A4 Black Elk was an Oglala Sioux warrior, who fought against the US cavalry in the Black Hills. He is known principally for his visions for his people. These spiritual experiences he told to Niehardt in the 1930s on the Pine Ridge Reservation when he was a very old man, looking back to the 1880s. He recounts hunting and warfare expeditions and the gradual extinction of the way of life that he had known. (06/Feb/1998).
Paget, Amelia M. 2004: People of the Plains. Reprint of 1909 edition with new introduction. Canadian Plains Research Centre, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. xxxiv + 78 pages.
AEPMA 970.412 P147 Amelia Paget (1867-1922) was part of a large family long connected with the Hudson's Bay Company. She was born into the McLean family and had Aboriginal people in her ancestry. Her great-great-grandmother was Aboriginal (possibly Woods Cree) and many of her older relations claimed Métis scrip (many Campbells, MacDonalds, and Murrays). Some parts of the family clearly identified more with their Aboriginal heritage. However, memories were long in Canada's Northwest at that time, and the Introduction to the 2004 edition notes that the family were identified as "half-breeds". Amelia was born in Fort Simpson. Her father was an HBC man from the Isle of Lewis. Her father worked as an HBC clerk and she grew up in Fort Qu'Appelle. In 1884 he was appointed Chief Trader at Fort Pitt, just in time for the Frog Lake Massacre and Northwest Rebellion. They were involved in the standoff at Fort Pitt in March - April 1885. The McLeans joined the Cree, led by Big Bear, after the Fort was besieged. After various moves in the field, the McLeans were allowed to leave the Cree camp and return to Fort Pitt in June 1885. The press reaction to these events was ambivalent. Some saw them as captives needing rescue; others regarded them as something akin to collaborators with the Crees because of their Aboriginal connections. Amelia was fluent in Cree and Ojibway languages. Her husband was Frederick Paget who worked for the Department of Indian Affairs and she occasionally worked as a translator. This book results from a task she was given in 1906 to interview Plains Elders and record their accounts of customs, lifeways and folklore. Apparently this was impelled by an idea that this knowledge (and people) was rapidly disappearing. As a woman she had access to the elderly women of the groups she visited and thus her account includes many aspects of life from a woman's perspective, including how leather is tanned and hides prepared. Her account covers a lot of different material. It does tend to concentrate on stories, traditions, and spirituality, include the Sin Dance. Also daily life such as transport by travois, tipi life, family life and the activities of warriors. Conspicuously absent is much account if hunting, especially bison hunting, whether this is because by the time of the interviews such hunts were past is an intriguing question. This is an interesting account with a thoughtful introduction (by Sarah Carter, Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta). Also includes some black and white images of plains encampments, people etc. The major focus is Cree people. (24/May/2012)
St Pierre, M., and T. Long Soldier 1995: Walking in the Sacred Manner: Healers, Dreamers, and Pipe Carriers - Medicine Women of the Plains Indians. Touchstone Books, Simon and Schuster, New York, USA 239 pages.
Concentrates on the Lakota (Sioux) people of North Dakota and adjacent states and especially on the role of women in Native religion, spirituality, and healing. Makes the point that Judeo-Christian religion has, with its patriarchal stance, negated the role of women and hence altered the social relationships within tribal societies. The authors view the missionaries especially as oppressors. Includes some discussion on healing and the use of plants, though few (except sweetgrass and cedar) are named. (10/Apr/1997).

Number of citations: 9

	Poetry	Art and Photography	Natural History	Biography and Memoir
Stories					History
	Essays	Archaeology	Ethnology	Geology and Palaeontology

This presentation has been compiled and is © 1998-2013 by
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Last updated March 3, 2013
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