North American Aboriginal Hide Tanning

North American Aboriginal Hide Tanning examines the methodology, tools and spiritual aspects of what was once almost a lost art. Over the course of research that has spanned some 30 years, the author has interviewed more than 40 tanners from the Northwest Territories to Oklahoma. The result is a volume that includes chapters on 15 different tanners and their recipes, practical information on tools and techniques, as well as helpful tips for those interested in trying this traditional process for themselves. Although not intended as a complete how-to manual, this book is certain to whet the reader’s appetite for further investigation.

Object Lives and Global Histories in Northern North America explores how close, collaborative looking can discern the traces of contact, exchange, and movement of objects and give them a life and political power in complex cross-cultural histories. Red River coats, prints of colonial places and peoples, Indigenous-made dolls, and an Englishwoman's collection provide case studies of art and material culture that correct and give nuance to global and imperial histories. The result of a collaborative research process involving Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors, this book looks closely at the circumstances of making, use, and circulation of these objects: things that supported and defined both Indigenous resistance and colonial and imperial purposes. Contributors re-envision the histories of northern North America by focusing on the lives of things flowing to and from this vast region between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries, showing how material culture is a critical link that tied this diverse landscape to the wider world. An original perspective on the history of northern North American peoples grounded in things, Object Lives and Global Histories in Northern North America provides a key analytical and methodological lens that exposes the complexity of cultural encounters and connections between local and global communities.

Hide production is one of the oldest crafts known to humans. Yet this is the first volume to critically explore the gendered nature of this universal activity amongst hunters-gatherers for its meaning in craft production, status, identity and cultural change. Using ethnoarchaeological and archaeological examples from North America and Africa, the authors provide new insights of the gendered nature of human behavior.

Buckskin Tanner is about an ancient craft that provided clothing, shelter, and many utilitarian items in the lives of Native Americans, hunters, trappers, pioneers and others who once lived close to nature. An animal taken for food also provided these things. "How I tan today is based on what I learned from historical accounts, trial and error, Indians, other buckskinners like myself, and even the tanning industry. It's an artful craft worth mastering and passing on to posterity."

Gifts from the Thunder Beings examines North American Aboriginal peoples’ use of Indigenous and European distance weapons in big-game hunting and combat. Beyond the capabilities of European weapons, Aboriginal peoples’ ways of adapting and using this technology in combination with Indigenous weaponry contributed greatly to the impact these weapons had on Aboriginal cultures. This gradual transition took place from the beginning of the fur trade in the Hudson’s Bay Company trading territory to the treaty and reserve period that began in Canada in the 1870s. Technological change and the effects of European contact were not uniform throughout North America, as Roland Bohr illustrates by comparing the northern Great Plains and the Central Subarctic—two adjacent but environmentally different regions of North America—and their respective Indigenous cultures. Beginning with a brief survey of the subarctic and Northern Plains environments and the most common subsistence strategies in these regions around the time of contact, Bohr provides the context for a detailed examination of social, spiritual, and cultural aspects of bows, arrows, quivers, and firearms. His detailed analysis of the shifting usage of bows and arrows and firearms in the northern Great Plains and the Central Subarctic makes Gifts from the Thunder Beings an important addition to the canon of North American ethnology.

The years AD 1500–1700 were a time of dramatic change for the indigenous inhabitants of southeastern North America, yet Native histories during this era have been difficult to reconstruct due to a scarcity of written records before the eighteenth century. Using archaeology to enhance our knowledge of the period, Contact, Colonialism, and Native Communities in the Southeastern United States presents new research on the ways Native societies responded to early contact with Europeans. Featuring sites from Kentucky to Mississippi to Florida, these case studies investigate how indigenous groups were affected by the expeditions of explorers such as Hernando de Soto, Pánfilo de Narváez, and Juan Pardo. Contributors re-create the social geography of the Southeast during this time, trace the ways Native institutions changed as a result of colonial encounters, and emphasize the agency of indigenous populations in situations of contact. They demonstrate the importance of understanding the economic, political, and social variability that existed between Native and European groups. Bridging the gap between historical records and material artifacts, this volume answers many questions and opens up further avenues for exploring these transformative centuries, pushing the field of early contact studies in new theoretical and methodological directions. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

For centuries, women artists of the Wendat First Nation of Wendake in Quebec have created artworks of intricate design and complex meaning in moosehair and quill embroidery. Their work records and transmits ancestral knowledge across generations of artists and remains a vibrant and important practice today. Breaking new ground in Indigenous art histories, Wendat Women’s Arts is the first book to bring together a full history of the Wendat embroidery art form. Annette de Stecher challenges the historical anonymity of Indigenous women artists by arguing for their central role in community history and ceremony. Through their art, these women played an important part in the diplomatic strategies that advanced the sovereignty of their nation, work that was an extension of their position of authority in their families and clans. Chiefs and community members wore finely embroidered attire as a brilliant focus of ceremonial events, a tradition that continues today. Women artists also supported their community economically as their embroidery was a souvenir of choice for European collectors. In vibrant illustrations, this book reconstructs the rich repertoire of Wendat embroidery now dispersed in collections throughout the world. Wendat Women’s Arts combines a depth of historical understanding with a keen knowledge of contemporary Wendat artists, demonstrating that the story of Wendat women is one of cultural strength, innovation, resilience, and success.

Conservation techniques for the analysis and preservation of heritage materials are constantly progressing. Building on the first edition of Conservation Science, this new edition incorporates analytical techniques and data processing methods that have emerged in the past decade and presents them alongside notable case studies for each class of material. An introductory chapter on analytical techniques provides a succinct overview to bring the reader up-to-speed with which type of material each technique is suitable for, the differing sampling techniques that can be employed, and the handling and processing of the resultant data. Subsequent chapters go on to cover all common heritage materials in turn, from natural substances such as wood and stone to modern plastics, detailing the up-to-date techniques for their analysis. With contributions by scientists working in the museum and heritage sector, this textbook will interest students, scientists involved in conservation, and conservators who want to develop their understanding of their collections at a material level.