This book brings together a diverse group of American Indian thinkers to discuss traditional and contemporary philosophies and philosophical issues. The essays presented here address philosophical questions pertaining to knowledge, time, place, history, science, law, religion, nationhood, ethics, and art, as understood from a variety of Native American standpoints. Unique in its approach, this volume represents several different tribes and nations and amplifies the voice of contemporary American Indian culture struggling for respect and autonomy. Taken (...) together, the essays collected here exemplify the way in which American Indian perspectives enrich contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

A generalized traditional Western world view is compared with a generalized traditional American Indian world view in respect to the practical relations implied by either to nature. The Western tradition pictures nature as material, mechanical, and devoid of spirit, while the American Indian tradition pictures nature throughout as an extended family or society of living, ensouled beings. The former picture invites unrestrained exploitation of nonhuman nature, while the latter provides the foundations for ethical restraint in relation (...) to nonhuman nature. This conclusion is defended against disclaimers by Calvin Martin and Tom Regan. (shrink)

A generalized traditional Western world view is compared with a generalized traditional American Indian world view in respect to the practical relations implied by either to nature. The Western tradition pictures nature as material, mechanical, and devoid of spirit (reserving that exclusively for humans), while the American Indian tradition pictures nature throughout as an extended family or society of living, ensouled beings. The former picture invites unrestrained exploitation of nonhuman nature, while the latter provides the foundations (...) for ethical restraint in relation to nonhuman nature. This conclusion is defended against disclaimers by Calvin Martin and Tom Regan. (shrink)

This article reviews the history of medical and research abuses experienced by American Indians since European colonization. This article examines the unethical research of American Indians/Alaska Natives in light of the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. Literature citations indicate that significant unethical research and medical care incidents occurred both before and after the Tuskegee Syphilis Study among American Indians/Alaska Natives. The majority of these unethical abuses were committed by the federal government and within (...) the historical context of a long-term contentious relationship between American Indians and the federal government. Although President Clinton issued a highly visible public apology to the African American survivors of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment in 1997, American Indians have yet to experience such visible federal acknowledgment. To ensure ethical research in which benefits outweigh risks and findings are not value-laden or misrepresented, tribes have instituted their own Institutional Review Boards coupled with community-participatory activities. (shrink)

This study uses 1990 data from seventy-three American Indian tribes to explore factors associated with the adoption of indi genous economic development plans on American Indian reservations. The analyses employing ordinary least squares analytical models posit that the existence of tribally owned and controlled businesses on or near the reservations and the presence of tribally owned farm and ranch operations are most critical in explaining the existence of such plans. A closer scrutiny of this result further (...) suggests that the effect of tribal ownership and control of businesses is more pronounced than that of the existence of a tribally owned farm and ranch operation. The wider implications for comprehensive Indian policy are noted. (shrink)

American Indian Thought is a contemporary collection of twenty-two essays written by Indigenous persons with Western philosophical training, all attempting to formulate, and/or contribute to a sub-discipline of, a Native American Philosophy. The contributors come from diverse tribal, educational, philosophical, methodological, etc., backgrounds, and there is some tension among aspects of the collection, but what is more striking is the harmony and the singularity of the collection’s intent. Part of this singularity may derive from the solidarity among (...) its authors. In addition to the fact that all belong to Indigenous tribes, there is also a striking sensitivity to the interconnection between distinct Western disciplines—particularly between philosophy and poetry. I take the latter to be a thread which can be strategically woven into the center of the anthology’s weave. In this book discussion, I aim to draw out the poetic aspects of five of the anthology’s essays, which deal with philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics, respectively. In this way, I hope to illuminate a poetic quality at the heart of the collection, and thus also of the burgeoning field of Native American or Indigenous philosophy in general. In the process, I will also consider ways in which Indigenous philosophy resonates with the Western philosophical traditions of phenomenology and American pragmatism. With the latter tradition in particular this connection has become more fully appreciated, especially through the work of Bruce Wilshire and Scott Pratt. (shrink)

Exploring the history of contemporary legal thought on the rights and status of the West's colonized indigenous tribal peoples, Williams here traces the development of the themes that justified and impelled Spanish, English, and American conquests of the New World.

It is fairly well known that Hume added a footnote to his essay ‘Of National Characters’ in which he asserts that all non-white peoples are naturally inferior to white people. Subsequently, he revised the note to assert only that black people are naturally inferior to white people. But while the view expressed in this footnote has been described as ‘shockingly bigoted’, and even as his ‘racial law,’ it is still commonly thought that in Hume's voluminous writings it is apparently just (...) this single passage which is definitely racist in its import. My aim in this paper is to show how American Indians are thought to be naturally inferior to white people in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. There are, therefore, passages in Hume's second Enquiry which are also definitely racist in their import. (shrink)

In approximately the last 20 years, the self-protection capacity of many American Indian tribes has significantly increased to include the review of research requests by a tribally based IRB. While these tribal IRBs are trained using a curriculum derived from the Belmont Report, there is need to recognize the cultural specificity of the Belmont Report and its potential for conflict or inappropriateness when applied to populations with deep differences in cultural constructs compared to the majority population. However, recognition (...) of the sometimes paradigmatically different culture of American Indian tribes compared to the U.S. culture at large seldom occurs. Moreover, significant and subtle factors of researchers' professional, organizational, and personal cultures that relate to the research enterprise are essentially never addressed by themselves or the tribal IRB. Nonetheless, tribal IRBs continue and serve as a procedural guide for investigators intending to conduct respectful research with American Indian populations. (shrink)

Common themes in American Indian philosophy -- First introductions -- Common themes : a first look -- Constructing an actual American Indian world -- NelsonGoodman's constructivism -- Setting the stage -- Fact, fiction, and feeders -- Ontological pluralism -- True versions and well-made worlds -- Nonlinguistic versions and the advancement of understanding -- True versions and cultural bias -- Constructive realism : variations on a theme by Goodman -- True versions and cultural bias -- An (...) class='Hi'>American Indian well-made actual world -- Relatedness, native knowledge, and ultimate acceptability -- Native knowledge and relatedness as a world ordering principle -- Native knowledge and truth -- Native knowledge and verification -- Native knowledge and ultimate acceptability -- An expansive conception of persons -- A western conception of persons -- Native conceptions of animate beings and persons -- An American Indian expansive conception of persons -- The semantic potency of performance -- Opening reflections and reminders about performances -- Symbols and their performance -- The Shawnee naming ceremony -- Gifting as a world constructing performance -- Closing remarks about the semantic potency of performances -- Circularity as a world ordering principle -- Goodman briefly revisited -- Time, events, and history or space, place, and nature? -- Circularity as a world ordering principle -- Circularity and sacred places -- Closing remarks about circularity as a world ordering principle -- The dance of person and place -- American Indian philosophy as a dance of person and place -- Consequences, speculations, and closing reflections. (shrink)

This article will focus on the role of women in three red power events: the occupation of Alcatraz Island, the Fish-in movement, and the occupation at Wounded Knee. Men held most public roles at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee, even though women were the numerical majority at Wounded Knee. Female elders played a significant role at Wounded Knee, where the occupation was originally their idea. In contrast to these two occupations, the public leaders of the Fish-in movement were women-not an untraditional (...) role for women of Northwest Coastal tribes. (shrink)

: This article will focus on the role of women in three red power events: the occupation of Alcatraz Island, the Fish-in movement, and the occupation at Wounded Knee. Men held most public roles at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee, even though women were the numerical majority at Wounded Knee. Female elders played a significant role at Wounded Knee, where the occupation was originally their idea. In contrast to these two occupations, the public leaders of the Fish-in movement were women—not an (...) untraditional role for women of Northwest Coastal tribes. (shrink)

This article will focus on the role of women in three red power events: the occupation of Alcatraz Island, the Fish-in movement, and the occupation at Wounded Knee. Men held most public roles at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee, even though women were the numerical majority at Wounded Knee. Female elders played a significant role at Wounded Knee, where the occupation was originally their idea. In contrast to these two occupations, the public leaders of the Fish-in movement were women—not an untraditional (...) role for women of Northwest Coastal tribes. (shrink)

This article will focus on the role of women in three red power events: the occupation of Alcatraz Island, the Fish-in movement, and the occupation at Wounded Knee. Men held most public roles at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee, even though women were the numerical majority at Wounded Knee. Female elders played a significant role at Wounded Knee, where the occupation was originally their idea. In contrast to these two occupations, the public leaders of the Fish-in movement were women-not an untraditional (...) role for women of Northwest Coastal tribes. (shrink)

A study of American Indian youths illustrates competing pressures between research and ethics. A stakeholder-researcher team developed three plans to protect participants. The first allowed participants to skip potentially upsetting interview sections. The second called for participants flagged for abuse or suicidality to receive referrals, emergency 24-hr clinical backup, or both. The third, based on the community's desire to promote service access, included giving participants a list of service resources. Interviewers gave referrals to participants flagged as having mild (...) problems, and reported participants with serious problems to supervisors for clinical backup. Participants seldom chose to skip sections, so data integrity was not compromised. However, participants did have more problems than expected (e.g., 1 in 3 had thought about suicide, 1 in 5 had attempted suicide, and 1 in 4 reported abuse), so service agencies were not equipped to respond. Researchers must accept the competing pressures and find ethically appropriate compromises that will not undermine research integrity. (shrink)

Perhaps the most significant law affecting the provision of health services to the American Indian and Alaska Native population is the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. This Act allows tribes to assume the management and control of health care programs from Indian Health Service and to increase flexibility in health care program development. Under ISDEAA, tribes have the option to contract or compact with IHS to deliver health services using pre-existing IHS resources, third (...) party reimbursements, grants, and other sources. Typically, tribes develop their own non-profit health care corporations to provide services to their community, and as a result are eligible for grants and other types of funding not available to federal agencies like IHS. (shrink)

Perhaps the most significant law affecting the provision of health services to the American Indian and Alaska Native population is the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. This Act allows tribes to assume the management and control of health care programs from Indian Health Service and to increase flexibility in health care program development. Under ISDEAA, tribes have the option to contract or compact with IHS to deliver health services using pre-existing IHS resources, third (...) party reimbursements, grants, and other sources. Typically, tribes develop their own non-profit health care corporations to provide services to their community, and as a result are eligible for grants and other types of funding not available to federal agencies like IHS. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, instead of standing as an exemplar of contemporary environmentalism, North American Indian voices on the environment offer insights concerning ecological relationships that can be brought to bear on theories of environmental value and the politics of environmentalism. I argue that environmentally orthodox representations of Native views are further complicated by the metaphysics of local ecological knowledge. I then argue that moral ecologism, a normative view focused on inter­dependence throughout the living world and (...) evidenced by contemporary American Indian voices, can help align traditional environmentalism with the contemporary scientific understanding of ecological relationships. (shrink)

Hasian, Condit, and Lucaites argue that there is "a need for investigating and implementing procedures that would democratize the legal system"i and that the boundaries of the law provide a fruitful site for such investigation. I would argue that one particularly relevant site to recover such procedures is American Indian law. American Indian treaties, although more so in terms of their negotiation rather than their final form, are hybrid documents, combining elements from both indigenous and Western (...) law. Because treaties exist at the boundaries between two systems of law, they are positioned not only to illuminate differences in practice but also to shed light on the balance of power between Indian nations and the U.S. government. Evidence of law's boundaries can be found, for example, in the adherence to, or abandonment of, indigenous practices of law over time. The journals of the proceedings in particular, which recorded the negotiation of the treaties, also documented cultural understandings of power, leadership, human relations, and attitudes toward the land. So if ever there were an opportunity to investigate and implement procedures leading to a more democratized legal system, this would be one. ;Traditional American Indian communication practices were not, and still are not, empty rituals or colorful customs of an exotic culture performed for the entertainment of outsiders. Neither are American Indian law practices the quaint customs of a long-gone past but living traditions still practiced today. I document this continuity in practice by investigating two sites: first, the historical journal of the proceedings from the 1825 Treaty of Prairie du Chien, and then in the contemporary rhetoric of their descendents, Anishinaabe environmental activists. Rhetorical analyses of these texts reveal not only American Indian concepts of law, peace, and kinship but also an environmental ethic, all based upon a rhetoric of responsibility rather than rights. ;Treaties may always be the primary written documents scrutinized in the courts when treaty rights are being asserted or challenged, but if we were serious about democratizing our legal system, then we would do well to implement many of the traditional communication practices rooted in our indigenous heritage. ;iMarouf Hasian, Jr., Celeste Michelle Condit, and John Louis Lucaites, "The Rhetorical Boundaries of 'the Law': A Consideration of the Rhetorical Culture of Legal Practice and the Case of the 'Separate But Equal' Doctrine," Quarterly Journal of Speech 82 , 339. (shrink)

North American Indians have often been perceived as violent, bloodthirsty human beings. The horrified fascination exerted by this violence on the European imagination takes hold of all historical accounts and lies at the heart of the smallest social productions. The sports games, whose imposing corpus is intriguing to the colonists, are also perceived as a cultural element of this gratuitous violence, a biological one, even, as inherent to their “wild nature”. And yet, far from being instinctual, this violence takes (...) on a ritual and propitiatory dimension that is at the same time at the service of private interests, but also, and especially so, of tribal ones. By taking possession of the lacrosse game through its institutionalization, Canadians hope to control the violence of this emblematic game-ritual. Despite a deep transformation of the game, the instinctual manifestations in the human relationships that are supposed to decline through the internalization of restrictions subsist. The original game still seems to express itself through this violence-based relationship, no matter how codified. Drawing on archives ranging from missiological writings to anthropological documents, as well as on recent academic studies, this article tries to dispel the defining halo of a violence sometimes confused with distinct forms of aggressivity. (shrink)

In this book the author examines various aspects of a selection of Western Great Lakes American Indian philosophical traditions and beliefs. He combines over forty years of stories, anecdotes, and observations learned from Western Great Lakes tribal elders into a coherent and thought-provoking philosophy text which challenges readers to look beyond their own cultural prepossessions and discover a method of asking questions where the answers come from within.

We all know vampires. Count Dracula and Nosferatu, maybe Blade and Angel, or Stephenie Meyer’s sparkling beau, Edward Cullen. In fact, the Euro-American vampire myth has long become one of the most reliable and bestselling fun-rides the entertainment industries around the world have to offer. Quite recently, however, a new type of fanged villain has entered the mainstream stage: the American Indian vampire. Fully equipped with war bonnets, buckskin clothes, and sharp teeth, the vampires of recent U.S. (...) film productions, such as Blade, the Series or the Twilight Saga, employ both the Euro-American vampire trope and denigrating discourses of race and savagery. It is also against this backdrop that American Indian authors and filmmakers have set out to renegotiate not only U.S. America’s myth of the racially overdrawn “savage Indian,” but also the vampire trope per se. Drawing on American Indian myths and folklore that previous scholarship has placed into direct relationship to the Anglo-European vampire narrative, and on recent U.S. mainstream commodifications of these myths, my paper traces and contextualizes the two oppositional yet intimately linked narratives of American Indian vampirism ensuing today: the commodified image of the “Indian” vampire and the renegotiated vampire tropes created by American Indian authors and filmmakers. (shrink)

This article examines the influence of race/ethnicity and gender identity on the politics of American Indian and Hispanic women leaders. The data are drawn from personal interviews with 50 public officials and grassroots leaders active in state, local, or tribal politics in New Mexico. Borrowing from Tolleson Rinehart's model of “gender consciousness,” the author creates a classification scheme for assessing the role that race/ethnicity and gender play in the political ideology and motives of the leaders. The findings reveal (...) that racial/ethnic identity is generally more important to Native leaders and grassroots activists, while gender identity is somewhat more salient for Hispanic leaders and public officials. Her classification system for measuring racial/ethnic and gender identity is useful for analyzing qualitative data and may be helpful to other researchers. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to demonstrate that American Indians have a world-view that is consistent, intelligible, and legitimate. It is a deft and self-aware exemplification of the task of cross-cultural comparison. The overall strategy in the argument is to employ a modified version of Nelson Goodman’s notion of world-making and then construct a simplified model of the American Indian worldview. Norton-Smith accomplishes this difficult task and in the process modifies Goodman in a realist direction, making (...) a strong case that the Native view deserves intellectual respect. The writing is accessible and shows a deft and helpful interplay between abstract language and concrete illustrative .. (shrink)

Indigenous peoples have for millennia observed and lived in deference to the same universe as scientists who meticulously record and measure information, but their deep knowledge of the natural world remains unacknowledged by the greater society. This article relates some of that knowledge to physics concepts, particularly relativity and quantum theory, as an initial step toward conveying certain realities of the American Indian world into a Western scientific context such that their meaning is not lost. Modern physics has (...) not only revealed a cosmic order that is vastly different from the classical realm but one that also closely corresponds to the conceptual world of the American Indian. The author emphasizes the work and concepts articulated by Einstein and Bohm because of the evidence they provide for the latter's notion of the cosmos as an "unbroken whole," which is also a prominent concept among tribal peoples. In view of how American Indian traditions carry human experiences beyond the physical into the spiritual realm, emphasizing practical survival skills and intuition rather than measurement, the author believes that the places where tribal and Western systems of knowledge meet can become important gateways to realms that are currently unfamiliar to the Western world. (shrink)