Peter M. Whiteley

The split of Orayvi, the largest Hopi town, in 1906, continues to resonate as a profound event in Puebloan cultural history, exemplary for anthropological explanations of fission in small-scale, kin-based human societies. Multiple hypotheses have been offered (sociological, materialist, ideological, and agential), each pointing to alternative, often mutually exclusive, causes. But effective analysis of the split crucially depends upon accurate data and apposite conceptual tools. The received picture of Orayvi, both empirically and analytically, is seriously flawed, notably owing to neglect of the archival record. With particular attention to demography, social forms, and material conditions, this monograph seeks to redress those flaws, both structurally and historically. A new assessment of social structure focuses on the interplay of matrilineal kinship with Orayvi's 'houses' and ritual sodalities. An examination of material conditions, especially in Oraibi Wash farmlands, draws on unconsidered survey and allotment records. The exact population of Orayvi in 1906 is reconstructed from an array of census sources (presented in detail), and correlated by houses, kinship groups, and ritual sodalities. An extended appendix (Part II) presents a series of unpublished documents. The work's principal aim is to produce a comprehensive picture of the Orayvi split's sociology, economy, demography, and history. As a 'total social fact, ' the Orayvi split resists reductive explanation to just one set of factors, and requires detailed attention to contexts both structural and historical, material and cognitive.

A Hopi Transformation

The Orayvi Split

The Orayvi Split: Structure and history

American Museum of Natural History

Lois Sherr Dubin

Kari Chalker

Published to coincide with a traveling exhibition, an exploration of the jewelry art of thirty-nine regional Native American artists considers the ways in which visual adornment reflects cross-cultural traditions, in a lavishly illustrated resource that is complemented by anthropological and historical information. 15,000 first printing.

Native North American Jewelry Arts of the Northwest and Southwest

Totems to Turquoise

Thomas R. Trautmann

The “Crow-Omaha problem” has perplexed anthropologists since it was first described by Lewis Henry Morgan in 1871. During his worldwide survey of kinship systems, Morgan learned with astonishment that some Native American societies call some relatives of different generations by the same terms. Why? Intergenerational “skewing” in what came to be named “Crow” and “Omaha” systems has provoked a wealth of anthropological arguments, from Rivers to Radcliffe-Brown, from Lowie to Lévi-Strauss, and many more. Crow-Omaha systems, it turns out, are both uncommon and yet found distributed around the world. For anthropologists, cracking the Crow-Omaha problem is critical to understanding how social systems transform from one type into another, both historically in particular settings and evolutionarily in the broader sweep of human relations. This volume examines the Crow-Omaha problem from a variety of perspectives—historical, linguistic, formalist, structuralist, culturalist, evolutionary, and phylogenetic. It focuses on the regions where Crow-Omaha systems occur: Native North America, Amazonia, West Africa, Northeast and East Africa, aboriginal Australia, northeast India, and the Tibeto-Burman area. The international roster of authors includes leading experts in their fields. The book offers a state-of-the-art assessment of Crow-Omaha kinship and carries forward the work of the landmark volume Transformations of Kinship, published in 1998. Intended for students and scholars alike, it is composed of brief, accessible chapters that respect the complexity of the ideas while presenting them clearly. The work serves as both a new benchmark in the explanation of kinship systems and an introduction to kinship studies for a new generation of students. Series Note: Formerly titled Amerind Studies in Archaeology, this series has recently been expanded and retitled Amerind Studies in Anthropology to incorporate a high quality and number of anthropology titles coming in to the series in addition to those in archaeology.

New Light on a Classic Problem of Kinship Analysis

Crow-Omaha

Peter M. Whiteley

Books

Your next favorite book is out there