Oklahoma Books

One of the most perplexing problems in the field of anthropology over the last hundred years has been the relationship between language and culture. Does language shape culture? Does culture shape language? Further, and perhaps more interesting, does language shape our cognition, effecting the very way that we see the world? Similarly, does culture shape our language in such a way that the very words, concepts, and semantic structures within a language are the direct result of the culture's physical manifestation? These questions and many others have been the subject of debate within anthropology, linguistics, psychology, and other fields of inquiry for well over a century. Out of this interdisciplinary debate, however, one theory has been of particular interest to all parties - the theory of linguistic relativity.

Developed primarily by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf (Sapir 1949; Whorf 1956), linguistic relativity originally focused on controlled comparisons between contrasting linguistic traditions and related patterns of behavior in a culture, often with an emphasis on the historical impact of cultural categories on the evolution of language. The reason that the theory has been the subject of debate for so long, however, is because of the lack of good, solid evidence to support it. Although anthropologists, indigenous scholars, and a few psychologists have long recognized the deep interconnection between language, culture, and cosmology, in-depth studies of indigenous languages and their grammatical and semantic differences has been lacking. Likewise, comparisons of different indigenous languages across similar cultural patterns has been hard to achieve. Contributing to the debate, and adding much needed data and evidence, is the recent book by Sean O'Neill: Cultural Contact and Linguistic Relativity Among the Indians of Northwestern California.

Approaching the principle of linguistic relativity via the works of Boas (1896/1948), Sapir (1949), and Whorf (1956), who all argued for the role of language in guiding human perception, especially in the culturally charged settings of everyday life, O'Neill's book is a data-rich, theoretically expanding contribution.

Despite centuries of intertribal contact, the Native American peoples of northwestern California have continued to speak a variety of distinct languages. At the same time, they have come to embrace a common way of life based on salmon fishing and shared religious practices. In this thought-provoking re-examination of the hypothesis of linguistic relativity, Sean O'Neill looks closely at the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk indigenous peoples to explore the striking juxtaposition between linguistic diversity and relative cultural uniformity among their communities.

"That is, neither the language nor the culture of the region holds altogether constant as one passes from one village to the next. Instead, the variables of language and culture achieve a nearly kaleidoscopic variability throughout the area's many speech communities. Taken together, the staggering linguistic diversity and often sweeping cultural variability found throughout this area allow the variables of language, culture, and worldview to be nearly isolated as one passes from one village to another" (p. 19).

It is through this process of comparing the variables of language, culture, and worldview that O'Neill makes some interesting and important contributions. By closely examining the spatial world and the realm of time among the Karuk, Hupa, and Yurok indigenous Native Americans of northwestern California, one is able to see the subtleties associated with language and culture in a geographically close, but culturally and linguistically diverse setting.

O'Neill examines intertribal contact, multilingualism, storytelling, and historical change among the three tribes, focusing on the traditional culture of the region as it existed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He asks important historical questions at the heart of the linguistic relativity hypothesis: Have the languages in fact grown more similar as a result of contact, multilingualism, and cultural convergence? Or have they instead maintained some of their striking grammatical and semantic differences? Through comparison of the three languages, O'Neill shows that long-term contact among the tribes intensified their linguistic differences, creating unique Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk identities, including linguistic categories and cognitive processes.

If language encapsulates worldview, as the principle of linguistic relativity suggests, then this region's indigenous peoples are testament to the theory. Analyzing patterns of linguistic accommodation as seen in the semantics of space and time, grammatical classification, and specialized cultural vocabularies, O'Neill offers solid evidence in support of the theory. What is even more exciting, however, is that Cultural Contact and Linguistic Relativity Among the Indians of Northwestern California lends support to the inclusion of indigenous peoples and their worldview within contemporary scientific research, resource management, and policy agendas.

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Peter N. Jones
Editor
http://indigenouspeoplesissues.com

great book on the nahua civilizations in "Central America". this is a must in understanding our Anahuac (Mexican & Central American)history. get this anyway you can.

This account of friar Ilarione's journey to the new world is very detailed and condensed at the same time, I wish he had written some more. He shows his point of view as a person from the Italy of the XVIII century when he travels to colonial Mexico City called in those times: "The New Spain".

Translator-Editor William J. Orr, Foreign service officer in the U.S. department of State and Professor Emeritus of History and Editor Robert Ryal Miller do a wonderful superb job enhancing the readability of friar Ilarione's account so it is easy for anyone to understand and enjoy.

As a history addict I assure this book is magnificent.

For anyone interested in the background, impact, and future of the Pick-Sloan Plan, you need look no further than Lawson's aptly titled "Dammed Indians". The tribes from Gavins Point Dam near Yankton, SD to Ft. Peck Dam in Montana have all been adversely affected with the damming of the Missouri River, a truth which Lawson documents with precision and skill. Originally a Ph.D. dissertation written in the history department at the University of New Mexico, Lawson is a fine example of some of the many outstanding American West historians who have come out of that institution.

This is an excellent source for anyone researching the surname McGaha or McGaughey. Also included are early Townsend and Dyer lines. These began in Pensylvania, Delaware, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and details the migration to Oklahoma.

This is the largest fragment of Columbus's first voyage log, as abstracted by Bartolome de Las Casas. Of the many editions in print, Dunn & Kelley stands head and shoulders above the rest. The format has a new Spanish transcription on the left-hand pages, exactly as hand-written in the original manuscript by Las Casas: same abbreviations, strike-outs, diacriticals, and marginal notes. The right-hand pages contain an English translation.

But perhaps the most valuable addition for the scholar is the Spanish concordance of the entire text, giving folio and line numbers for every appearance of almost every word. (Common words such as prepositions are given only with word counts, not references.) All in all, a must-have for any serious scholar or afficianado of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

This book is a brilliant burst of poetic prose, with some sentences having such remarkable images that I had to copy them down to keep for life. It retells the period from 1969-1971 in Kate Millett's life, when she was roughly treated as the cover subject of Time on Aug. 31, 1970. It details the early feminist movement and its opposition by the reactionary male right.
It also speaks graphically of her sexual encounters with both men and women, but always poetically and tastefully. I think it's one of the best books of the last half of the twentieth century. I would recommend it to anyone, but I'll never lend out my copy: That stays in my house forever for frequent future reference.

This is a fascinating account of the numerous Indian delegations to (mainly) Washington, DC, over the course of more than a century (1800-1900). The first Indian delegation occurred in 1710, when four Mohawk chiefs (known as "The Four Kings") were brought to England for a month-long visit and a meeting with Queen Anne. The Indians were the hit of London and drew crowds wherever they went. During the American Revolution, Indians often visited George Washington at his headquarters, as the Americans tried to keep the natives friendly and neutral.

After the country gained its independence, inviting Indian delegates to Washington, DC, became a general policy - a policy that had psychological implications as well as diplomatic purposes: Washington leaders wanted the Indians to see the power and might of the whites in the hope that it would discourage the thought of uprisings. Indian delegations were often treated as visiting royalty might be treated, and left laded with gifts and tributes. (Of course, like most people or groups up against governmental bureaucracy the Indians also left Washington with little of substance gained.)

Viola, rather than just relating one visit after another, arranges his information in chapters by themes: visiting the Great Father, financing the delegations, Indian life in Washington, diversions, etc. This thematic presentation is much more interesting than a straight chronological one would be. The book is well written and thoroughly researched, and is well illustrated, too. It's an engaging and highly informative look at a rarely studied topic in Indian-white relations.

This book, focused on the confrontation among the Indians of the Oriental forests y the Anglo-American pioneers of the XVII century, intends to illuminate some parts of a historical canvas which very often has not distinguished with clarity in the story.
And since the way to tell the process of colonization of North America is being subject of study nowadays of a deep reviewing , in which concern to the reasons and behavior of the conquerors as well in what it refers to cultural and moral valuation of the defeated , what in the past t was drawn as the romantic march to the West of a crowd of heroic pioneers animated by the desire of pious life and faced to the perfidy of the wild red skin was not under the most recent discoveries in a vast operation of plunder, foray and genocide .
So the study is concentrated the complex relations maintained through the XVII and XVIII the Colony Anglo-Americans and the tribes of the Great Lakes (Iroquois, Cherokees, Delaware, Onondagas, Algonquin, Creeks, Chickasaws) who crossed and sowed along the Appalachians, the first frontier before the great white expansion toward the West.
Wilbur Jacobs was History professor in Santa Barbara University and paid special attention to the tenacious fight held librated by the forest tribes to preserve the received land of the ancestors and defend themselves of the ecologic calamities that the innovations in the agriculture and the stock farm brought within.

I really enjoy reading about the hardships endured when living in a strange land, so of course i loved this book. I thought Mrs. Hurmence plotted it well and she really described the events well. I enjoyed reading it and I well read it again.