Theses (Anthropology)

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Situating cultural heritage management: How the ȾEL¸IȽĆE / c̓əl̓íɫč Village in Cordova Bay informs the pasts, presents, and futures of BC Archaeology
(2025) Tarling, Gemma; Thom, Brian
This thesis provides a synthesis of the history of the archaeological management of the Coast Salish village, ȾEL¸IȽĆE / c̓əl̓íɫč, in Cordova Bay on Vancouver Island. Rather than being recorded as a single landscape-level archaeological site encompassing most of the Cordova Bay community in the present-day District of Saanich the village has been recorded in the provincial archaeological record as 20 distinct sites. In this schema, no direct connections have been made to recognize that these separately recorded sites are representative of activities occurring across one larger archaeological village. To explain this phenomenon, I analyse archaeological work that has happened in the Cordova Bay area and tie it to relevant shifts in how heritage management is governed both locally and provincially (District of Saanich and W̱SÁNEĆ Leadership Council, 2021; McLellan & McDowell, 2024; Scambler, 2023a; Scambler, 2023b). In my findings, I outline how the Cordova Bay case study reveals that cultural heritage of Indigenous communities is not well represented in provincial heritage legislation. In accordance with Article 31 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), Indigenous peoples have the right to protect and govern tangible heritage, which includes archaeological sites and landscapes. British Columbia has committed to upholding UNDRIP based on the 2019 adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) (British Columbia, 2019). However, irreparable destruction through activities governed by British Columbia through the Heritage Conservation Act (HCA) happen on the ground to material histories in the present day (Mason, 2003; United Nations, 2007, p. 13-14). This thesis explores ways to bridge the gap between these disparate policy intentions and grounded realities through examining the role of the archaeologist and the need for Indigenous legal orders in governance and protection of archaeological sites.
Embodied virtual capital: The neoliberal rationality of aspiring electronic athletes
(2025) Alberto, Roberto; Rudnyckyj, Daromir
Esports entail competitive video game play for cash prizes and thus have become a career choice. Whereas once video games were strictly a leisurely activity, today, for elite gamers, they have become a viable profession. This thesis documents aspiring electronic athletes who seek to fashion professional careers playing video games. This thesis uses the concept of neoliberal rationality to analyze the embodied practices and forms of self-discipline in which aspiring electronic athletes engage. Using a combination of methods, including ethnography, interviews, surveys, and autoethnography, this thesis develops the concept of embodied virtual capital to document the techniques and practices aspiring electronic athletes undertake in their pursuit of careers as professional gamers. Building on Michel Foucault’s analysis of the centrality of human capital to neoliberal rationality (Foucault 2008), embodied virtual capital captures the embodied practices undertaken by electronic athletes as they work the interface between physical technologies and virtual worlds on the pathway toward earning future livelihoods.
"You're armed, I think you're better armed": Women's opinions of genetic counselling and testing for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility (BRCA1)
(2000) Holmes, Christina Patrice; Stephenson, Peter H.
Opinions of those who went through genetic counselling for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer risk were sought on genetic counselling and genetic testing for BRCA1. The majority of those interviewed were happy with the genetic counselling received and had generally positive attitudes towards genetic testing for BRCA1. Information gained was considered important and provided a sense of control and avenues for further action. Family experience with cancer also appeared important in how individual women perceived their risk. Correspondingly, biomedical knowledge provided by genetic counselling and testing was mediated by and combined with personal experiences to create an embodied knowledge of risk.
"Trying to get a future": Microcredit in Victoria
(2001) Hutton, Tamera Leigh; Matwychuk, Margo Lyn
Microcredit is considered a viable tool for the reduction of poverty in developing countries. It involves the dispensation of small loans, primarily to women who cannot access loans from conventional lending institutions. Microcredit strategies employed in Victoria are derived from those used in other parts of the world, but they are unique to their particular social and economic context. This study is concerned with the use of microcredit as a means to alleviate women's poverty in Victoria. The purpose of this research was to determine women's experiences while participating in, or organizing, microcredit programs in Victoria between February 1997 and June 1998. The study focussed on three organizations with microlending components operating in and around Victoria. Research methods included (1) a literature review, (2) participant observation in community economic development organizations, (3) personal communication with program administrators of three lending organizations and six economic development organizations, and (4) semi-structured interviews with program administrators and women participants in microcredit programs. Data gathered through participant observation, personal communication, and semi-structured interviews describe the benefits and difficulties involved in the creation and utilization of microcredit in Victoria. My analysis of this data is compared with benefits and difficulties of microcredit schemes described in studies based on fieldwork conducted elsewhere by Adams (1992), Ardener (1964, 1996), Bouman (1977), and Geertz (1962), among others. The constructive objective of my analysis is to outline the complexity of issues surrounding the implementation and sustainability of microcredit within a specific social and economic environment. This study suggests that microcredit programs did not emerge in Victoria as fully developed and discrete entities. Their emergence was conditioned by the dynamic and persistent socially minded initiatives influenced by women's poverty and community cooperation. The success of microcredit programs available to women in Victoria was dependent upon the viability of individual business plans, the appropriateness of specific programs, the complementarity of government policy, and the level of cooperation between loan recipients.
Dimensions of Tŝilhqot’in toponymy: Language, heritage, and meaning
(2025) Doddridge, Shane Brooks; Thom, Brian
Tŝilhqot’in toponymy—the place names and place naming systems of the Tŝilhqot’in First Nation in British Columbia, Canada—is complex, multiplistic, and dynamic, rooted in notions of ancestral presences, happenings, perceptions, and territoriality that resonate across Tŝilhqot’in pasts, presents, and futures in culturally and ontologically specific ways. The particularities of Tŝilhqot’in place names therefore both highlight and reflect unique aspects of Tŝilhqot’in culture, language, history, geography, and world views. As contemporary applications call on Tŝilhqot’in place names—for example, to label maps, display on road signs, and adopt into official records—they put at risk the nuances of these more traditional dimensions. Novel toponymic practices of commemoration and recognition are therefore obfuscating deeper dimensions of heritage, language, and meaning, while paradoxically contributing to their preservation and dissemination. This thesis explores these themes through an ethnographic methodology emphasising ontological openness in order to highlight new theoretical possibilities that emerge from Tŝilhqot’in toponymic discourses in Tŝilhqot’in-specific contexts.
Midden volume, harvested fish biomass, and pre-contact minimum population estimates for Nuu-chah-nulth Territories in Barkley Sound
(2024) Gustas, Robert; Mackie, Quentin; McKechnie, Iain
Coastal shell midden deposits are a quintessential element of the archaeological record on the Pacific Northwest Coast recording thousands of years of daily life. This dissertation develops a methodology which contributes to understandings of pre-contact Indigenous demographics and marine resource use in Nuu-chah-nulth Territories in Barkley Sound, British Columbia, Canada. This dissertation combines spatial analysis, zooarchaeology, and human metabolic requirements to provide estimates of the volume of midden sites, the harvested fish that they contain, and the minimum local human population that could have been supported from these fish. These archaeologically derived estimates of population and biomass are grounded in a computationally conservative theoretical framework which draws on archaeological data and minimizes the use of analogy and historical comparison. I use these models to estimate that known Barkley Sound shell midden sites contain 241,253 m3 (± 21,712 m3) of sediment and are features on par in size with better known monumental sites in the Americas. This estimate of annual marine resource harvests represents approximately 10% of modern fisheries catches and indicates that nearly 1.2 billion fish were harvested by Indigenous fishers over the last three millennia. The protein rich calories contained in midden fish biomass would be sufficient to support a population of nearly 1,000 individuals per day for this time period. This research offers a framework for creating volume, biomass, and ultimately population estimates in other coastal sites and has important implications for governance and natural resource policy in Indigenous communities especially for the Tseshaht, Toquaht, Uchuklesaht, Ucluelet, and Huu-ay-aht peoples who inhabited this area for millennia.
Where the hearth burns, recipes of the soul. Time and place through foodways among Lacandon Maya from Mensäbäk
(2024) Sanchez Balderas, Adriana Fabiola; Walsh, Andrea N.
In my research I analyze the forms in which foodways, specifically the hearth is a place of encounter, formation of identity, and transfer of knowledge among Lacandon Maya from Mensäbäk, Chiapas, Mexico. The primary intention is to explore the different forms in which people interact around the hearth to communicate individual experiences and memories happening through foodways. The hearth is the central place where oral stories are shared, and recipes are transferred through hands-on practice. Knowledge about food, recipes, and customs have been passed down through generations, situating individuals through a sense of place and self. Through graphic anthropology as a form of inquiry and knowledge transfer, arts-based research in the form of comics and the graphic novel represent a unique modality with potential for anthropological knowledge production. My research utilizes arts-based, multi-modal approaches to inquiry to explore connections to feelings and relationships in the collective consciousness of Lacandon Maya foodways. Qualitative research included conversations with research participants and participant observation. I created vignettes as a creative process in collaboration with participants presenting the stories and experiences shared around the hearth. The graphic stories express memories, knowledge, and experiences, including contemporary issues, resulting from the profound relationship that people have with the hearth and around foodways.
Converging open science and respecting Indigenous knowledge to enrich capacity of zooarchaeological comparative collections: An example from the University of Victoria
(2024) McKenzie, Kathryn; McKechnie, Iain
Zooarchaeological comparative collections, like natural history collections, hold latent information, and are fundamental to archaeological research on human-animal relationships. Additionally, these collections can extend their capacity with linked data informing biodiversity research, conservation efforts, and related contemporary and Indigenous management practices. Accessible digital information about specimens in these smaller, and usually regional, collections remain rare but can advance integrative synthetic research through links to taxonomic classifications, languages, as well as geospatial, biometric data, and 3D models and imagery. My research presents a framework for open comparative collection curation, enhanced zooarchaeological practices, and transdisciplinary collaboration by transforming the physical archive describing the comparative osteology specimens at the University of Victoria Zooarchaeology Lab into open “extended specimens” for 2,922 individual animals representing 671 distinct species. This diverse regional collection influentially informs zooarchaeological identifications for assemblages from sites across the North Pacific Coast and western North America. My research synthesizes information about the comparative collection including the development and application of data management, annotation, and publishing methods following FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reuseable) principles to facilitate broader collection discovery and use. To achieve this, I adopt open data standards to uncover, broaden, and add depth to each skeletal specimen and enable integrative biodiversity repository publishing. This process creates citable “extended specimens” and ensures comparability by standardizing vocabulary and terminology, and annotating with life history stages, collection locations, and specimen specific details. Additionally, I develop a geocoding tool that connects Indigenous language areas and specimen collection locations. This work supports Indigenous data governance protocols following CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics) principles and engages with Indigenous data platforms to confront how colonial practices are reflected in the creation and uses of anthropological and archaeological knowledge. This augmented collection helps bridge relationships with Indigenous communities whose legacies of engagement with archaeology has shaped, and continues to shape and enrich, landscapes and seascapes in the past, present, and future. This contribution to open science seeks to respect Indigenous data sovereignty by considering FAIR and CARE principles to create a digital resource that connects audiences and enhances zooarchaeological research capacity.
Re-worlding the self in graphic narratives—A case study of sense, affect, and mad-centered knowledges of psychosis
(2024) Kernan, Luke; Boudreault-Fournier, Alexandrine
This doctoral project, Re-worlding the Self in Graphic Narratives—A Case Study of Sense, Affect, and Mad-Centered Knowledges of Psychosis, collaboratively explores and addresses experiences of psychosis (sensory breaks from reality) with Mad-identifying participants who describe their earliest memories of these interior events from a sensorial and visual perspective. Co-creating an arts-based ethnography of psychosis through the ongoing production of artworks and media, I survey the ways that participants’ narratives of psychosis materialize through visual and poetic representations of their lived experiences of madness. I examine how individuals distressed by psychosis move beyond their symptomatic illnesses and narrowly prescribed identities and find new ground to (re)make themselves through expressive processes. Within a synergetic inter-arts research setting, I led a series of five online workshops with two unique groups of participants, each of whom had prior past episodes of psychosis and were immersed in outpatient mental health services. Participants drew from and upon their interior, emotionally charged experiences during the workshops to develop multisensory and narrative drawings that became both prompt and foundation for subsequent individual interviews. We then collaborated on participant-led comics that became the foundational impetus for re-imagining the ethnographic text. Through this novel approach to arts-based research, I aimed to understand psychosis from empathic, sensorial, and visual perspectives. This project documents, engages, and theorizes the role of “psychosic” imagination and creativity in the lives of ten participants who have experienced psychosis as a life event and were involved in comics-making activities. Here, I track how participants, as cherished Mad interlocutors and co-collaborators, sought to resolve communication and subject-positioning issues that arose from the equally ineffable and challenging dynamics of psychosis and madness. These conflicts were internally registered and spurred a vital set of self-fashioning, polyphonic dialogics that primed my interlocutors for self-transformation and psychosic re-worldings. These collective efforts not only de-center ethnographic practice through research-creation strategies, but they succinctly clarify aspects of how madness and pressured, non-normative consciousness are experienced, generating a set of symbolic, poetic, and visual languages to capture expressions of psychosis. Moreover, as a collaborative research-creation practice, our extensive, year-long work aided in destigmatizing and reframing mental duress. Participants simultaneously developed ways to navigate emotional tensions, challenge points, and affective accruals wrought by psychosis through graphic narrative modalities, offering this practice as one that sees Mad-inclusive systems of living myth intertwined with post-traumatic growth.
Reframing crisis: Hope and future-making in contemporary Cuban photographs
(2024) Smith, Graydon; Boudreault-Fournier, Alexandrine
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, already challenging circumstances in Cuba have significantly worsened, heavily impacting how Cubans envision their lives and futures. Using a combination of visual and ethnographic methods, I conducted two months of fieldwork in the summer of 2023 in Cuba’s second largest city, Santiago de Cuba. Using photovoice, photowalks, and semi-structured interviews with eight Cuban young adults, I visually explore life following the worst economic crisis in the island’s history. Following COVID-19, an already fraught political climate has further devolved, migration has reached historic rates, inflation renders many goods unobtainable, and infrastructure and services are challenged. For many, future paths are unclear; they may seek better lives abroad, or fight to improve their conditions on the island, in a tumultuous and polarized political climate. For youth, migration often appears more viable to catalyze change. I employ the theory of radical hope to consider how people produce meaning and futural momentum despite tremendous pressure and uncertainty. Curating images into five key themes, I consider discourses of migration, loss, change, escape, and survival during difficult times. As I argue, these photographs inform a non-generalizable, nuanced image of life during crises, highlighting sustaining moments alongside threats to hope. This centers a more dignified view of life, emphasizing momentum rather than fatalism, individual agency, and the possibility for change without prescribing future paths. By emphasizing possibility alongside critique, I raise questions about these indeterminate trajectories and the role of hope in a seemingly hopeless time, finding that a portrait of contemporary Cuban lives and futures are difficult to characterize with pre-existing ideas.
Alternative health care utilisation among seniors
(2000) Wolfe, Nuala Katherine
The increasing use of alternative health care practices in the senior population has gone largely unnoticed in the current literature. For the general population, use of alternative therapies has been reported to occur as a result of physician dissatisfaction or as a concomitant of a changing ideology toward the body, mind and health care. In this qualitative study, fifteen seniors over the age of 65 were interviewed in Victoria, British Columbia to gain an understanding of why seniors use alternative therapies. This study focuses on five alternative health care practices including chiropractic, acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, naturopathy and herbology. The results indicate negative experiences with the medical system rather than with the family physician and a belief in responsibility for one's own health as factors for older adults turning to alternative therapies. It is concluded that seniors perceive the use of alternative therapies as a positive event both physically and mentally.
A faunal analysis of two middens on the east coast of Vancouver Island
(1980) Wigen, Rebecca J. S.
In this study the mammal, fish, and bird remains were analysed from two middens on either side of the Tsable River on the east coast of Vancouver Island. Both sites appear to be of the Locarno Beach culture type, with the Buckley Bay site (DjSf 13) consisting of a single component and the Tsable River Bridge site (DjSf 14) consisting of two components. The aims of the analysis were to determine what animals were collected at the sites, the contribution each animal made to the inhabitants' diet and the season of occupation of the sites. The results were compared between the two sites and with three other sites on the east coast of Vancouver Island: DkSg 2 in the Comox area, DiSe 7 at Deep Bay, and DiSc 1 at the mouth of the Little Qualicum River, and with the recent Coast Salish ethnographic data, paying particular attention to the Pentlatch. The data were analysed using the number of bone elements, weight of bone, the minimum number of individuals (MNI), and the live weight of each species multiplied by its MNI. The units compared were the whole components as no smaller units such as natural layers was determinable. The results indicate a general similarity between all of the three components. Fish were caught in larger numbers than either mammals or birds. Herring was the most frequently caught fish in all three components. Other frequently caught fish were flatfishes, rockfish, salmon, and dogfish. The most variation between the components seems to lie in the proportion of salmon, herring and the remaining fishes. DjSf 14II showed the highest amount of herring and DjSf 13 the highest amount of salmon. Despite the large numbers of fish caught, the mammals, particularly deer, probably provided the majority of the diet. The most frequently occurring mammal species in all components was Canis spp., probably mostly domestic dog. Deer was the next most numerous mammal species recovered in all components. Sea mammal elements were found in relatively small numbers and their position in the diet is debatable. Small mammals appear to have been hunted infrequently. As a whole birds seem to have been caught in the smallest numbers and supplied a small part of the overall diet. However, a large number of species were hunted. In all components the large gulls were the most frequently caught birds. Other frequently caught species were the dabbling ducks, scoters, and grouse, although the exact proportions vary considerably among the components. In comparison with the other sites in the area DjSf 13 and DjSf 14 show a wider range of species caught perhaps indicating a more lengthy seasonal occupation of these sites. The oldest component of DjSf 14 was occupied at least during the fall and spring, whether at two intervals or continuously is indeterminable. The most recent component of DjSf 14 and DjSf 13 seem to have been occupied during the entire year or at least during intervals during the entire year.
Tool kits and activity areas at site DhPt 10A in the Kootenay River Valley.
(1974) Whitlam, Robert George
An attempt is made to identify activity areas and tool kits at site DhPt lOA, in the Kootenay River Valley. The method of analysis is statistical in nature, based upon the presence or absence of specific artifact classes by excavation unit. Similarity between excavation units is measured by Driver's G and Phi and the resulting coefficient of similarity matrices formed the basis for dendrograms and a smal lest space analysis. Descriptions of the site, sampling methods , artifact typology and the methods used to analyze and interpret the distribution of artifacts are detailed. It is concluded that for site DhPt lOA, where the scatter of cultural debris is horizontally diffuse and the yield of artifacts per unit is very low that it is not possible to identify activity areas and tool kits using the methods outlined and implemented in this study.
The Mau movements in Western and American Samoa : an ecological approach
(1983) Wedlake, Barbara Fair
During the period 1920-1930, native political movements called Mau movements emerged in the territories of Western Samoa and American Samoa. These two territories were inhabited by native peoples of similar cultural and linguistic background, but the territories were administered by colonial governments, namely the United States of America (American Samoa), and New Zealand (Western Samoa) whose policies were distinctive. An examination of archival documents and available published material reveals that the movement in Western Samoa was more strongly supported by the indigenous population and was more highly organized than the movement in American Samoa. In addition, the goals of the movement in Western Samoa centred on the achievement of political autonomy whereas the goals of the movement in American Samoa focussed on incorporation within the American political sphere. It is the central purpose of this thesis to provide an explanation for this variance, taking into account the opinions expressed in the hitherto available literature. To facilitate this task, the interrelationships of traditional socio-political structure, colonial administrative policy and resource potential in each territory are examined. A comparison of social structure shows that the similarities obtaining between the two territories are restricted primarily to the village and descent group level. On the supra-village political level, the critical distinction is the higher level of sociopolitical organization that prevailed in Western Samoan institutions. American Samoa lacked such institutions, and furthermore was traditionally a satellite territory of one of the districts of Western Samoa. This variance is found to be a significant factor in the development of a stronger and more united movement in Western Samoa. Colonial policies also varied between the two territories. New Zealand administered Western Samoa through a League of Nations Mandate and vigorously pursued an expensive campaign to modernize the territory. Despite the altruistic basis to this policy and the large sums of money invested in various reform programs, the changes in Samoan life introduced by the New Zealand administration were fiercely resisted by traditional Samoan leaders. In contrast, in American Samoa there was no congressional acknowledgement of the American status in those islands, and consequently there was no development of a formal administrative policy. Furthermore, the major source of funding for the American territory was apparently limited to internally generated tax sources. An even more significant feature is the higher percentage of monetary income disbursed in wages to the American Samoans by the administration. In addition, important differences in resource potential between the two island groups had a profound influence on the variance between the political movements. More favourable environmental conditions, high population and the abundance of agricultural land in Western Samoa were associated with a persistent and viable subsistence economy in which chiefs retained their traditional authority over land and kinsmen and maintained a high degree of economic independence from the colonial administration . However, the relatively poorer resource base of American Samoa made expansion of subsistence agriculture extremely difficult . Therefore, during the navy administration, American Samoans increasingly neglected subsistence agriculture in favor of wage labour, thereby developing an increased dependency upon the administration. Consequently, the variance in character and intensity of the two movements must be considered in light of the contrasts in resource potential and the implications of this factor on the establishment of socio-economic relationships between indigenous leaders and their respective colonial administrations.
On assigning gender to post-cranial bison bones
(1985) Walde, Dale Allen
Gender of prey is increasingly recognized as an important factor in the hunting and processing decision-making of prehistoric hunters (Frison 1978a, Peterson and Hughes 1980, Speth 1983). Speth (1983) particularly stresses this point in reference to prehistoric North American plains bison hunters. Recognition of the possible importance of prey gender to plains bison hunters makes the accurate assignment of gender to archaeologically obtained bison bones vital to the interpretation of plains archaeological sites. In the present study, dissatisfaction is expressed with the implicit theoretical and statistical assumptions underlying gender assigning methods developed in the past (Duffield 1973, Bedord 1974, 1978, Peterson and Hughes 1980). Reservations are particularly expressed about the use of complete single elements and the use of ratio-based indices prevalent in these methodological approaches. In an effort to improve upon previous methods, a sample of contemporary, known gender bison bone was analayzed using a series of discriminant function analyses. These analyses were carried out on the proximal and distal ends of six major post-cranial elements: the humerus, radius, metacarpal, femur, tibia, and metatarsal. It was found that each end of each element could be assigned gender with an accuracy rate of at least ninety percent in the contemporary known gender bison sample. The uniformitarian assumption that variables which can be used successfully to assign gender to contemporary bison elements can also be used to assign gender to prehistoric bison elements was made. A series of twenty-nine equations based upon this assumption has been derived from the discriminant function analyses of contemporary bison. Each equation is specific to a given end of a given bone and can be used to assign gender to that element part. At least two equations using different combinations of variables have been produced for most element ends. This avoids the requirement of other methods that a specific set of measurable variables be present on archaeologically recovered material to permit analysis. Users of these equations are warned that changes in bison populations through time limits application to material less than six thousand years old.
Opening to vision : the use and interpretation of trance in contemporary society
(1991) Wagner, John Richard
This study describes and compares three groups of people who work deliberately with trance states: 1) the Coast Salish, an Aboriginal People of wide distribution on the southern coast of British Columbia and Washington State; 2) wiccans, a community of modern witches whose ritual practices are rooted in the pagan belief-systems of pre-Christian Europe; 3) hypnotherapists and their clients, a group focused on the therapeutic use of hypnotic states in both private and group contexts. Interviews were conducted with individuals from each group with the purpose of developing case studies that would chronicle each informant's life-history of significant trance experience, with close attention paid to the way trance states are shaped, interpreted, and socially integrated within each group. Cultural/historical profiles accompany each set of case studies, in order to make clear the extent and form of innovation occurring, and to outline the kinds of social change to which trance innovations are a response. The most significant common feature of trance experience among the three groups was the experience of awakening reported by all informants, an experience that occurred during a time of important life changes brought about through the direct influence of, or in close association with, trance states. Awakenings appear to have two dimensions, one extremely personal and mystical, the other social and intimately connected with the individual's sense of self and social identity. By focusing on the social dimension, it became clear that the role of community operated very differently in the three groups, and was the most important criterion by which to distinguish their varied approaches to trance states. Arnold van Gennep's concept of rites of passage and Victor Turner's more recent work on rites of transition and liminal experience were the most useful sources of interpretive theory for this study. Various approaches to the cross-cultural study of trance states were examined but were found to be of limited relevance because of their pre-occupation with typologies of trance states that did not correspond to the experiences described here. A study of the Kalahari by Robin Horton provided a useful model for conceptualizing the process of social innovation relative to the content of trance experience. He described how minor deities can "incubate" on the margins of a culture, and then, during a time of social upheaval, be drawn towards positions of greater social prominence. In this study, social innovation in trancework is interpreted in terms of movements to and from positions of cultural marginalization. The concept of resonance is used to describe the way that similar movements among different groups or communities can amplify and strengthen one another and in so doing reveal issues of broad social significance within the larger, pluralistic society in which they are situated.
"The wretched giving away system which is the root of all iniquity" : the Church Missionary Society and Kwakiutl potlatches, 1878-1912
(1987) Tanner, Michael Allan
Harmonious relations : a core cultural value of the southern Plateau Indians.
(1970) Stafford, Bret William
This thesis aims at a discovery of a core cultural value of the Indiana of the southern or American Plateau culture province at the time of white contact (1800 - 1890). The thesis takes as its starting point the contention by Verne Ray that pacifism is a value that can be said to characterize the Plateau Indians. The thesis shows how it is doubtful that the Plateau people practised truly pacifistic behaviour. By examining a number of cultural activities and traits of the southern Plateau Indians, and deriving the values that seem to be reflected in these activities and traits, the thesis arrives at an underlying core cultural value for the Indians of the area. It is a value of harmonious relations with other people and with t he spirits thought to be co-existing in the world with man. This is a core value for the Indians of at least the southern portion of the Plateau. It is the author's content ion that it is this core value that forms the groundwork from which springs the behaviour which Ray mistakenly saw as truly pacifistic behaviour. Recognizing the difficulties involved in determining the nature of "values," and realizing that the idea of a core cultural value is similar to Ruth Benedict's "patterns" or "configurations," the author deals in the first chapter of the thesis with these issues. An understanding of the nature of "values " is approached from several different perspectives, including those of Benedict and Clyde Kluckhohn, and a working definition of "value" is arrived at. The orientation of Benedict to the idea of a core cultural value is examined, and several criticisms of her approach by other anthropologists are explored. The thesis utilizes criticisms of Benedict insofar as they emphasize contextual and other factors inconsistent with a posited core cultural value. But the thesis accepts Benedict's main idea that certain culturally patterned actions and beliefs are in large part governed by underlying cultural values. To familiarize the reader with the southern Plateau, the second chapter is devoted to an ethnographic description of the area. Ecological, historical, and economic conditions are discussed that go a long way toward explaining the strength of the core value of harmonious relations maintained by the Indians of this region. Chapter three outlines a number of cultural activities and traits of the peoples oft e area as noted by white explorers, traders, anthropologists, artists, and Indians themselves who have lived in or are familiar with the region. These cultural activities and traits are examined in order to suggest specific values which underly them; the values suggested are in turn examined to discover a single underlying core cultural value around which the various specific values seem to cluster. The thesis suggests that t he southern Plateau Indian core cultural value of harmonious relations is both the determinant of some culturally patterned behaviour and beliefs, and the result of culturally patterned behaviour developing as the result of historical, economic, and ecological factors. While it is recognized that all of the peoples of the world place value on "harmonious relations" at some level of society, the southern Plateau is distinctive in that for the Indians of this region value was placed on the maintenance of harmonious relations between all the ethnic groups of the entire culture area.
Tsimshian testimony before the Royal Commission on Indian Affairs for the Province of British Columbia (1913-1916)
(1981) Stuckey, Naneen Ethyl-Grace
This thesis presents an analysis of the testimony of the Tsimshian Indians before the Royal Commission on Indian Affairs for the Province of British Columbia (1913-1916). The level of generality at which Indian concerns and points of view have been considered in the past is such that local and/or regional differences of opinion and interest have been left in obscurity. This thesis remedies, for the Tsimshian, this superficial coverage of what native people have said. 'Manifest content analysis' is employed to compartmentalize the testimony into manageable units for study. The focus of the thesis, however, is on the identification of the wide range of issues or topics which the Tsimshian considered worthy of discussion at the turn of the century. It is demonstrated that while aboriginal title and land claims were of paramount concern, those Indians addressing the Commission also had much to say about the reserve system, EuroCanadian expansion, the importance of land suitable for hunting, fishing, farming, and/or logging, and the desirability of 'White' versus traditional land ownership and economic activities. The thesis also provides comparisons between and among the various Tsimshian interests and attitudes at the local and regional levels. It is apparent that whether or not a local group (village community) chose to assist the Commission significantly affected the results of the analysis. Hence the greatest similarities, in terms of the concerns and opinions expressed, a.re shown to exist between the cooperative local groups on the one hand and the uncooperative local groups on the other. At the regional level only the testimony of the Nishga reflects generally similar interests, opinions, and attitudes toward the Commission, and although the Nishga have frequently been presented implicitly in the literature as representative of 'British Columbia Indians', it is argued here that they are not representative even of other Tsimshian. The thesis demonstrates that Tsimshian interests were neither narrowly nor vaguely defined even as early as the turn of the century. Moreover, it is shown that, contrary to the impressions given in the existing literature, the majority cooperated with the Commission, and that though dissatisfied, were not hostile.
"Images" and "Issues" : the portrayal of Asians in the Vancouver Daily Province and the Vancouver Daily World, 1907 to 1908
(1995) Steinhausen, Wendy Carol
This study considers the portrayal of Asian ethnic groups in the Vancouver Daily World and the Vancouver Daily Province from April 1907 to October 1908. The analysis of content selected from these two newspaper sources demonstrates that press coverage was preoccupied with presenting Asians in a generally negative manner, reflecting and reinforcing the fear and hostility that characterize the response of white British Columbians towards Asians at that time. The study provides a descriptive framework in which to consider the press "image" of the Chinese, Japanese and British Indians (Hindus and/or Sikhs) who--like the predominant British population--were newcomers to British Columbia. A number of contentious "issues" were imbedded in the endemic xenophobic attitudes held by the white community, manifested as commonly held racist arguments in press coverage concerned with existing socioeconomic conditions and a variety of tentative political and legislative responses to perceived massive amounts of Asian immigration. During 1907 and 1908, print journalism was the only medium of available mass communication. The two evening dailies chosen for this study provided their respective readership with reports of newsworthy events and timely editorial comment regarding the relevant issues of the day. At the same time, as protagonists in an often bitter contest for increasing circulation in the rapidly growing city, the World and the Province were not unbiased in their selection and presentation of issues. In conjunction with other historical sources, these data document a particular version of white response to Asian immigration, derived from white perceptions of Asians presented in the daily press.

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