Harmonious relations : a core cultural value of the southern Plateau Indians.
Date
1970
Authors
Stafford, Bret William
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
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.