Note by Hunter Bear:

This is only partially an older post of mine which many may not have seen.  It involves anthropologists -- about whom I am understandably more than just a little schitzy.  I have had good experiences and bad with a number of those folks.  But, as the result of a current writing project I'm commencing -- on American Indian Studies and related disciplines -- I am thinking of Them.

First, this appropriate contemporary note by Brian Rice [Mohawk], Canada:

"I was happy to have received a nice review from Hunter for my book. He was one of the old school Native Studies Professors who were as much or more activists than they were simply scholars. This included people like Art Solomon and others who were defining what Native Studies should be about in the late 60's and early 70's. A lot of them disassociated themselves from programs such these, not liking the direction they were heading in. People like Hunter were vilified by Anthopologists who believed Native Studies wasn't academic enough. In other words, they should be the ones teaching Native Studies. Many of these types such as at the University of North Dakota where Hunter taught, now run the programs. There are very few social activists left in the discipline who are involved in prison reform and such." [Brian Rice]

Note By Hunter.  Brian is directly "on target" and here is some of my thinking.
 

[See also  http://www.hunterbear.org/UND.htm  ]

A few thoughts on Anthropology and anthropologists:

The relationship between anthropologists -- those of "the study of man" --
and Native Americans has frequently been fraught with tension.  This has
been especially true when the anthropologists have been Anglo.  In his great
biting classic book of thirty-odd years ago,  characterized by some
exquisitely set forth Indian humor --  Custer Died for Your Sins -- the
Sioux lawyer and writer, Vine Deloria, Jr., spends a fair amount of critical
time on this  particular component of the social sciences. And one of the
most enduring songs by the great Sioux singer, Floyd Red Crow Westerman,
deals caustically with "the anthros, coming like death and taxes to our
land."

These criticisms by Vine and Floyd are very well taken.  It's been my sad
lot to have occasionally been forced into intra-academic relationships with
Anglo anthros whose careering and condescending attitudes and practices have been, to state it gently, a long and bitter drink for myself -- and for my
other colleagues and students, Native and otherwise.

I've been among a good number of Native academician/activists  who have
publicly challenged some Anglo anthros on key issues.  An interesting
example of this is the "research" of Christy Turner II who, in his
remarkably twisted and defamatory published work of several years ago, Man
Corn, trashes the peaceful Anasazi of the Northeastern Arizona and
Northwestern New Mexico setting of 800 and more years ago -- ancestors of
the modern Hopi -- by  falsely claiming they practiced wide-spread
cannibalism [somehow ostensibly managing to drag in as co-villains with the
Anasazi the very far away Toltecs of Mexico!]  I grew up among the Navajo,
adversaries of the Anasazi in the "old time" [mostly over water resources],
who have nothing whatsoever in their very carefully maintained and intricate
oral history to indicate that cannibalism was ever practiced by these long
ago pueblo neighbors.  And the Hopis -- Anasazi descendants -- certainly do
not.

 A  good number of Anglo and other non-Indian anthropologists have also attacked
Turner's spurious work. And that encouraging note is as good a place as any
for me to indicate that, in my opinion, many anthropologists [including many
non-Indian ones] have been essentially  OK in their relationships with
Native Americans -- and some have been extraordinarily positive allies of
our Indian people.

Anglo anthropologists were among those who encouraged the  launching of the very important pan-Indian [tribally transcendent] and all-Indian Society of
American Indians on Columbus Day, 1911 -- in which Native ethnologists [a
division of anthropology] such as Arthur C. Parker and J.N.B. Hewitt played
leading roles along with many other Native academics and activists from a
wide range of tribal and experiential backgrounds.  Dr W.E.B. DuBois, by the
way, himself part Indian and a key founder of the NAACP in 1909 as well as
its predecessor Niagara Movement, vigorously supported the Society and its
work.

Frank Speck, University of Pennsylvania, a key figure in United States
anthropology for generations and very much trusted always by Native
Americans, did very careful and honorable and enduring research  -- full and
inclusive -- among the  Wabanaki and the Iroquois and other such very much
culturally-intact tribal nations of the Northeast.  He also worked hard and
faithfully on behalf of some of the most marginal surviving tribal groups --
long forgotten -- e.g., the Nanticokes of Delaware and Maryland to whom he
faithfully donated much weekend time for years, helping them retain and
retake much of their aboriginal cultures.

The great work of Clyde Kluckhohn and Dorthea Leighton, Harvard, among the
Navajo is legendary, deep into the 20th Century.

And there are many other very positive examples.  I personally recall with
great affection and respect Bob Euler -- and Ned Danson [father of the
actor, Ted] -- both old Southwestern family friends [and teachers of mine]
whose commitment to Native cultures and Native rights was absolutely
splendid at every point.

From 1973 through 1976, I was a professor in the Graduate Program in Urban
and Regional Planning at the University of Iowa -- and was also UI's advisor
to the Native students.  I arrived as a major national Indian concern was
erupting vigorously in Iowa -- the sanctity of Native American burials.  The
Iowa State Archaeologist [an office traditionally based at UI], Marshall
McKussack,  was extremely insensitive to Indian concerns and was a target of
Deloria in "Custer." [Archaeology, of course, is a major division of
Anthropology.]  This old dinosaur was being retired and Duane Anderson, also
an Anglo, was appointed to the storm-ridden post.  Duane appointed a three
person Native American advisory committee -- Maria Thompson Pearson
["Running Moccasins"], a Santee Sioux; Don Wanatee, a Mesquaki; and myself.

We traveled the state -- and surrounding areas -- securing the opinions
of Native persons from both reservation and urban settings.  Duane Anderson,
anthropologist, was a very solid person all the way through.  In due course,
we-all had an excellent piece of proposed legislation which the Iowa General
Assembly passed and the supportive Governor, Robert Ray, immediately signed.

This legislation -- the strongest package of state level protection for
Native burials ever passed in the country -- set forth elaborate procedures
for the protection of Native burials, for the analysis and reburial in
traditional settings for Native remains, and for a closed state cemetery to
house Native remains that could not be classified in a specific tribal
sense.  The Iowa legislation helped significantly to blaze the trail for the
major Federal statute, the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act of 1990 -- as well as some related measures.

Very importantly, an increasing number of Native Americans have been
entering Anthropology, following the trail-blazing traditions of Arthur
Parker and J.N.B. Hewitt and, in more contemporary times, such vigorous
researchers [and often activists] as Alphonso Ortiz, Bob Thomas, Edward
Dozier -- and Vine Deloria, Jr [who, although not formally trained in the
discipline, has certainly absorbed and contributed to it in countless
positive ways indeed.]

Increasingly, anthropologists have been extremely useful -- in conjunction
with the very important  Native oral historians -- in providing critical
expert court testimony in support of Native American  land claims and water
rights and environmental and related cases.  A multitude of
anthropologists -- from all ethnicities -- have been at the fore in the
broadly human battle against racism and cultural ethnocentrism.

Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear]  Among other things, the first person to receive a Master's in Sociology from Arizona State University [May, 1960.]  But, doing "in absentia", I skipped Barry Goldwater's speech at graduation, spent that summer on extremely remote Bear Mountain as a very solitary fire lookout/radio man -- and didn't see my diploma until Frank Lyons, a muleskinner, came up the many miles trail to spell me off for three or four days -- and brought all my mail.  In front of my cabin and under the high noon sun, I opened the diploma package.  The Credential's appropriately copper-colored background shone brightly.  "That sure looks nice," said Frank.

But there, on the Top of the World -- with vast Arizona to the north and west and vast New Mexico to the east -- and a view that went southward 'way down into Old Mexico, the welcome diploma did look miniscule.  H