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Excerpt from Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians Although a certain political centralization had been attained it was not so absolute as to have become spectacular or oppressive, and therefore interesting to white men. There were no complicated re ligious ceremonials to arrest the attention of the foreigner and the intelligence of the native, and it is the general testimony that the Choctaw were less inclined to display their superiority to other people by trying to kill them than is usual even in more civilized societies. The significant things about them are told us in a few short sentences: That they had less territory than any of their neigh bors but raised so much corn that they sent it to some of these others in trade, that their beliefs and customs were simple, and that they seldom left their country to fight but when attacked defended them selves with dauntless bravery. In other words, the aboriginal Choc taw seem to have enjoyed the enviable position of being just folks, uncontaminated with the idea that they existed for the sake of a political, religious, or military organization. And apparently, like the meek and the Chinese and Hindoos, they were in process of in heriting the earth by gradual extension of their settlements because none of their neighbors could compete with them economically. Absence of pronounced native institutions made it easy for them to take up with foreign customs and usages, so that they soon distanced all other of the Five Civilized Tribes except the Cherokee, who in many ways resembled them, and became with great rapidity poor subjects for ethnological study but successful members of the Ameri can Nation. It is generally testified that the Creeks and Seminole, who had the most highly developed native institutions, were the Slowest to become assimilated into the new political and social organ ism which was introduced from Europe. The Chickasaw come next and the Cherokee and Choctaw adapted themselves most rapidly of all. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Long considered the undisputed authority on the Indians of the southern United States, anthropologist John Swanton published this history as the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) Bulletin 103 in 1931. Swanton's descriptions are drawn from earlier records—including those of DuPratz and Romans—and from Choctaw informants. His long association with the Choctaws is evident in the thorough detailing of their customs and way of life and in his sensitivity to the presentation of their native culture. Included are descriptions of such subjects as clans, division of labor between sexes, games, religion, war customs, and burial rites. The Choctaws were, in general, peaceful farmers living in Mississippi and southwestern Alabama until they were moved to Oklahoma in successive waves beginning in 1830, after the treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. This edition includes a new foreword by Kenneth Carleton placing Swanton's work in the context of his times. The continued value of Swanton's original research makes Source Material the most comprehensive book ever published on the Choctaw people.
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Long considered the undisputed authority on the Indians of the southern US, anthropologist John Swanton published this history as the Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 103 in 1931. This reprint includes an introduction defining Swanton's work in the context of the early 1900s.
Before the massive environmental change wrought by the European colonization of the South, hundreds of species of birds filled the region's flyways in immeasurable numbers. Before disease, war, and displacement altered the South's earliest human landscape, Native Americans hunted and ate birds and made tools and weapons from their beaks, bones, and talons. More significant to Shepard Krech III, Indians adorned themselves with feathers, invoked avian powers in ceremonies and dances, and incorporated bird imagery on pottery, carvings, and jewelry. Krech, a renowned authority on Native American interactions with nature, reveals as never before the omnipresence of birds in Native American life. From the time of the earliest known renderings of winged creatures in stone and earthworks through the nineteenth century, when Native southerners took part in decimating bird species with highly valued, fashionable plumage, Spirits of the Air examines the complex and changeable influences of birds on the Native American worldview. We learn of birds for which places and people were named; birds common in iconography and oral traditions; birds important in ritual and healing; and birds feared for their links to witches and other malevolent forces. Still other birds had no meaning for Native Americans. Krech shows us these invisible animals too, enriching our understanding of both the Indian-bird dynamic and the incredible diversity of winged life once found in the South. A crowning work drawing on Krech's distinguished career in anthropology and natural history, Spirits of the Air recovers vanished worlds and shows us our own anew.
History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians by Horatio Bardwell Cushman, first published in 1899, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.
Chickasaw Society and Religion brings back into print one of the most important ethnographic sources on Chickasaw Indian society and culture ever produced, making it available to a new generation of students and scholars. The Smithsonian Institution ethnologist John Swanton published his work on the Chickasaws in 1928 as part of the Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and, like Swanton?s many other works on Southeastern Indians, it has remained one of the primary sources for scholars and students of Chickasaw and Southeastern Indian culture. Swanton combed printed and archival documents in constructing a picture of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Chickasaw life. Swanton?s keen eye for detail and his impressive knowledge of Southeastern Indian cultures make this study the starting point for all Chickasaw scholarship. Swanton broaches topics as diverse as Chickasaw marriage patterns, naming, government, education, gender roles, subsistence, religion, burial customs, and medicine. He also displays an intimate understanding of Chickasaw language throughout the essay that will aid future researchers.