Native American Tribes Exam 1

Culture Area

These are areas where certain broad types of cultures emerge due to the unique environmental factors. The culture areas for North America were developed in the present form by anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber in the 1930s

Metis

This term is to denote anyone who is white and American Indian ancestry,although such persons only have a defined legal status in Canada and not the UnitedStates.

Blood quantum

This is a tool that is used mostly in the United States to determine whether one is an Indian or not, and it involves determine what "percentage" of Indianancestry a person is

Berdache

This is a term that is generally used to describe men in Indian societies that are biologically male but live as women. They are also called "two-spirit" people

Three Sisters

This was a common term among agricultural Indians, especially those inthe Northeast who lived in areas where agriculture was possible. It referred to squash, beans, and corn (or maize).

Columbian Exchange

This is a term that is used to describe the various cultural expressions that Indians and Europeans exchanged after 1492. This includes foods likecorn and tobacco and technologies such as firearms and metal goods.

Cultural Anthropology

This is a branch of anthropology that concerns itself with the study of the cultures of various societies

Ethnography

This is the methodological practice within the discipline of cultural anthropology that concerns itself with the study of specific cultures

ethnology

This is the methodological practice within the discipline of cultura lanthropology that concerns itself with the comparison of specific cultures

Ethnohistory

This is a branch of the discipline of anthropology that uses historical sources rather than first-hand observation and data collected during fieldwork to understand and study past cultures.

Matrilineal Decent

This is a form of descent in which individuals trace their primary kinship relationships through their mothers.

Patrilineal descent

This is a form of descent in which individuals trace their most important kinship relationships through their fathers.

Cultural relativism

This is the notion that one should not judge the behavior of other peoples using the standards of one's own culture.

Functionalism

This is an anthropological theory and system of methodology that says all traits within a society have a function and thus are intimately tied together. It requires anthropologists to look at all facets of culture and how they fit together to create the overall culture.

Ethnocentrism

This is defined as the idea that some cultures are inherently superiorto others. This idea is inherent in the theory of Unilinear Cultural Evolution. However, itis held in disrepute by the theory of Cultural Relativism

Salvage ethnography

This was an idea of Franz Boas as well as his student Alfred Kroeber to gather as much cultural data on Indian tribes as possible because in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries many anthropologists believed that Indian peoples would soon be extinct. Also, anthropologists wanted to gather as much information on pre-contact cultures as possible before it was lost.

Traditional cultures

This is defined as those cultures practiced by American Indians before the onset of the reservation system. Such cultures combined both pre-contact and post-contact elements

Beringia

This is the name of the expanse of land that existed during the Ice Ages thatconnected what is today Alaska to Siberia and served as a land bridge over which theearliest American Indians migrated to the Americas.

Clovis point

This was a kind of spear point produced by Paleoindians between about20,000 and 13,000 years ago. It was definitely Upper Paleolithic technology, probablybrought from Eurasia. It was used mainly at the end of spears to hunt mammoth sincethat is the kind of bones it is usually found within. It was first found in Clovis, NewMexico.

Formative Period

This was the period of time from about 3,000 years ago up to about 1500 AD when the practice of agriculture spread throughout many Indian societies

Customary law

A type of law common among hunting and gathering peoples that is not written down or articulate but is know only through custom and enforced by the entire community.

Polygamy

This is a form of marriage in which a man is allowed to have more thanone wife.

Clan

This is defined as a social group, usually a subdivision of a tribe, that has a common ancestor that is sometimes real and sometimes legendary. It is composed of a series of affiliated lineages. Clans are usually either matrilineal or patrilineal, and they also tend to be exogamous.

bride service

This the service a man performs for his wife's family in order to earn the right to marry her. It is usually found in Native societies that rely on hunting and gathering, like the Native people of the Subarctic, where wealth is not accumulated

exogamous

This term is used to describe any marriage that is outside of a defined social group such as a clan

Endogamous

This term is used to describe any marriage that is inside of a definedsocial group such as a tribe.

Totem

This is a plant or animal whose name is adopted by a clan and that holds aspecial significance for its members. It is often related to the clan's mythic ancestry

Phratry

This was a social grouping of two or more related clans within a tribe. Often clans with similar totems (e.g., Bird Phratry composed of Crane, Eagle, Hawk; or Sturgeon, Catfish, Pike) are grouped into phratries. They are usually exogamous

Patrilocal

This is a type of social institution in which a husband and wife, aftermarriage, go live with the husband's family or in the husband's home

Matrilocal

This means that after a man marries a women, the couple go to live with the woman's family.

Cross cousin marriage

This was a form of marriage common among many tribes,especially Algonquians, where a person could marry the cousin of the opposite sex ifthe cousin was the child of either the mother's brother or the father's sister

isolate

In linguistic anthropology, this is a language that is not related to any other known languages or language families. Kutenai, an Indian language of the Plateau, isan example.

Levirate, sororate man

These are marriages where a man marries his deadbrother's wife or a woman marries her dead sister's husband

Acculturation

An anthropological concept in which one culture adopts significant materials and intellectual concepts from another culture

Sodalities

These were organized groups within Indian tribes, particularly on the Plateau and the Great Plains, of various kinds of members such as warriors or shamans. An example would be the Dog Soldiers among the Cheyenne who sang special songs, wore special clothing, and often had secret rituals known only to the members. Sodalities often provided organizations that linked together autonomous villages and bands within a tribe.

Revitalization Movement

This is an anthropological theory first developed byAnthony F.C. Wallace in the 1950s. Wallace's study of the Seneca Prophet, or
47Handsome Lake, demonstrated that societies undergoing great stresses due to change will often mix traditional cultural elements with new ones in order to reinvigorate and revitalize their cultures

moiety

This is a division of a tribe into two halves, usually for purely ceremonialreasons such as for insuring equal numbers on teams during athletic events. Childrenare usually assigned to a moiety at birth, and parents alternate between the twomoieties as children are born