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Nebraska
Press Series 1
| The
Canadian Sioux
James H. Howard
Cloth: 1984,xvi,207,CIP.LC 83-23506,0-8032-2327-7
Studies in the Anthropology of North American
Indians Series
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The Canadian Sioux are descendants
of Santees, Yanktonais, and Tetons from the United States
who sought refuge in Canada during the 1860s and 1870s.
Living today on eight reserves in Manitoba and Saskatchewan,
they have been largely neglected by anthropologists
and historians and are the least well known of all the
Sioux groups. This study by a long-time student of Sioux
and other Indian cultures fills that gap in the literature.
Based on fieldwork done in the 1970s
supplemented by written sources, The Canadian Sioux
presents a descriptive reconstruction of their traditional
culture, many aspects of which are still practiced or
remembered by Canadian Sioux today although long forgotten
by their relatives in the United States. It is rich
in detail and presents an abundance of new information
on topics such as tribal divisions, documented history
and traditional history, warfare, their economy, social
life, philosophy and religion, and ceremonialism. Nearly
half the book is devoted to Canadian Sioux religion
and describes such ceremonies as the vision quest, medicine
feast, medicine dance, sun dance, warrior society dances,
and the Ghost Dance.
A welcome addition to American Indian
ethnography, James H. Howard's study provides a valuable
overview of Canadian Sioux culture and a fine introduction
to these little-known groups.
The late James H. Howard was a professor
of anthropology at Oklahoma State University at the
time of his death in 1982. His many publications include
The Warrior Who Killed Custer: The Personal Narrative
of Chief Joseph White Bull (1968, also published by
the University of Nebraska Press) and Shawnee: The Ceremonialism
of a Native American Tribe and Its Cultural Background
(1981).
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