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Nebraska
Press Series 1
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Reserve Memories: The Power of the Past
in a Chilcotin Community
David W. Dinwoodie, Cloth:
2002, xi, 120, CIP.LC 2001052239 ISBN : 0-8032-1721-8
Studies in the Anthropology of North American
Indians Series
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Reserve Memories examines
how myths and narratives about the past have enabled
a Northern Athabaskan community to understand and confront
challenges and opportunities in the present. For over
five centuries the Chilcotin people have lived in relative
isolation in the rich timberlands and scattered meadows
of the inland Northwest, in what is today known as west
central British Columbia. Although linguistic and cultural
changes are escalating, they remain one of the more
traditional and little known Native communities in northwestern
North America.
Combining years of fieldwork with an
acute theoretical perspective, David W. Dinwoodie sheds
light on the special power of the past for the Chilcotin
people of the Nemiah Valley Indian Reserve. In different
social and political settings, they draw upon a "reserve"
of memories-in particular, myths and historical narratives-and
reactivate them in order to help make sense of and deal
effectively with the possibilities and problems of the
modern world. For example, the declaration of the Chilcotins
against clear-cut logging draws upon one of their central
myths, adding a deeper and more lasting cultural significance
and resonance to the political statement.
David W. Dinwoodie is an assistant
professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico.
His articles have appeared in Anthropological Linguistics
and Cultural Anthropology.
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