Dr. Ken Barger
Anthropology, IUPUI
August 16 2001


E320 North American Indians

CULTURAL ORGANIZATION
of
AMERICAN INDIANS

Zuni Indian pueblo, New Mexico, early 1900s. Zuni illustrates the integrated nature of cultural systems in how the tribe has managed its affairs through kinship and religion. Traditionally, each matrilineal clan has been responsible for certain community activities, such as providing rain or sun priests who decide the appropriate times for planting and harvesting. These priests have been the repositories of generations of empirical observations, and this collective knowledge proved adaptive to a farming subsistence in the arid region in which they live. The religious kiva societies also served important community functions in healing and in the social control of deviants. Kiva members have also served as repositories for generations of experience in managing the well-being of the tribe, and have used this collective wisdom in their responsibilities to the whole community. Understanding the integrated nature of cultural systems is thus important in understanding particular cultures like the Zuni.




Culture is an universal human trait among all ethnic and social groups around the world, including Native Americans (and EuroAmericans, as well). We can therefore compare the human life experience from group to group. One comparison will be between EuroAmerican culture and the different Native American cultures we will examine in class, but we will also compare different Native American cultures with each other, as we establish the broad diversity among American Indians. Cultural Anthropology provides us with a general structure of cultural traits with which we can compare Native Americans with each other and with EuroAmericans. For each culture area that we review, we will examine and compare the following areas of cultural experience:

  1. Background
  2. Languages and Communication
  3. Subsistence Patterns
  4. Social Organization
  5. Political Organization
  6. World View
  7. Religion
  8. Contemporary Native Americans

Students are expected to have a working understanding of these contents of culture as we discuss Native Americans in class.




© WK Barger, 2001