Native Americans, Archaeologists, and the Mounds
Ever since eighteenth-century European settlers stumbled upon the mounds, explanations and interpretations of them - often ridiculous and seldom Native American - have appeared as sober scholarship. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA) has intensified the debate over who "owns" the mounds - modern descendants of the mound builders or Western archaeologists. Native Americans, Archaeologists, and the Mounds is the first cogent look at all the issues...
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In this account, Mann (English, U. of Toledo, Ohio), who is a specialist on the history and culture of the Native Americans of the eastern woodlands, takes to task archaeologists, anthropologists, politicians and all other Euro-Americans for persisting, in her view, in misinterpreting, mislabeling, or willfully ignoring the Native American's spiritual connection to the land of their ancestors as they seek to mine their sacred burial mounds for land or artifacts. The history of the Native American's struggle to prevent the destruction of their cemeteries, the meaning cemeteries and ancestors have to them, and the implications of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act are central themes. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
List of FiguresForeword: Indigenist Scholarship at Its FinestIntroduction: On Riding That Undead Horse of Native Discourse11The "Vulture Culture": Anthropology "Collects" Native America52The "Slaughter" of the Mounds: Settler Myths and Despoliations513"We Can Make a Waukauhoowaa": Native Traditions of the Mounds1054Kokomthena, Singing in the Flames: Sky-Earth Logic in the Mounds1695Blabbermouth Bones: NAGPRA, Remythologized Archaeology, and Documentary Genocide239Epilogue: Strategies for Eastern Native Americans301Notes315Bibliography449Index495
