Full Description
After the Omaha Nation was officially granted its reservation land in northeastern Nebraska in 1854, Omaha culture appeared to succumb to a Euro-American standard of living under the combined onslaught of federal Indian policies, governmental officials, and missionary zealots. At the same time, however, new circular wooden structures appeared on some Omaha homesteads. Blending into the architectural environment of the mainstream culture, these lodges provided the ritual space in which dances and ceremonies could be conducted at a time when such practices were coercively suppressed. Drawing on the oral histories of forty Omaha elders collected in 1992, Dance Lodges of the Omaha People provides insights into how these lodges shaped Omaha cultural identity and illustrates the adaptive abilities of the modern Omaha tribe. The lodges replaced the diminished pre-reservation tribal institutions as maintainers of tribal cohesion and unity and at the same time provided an arena for selective acculturation of outside ideas and behaviors. A new afterword by the author highlights advances in research on these unique structures since 1992 and speculates on the connection between these lodges and the spread of the Omaha Hethushka dance across the Great Plains.
Contents
Introduction by Roger WelschDedicationList of Tables and FiguresPrefaceAcknowledgmentsPronunciation GuideI On This Ground They Are Going To Do [or create] Something, Before 1890II From the Beginning They Had Sacred Dancing, 1890-1930III I Had Not Asked About It, 1930-1960IV Now They Want to be Indians, Since 1960AfterwordAppendix A - Roster of Sacred and Social Group MembersAppendix B - Oral Interview Transcripts: Tom C. Walker, June 18, 1992Appendix C - Oral Interview Transcripts: Ramona Turner Greany, June 24, 1992Appendix D - Oral Interview Transcripts: Gertrude "Emily" Parker, July 02, 1992Appendix E - Oral Interview Transcripts: Joe and Irene Gilpin, July 07, 1992Appendix F - Oral Interview Transcripts: Jacob "Zac" Drum, July 15, 1992BibliographyContributorsIndex
