Walls and bridges: Cultural mediation and the legacy of Ella Deloria

Frontiers

Volumn 21, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 158-182

  Finn, Janet L ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034355158     PISSN: 01609009     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3347117     Document Type: Article

References (107)

1. James Clifford and George Marcus, eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
2. These themes were also addressed in George E. Marcus and Michael J. M. Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).
3. For feminist critiques on this erasure of women's contributions to critical and "experimental" anthropology, see Deborah A. Gordon, "Writing Culture, Writing Feminism: The Poetics and Politics of Experimental Ethnography," Inscriptions 3/4 (1988): 6-24; Frances Mascia-Lees, Patricia Sharpe, and Colleen Ballerino Cohen, "The Postmodernist Turn in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 15:1 (1989): 7-33; and Catherine Lutz, "The Erasure of Women's Writing in Sociocultural Anthropology," American Ethnologist, 17:4 (1990): 611-27. For critical reflections on the contributions of women of color, see Gloria Anzaldúa, Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Foundation Books, 1990); Deborah A. Gordon, "The Politics of Ethnographic Authority: Race and Writing in the Ethnography of Margaret Mead and Zora Neale Hurston," in Modernist Anthropology: From Fieldwork to Text, ed. Marc Manganaro (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 146-62; and Gretchen M. Bataille and Kathleen Mullen Sands, American Indian Women Telling Their Lives (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984). On the dilemmas of "Native" anthropologists, see Beatrice Medicine, "Learning to be an Anthropologist and Remaining 'Native,'" in Applied Anthropology in America, ed. Elizabeth Eddy and William Partridge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 282-96; and Christine Obbo, "Adventures with Fieldnotes," in Fieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology, ed. Roger Sanjek (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 290-302.
4. For feminist critiques on this erasure of women's contributions to critical and "experimental" anthropology, see Deborah A. Gordon, "Writing Culture, Writing Feminism: The Poetics and Politics of Experimental Ethnography," Inscriptions 3/4 (1988): 6-24; Frances Mascia-Lees, Patricia Sharpe, and Colleen Ballerino Cohen, "The Postmodernist Turn in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 15:1 (1989): 7-33; and Catherine Lutz, "The Erasure of Women's Writing in Sociocultural Anthropology," American Ethnologist, 17:4 (1990): 611-27. For critical reflections on the contributions of women of color, see Gloria Anzaldúa, Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Foundation Books, 1990); Deborah A. Gordon, "The Politics of Ethnographic Authority: Race and Writing in the Ethnography of Margaret Mead and Zora Neale Hurston," in Modernist Anthropology: From Fieldwork to Text, ed. Marc Manganaro (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 146-62; and Gretchen M. Bataille and Kathleen Mullen Sands, American Indian Women Telling Their Lives (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984). On the dilemmas of "Native" anthropologists, see Beatrice Medicine, "Learning to be an Anthropologist and Remaining 'Native,'" in Applied Anthropology in America, ed. Elizabeth Eddy and William Partridge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 282-96; and Christine Obbo, "Adventures with Fieldnotes," in Fieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology, ed. Roger Sanjek (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 290-302.
5. For feminist critiques on this erasure of women's contributions to critical and "experimental" anthropology, see Deborah A. Gordon, "Writing Culture, Writing Feminism: The Poetics and Politics of Experimental Ethnography," Inscriptions 3/4 (1988): 6-24; Frances Mascia-Lees, Patricia Sharpe, and Colleen Ballerino Cohen, "The Postmodernist Turn in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 15:1 (1989): 7-33; and Catherine Lutz, "The Erasure of Women's Writing in Sociocultural Anthropology," American Ethnologist, 17:4 (1990): 611-27. For critical reflections on the contributions of women of color, see Gloria Anzaldúa, Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Foundation Books, 1990); Deborah A. Gordon, "The Politics of Ethnographic Authority: Race and Writing in the Ethnography of Margaret Mead and Zora Neale Hurston," in Modernist Anthropology: From Fieldwork to Text, ed. Marc Manganaro (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 146-62; and Gretchen M. Bataille and Kathleen Mullen Sands, American Indian Women Telling Their Lives (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984). On the dilemmas of "Native" anthropologists, see Beatrice Medicine, "Learning to be an Anthropologist and Remaining 'Native,'" in Applied Anthropology in America, ed. Elizabeth Eddy and William Partridge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 282-96; and Christine Obbo, "Adventures with Fieldnotes," in Fieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology, ed. Roger Sanjek (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 290-302.
6. For feminist critiques on this erasure of women's contributions to critical and "experimental" anthropology, see Deborah A. Gordon, "Writing Culture, Writing Feminism: The Poetics and Politics of Experimental Ethnography," Inscriptions 3/4 (1988): 6-24; Frances Mascia-Lees, Patricia Sharpe, and Colleen Ballerino Cohen, "The Postmodernist Turn in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 15:1 (1989): 7-33; and Catherine Lutz, "The Erasure of Women's Writing in Sociocultural Anthropology," American Ethnologist, 17:4 (1990): 611-27. For critical reflections on the contributions of women of color, see Gloria Anzaldúa, Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Foundation Books, 1990); Deborah A. Gordon, "The Politics of Ethnographic Authority: Race and Writing in the Ethnography of Margaret Mead and Zora Neale Hurston," in Modernist Anthropology: From Fieldwork to Text, ed. Marc Manganaro (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 146-62; and Gretchen M. Bataille and Kathleen Mullen Sands, American Indian Women Telling Their Lives (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984). On the dilemmas of "Native" anthropologists, see Beatrice Medicine, "Learning to be an Anthropologist and Remaining 'Native,'" in Applied Anthropology in America, ed. Elizabeth Eddy and William Partridge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 282-96; and Christine Obbo, "Adventures with Fieldnotes," in Fieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology, ed. Roger Sanjek (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 290-302.
7. For feminist critiques on this erasure of women's contributions to critical and "experimental" anthropology, see Deborah A. Gordon, "Writing Culture, Writing Feminism: The Poetics and Politics of Experimental Ethnography," Inscriptions 3/4 (1988): 6-24; Frances Mascia-Lees, Patricia Sharpe, and Colleen Ballerino Cohen, "The Postmodernist Turn in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 15:1 (1989): 7-33; and Catherine Lutz, "The Erasure of Women's Writing in Sociocultural Anthropology," American Ethnologist, 17:4 (1990): 611-27. For critical reflections on the contributions of women of color, see Gloria Anzaldúa, Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Foundation Books, 1990); Deborah A. Gordon, "The Politics of Ethnographic Authority: Race and Writing in the Ethnography of Margaret Mead and Zora Neale Hurston," in Modernist Anthropology: From Fieldwork to Text, ed. Marc Manganaro (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 146-62; and Gretchen M. Bataille and Kathleen Mullen Sands, American Indian Women Telling Their Lives (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984). On the dilemmas of "Native" anthropologists, see Beatrice Medicine, "Learning to be an Anthropologist and Remaining 'Native,'" in Applied Anthropology in America, ed. Elizabeth Eddy and William Partridge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 282-96; and Christine Obbo, "Adventures with Fieldnotes," in Fieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology, ed. Roger Sanjek (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 290-302.
8. For feminist critiques on this erasure of women's contributions to critical and "experimental" anthropology, see Deborah A. Gordon, "Writing Culture, Writing Feminism: The Poetics and Politics of Experimental Ethnography," Inscriptions 3/4 (1988): 6-24; Frances Mascia-Lees, Patricia Sharpe, and Colleen Ballerino Cohen, "The Postmodernist Turn in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 15:1 (1989): 7-33; and Catherine Lutz, "The Erasure of Women's Writing in Sociocultural Anthropology," American Ethnologist, 17:4 (1990): 611-27. For critical reflections on the contributions of women of color, see Gloria Anzaldúa, Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Foundation Books, 1990); Deborah A. Gordon, "The Politics of Ethnographic Authority: Race and Writing in the Ethnography of Margaret Mead and Zora Neale Hurston," in Modernist Anthropology: From Fieldwork to Text, ed. Marc Manganaro (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 146-62; and Gretchen M. Bataille and Kathleen Mullen Sands, American Indian Women Telling Their Lives (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984). On the dilemmas of "Native" anthropologists, see Beatrice Medicine, "Learning to be an Anthropologist and Remaining 'Native,'" in Applied Anthropology in America, ed. Elizabeth Eddy and William Partridge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 282-96; and Christine Obbo, "Adventures with Fieldnotes," in Fieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology, ed. Roger Sanjek (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 290-302.
9. For feminist critiques on this erasure of women's contributions to critical and "experimental" anthropology, see Deborah A. Gordon, "Writing Culture, Writing Feminism: The Poetics and Politics of Experimental Ethnography," Inscriptions 3/4 (1988): 6-24; Frances Mascia-Lees, Patricia Sharpe, and Colleen Ballerino Cohen, "The Postmodernist Turn in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 15:1 (1989): 7-33; and Catherine Lutz, "The Erasure of Women's Writing in Sociocultural Anthropology," American Ethnologist, 17:4 (1990): 611-27. For critical reflections on the contributions of women of color, see Gloria Anzaldúa, Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Foundation Books, 1990); Deborah A. Gordon, "The Politics of Ethnographic Authority: Race and Writing in the Ethnography of Margaret Mead and Zora Neale Hurston," in Modernist Anthropology: From Fieldwork to Text, ed. Marc Manganaro (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 146-62; and Gretchen M. Bataille and Kathleen Mullen Sands, American Indian Women Telling Their Lives (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984). On the dilemmas of "Native" anthropologists, see Beatrice Medicine, "Learning to be an Anthropologist and Remaining 'Native,'" in Applied Anthropology in America, ed. Elizabeth Eddy and William Partridge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 282-96; and Christine Obbo, "Adventures with Fieldnotes," in Fieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology, ed. Roger Sanjek (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 290-302.
10. For feminist critiques on this erasure of women's contributions to critical and "experimental" anthropology, see Deborah A. Gordon, "Writing Culture, Writing Feminism: The Poetics and Politics of Experimental Ethnography," Inscriptions 3/4 (1988): 6-24; Frances Mascia-Lees, Patricia Sharpe, and Colleen Ballerino Cohen, "The Postmodernist Turn in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 15:1 (1989): 7-33; and Catherine Lutz, "The Erasure of Women's Writing in Sociocultural Anthropology," American Ethnologist, 17:4 (1990): 611-27. For critical reflections on the contributions of women of color, see Gloria Anzaldúa, Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Foundation Books, 1990); Deborah A. Gordon, "The Politics of Ethnographic Authority: Race and Writing in the Ethnography of Margaret Mead and Zora Neale Hurston," in Modernist Anthropology: From Fieldwork to Text, ed. Marc Manganaro (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 146-62; and Gretchen M. Bataille and Kathleen Mullen Sands, American Indian Women Telling Their Lives (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984). On the dilemmas of "Native" anthropologists, see Beatrice Medicine, "Learning to be an Anthropologist and Remaining 'Native,'" in Applied Anthropology in America, ed. Elizabeth Eddy and William Partridge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 282-96; and Christine Obbo, "Adventures with Fieldnotes," in Fieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology, ed. Roger Sanjek (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 290-302.
11. The term "Sioux" remains widely used to refer generically to several Northern Plains tribal groups with diverse band divisions and dialects. According to Julian Rice, Deer Women and Elk Men: The Lakota Narratives of Ella Deloria (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992), the word "Sioux" is a French corruption of the Ojibway word for snake (1). Deloria, like her anthropological contemporaries, generally used the term "Dakota" to refer to al of the divisions of the Sioux people. As noted in the publisher's preface to Deloria's novel Waterlily (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988), the term Dakota is no longer commonly used (xi). However, throughout this essay I have retained the terms used by Deloria in her writings. Likewise, when citing other authors, I employ their terminology. For discussion of the political and linguistic groups that comprise the "Sioux" see William K. Powers, Oglala Religion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975): 3-14.
12. The term "Sioux" remains widely used to refer generically to several Northern Plains tribal groups with diverse band divisions and dialects. According to Julian Rice, Deer Women and Elk Men: The Lakota Narratives of Ella Deloria (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992), the word "Sioux" is a French corruption of the Ojibway word for snake (1). Deloria, like her anthropological contemporaries, generally used the term "Dakota" to refer to al of the divisions of the Sioux people. As noted in the publisher's preface to Deloria's novel Waterlily (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988), the term Dakota is no longer commonly used (xi). However, throughout this essay I have retained the terms used by Deloria in her writings. Likewise, when citing other authors, I employ their terminology. For discussion of the political and linguistic groups that comprise the "Sioux" see William K. Powers, Oglala Religion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975): 3-14.
13. The term "Sioux" remains widely used to refer generically to several Northern Plains tribal groups with diverse band divisions and dialects. According to Julian Rice, Deer Women and Elk Men: The Lakota Narratives of Ella Deloria (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992), the word "Sioux" is a French corruption of the Ojibway word for snake (1). Deloria, like her anthropological contemporaries, generally used the term "Dakota" to refer to al of the divisions of the Sioux people. As noted in the publisher's preface to Deloria's novel Waterlily (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988), the term Dakota is no longer commonly used (xi). However, throughout this essay I have retained the terms used by Deloria in her writings. Likewise, when citing other authors, I employ their terminology. For discussion of the political and linguistic groups that comprise the "Sioux" see William K. Powers, Oglala Religion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975): 3-14.
14. Ella Deloria's works include: "The Sun Dance of the Oglala Sioux," Journal of American Folklore 42: 166 (1929): 354-413; Dakota Texts (New York: G. E. Stechert, 1932); Speaking of Indians (1944; reprint, Vermillion, S.Dak.: State Publishing, 1983); and Waterlily; Franz Boas and Ella Deloria, Dakota Grammar, Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 23, Second Memoir (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941); and Thomas Jones et al. The Navajo Indian Problem: An Inquiry (New York: Phelps-Stokes, 1939). In addition, Deloria wrote a number of manuscripts, some of which are part of the Boas Collection of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, and some of which are part of the Deloria Family Collection, Dakota Indian Foundation, Chamberlain, South Dakota.
15. Ella Deloria's works include: "The Sun Dance of the Oglala Sioux," Journal of American Folklore 42: 166 (1929): 354-413; Dakota Texts (New York: G. E. Stechert, 1932); Speaking of Indians (1944; reprint, Vermillion, S.Dak.: State Publishing, 1983); and Waterlily; Franz Boas and Ella Deloria, Dakota Grammar, Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 23, Second Memoir (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941); and Thomas Jones et al. The Navajo Indian Problem: An Inquiry (New York: Phelps-Stokes, 1939). In addition, Deloria wrote a number of manuscripts, some of which are part of the Boas Collection of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, and some of which are part of the Deloria Family Collection, Dakota Indian Foundation, Chamberlain, South Dakota.
16. Ella Deloria's works include: "The Sun Dance of the Oglala Sioux," Journal of American Folklore 42: 166 (1929): 354-413; Dakota Texts (New York: G. E. Stechert, 1932); Speaking of Indians (1944; reprint, Vermillion, S.Dak.: State Publishing, 1983); and Waterlily; Franz Boas and Ella Deloria, Dakota Grammar, Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 23, Second Memoir (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941); and Thomas Jones et al. The Navajo Indian Problem: An Inquiry (New York: Phelps-Stokes, 1939). In addition, Deloria wrote a number of manuscripts, some of which are part of the Boas Collection of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, and some of which are part of the Deloria Family Collection, Dakota Indian Foundation, Chamberlain, South Dakota.
17. Ella Deloria's works include: "The Sun Dance of the Oglala Sioux," Journal of American Folklore 42: 166 (1929): 354-413; Dakota Texts (New York: G. E. Stechert, 1932); Speaking of Indians (1944; reprint, Vermillion, S.Dak.: State Publishing, 1983); and Waterlily; Franz Boas and Ella Deloria, Dakota Grammar, Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 23, Second Memoir (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941); and Thomas Jones et al. The Navajo Indian Problem: An Inquiry (New York: Phelps-Stokes, 1939). In addition, Deloria wrote a number of manuscripts, some of which are part of the Boas Collection of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, and some of which are part of the Deloria Family Collection, Dakota Indian Foundation, Chamberlain, South Dakota.
18. Ella Deloria's works include: "The Sun Dance of the Oglala Sioux," Journal of American Folklore 42: 166 (1929): 354-413; Dakota Texts (New York: G. E. Stechert, 1932); Speaking of Indians (1944; reprint, Vermillion, S.Dak.: State Publishing, 1983); and Waterlily; Franz Boas and Ella Deloria, Dakota Grammar, Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 23, Second Memoir (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941); and Thomas Jones et al. The Navajo Indian Problem: An Inquiry (New York: Phelps-Stokes, 1939). In addition, Deloria wrote a number of manuscripts, some of which are part of the Boas Collection of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, and some of which are part of the Deloria Family Collection, Dakota Indian Foundation, Chamberlain, South Dakota.
19. Ella Deloria's works include: "The Sun Dance of the Oglala Sioux," Journal of American Folklore 42: 166 (1929): 354-413; Dakota Texts (New York: G. E. Stechert, 1932); Speaking of Indians (1944; reprint, Vermillion, S.Dak.: State Publishing, 1983); and Waterlily; Franz Boas and Ella Deloria, Dakota Grammar, Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 23, Second Memoir (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941); and Thomas Jones et al. The Navajo Indian Problem: An Inquiry (New York: Phelps-Stokes, 1939). In addition, Deloria wrote a number of manuscripts, some of which are part of the Boas Collection of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, and some of which are part of the Deloria Family Collection, Dakota Indian Foundation, Chamberlain, South Dakota.
20. Ella Deloria's works include: "The Sun Dance of the Oglala Sioux," Journal of American Folklore 42: 166 (1929): 354-413; Dakota Texts (New York: G. E. Stechert, 1932); Speaking of Indians (1944; reprint, Vermillion, S.Dak.: State Publishing, 1983); and Waterlily; Franz Boas and Ella Deloria, Dakota Grammar, Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 23, Second Memoir (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941); and Thomas Jones et al. The Navajo Indian Problem: An Inquiry (New York: Phelps-Stokes, 1939). In addition, Deloria wrote a number of manuscripts, some of which are part of the Boas Collection of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, and some of which are part of the Deloria Family Collection, Dakota Indian Foundation, Chamberlain, South Dakota.
21. Janet Finn, "Ella Cara Deloria and Mourning Dove: Writing for Cultures, Writing Against the Grain," in Women Writing Culture, ed. Ruth Behar and Deborah A. Gordon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995): 131-47. The essay compared these women's works and lives. I am deeply grateful to Ruth Behar for her supportive guidance on this project, which began in her "Women Writing Culture" seminar at the University of Michigan in 1991. I would like to thank Deborah Gordon for encouraging me to reflect further on Deloria's work and inviting me to participate in the panel on "Feminist Predecessors, Genealogies, and Generations" at the 1996 meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewer at Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies for the careful critique that helped me rethink specific parts of this essay. Anthropologist Beatrice Medicine used the term "cultural mediator" to describe Deloria's work in her biographical essay "Ella C. Deloria: The Emic Voice," MELUS: Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 7-4 (1980): 23-30. My knowledge of Deloria's work comes from what I have read of her published texts (in English) and from portions of her correspondence with Boas that have been published or excerpted in other unpublished works. I am unable to appreciate fully the significance of her contributions, as I am not a speaker of the Dakota languages in which she wrote. I am especially indebted to Janette Murray, who included extended excerpts of Deloria's correspondence in her unpublished 1974 dissertation on Deloria's literary contributions (Janette Murray, "Ella Deloria: A Biographical Sketch and Literary Analysis" [Ph.D. diss., University of North Dakota, 1974]).
22. Janet Finn, "Ella Cara Deloria and Mourning Dove: Writing for Cultures, Writing Against the Grain," in Women Writing Culture, ed. Ruth Behar and Deborah A. Gordon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995): 131-47. The essay compared these women's works and lives. I am deeply grateful to Ruth Behar for her supportive guidance on this project, which began in her "Women Writing Culture" seminar at the University of Michigan in 1991. I would like to thank Deborah Gordon for encouraging me to reflect further on Deloria's work and inviting me to participate in the panel on "Feminist Predecessors, Genealogies, and Generations" at the 1996 meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewer at Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies for the careful critique that helped me rethink specific parts of this essay. Anthropologist Beatrice Medicine used the term "cultural mediator" to describe Deloria's work in her biographical essay "Ella C. Deloria: The Emic Voice," MELUS: Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 7-4 (1980): 23-30. My knowledge of Deloria's work comes from what I have read of her published texts (in English) and from portions of her correspondence with Boas that have been published or excerpted in other unpublished works. I am unable to appreciate fully the significance of her contributions, as I am not a speaker of the Dakota languages in which she wrote. I am especially indebted to Janette Murray, who included extended excerpts of Deloria's correspondence in her unpublished 1974 dissertation on Deloria's literary contributions (Janette Murray, "Ella Deloria: A Biographical Sketch and Literary Analysis" [Ph.D. diss., University of North Dakota, 1974]).
23. Janet Finn, "Ella Cara Deloria and Mourning Dove: Writing for Cultures, Writing Against the Grain," in Women Writing Culture, ed. Ruth Behar and Deborah A. Gordon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995): 131-47. The essay compared these women's works and lives. I am deeply grateful to Ruth Behar for her supportive guidance on this project, which began in her "Women Writing Culture" seminar at the University of Michigan in 1991. I would like to thank Deborah Gordon for encouraging me to reflect further on Deloria's work and inviting me to participate in the panel on "Feminist Predecessors, Genealogies, and Generations" at the 1996 meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewer at Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies for the careful critique that helped me rethink specific parts of this essay. Anthropologist Beatrice Medicine used the term "cultural mediator" to describe Deloria's work in her biographical essay "Ella C. Deloria: The Emic Voice," MELUS: Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 7-4 (1980): 23-30. My knowledge of Deloria's work comes from what I have read of her published texts (in English) and from portions of her correspondence with Boas that have been published or excerpted in other unpublished works. I am unable to appreciate fully the significance of her contributions, as I am not a speaker of the Dakota languages in which she wrote. I am especially indebted to Janette Murray, who included extended excerpts of Deloria's correspondence in her unpublished 1974 dissertation on Deloria's literary contributions (Janette Murray, "Ella Deloria: A Biographical Sketch and Literary Analysis" [Ph.D. diss., University of North Dakota, 1974]).
24. For discussion of women, subjectivity, subject positioning, and "positionality," see, for example, Graciela Hernandez, "Multiple Subjectivities and Strategic Positionality: Zora Neale Hurston's Experimental Ethnographies," in Behar and Gordon, Women Writing Culture, 148-65; and Linda Alcoff, "Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 13:3 (1988): 405-36.
25. For discussion of women, subjectivity, subject positioning, and "positionality," see, for example, Graciela Hernandez, "Multiple Subjectivities and Strategic Positionality: Zora Neale Hurston's Experimental Ethnographies," in Behar and Gordon, Women Writing Culture, 148-65; and Linda Alcoff, "Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 13:3 (1988): 405-36.
26. For discussion of women, subjectivity, subject positioning, and "positionality," see, for example, Graciela Hernandez, "Multiple Subjectivities and Strategic Positionality: Zora Neale Hurston's Experimental Ethnographies," in Behar and Gordon, Women Writing Culture, 148-65; and Linda Alcoff, "Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 13:3 (1988): 405-36.
27. The notion of "salvage ethnography" has been used critically to describe anthropological efforts to reclaim vestiges of the "vanishing Indian" that have contributed to fixed and static images of American Indian cultural history. See Vine Deloria, Jr., We Talk, You Listen: New Tribes, New Turf (New York: MacMillan, 1970) for a critique of the flat and unidimensional representations constructed by Anglo society; D'arcy McNickle, "American Indians Who Never Were," The Indian Historian 3:3 (1970): 4-7; and Beatrice Medicine, "The Anthropologist as the Indian's Image Maker," in The American Indian Reader in Anthropology, J. Henry, ed. (San Francisco: Indian Historian Press, 1972), 23-27. These texts specificially critique historical and anthropological literature that present Indian life as fixed in time and cultural content.
28. The notion of "salvage ethnography" has been used critically to describe anthropological efforts to reclaim vestiges of the "vanishing Indian" that have contributed to fixed and static images of American Indian cultural history. See Vine Deloria, Jr., We Talk, You Listen: New Tribes, New Turf (New York: MacMillan, 1970) for a critique of the flat and unidimensional representations constructed by Anglo society; D'arcy McNickle, "American Indians Who Never Were," The Indian Historian 3:3 (1970): 4-7; and Beatrice Medicine, "The Anthropologist as the Indian's Image Maker," in The American Indian Reader in Anthropology, J. Henry, ed. (San Francisco: Indian Historian Press, 1972), 23-27. These texts specificially critique historical and anthropological literature that present Indian life as fixed in time and cultural content.
29. The notion of "salvage ethnography" has been used critically to describe anthropological efforts to reclaim vestiges of the "vanishing Indian" that have contributed to fixed and static images of American Indian cultural history. See Vine Deloria, Jr., We Talk, You Listen: New Tribes, New Turf (New York: MacMillan, 1970) for a critique of the flat and unidimensional representations constructed by Anglo society; D'arcy McNickle, "American Indians Who Never Were," The Indian Historian 3:3 (1970): 4-7; and Beatrice Medicine, "The Anthropologist as the Indian's Image Maker," in The American Indian Reader in Anthropology, J. Henry, ed. (San Francisco: Indian Historian Press, 1972), 23-27. These texts specificially critique historical and anthropological literature that present Indian life as fixed in time and cultural content.
30. Paula Gunn Allen, "Who is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism," excerpt from The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Tradition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986) in The Graywolf Annual Five: Multicultural Literacy, Rick Simonson and Scott Walker, eds. (St. Paul: Graywolf Press, 1988), 13-27.
31. Paula Gunn Allen, "Who is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism," excerpt from The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Tradition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986) in The Graywolf Annual Five: Multicultural Literacy, Rick Simonson and Scott Walker, eds. (St. Paul: Graywolf Press, 1988), 13-27.
32. Ella Deloria belonged to the Yankton group of Sioux. Her father became an Episcopalian priest and served as missionary among the Tetons on the Standing Rock Reservation.
33. John H. Oberly, "Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs" (1888), in The American Indian and the United States: A Documentary History, Volumes I and II, ed. Wilcomb E. Washburn (New York: Random House, 1973), 420-25; and Thomas J. Morgan, "Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs" (1889, 1890), in Wilcomb E. Washburn, The American Indian and the United States, 428-35, 459.
34. John H. Oberly, "Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs" (1888), in The American Indian and the United States: A Documentary History, Volumes I and II, ed. Wilcomb E. Washburn (New York: Random House, 1973), 420-25; and Thomas J. Morgan, "Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs" (1889, 1890), in Wilcomb E. Washburn, The American Indian and the United States, 428-35, 459.
35. Morgan, "Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs" (1890), in Washburn, The American Indian and the United States, 448.
36. Peter Nabokov, ed., Native American Testimony, An Anthology of Indian and White Relations, First Encounter to Dispossession (1978; reprint, New York: Penguin Books, 1990), 253.
37. Deloria, Speaking of Indians, 53-54.
38. John Prater, "Ella Deloria: Varied Intercourse," Wicazo Sa Review 11:2 (1995): 40.
39. For biographical data on Ella Deloria see Murray, "Ella Deloria," and "Ella C. Deloria: The Emic Voice"; and Alice Picotte, "Biographical Sketch of the Author," in Deloria, Waterlily, 229-31.
40. For biographical data on Ella Deloria see Murray, "Ella Deloria," and "Ella C. Deloria: The Emic Voice"; and Alice Picotte, "Biographical Sketch of the Author," in Deloria, Waterlily, 229-31.
41. For biographical data on Ella Deloria see Murray, "Ella Deloria," and "Ella C. Deloria: The Emic Voice"; and Alice Picotte, "Biographical Sketch of the Author," in Deloria, Waterlily, 229-31.
42. Picotte, "Biographical Sketch of the Autho;" 230.
43. Ella Deloria to H. E. Beebe, December 1952, cited in Raymond J. DeMallie, "Afterword," in Deloria, Waterlily, 237.
44. Ella Deloria, Speaking of Indians, 53-54.
45. Deloria's work in The Navajo Indian Problem offers a good example of her willingness to grapple with here-and-now pragmatic concerns from a reformist perspective while at the same time trying to remain respectful of traditional practices and, in the process, inform others of those practices. Similarly, in a section titled "Toward the New Community" in Speaking of Indians, Deloria writes of "progress," the need for government help, and the importance of Christian upbringing in creating a future of hope for Indian peoples (98-105). She presents a modernist view consistent with the reformist agenda of non-Indian policy makers of the era. Yet in the same text she has provided detailed accounts to both educate her reader about traditional cultural practices and critique the violation and disruption of those practices.
46. Murray offers a more in-depth life story ("Ella Deloria," 45-124).
47. Murray, "Ella Deloria," 102.
48. This theme is further developed in Finn, "Ella Cara Deloria and Mourning Dove," 137-39.
49. For a detailed discussion of Boas's contributions to American anthropology, see George W. Stocking Jr., "Ideas and Institutions in American Anthropology: Thoughts Toward a History of the Interwar Years," in his monograph The Ethnographer's Magic and Other Essays in the History of Anthropology (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), 114-77. Stocking discusses the tensions between history and science that shaped Boas's ethnographic inquiry. It is important to note that Boas drew on the data gathered from his rigorous scientific inquiry to challenge the racism inherent in social evolutionism. Ironically, the epistemology and methodology he drew on to inform cultural understanding and challenge racist discourses may have limited his ability to appreciate Deloria's culturally grounded way of knowing the world.
50. Stocking, "Ideas and Institutions," 120-21.
51. Leslie White, in The Ethnography and Ethnology of Franz Boas (Austin: The University of Texas, Texas Memorial Museum Bulletin 6, 1963), 22.
52. Ella Deloria, letter to Franz Boas, October 4, 1929, in Murray, "Ella Deloria," 107.
53. Franz Boas, letter to Ella Deloria, October 28, 1929, in Murray, "Ella Deloria," 107.
54. Ella Deloria, letter to Franz Boas, July 11, 1932, in Murray, "Ella Deloria," 114.
55. Ella Deloria, letter to Franz Boas, July 11, 1932, in Murray, "Ella Deloria," 113-14.
56. Despite this tension, it was Ruth Benedict who assisted Deloria in the editing of Waterlily for publication. However, after Benedict's death in 1948, the plans for publication did not materialize. By 1954, she had received rejections from publishers who did not believe there would be a large enough audience for the book. Waterlily was published posthumously in 1988.
57. In fairness to Franz Boas, it should be noted that his own approach to the study of culture was one of description more than explanation.
58. Ella Deloria, letter to Franz Boas, January 6, 1938, in Murray, "Ella Deloria," 128.
59. Ella Deloria, letter to Franz Boas, June 28, 1938, in Murray, "Ella Deloria," 131.
60. Ella Deloria, letter to Franz Boas, May 12, 1939, in Murray, "Ella Deloria," 133.
61. Vine Deloria Jr., "Foreword," in Nabokov, Native American Testimony, xviii.
62. See Julian Rice, Ella Deloria's The Buffalo People (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), Ella Deloria's Iron Hawk (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), and Deer Women and Elk Men: The Lakota Narratives of Ella Deloria (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992) for a thorough examination of a significant body of Deloria's previously unpublished works. I use Dakota here as Deloria uses the term. Rice notes that Deloria wrote extensively in several Dakota dialects. He specifically credits Deloria with writing more in Lakota language than any other scholar ( Rice, Deer Women and Elk Men, 2).
63. See Julian Rice, Ella Deloria's The Buffalo People (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), Ella Deloria's Iron Hawk (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), and Deer Women and Elk Men: The Lakota Narratives of Ella Deloria (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992) for a thorough examination of a significant body of Deloria's previously unpublished works. I use Dakota here as Deloria uses the term. Rice notes that Deloria wrote extensively in several Dakota dialects. He specifically credits Deloria with writing more in Lakota language than any other scholar ( Rice, Deer Women and Elk Men, 2).
64. See Julian Rice, Ella Deloria's The Buffalo People (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), Ella Deloria's Iron Hawk (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), and Deer Women and Elk Men: The Lakota Narratives of Ella Deloria (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992) for a thorough examination of a significant body of Deloria's previously unpublished works. I use Dakota here as Deloria uses the term. Rice notes that Deloria wrote extensively in several Dakota dialects. He specifically credits Deloria with writing more in Lakota language than any other scholar ( Rice, Deer Women and Elk Men, 2).
65. See Julian Rice, Ella Deloria's The Buffalo People (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), Ella Deloria's Iron Hawk (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), and Deer Women and Elk Men: The Lakota Narratives of Ella Deloria (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992) for a thorough examination of a significant body of Deloria's previously unpublished works. I use Dakota here as Deloria uses the term. Rice notes that Deloria wrote extensively in several Dakota dialects. He specifically credits Deloria with writing more in Lakota language than any other scholar ( Rice, Deer Women and Elk Men, 2).
66. Deloria, "Introduction," Dakota Texts, ix.
67. Deloria, quoted in Rice, Deer Women and Elk Men, 11.
68. Deloria, report to the American Philosophical Society, American Philosophical Society Yearbook (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1944), 221.
69. See Rice, Ella Deloria's The Buffalo People, Ella Deloria's Iron Hawk, and Deer Women and Elk Men; Prater, "Ella Deloria: Varied Intercourse," 40-7; Patricia C. Albers, "Voices from Within: Narrative Writings of American Indian Women," Humanity and Society 13: 4 (1989): 463-70; and Finn, "Ella Cara Deloria and Mourning Dove," 131-47.
70. See Rice, Ella Deloria's The Buffalo People, Ella Deloria's Iron Hawk, and Deer Women and Elk Men; Prater, "Ella Deloria: Varied Intercourse," 40-7; Patricia C. Albers, "Voices from Within: Narrative Writings of American Indian Women," Humanity and Society 13: 4 (1989): 463-70; and Finn, "Ella Cara Deloria and Mourning Dove," 131-47.
71. See Rice, Ella Deloria's The Buffalo People, Ella Deloria's Iron Hawk, and Deer Women and Elk Men; Prater, "Ella Deloria: Varied Intercourse," 40-7; Patricia C. Albers, "Voices from Within: Narrative Writings of American Indian Women," Humanity and Society 13: 4 (1989): 463-70; and Finn, "Ella Cara Deloria and Mourning Dove," 131-47.
72. See Rice, Ella Deloria's The Buffalo People, Ella Deloria's Iron Hawk, and Deer Women and Elk Men; Prater, "Ella Deloria: Varied Intercourse," 40-7; Patricia C. Albers, "Voices from Within: Narrative Writings of American Indian Women," Humanity and Society 13: 4 (1989): 463-70; and Finn, "Ella Cara Deloria and Mourning Dove," 131-47.
73. Rice, "Introduction," Deer Women and Elk Men, 1-20.
74. In a letter to Virginia Lightfoot in 1946, Deloria expressed her desire to communicate to a wide audience but noted that "ethnology has to be objective and impersonal" (Waterlily, 238). This echoes the philosophy of Franz Boas.
75. Rice, "Introduction," Deer Women and Elk Men, 1-20.
76. Finn, "Ella Cara Deloria and Mourning Dove," 141-43.
77. Although writers commenting on Deloria's book Speaking of Indians use both "Sioux" and "Dakota" in reference to the text, Deloria uses "Dakota" throughout the text.
78. Medicine, "Ella C. Deloria: the Emic Voice," 23-30.
79. Ella Deloria, letter to Franz Boas, February 12, 1938, in Murray,"Ella Deloria," 130.
80. I borrow the notion of "contra-diction" as "back talk" from Kathleen Stewart's work, "Back Talking the Wilderness: Appalachian En-genderings," in Uncertain Terms: Negotiating Gender in American Culture, ed. Faye Ginsberg and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990). discuss contra-diction as a form of critical practice through which people respond to conflict discourses, define what is at stake in their struggles, and challenge the bounds of the "talkable," that is, within the limits of sanctioned discourse, in Janet Finn, Tracing the Veins: Of Copper, Culture, and Community from Butte to Chuquicamata (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998): 13-14.
81. I borrow the notion of "contra-diction" as "back talk" from Kathleen Stewart's work, "Back Talking the Wilderness: Appalachian En-genderings," in Uncertain Terms: Negotiating Gender in American Culture, ed. Faye Ginsberg and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990). discuss contra-diction as a form of critical practice through which people respond to conflict discourses, define what is at stake in their struggles, and challenge the bounds of the "talkable," that is, within the limits of sanctioned discourse, in Janet Finn, Tracing the Veins: Of Copper, Culture, and Community from Butte to Chuquicamata (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998): 13-14.
82. Deloria, Speaking of Indians, 12.
83. Deloria, Speaking of Indians, 13.
84. Deloria, Speaking of Indians, 12.
85. I draw here from Clifford Geertz's interpretive approach to culture as addressed in his essay "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture," in Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 3-30.
86. Deloria, Speaking of Indians, 50.
87. Deloria, Speaking of Indians, 54-55.
88. Deloria, Speaking of Indians, 60-1.
89. Deloria's imagery was also an inspiration to other Native American women anthropologists. For example, Beatrice Medicine uses the G.I. muslin story to represent Deloria's descriptive ethnographic style and her sensitivity to the tensions of change and continuity. Writing with Patricia Albers, Medicine returns to Deloria's example to set the stage for her own exploration of Sioux women's roles in the production of ceremonial objects (Beatrice Medicine and Patricia Albers, "The Role of Sioux Women in the Production of Ceremonial Objects: The Case of the Star Quilt," in The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women [New York: University Press of America, 1983], 123-40).
90. Jones, et al., The Navajo Indian Problem, ix.
91. See, for example, Medicine, "The Anthropologist as the Indian's Image Maker," and "Learning to be an Anthropologist and Remaining 'Native.'"
92. For further discussion of the Collier administration and American Indian women, see Alison Bernstein, "A Mixed Record: The Political Enfranchisement of American Indian Women During the New Deal," Journal of the West 23:1 (1984): 13-20. Bernstein argues that government policy imposed a white male model in which Indian women were viewed in the same light as white women, thereby ignoring their traditional political roles.
93. Roger Herring, "The American Indian Family: Dissolution by Coercion," Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development 7:1 (1989): 4-13.
94. For further discussion of the "social problem" approach, see, for example, Rayna Green, "Native American Women: A Review Essay," Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society 6:2 (1980): 248-67; and Jeanne Guillemin, Urban Renegades: The Cultural Strategies of American Indians (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975).
95. For further discussion of the "social problem" approach, see, for example, Rayna Green, "Native American Women: A Review Essay," Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society 6:2 (1980): 248-67; and Jeanne Guillemin, Urban Renegades: The Cultural Strategies of American Indians (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975).
96. See Herring, "The American Indian Family"; and Terry Cross, "Drawing on Cultural Tradition in Indian Child Welfare Practice," Social Casework 67:5 (1986): 283-89.
97. See Herring, "The American Indian Family"; and Terry Cross, "Drawing on Cultural Tradition in Indian Child Welfare Practice," Social Casework 67:5 (1986): 283-89.
98. From Paul Bohannan, We the Alien: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, cited as epigraph in Gary B. Palmer and William R. Jankowiak, "Performance and Imagination: Toward an Anthropology of the Spectacular and the Mundane," Cultural Anthropology 11: 2 (1996): 225.
99. From Paul Bohannan, We the Alien: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, cited as epigraph in Gary B. Palmer and William R. Jankowiak, "Performance and Imagination: Toward an Anthropology of the Spectacular and the Mundane," Cultural Anthropology 11: 2 (1996): 225.
100. Gary Palmer and William Jankowiak also provide a comprehensive overview of theoretical perspectives on performance and culture (Gary Palmer and William Jankowiak, "Performance and Imagination: Toward an Anthropology of the Spectacular and the Mundane," Cultural Anthropology 11:2 [1996]: 225-58).
101. Palmer and Jankowiak, "Performance and Imagination," 226.
102. Murray, "Ella Deloria," 95, 123, 134-40; and Deloria, "Introduction," Speaking of Indians, i-xiv.
103. Murray, "Ella Deloria," 95, 123, 134-40; and Deloria, "Introduction," Speaking of Indians, i-xiv.
104. Dorinne Kondo writes of the risks of theater and the politics of representation in her essay, "Bad Girls: Theater, Women of Color, and the Politics of Representation," in Women Writing Culture, Behar and Gordon, eds., 49-64.
105. Rice, The Buffalo People, 56-60.
106. Kondo, "Bad Girls," 63.
107. Faye Harrison, "Anthropology as an Agent of Transformation: Introductory Comments and Queries," in Decolonizing Anthropology: Moving Further Toward an Anthropology for Liberation, ed. Faye V. Harrison (Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association, 1991), 1-14.