Western Apache Language and Culture

Western Apache Language and Culture PDF Author: Keith H. Basso
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 081654350X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Seven essays, collected here for the first time, define some of the central concerns of linguistic anthropology through the close study of Western Apache, a language of astonishing complexity. All of the essays have been revised for this anthology. Basso, a major authority in the field of linguistic anthropology, has drawn on fieldwork at the village of Cibecue, whose residents speak a dialect of Western Apache that is spoken nowhere else. He shows how intricacies of language—place names, metaphor, uses of silence—help a people define their very existence, so that, in the words of one Apache woman, "If we lose our language, we will lose our breath; then we will die and blow away like leaves." His essays amply demonstrate that, while Apache language and culture are changing in response to modernization, they remain intricate, vital and unique. These essays illustrate not only the complexity of a particular cultural world as it has emerged to one observer over a protracted period of intensive fieldwork, but also the natural movement from the study of grammatical categories to that of language use and on to the study of the conceptual system underlying it. Each essay addresses a significant theoretical problem; taken together they constitute a microcosm of the anthropological understanding of language. CONTENTS The Western Apache Classificatory Verb System: A Semantic Analysis Semantic Aspects of Linguistic Acculturation A Western Apache Writing System: The Symbols of Silas John "Wise Words" of the Western Apache: Metaphor and Semantic Theory "To Give Up on Words": Silence in Western Apache Culture "Stalking With Stories": Names, Places, and Moral Narratives among the Western Apache "Speaking with Names": Language and Landscapes among the Western Apache

Western Apache Language and Culture

Western Apache Language and Culture PDF Author: Keith H. Basso
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 081654350X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book Here

Book Description
Seven essays, collected here for the first time, define some of the central concerns of linguistic anthropology through the close study of Western Apache, a language of astonishing complexity. All of the essays have been revised for this anthology. Basso, a major authority in the field of linguistic anthropology, has drawn on fieldwork at the village of Cibecue, whose residents speak a dialect of Western Apache that is spoken nowhere else. He shows how intricacies of language—place names, metaphor, uses of silence—help a people define their very existence, so that, in the words of one Apache woman, "If we lose our language, we will lose our breath; then we will die and blow away like leaves." His essays amply demonstrate that, while Apache language and culture are changing in response to modernization, they remain intricate, vital and unique. These essays illustrate not only the complexity of a particular cultural world as it has emerged to one observer over a protracted period of intensive fieldwork, but also the natural movement from the study of grammatical categories to that of language use and on to the study of the conceptual system underlying it. Each essay addresses a significant theoretical problem; taken together they constitute a microcosm of the anthropological understanding of language. CONTENTS The Western Apache Classificatory Verb System: A Semantic Analysis Semantic Aspects of Linguistic Acculturation A Western Apache Writing System: The Symbols of Silas John "Wise Words" of the Western Apache: Metaphor and Semantic Theory "To Give Up on Words": Silence in Western Apache Culture "Stalking With Stories": Names, Places, and Moral Narratives among the Western Apache "Speaking with Names": Language and Landscapes among the Western Apache

The Aztec Kings

The Aztec Kings PDF Author: Susan D. Gillespie
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780816513390
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Scholars have long viewed histories of the Aztecs either as flawed chronologies plagued by internal inconsistencies and intersource discrepancies or as legends that indiscriminately mingle reality with the supernatural. But this new work draws fresh conclusions from these documents, proposing that Aztec dynastic history was recast by its sixteenth-century recorders not merely to glorify ancestors but to make sense out of the trauma of conquest and colonialism. The Aztec Kings is the first major study to take into account the Aztec cyclical conception of time--which required that history constantly be reinterpreted to achieve continuity between past and present--and to treat indigenous historical traditions as symbolic statements in narrative form. Susan Gillespie focuses on the dynastic history of the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, whose stories reveal how the Aztecs used "history" to construct, elaborate, and reify ideas about the nature of rulership and the cyclical nature of the cosmos, and how they projected the Spanish conquest deep into the Aztec past in order to make history accommodate that event. By demonstrating that most of Aztec history is nonliteral, she sheds new light on Aztec culture and on the function of history in society. By relating the cyclical structure of Aztec dynastic history to similar traditions of African and Polynesian peoples, she introduces a broader perspective on the function of history in society and on how and why history must change.

Wisdom Sits in Places

Wisdom Sits in Places PDF Author: Keith H. Basso
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 0826327052
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
This remarkable book introduces us to four unforgettable Apache people, each of whom offers a different take on the significance of places in their culture. Apache conceptions of wisdom, manners and morals, and of their own history are inextricably intertwined with place, and by allowing us to overhear his conversations with Apaches on these subjects Basso expands our awareness of what place can mean to people. Most of us use the term sense of place often and rather carelessly when we think of nature or home or literature. Our senses of place, however, come not only from our individual experiences but also from our cultures. Wisdom Sits in Places, the first sustained study of places and place-names by an anthropologist, explores place, places, and what they mean to a particular group of people, the Western Apache in Arizona. For more than thirty years, Keith Basso has been doing fieldwork among the Western Apache, and now he shares with us what he has learned of Apache place-names--where they come from and what they mean to Apaches. "This is indeed a brilliant exposition of landscape and language in the world of the Western Apache. But it is more than that. Keith Basso gives us to understand something about the sacred and indivisible nature of words and place. And this is a universal equation, a balance in the universe. Place may be the first of all concepts; it may be the oldest of all words."--N. Scott Momaday "In Wisdom Sits in Places Keith Basso lifts a veil on the most elemental poetry of human experience, which is the naming of the world. In so doing he invests his scholarship with that rarest of scholarly qualities: a sense of spiritual exploration. Through his clear eyes we glimpse the spirit of a remarkable people and their land, and when we look away, we see our own world afresh."--William deBuys "A very exciting book--authoritative, fully informed, extremely thoughtful, and also engagingly written and a joy to read. Guiding us vividly among the landscapes and related story-tellings of the Western Apache, Basso explores in a highly readable way the role of language in the complex but compelling theme of a people's attachment to place. An important book by an eminent scholar."--Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.

Western Apache-English Dictionary

Western Apache-English Dictionary PDF Author: Dorothy Bray
Publisher: Bilingual Review Press (AZ)
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
This exhaustive bilingual dictionary is the culmination of years of collaboration between educators, linguistic scholars and community informants from the White Mountain Apache Tribe. It also includes dialectical variants from other communities, including the San Carlos Tribe. The dictionary has been compiled with the goal of creating a living, working dictionary that will be of value for cultural, educational, and practical purposes. Among these are the teaching of Western Apache to children, the retention and expansion of the oral and written languages, and the preservation of traditional ceremonial songs and oral history. More widely, the dictionary will be useful to Apaches and non-Apaches in practical applications such as medicine, social work, education, and human services. It also provides through its definitions a wealth of culture, history, and lore supplied by the many community informants.

Western Apache Material Culture

Western Apache Material Culture PDF Author: Alan Ferg
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816510283
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This volume describes in detail two collections of Western Apache artifacts from east-central Arizona. The materials, belonging to the Arizona State Museum, range in age from the mid-1800's to the present and represent a thorough cross-section of tools, clothing, religious paraphernalia, and games.

A Practical Grammar of the San Carlos Apache Language

A Practical Grammar of the San Carlos Apache Language PDF Author: Willem Joseph de Reuse
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description


Western Apache Witchcraft

Western Apache Witchcraft PDF Author: Keith H. Basso
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816501427
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
An ethnographic contribution describing the beliefs and ideas associated with witchcraft as shared "knowledge" that the Apaches have about their universe. Uncovers the types of interpersonal relationships with which witchcraft accusations are regularly associated and posits explanations for these associations.

The Cibecue Apache

The Cibecue Apache PDF Author: Keith H. Basso
Publisher: Waveland Press
ISBN: 1478631031
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
Cultural anthropologist Keith H. Basso (1940–2013) was noted for his long-term research of the Western Apaches, specifically those from the modern community of Cibecue, Arizona, the site of his ethnographic and linguistic research for fifty-four years. One of his earliest works, The Cibecue Apache, has now been read by generations of students. It captures the true character of Apache culture not only because of its objective analyses and descriptions but also because of the author’s belief in allowing the people to speak for themselves. Basso learned their language, became a trusted friend and intimate, and returned to the field often to gather data, participate, and observe. Basso’s goal in this now-classic work is to describe Cibecue Apache perceptions, experiences, conflicts, and indecision. A primary aim is to depict portions of the Western Apache belief system, especially those dealing with the supernatural. Emphasis is also given to the girls’ puberty ceremony, its meaning and functions, as well as modern Apache economic and political life.

Portraits of 'the Whiteman'

Portraits of 'the Whiteman' PDF Author: Keith H. Basso
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521295932
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
Drawing on current theory in symbolic anthropology and sociolinguistics, this interpretive essay investigates a complex form of joking based on material collected in a Western Apache community wherein Apaches stage carefully crafted imitations of Anglo-Americans.

Western Apache Heritage

Western Apache Heritage PDF Author: Richard J. Perry
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292762763
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
A reconstruction of Apachean history and culture that sheds much light on the origins, dispersions, and relationships of Apache groups. Mention “Apaches,” and many Anglo-Americans picture the “marauding savages” of western movies or impoverished reservations beset by a host of social problems. But, like most stereotypes, these images distort the complex history and rich cultural heritage of the Apachean peoples, who include the Navajo, as well as the Western, Chiricahua, Mescalero, Jicarilla, Lipan, and Kiowa Apaches. In this pioneering study, Richard Perry synthesizes the findings of anthropology, ethnology, linguistics, archaeology, and ethnohistory to reconstruct the Apachean past and offer a fuller understanding of the forces that have shaped modern Apache culture. While scholars generally agree that the Apacheans are part of a larger group of Athapaskan-speaking peoples who originated in the western Subarctic, there are few archaeological remains to prove when, where, and why those northern cold dwellers migrated to the hot deserts of the American Southwest. Using an innovative method of ethnographic reconstruction, however, Perry hypothesizes that these nomadic hunters were highly adaptable and used to exploiting the resources of a wide range of mountainous habitats. When changes in their surroundings forced the ancient Apacheans to expand their food quest, it was natural for them to migrate down the “mountain corridor” formed by the Rocky Mountain chain. Perry is the first researcher to attempt such an extensive reconstruction, and his study is the first to deal with the full range of Athapaskan-speaking peoples. His method will be instructive to students of other cultures who face a similar lack of historical and archaeological data.