Cultural Refusal in the Americas 1492-1992

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#1

David Graeber (anthropologist and author) turned me on to an interesting line of study: cultures that have split off from larger civilizations found in the Americas, such as people rejecting and splitting off from Cahokia and other Mississipian mound builders. Does anyone have additional resources on this? On Graeber’s twitter account someone recommended Jonathan Hill, “History, Power, and Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Americas, 1482-1992.” I just requested it from my library.

Graeber also explains that all cultures are essentially rejecting other cultures (he echoes Marcel Mauss on this). Anyone have more information on Marcel Mauss and where he claimed that?

#2

James C. Scott basically proposes the thesis that all/most hunter-gatherers fit into the category of individuals/groups splitting off from agricultural civilizations in multiple acts of ethnogenesis in The Art of Not Being Governed. Of course, this is not about the Americas, but I suspect that some of his references overlap.

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#3

The book History, Power and Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Americas, 1492-1992 is not really addressing what I thought it would so far. What is interesting me is the article “Changing Patterns of Ethnicity in the Northeastern Plains, 1780-1870″. Dispelling a “billiard ball” theory of cultural exclusion in my own mind, it looks like the Plains Assiniboin, Cree, and Objibwa frequently intermixed, lived in the same territories, and got along peacefully. This later confused bureaucrats of the US government who didn’t know what to consider some people if they didn’t belong to one ethnicity and instead a hybrid one.

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#4

Gone to Croatan: Origins of North American Dropout Culture

#5

Gone to Croatan looks really interesting. I’ll have to check that out.