American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Zacharie Vincent, or Tehariolin (1815–1886), was a Huron/Wendat artist from the Wendake reserve community near Quebec City. He took up painting in 1838 after posing for a portrait by celebrated French-Canadian artist Antoine Plamondon, entitled “Le dernier Huron” (“The Last Huron”). Tehariolin’s extant works include landscapes and local-color sketches, but are most notable for his many self-portraits, in which he depicted himself wearing chiefly accessories such as medals and headdresses. Since the 1980s his art has been the subject of growing attention by scholars, mostly in Quebec and writing in French, but Tehariolin is still little known in the United States. This essay examines, first, how the epithet “Last Huron,” typical of the “vanishing Indian” ideology of the time, was appropriated into the cultural struggle of Francophone canadiens against imperial British hegemony during a time of violent rebellion and repression in Canada; and second, how Tehariolin’s artwork became commodified in the manner of products manufactured for a mass market, much like the moccasins, snowshoes, and other items manufactured in Wendake. During the later nineteenth century, photography made possible the mass reproduction of images of Tehariolin, such as in postcards produced by Quebec photographer L. P. Vallée in the 1870s. Zacharie Vincent was not the last Huron, but his livelihood as an artist suffered even as his image proliferated. The cliché of “the Last of his Tribe” was undercut by the consumer culture that had often exploited the ideology for its own colonialist purposes.

Living with legacies of unjust land and resource policy, coping with side effects of industrial production systems that threaten the continuance of land-based subsistence and culture, and weighing options that are largely limited by external political, economic, and legal frameworks, Native North American leaders have become adept at following multiple paths toward the same ultimate goal—the survival of their people. How, I ask here, have indigenous boreal forest residents worked to promote the land-based self-determination upon which their identities as culturally distinct and politically-autonomous peoples depend? How have strategies shifted over time in response to changing opportunities and circumstances? Even as it presents a paradox by simultaneously empowering and disempowering indigenous participants, involvement in collaborative conservation initiatives extends and transforms well established patterns of indigenous resistance. Positioning First Nations at the center of their own worlds rather than at the peripheries of worlds imagined by others, I demonstrate that indigenous participants envision collaborative conservation as a strategic opportunity for advancing their peoples’ prospects through practical engagement with the surrounding settler society’s environmental decision-making processes. Substantiated by narrative case studies of three First Nations participants in a multi-sector coalition called the Boreal Leadership Council, I argue that collaborative conservation can be constructively approached as a productive and pragmatic strategy for long-term physical, cultural, and political survival.

This qualitative study explores American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth’s knowledge and access to health information about sexually transmitted diseases and sexually transmitted infections (STDs/STIs). Focus groups and community-based participatory research practices contributed to engaging with youth ages fourteen to twenty-one from two Western tribal communities as well as tribal professionals. Results indicate that tribal youth differed by gender on knowledge-holding, misinformation about STDs/STIs, and access to health professionals. Youth demonstrated knowledge about different STDs/STIs, yet were often misinformed on specific symptoms and treatment. Lack of sexual health access for young men and lack of confidentiality in local health clinics were concerns. Interpersonal communication in dyads and small groups is an important medium in tribal communities and, in reservation-based communities, perhaps more so. The ability of AI/AN youth to discuss sexual health openly, honestly, and authentically holds great promise for designing effective youth messages that target sexually transmitted disease prevention efforts.

This study provides a history of early to mid-twentieth century social worker Jessie Donaldson Schultz’s efforts to assist Northern Plains Native women in establishing economically viable handcraft programs. These projects opened a space for craft workers to perpetuate important traditions and values and assert agency within otherwise constraining circumstances. Northern Plains Native women’s success resulted from their ability to adapt existing traditional social and cultural structures to the demands of twentieth-century handcraft production.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer endured by women on the Hopi Indian Reservation in northern Arizona. Women diagnosed with breast cancer and their family caregivers need knowledge of how other native women living on the reservation have successfully survived. Focus groups were used to explore local perceptions of breast cancer and breast cancer caregiving. Insights gained were incorporated into digital stories on a DVD designed for the Hopi Women’s Health Program (HWHP) as an educational and navigational tool for those receiving a mammogram, those newly diagnosed with breast cancer, their caregivers, and community members at large attending community health events. METHODS: Three separate focus groups representing three different sets of participants were conducted: Hopi female breast cancer survivors, caregivers of Hopi breast cancer survivors, and HWHP staff and community health workers (CHW). RESULTS: Based on three focus group outcomes, conceptual topics were identified and included in the stories created. Story topics were: HWHP information, breast cancer support systems, surviving breast cancer, treatment side effects, and family support. DISCUSSION: The strengths of the project included the development of a strong collaboration with the HWHP; the realization that focus groups are not an appropriate method for gathering personal information, particularly in a small community setting; the integration of local perspective in the creation of a health education tool, specifically the DVD of digital stories; and the successful application of a community based participatory research (CBPR) approach in a Native community. Digital stories created from this project have been used at local community events to educate about breast cancer and caregiving within the Hopi reservation. The primary limitation of the project was the small number of focus group participants.

This paper analyzes the main features of the annual meetings held by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) between 2007 and 2013. The essay presents a brief account concerning the process that led to NAISA’s creation and focuses on the topics that have received wider attention at such meetings and topical variation, as well as the geographical and institutional background of annual meeting participants.