Anthropos: Anthropos, 78.1983,1-4

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschrift

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-d-4754913

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-d-4754913

Persistenter Identifier:: BV043334262

Titel:: Anthropos

Erscheinungsort:: Fribourg

Verlag:: Ed. St. Paul

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1906

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Allgemeines

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenband

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-d-4747947

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-d-4747947

Persistenter Identifier:: 1513160147092

Titel:: Anthropos, 78.1983,1-4

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1983

Signatur:: LA 1118

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenheft

Titel:: Bd. 78, 1983, Heft 3-4

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Zeitschriftenartikel

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenartikel

Titel:: Numic Religion: An Overview of Power in the Great Basin of Native North America

Sonstige Person:: Miller, Jay

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

338 Jay Miller Anthropos 78.1983 but productive environment. This concern has so dominated Basin research, however, that the full sweep of its lifeways and intricate symbol systems has been largely ignored. Heretofore, the theoretical focus of all this research has been either descriptive ethnography or cultural ecology, with the focus most decidedly on ecology rather than on culture. Most recently, with the possible deployment of MX missle bases, min ing operations, and utility expansions, Basin religious sites have been destroyed or threatened, much as local food resources were destroyed over a hundred years ago by Christians and their livestock (Andrus 1979; Hartigan 1980; Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada 1976a-d). The primary and—except for the Hokan-speaking Washo around Lake Tahoe—the sole occupants of the Great Basin are members of the Numic family of languages within the Uto-Aztecan stock. The Numic languages fanned out from the vicinity of Death Valley and diversified into three closely related branches. Southern Numic is represented by Kawaisu, Cheme- huevi, a dozen Southern Paiute (Nuwuvi) groups, and Ute. Central Numic includes Panamint, Western Shoshoni (Newe) and Gosiute, Northern Sho- shoni, and Eastern (Wind River-Comanche) Shoshoni. Western Numic em braces Mono and several Northern Paiute (Numa) bands noted for their lake-based economy and expansion into the Oregon and Idaho salmon fisheries. Today, most people live on reservations, often near or on their traditional territories or, for reasons of steady employment, have settled at colonies consisting of reserved plots of land near ranches, towns, settle ments, and cities. Extensive visiting and movement between areas is still the norm as it was in aboriginal times, but the money economy has all but replaced a primary reliance on foraging [Facilitators 1980). At present, no general overview of Basin religion exists in print, except for the study of shamanism by Park (1938) and some treatments of the Circle, Bear, and Cry ceremonies. These works on religious practices and beliefs, however, do not constitute a systematic treatment of the basic theology. Such an overview requires that we shift the focus of research from society, the behavioral component of human life, to culture, the semantic- conceptual dimension. Ignoring this distinction between society and culture, Ralph Linton (in Harris 1940:117) made the absurd comment that “Aboriginal White Knife culture was so simple and amorphous that there was little to be destroyed by European contact.” As a canon of anthropology, cultural relativism has been virtually ignored when Basin data are used in comparisons, neglecting to realize that while the societies were rather elementary, the mental elaboration of the cultures was on a par with any other culture. Our concern, therefore, is less of what people do and more of what they think, with the caveate that the two are of course closely related and that the thoughts of some people are more important than those of others, much as the advice of a recognized expert is more valuable than that of a novice. In actual practice, these important thinkers were usually shamans, but sometimes they can be people so physically incapacitated yet mentally

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