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Ancient History in the New World: Integrating Oral Traditions and the Archaeological Record in Deep Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Roger C. Echo-Hawk
Roger C. Echo-Hawk*
Affiliation:
Denver Art Museum, 100 West 14thAvenue Parkway, Denver, Co 80204-2788
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Abstract

Oral traditions provide a viable source of information about historical settings dating back far in time—a fact that has gained increasing recognition in North America, although archaeologists and other scholars typically give minimal attention to this data. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) lists oral traditions as a source of evidence that must be considered by museum and federal agency officials in making findings of cultural affiliation between ancient and modern Native American communities. This paper sets forth the NAGPRA standards and presents an analytical framework under which scholars can proceed with evaluation of historicity in verbal records of the ancient past. The author focuses on an Arikara narrative and argues that it presents a summary of human history in the New World from initial settlement up to the founding of the Arikara homeland in North Dakota. Oral records and the archaeological record describe a shared past and should be viewed as natural partners in post-NAGPRA America. In conceptual terms, scholarship on the past should revisit the bibliocentric assumptions of “prehistory,” and pursue, instead, the study of “ancient American history”-an approach that treats oral documents as respectable siblings of written documents.

Resumen

Resumen

Las tradiciones orales proveen un manatial de informatión sobre escenas historicas muy antiguas—una realidad que ha aumentado en reconocimiento en Norte América, aunque arqueológos y otros académicos tipicamente le prestan atención mínima a estos datos. La ley de repatriación y protectión de tumbas indígenas de 1990 lista tradiciones orales como evidencia que debe considerar se en el establemiento de afiliación cultural entre las comunidades indigenas del pasado y las de tiempo moderno. Museos, agendas federates, tribus indigenas y academicos en los Estados Unidos confrontan un reto especial en dirigir este aspecto de la ley porque existpoca directión en el uso efectivo de tradiciones orales en el estudio de épocas antiguas. Este artículo fija el estándar de la ley de 1990, y también presenta una estructura analítico, donde se puede proceder con la evaluatión de la historicidad en el testimonio verbal del pasado. Enfocándose en la le yenda de origen de los Indios Arikara y otras narraciones indigenas, el autor enseña como testimonios orales dan luz a la historia humana en una época muy antigua—en este caso, de la población initial del Nuevo Mundo un tiempo reciente en los grandes llanos. Este análisis tiene implicaciones importantes para la construcción de modelos de la historia humana. Los testimonios oral y arqueológico se deben ver como complementos la ley de 1990. Esta perspectiva coneptualiza a la historia indigena norteamericana como dependiente no solo en documentos escritos una disciplina pero en tradiciones orales.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , April 2000 , pp. 267 - 290
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2000

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