I am an Assistant Professor at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota. I teach in the Department of Anthropology and the Native American Studies Program. I am also a Research Associate at the American Indian Studies Research Institute at Indiana University, Bloomington. My dissertation, “Transmitting Sacred Knowledge: Aspects of Historical and Contemporary Oglala Lakota Belief and Ritual,” examines Oglala Lakota religious belief and ritual practice and how they inform and impact identity formation and politics. Based on historical sources and over twenty months of fieldwork, my dissertation traces the development of Lakota religion from the pre-reservation period to the present. Examining religious continuity and innovation, I address Lakota conceptions of what it means to be traditional and why spirituality is such an enduring and significant part of Oglala identity. I see religion not as merely epiphenomenal to notions of power relations and social structures but as foundational to culture and society, both as an organizer of individual experience and social relations and as the provider of core cultural symbols. Supervisors: Raymond DeMallie, Douglas Parks, Jason Jackson, and Christina Snyder Address: Vermillion, South Dakota, United States
Journal for the Anthropology of North America, 2019
This paper examines continuity and change in Lakota belief and ritual, focusing on the social org... more This paper examines continuity and change in Lakota belief and ritual, focusing on the social organization of contemporary Lakota ceremonial life. For many Lakotas of Pine Ridge Reservation ritual structures life. The contemporary religious landscape consists of a number of ritual groups, which I call ritual thiyóšpayes, after the Lakota word for band or lodge group, the extended family and historical basic unit of kinship. At the center of these groups is a religious practitioner, a symbol of group identity and solidarity. Ritual thiyóšpayes consist of core and sub-core member families that regularly attend rituals and other corporately sponsored social events. The cohesion of a ritual thiyóšpaye is based largely on equality, mutual help, participation, and one-mindedness. The relationship between a practitioner and his ritual thiyóšpaye is dynamic, characterized by reciprocity, mutual influence, and exchange: the practitioner shapes the beliefs, worldview, and identity of his followers, symbolizing the group to both members and nonmem-bers, while simultaneously being shaped by his followers as a representative of their social, psychological, and religious needs, beliefs, and values. Although patterns of social interaction have changed since the dawn of the reservation period, there remains a distinct and undeniable continuity with past traditions. Ontological approaches in anthropology have been hotly debated in recent years (Posthumus 2017). Some unifying themes in this diverse body of research involve the exploration of the composition and character of alter worlds and the assumption that different peoples inhabit different, oftentimes conflicting realities (see Descola 2013; Henare, Holbraad, and Wastell 2007; Posthumus 2018; Viveiros de Castro 1998). While there are many trends and foci in anthropology's ontological turn, not all suffer from the methodological problems noted in a number of critical assessments. According to Michael L. Cepek, some recent anthropological investigations of ontology "focus on the bare content of abstract propositions while paying little attention to their pragmatic function, epistemological stance, affective tone, and position in a division of linguistic and conceptual labor" (Cepek 2016, 624). While this may be true of some inflections of ontologically minded anthropology, other studies pay careful attention to history and context, producing accurate ethnographies that are also theoretically engaging. For instance , neither Cepek (2016) nor Graeber (2015) mention the work of Philippe Descola (2013) in their critiques of ontological anthropology. I questioned Graeber about this omission via email, and his response was that he does not think Descola is really entirely an ontologically inclined anthropologist, per se, but rather he is a structuralist describing models that are never purely instantiated as such. In this article, I explore the role of ceremony in the social organization of contemporary Lakota (Western [Teton] Sioux) culture. Although I firmly believe in the importance of describing to the best of our abilities the worldviews of people different from ourselves and seriously engaging with alter belief systems, my attention to religion in this article does not take on the baggage of cosmological concerns. Rather, it demonstrates how ceremonial life or religious belief and ritual is interconnected with other aspects of life, in this case kinship and social organization, and how carefully contextualizing studies of alter worlds in their cultural, historical, and sociopolitical frameworks can hopefully remedy the meth-odological problems plaguing some of the studies in the so-called ontological turn.
This article is a reinterpretation of the ethnohistorical literature on the Lakota or Western (Te... more This article is a reinterpretation of the ethnohistorical literature on the Lakota or Western (Teton) Sioux from a Descolian animist perspective. Applying key insights from what has been called the " ontological turn, " in particular, the dual notions of interiority and physicality and an extended notion of personhood that includes nonhumans as well as humans, this article demonstrates how a new ani-mist framework can connect and articulate otherwise disparate and obscure elements of Lakota ethnography, offering new and exciting insights, along with the potential for a deeper understanding of traditional Lakota culture. Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love! Every seed is awakened, and all animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land. — Sitting Bull (in Eastman 1991: 119) From Wakan Tanka there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things— the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals— and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred and brought together by the same Great Mystery. Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle. —Luther Standing Bear (2006a: 193)
Journal for the Anthropology of North America, 2019
This paper examines continuity and change in Lakota belief and ritual, focusing on the social org... more This paper examines continuity and change in Lakota belief and ritual, focusing on the social organization of contemporary Lakota ceremonial life. For many Lakotas of Pine Ridge Reservation ritual structures life. The contemporary religious landscape consists of a number of ritual groups, which I call ritual thiyóšpayes, after the Lakota word for band or lodge group, the extended family and historical basic unit of kinship. At the center of these groups is a religious practitioner, a symbol of group identity and solidarity. Ritual thiyóšpayes consist of core and sub-core member families that regularly attend rituals and other corporately sponsored social events. The cohesion of a ritual thiyóšpaye is based largely on equality, mutual help, participation, and one-mindedness. The relationship between a practitioner and his ritual thiyóšpaye is dynamic, characterized by reciprocity, mutual influence, and exchange: the practitioner shapes the beliefs, worldview, and identity of his followers, symbolizing the group to both members and nonmem-bers, while simultaneously being shaped by his followers as a representative of their social, psychological, and religious needs, beliefs, and values. Although patterns of social interaction have changed since the dawn of the reservation period, there remains a distinct and undeniable continuity with past traditions. Ontological approaches in anthropology have been hotly debated in recent years (Posthumus 2017). Some unifying themes in this diverse body of research involve the exploration of the composition and character of alter worlds and the assumption that different peoples inhabit different, oftentimes conflicting realities (see Descola 2013; Henare, Holbraad, and Wastell 2007; Posthumus 2018; Viveiros de Castro 1998). While there are many trends and foci in anthropology's ontological turn, not all suffer from the methodological problems noted in a number of critical assessments. According to Michael L. Cepek, some recent anthropological investigations of ontology "focus on the bare content of abstract propositions while paying little attention to their pragmatic function, epistemological stance, affective tone, and position in a division of linguistic and conceptual labor" (Cepek 2016, 624). While this may be true of some inflections of ontologically minded anthropology, other studies pay careful attention to history and context, producing accurate ethnographies that are also theoretically engaging. For instance , neither Cepek (2016) nor Graeber (2015) mention the work of Philippe Descola (2013) in their critiques of ontological anthropology. I questioned Graeber about this omission via email, and his response was that he does not think Descola is really entirely an ontologically inclined anthropologist, per se, but rather he is a structuralist describing models that are never purely instantiated as such. In this article, I explore the role of ceremony in the social organization of contemporary Lakota (Western [Teton] Sioux) culture. Although I firmly believe in the importance of describing to the best of our abilities the worldviews of people different from ourselves and seriously engaging with alter belief systems, my attention to religion in this article does not take on the baggage of cosmological concerns. Rather, it demonstrates how ceremonial life or religious belief and ritual is interconnected with other aspects of life, in this case kinship and social organization, and how carefully contextualizing studies of alter worlds in their cultural, historical, and sociopolitical frameworks can hopefully remedy the meth-odological problems plaguing some of the studies in the so-called ontological turn.
This article is a reinterpretation of the ethnohistorical literature on the Lakota or Western (Te... more This article is a reinterpretation of the ethnohistorical literature on the Lakota or Western (Teton) Sioux from a Descolian animist perspective. Applying key insights from what has been called the " ontological turn, " in particular, the dual notions of interiority and physicality and an extended notion of personhood that includes nonhumans as well as humans, this article demonstrates how a new ani-mist framework can connect and articulate otherwise disparate and obscure elements of Lakota ethnography, offering new and exciting insights, along with the potential for a deeper understanding of traditional Lakota culture. Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love! Every seed is awakened, and all animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land. — Sitting Bull (in Eastman 1991: 119) From Wakan Tanka there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things— the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals— and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred and brought together by the same Great Mystery. Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle. —Luther Standing Bear (2006a: 193)
Uploads