Algunas máscaras históricas de los pueblos indígenas de las Grandes Llanuras de Norteamérica presentan diseños que muestran similitudes formales con los encontrados en el arte rupestre y en los objetos de concha que se intercambiaban en gran parte de esta región durante la época precolombina. En este artículo se argumenta que estas semejanzas no son fruto de la casualidad. Para ello, se examinan las pruebas de la persistencia de las creencias asociadas a la iconografía precolombina y se analizan los repertorios de la tradición oral que indican que las máscaras documentadas en contextos etnográficos continuaron desempeñando una función central en ritos y ceremonias. Al abordar el rol de la cultura material en las sociedades nativas de Norteamérica, se destaca una tipología de objetos rituales que aún no ha recibido la debida atención académica. Se propone que estos objetos se interpreten como parte de las prácticas indígenas de transformación, basadas en ideas de relaciones interespecie y de comunicación con seres no humanos, que están enraizadas en iconografías e ideologías religiosas del pasado.

Published studies about Native North American representations of Europeans have mostly concentrated on exogenous influences on Indigenous visual expressions through art historical theories and methods. Here historical Native American imagery of colonists is contextualised in local visual cultures based on principles and cultural logics that challenge received knowledge about portraiture, naturalism, likeness, and individualization. The article argues that formalist interpretations of Indigenous portraits of Europeans made by Plains Native peoples fall short of understanding the motivations, functions, and reasoning applied by Indigenous observers to different types of representations. Based on what is currently known of Native North American Plains Native peoples, this account of three different typologies of portraits made between the 18th and mid-19th c. presents an unprecedented interpretation of non-Western visual cultures that combine art history and visual anthropology.

The few existing pictures of Indigenous peoples of Baja California before the age of photography offer a precious window into the peninsula's past inhabitants. The synoptic analysis of the material culture depicted in this imagery, from both religious and secular sources, reveals that the credibility of the pictures is based on highly contingent notions of truth that emerge from contextual relationships between images and texts. The essay maintains that representational differences mirror distinct ways of thinking about the depiction of ethnographic subjects. Although variability in style may depend on artistic ability and skill, diversity in subject and mode of representation are as much the product of multiple intermedial entanglements as they are the result of implicit aims and purposes. This unprecedented comparative exercise, while eliciting questions about what counts as accuracy in distinctive artistic and literary genres, encourages a reflection on the nature and role of images whose lives straddle between art and anthropology.

Depictions of male primary sexual characteristics are extremely varied and relatively frequent in Plains Indian rock art. These representations have been usually associated with shamanic practice, mythical themes, and fertility. However, existing explanations ought to be evaluated against cultural models and various strands of evidence derived from ethnographic parallels and semiotics so as to build a more nuanced picture of this common symbol. New interpretations advanced here may help us to gain an informed understanding of the complexities of these representations, and the workings of symbols and icons in Northern Plains Indian rock art.

With this publication on the artist, collector, and ethnographer Frederick Weygold (1870–1941), Christian Feest and Ronald Corum turn the spotlight on one of the most prolific – and probably lesser known – museum ethnographers in the history of collections. The book was written to accompany an exhibition presented in 2017 at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, which now houses an extensive portion of Weygold’s legacy. It includes a catalogue prepared by Kim Spence, listing all the items displayed in the show and divided according to their present-day museum locations. The publication is the result of a long-term project that brought together Feest’s expertise and knowledge of Native American cultures with neuropsychologist Ronald Corum’s linguistic proficiency in Lakota language and experience with the Lakota people. As the authors state, Weygold is hardly known outside the German-speaking world, mostly because his research was conducted in Germany itself, but his overall contribution to the study and diffusion of knowledge concerning North American Indians is substantially evident in the many objects he collected and drew. A scholarly focus on this figure is therefore a welcome addition to the research on Native American collections and archival material in European and North American museum and institutions.

An analysis of terms, and keywords that have appeared over the last 50 years in the Anthropological Index (now AIO) challenges anthropology's purported universal coverage of regions and topics. Anthropological article production published in specialized periodicals leaves many areas uncovered, some topics marginalized, or absent. The article takes the presence or absence of keywords in articles in anthropological literature from all world regions to ask what may have generated these gaps. We argue that keyword use can reveal the role that geographical positioning, languages spoken, and national histories may have had in anthropological production. Shamanism and cognate concepts such as animism and spirit possession are taken to guide an analysis of the anthropological production in different languages through the use of keywords that appear in the coverage of AIO. The research demonstrates how far keywords use is shaped by contingent adjustments to predicaments and theoretical concerns with complex historical roots.

This preliminary evaluation of depictions of the human face among North American Plains Indians elicits questions regarding non-Western approaches to portraiture at the interface between visual regimes and experiential approaches to reality. It shows how the appearance of mimetic naturalism in this regional art reflects more profound changes in perceptions of reality and personhood engendered by the colonial encounter. In so doing, the essay aims at reframing the questions we ask about Native American arts by incorporating indigenous approaches to experience and vision that may help us reformulate how we talk about arts outside the Western canon.

Early rounds of what is known as "bar hopping" with my best friend. As we sit down in one of the many gay bars scattered around central London, I spot a photograph hanging from the walls of this popular establishment: "What is an obviously buffed-up European man dressed in Native American attire doing in front of what appears to be the bar's façade?" His picture hangs among photos of cowboys, sailors, workmen in hard hats, police-men, and leather-clad imposing figures wearing mirror shades. I slowly begin to recognize familiar references in this photo and the series it is part of. It is obviously a modern photographic take on the popular 1970s gay pop group The Village People. During a long career in commercial music the stylish American band fixed stereotypes in the gay imagination across the world, which epitomized the diversity that seemingly characterizes the gay universe. The only difference in this case, I quickly figure out, is that the Indian is not an indigenous American like the original group member, Felipe Rose. Rather, he is a European, almost certainly chosen for the photo shoot for his good looks among the many male prostitutes who populate London's gay world while aspiring to become internationally renowned models. The fetishized stillness of photography triggers in me a series of questions: what are the predicaments and conditions that permit these representations to emerge and be popularly consumed by large numbers of European gays? Why do Native Americans have such a privileged place in gay men's imaginary repertoire? What is it about the American Indian that continues to fascinate Europeans and, in particular, gay men? Surely, it is no coincidence that they feature a great deal more than any other ethnic group in the representations destined to a European gay public. A realistic estimate, I reflect.KeywordsIndigenous PeopleCultural SymbolVillage PeopleSexual MeaningPhoto ShootThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

of the Plains explores the art of North American Plains Indian warriors - weapons, amulets, clothing and ceremonial objects - with particular emphasis on their use and symbolic meanings. Unlike most books on Plains Indians, which have a purely historical focus, this title examines continuity and change between historic warrior societies and contemporary Native American military associations. Originally set up as clubs to organise war raids and to police seasonal cycles of nomadic hunting, warrior societies today maintain much of the Plains Indians' ethos, vigorously reinforcing their cultural, national and ethnic identity. With a new approach to the subject the author reveals how specific items and symbols - objects of ritual and - such as the American flag, eagle feathers and medicine bundles have been used over the last 200 years, as well as exploring the introduction of new elements in modern ceremonial practices such as powwow dance competitions and war veterans' celebrations. Lavishly illustrated with objects from the British Museum's important collections, as well as archival material, this book features previously unpublished material. Max Carocci has been conducting research on Plains Indians since 1989. Since 2006 he has been researching and collecting in this area for the British Museum and is the curator of the touring exhibition Warriors of the Plains: 200 years of Native North American honour and ritual. He lectures on Indigenous American Arts at Birkbeck College, University of London and is editor of the Anthropological Index Online run by the Royal Anthropological Institute. 160p, 150 col illus (British Museum Press, 2012)

Ripe for Colonial Exploitation: Ancient Traditions of Violence and Enmity as Preludes to the Indian Slave Trade - Marvin D. Jeter * The Emergence of the Colonial South: Colonial Indian Slaving and the Fall of the Pre-Contact Mississippian World and the Emergence of a New Social Geography in the American South, 1540-1730 - Robbie Ethridge * Southeastern Indian Polities of the Seventeenth Century: Suggestions toward an Analytical Vocabulary - Eric E. Bowne * From Captives to Kin: Indian Slavery and Changing Social Identities on the Louisiana Colonial Frontier - Dayna Bowker Lee * Capturing Captivity: Visual Imaginings of the English and Powhatan Encounter Accompanying the Virginia Narratives of John Smith and Ralph Hamor, 1612 - 1634 - Stephanie Pratt * Strategies of (Un)belonging: The Captivities of John Smith, Olaudah Equiano, and John Marrant - Susan Castillo * Captive or Captivated: Rethinking Encounters in Early Colonial America - Patrick Minges * A Christian Disposition: Religious Identity in the Meeker Captivity Narrative - Brandi Denison * Visual Representation as a Method of Discourse on Captivity, Focussed on Cynthia Ann Parker - Lin Holdridge * Reflections and Refractions from the Southwest Borderlands - James F. Brooks

This article examines textile industries related to the plant known as 'Spanish Moss' (Tillandsia usneoides) that were developed by Native Americans over the centuries. In revising the known historical accounts that mention this plant either as garment or as domestic textile, it reveals a widespread and refined empirical knowledge of Spanish Moss ecology that continues into the present day with important implications for the maintenance of cultural continuity and identity among Native Americans of the southeast United States. In this first, comprehensive look at documents that make reference to the plant, indigenous North American Spanish Moss textiles and garments are analysed from an anthropological perspective that highlights the significance of social and cultural meanings embodied in objects. The framework provided by this perspective indicates how a comparative anthropological interpretation of past records that mention Spanish Moss textile industries can be useful to reconstruct hidden, or poorly known histories of textiles. Whilst data generated by a fresh look at the sources can enrich the existing literature about the plant, they simultaneously contribute to further developing methodologies suitable to an understanding of culturally specific knowledge associated with weaving and manufacturing processes.

Around the world responses to AIDS and HIV are expressed in material form through idioms mediated by particular social and historical contingencies. In this article I examine at the case of AIDS memorial quilts produced by contemporary Native Americans. The invisible connections between people, their histories, and cultures that are materialized in this particular form of textiles make them culturally significant vehicles for healing practices for many Native Americans, who maintain that the acknowledgment of customary meanings ensures ritual efficacy and curing success. As a particular response to AIDS, grief, death, and healing these objects reveal the social relevance of expressing materially culturally encoded messages that are simultaneously rooted in universally shared idioms and the uniqueness of local experiences.

During the last few years anthropological research conducted among North American Indians has shown a high level of variability in its perceptions of gender, sex, and sexuality.1 Most of this research concentrated on the ideologies and norms underpinning social and ritual obligations as a means to determine the levels of institutionalization of roles assigned to individuals whose gender crossed or mixed men and women’s traits.2 To this day, not much attention has been given to indigenous representations of gender variability in North America, with the notable exception of minor interpretations of ambiguous figures in the rich iconography of Southwestern and Eastern peoples from prehistoric to historic times.3 Although a considerable amount of work has been done on Plains Indian pictorial conventions, specific research on representations of gender has been published only recently.4 In particular, the only articles about the iconography of gender variability in this region briefly concentrated on the female body.5 Despite a long history of academic interest in male gender variability among Plains Indians, there are few references to its visual representations; yet no proper analysis of the several known portraits of male gender variant individuals exists for the Plains area.6 This is in contrast to a modest body of research whose focus is the artistic production and material culture of some Plains Indian males who either donned women’s clothes or, because they crossed occupational boundaries, were considered to belong to a gender that was alternative to that of man or woman.7 This article will analyze the few published references to gender variation among Plains Indians in order to contribute to a growing corpus of literature concerned with building a more complete picture of the social and cultural lives of individuals accustomed to these practices. In recent years these

The article looks at historical narratives of enslavement circulating among contemporary Native Americans. These narratives, the author argues, constitute an important element in the construction of current tribal identities as much as they are relevant for a reflection about the role played by hegemonic racial discourses in the politics surrounding ethnically‐tied resources.

The Second Native North American Film Festival, London, 26–28 November 2004

Huis van Chièvre, Leuven, Belgium, 3‐5 May 2004