Elizabeth Colson – författare

This book provides a vivid and informative view of life in traditional groups that are ordered mainly through the informal operation of everyday social relations, based on Colson's field research with North American Indians and with peoples in what is now Zambia.

The Makah Indians was first published in 1953. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.Elizabeth Colson lived for a year among the Makah Indians at their reservation at Neah Bay, Washington, while engaged in the field work for this fascinating anthropological study. During that time she made friends with many of the tribe. She shared in their daily living and in their festivities. She listened with an understanding ear to their problems, to their rambling conversations, as well as to their replies in formal interviews.The result is a richly detailed description of how an American Indian group lives in modern society and an acute analysis of their social problems and adjustments.The author describes the land of the Makah, explains the origin of the tribe, and portrays their characteristic traits. In sections on the Makah and the Whites and the Makah and the Outer World, she analyzes group relationships. In another section, she describes the internal tribal rivalries that stem from the Makah tradition. Finally, she discusses the religious concepts and practices.Anthropologists will find the study of primary importance. It is significant to social scientists in other fields as well and to all readers who are concerned about race relations and the special problems of the American Indian. In chronicling the effects of the U.S. Indian Service on one tribe, the book treats an important aspect of American social history.

A picture of a modern American Indian group faced with the problem of understanding its position within American society.

This book provides a vivid and informative view of life in traditional groups that are ordered mainly through the informal operation of everyday social relations, based on Colson''s field research with North American Indians and with peoples in what is now Zambia.

This book provides a vivid and informative view of life in traditional groups that are ordered mainly through the informal operation of everyday social relations, based on Colson''s field research with North American Indians and with peoples in what is now Zambia.

The religious life of the Tonga-speaking peoples of southern Zambia is examined over the last century, in the sense of how they have thought about the nature of their world, the meaning of their own lives, and the sources of good and evil in which their cosmology and society have been transformed. The twelve chapters cover Time, Space and Language; Basic Themes, Tonga Religious Vocabulary and its Referents; the Vocabulary of Shrines and Substance; Homestead and Bush; Ritual Communities and Actors; Rituals of the Life Course; Death and its Rituals; Evil and Witchcraft; and Christianity and Tonga Experience. The author has drawn on dairies by research assistants, and field notes and research of fellow anthropologists, but above all from her own interaction with Tonga people since 1946. The older people gave first hand memories of Ndebele and Lozi raids, David Linvingstone encamped near their villages in 1856 and 1862, the arrival of colonial administrators, traders, missionaries and European and Indian settlers, and in some cases, the end of colonial rule. Their experience and that of their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren provides the basis for understanding Tonga religious experience. Elizabeth Colson is an American anthropologist who is widely published on the Tonga. Her research interests have particularly concentrated on the Gwembe Valley.