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Archaeology FrontierPapers In ArchaeologyNative American Oral Traditions and ArchaeologyThe purpose of this position paper is to present ideas to the Arizona Archaeological Council membership on the appropriate use of oral traditions in archaeological research. It provides a basis for continuing a dialogue between Native Americans and archaeologists about how and why archaeology is conducted in Arizona. Historical Perspective on the Use of Oral Traditions in Archaeology The first archaeologists to work in the Southwest had a keen interest in the relationship between Native American oral traditions and the archaeological record. Archaeologists such as Victor Mindeleff, Frank Hamilton Cushing, Cosmos Mindeleff, and Jesse Walter Fewkes (1900, Tusayan Migration Traditions. In Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the Years 1897-1898, Part. 2, pp. 573-634. Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C.) routinely collected information about Native American oral traditions and used it in their research to help interpret the chronology, function, and cultural affiliation of the archaeological sites they investigated. During this period, Fewkes (1900:579) astutely observed that "This work...can best be done under guidance of the Indians by an ethno-archaeologist, who can bring as a preparation for his work an intimate knowledge of the present life of the Hopi villagers." In the early 20th century, however, many cultural anthropologists began to discount the historical value of Native American oral traditions. Writing about the Zuni, for instance, A. L. Kroeber (1917, Zuņi Kin and Clan. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, 18(2):39-204) noted, "The habitual attitude of the Zuņi, then, is unhistorical...That now and then he may preserve fragments of a knowledge of the past that approximate what we consider history, is not to be doubted. But it is equally certain that such recollection is casual and contrary to the usual temper of his mind." Similarly, Robert H. Lowie said, "I cannot attach to oral traditions any historical value under any conditions whatsoever" (quoted in F. Eggan, 1967, From History to Myth: A Hopi Example. In Studies in Southwestern Ethnolinguistics, edited by D. Hymes, pp. 33-53. Mouton: The Hague). Archaeologists were influenced by the attitudes of cultural anthropologists, and for many decades, oral traditions were generally ignored in archaeological research. |
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