RITUAL PAGEANTRY IN THE AMERICAN WEST A WYOMING CASE STUDY

Festivals that celebrate the founding of the town or a similar historical event of local or regional significance are common throughout the United States. In this paper I analyze the annual reenactment in Thermopolis, Wyoming, of the Shoshoni tribe\u27s cession to the whites of control over several thermal springs, an event that led to the founding of the town. I show that the reenactment is an idealized interpretation of various historical events recorded and portrayed in poetic form by a group of townspeople with the limited participation of a few Shoshoni families from Wind River Reservation. I argue that the local event is in effect a ritual performance in which the past is reworked to reflect and justify contemporary values and social situations, in this case, white control and development of the hot springs. My analysis has been influenced by the work of sociocultural anthropologists and folklorists who have described and interpreted the role of contemporary celebrations in American society. Celebrations are cultural performances, dramatic presentations of symbols that may contain elements of play and ritual. Townspeople in Thermopolis call their celebration the Gift of the Waters Pageant, implicitly pointing out the colorful and dramatic aspects of the presentation. The pageant is a type of cultural performance that appears to follow closely a ritual mode since ritual generally confirms the social order and is highly regulated. Cultural performances provide occasions for a group to reflect upon and define itself, to dramatize collective myths and history, to present alternatives to the status quo, and to promote stability in some ways and change in others. For Thermopolis, the reenactment promotes a particular view of history, a view that celebrates the Indians for their harmonious natural lifestyle while relegating them to the past. The reenactment also promotes the development of the springs since this development has appropriately occurred for the social good rather than for selfish economic gain

Beyond Bukhara: trade, identity and interregional exchange across Asia

This article explores the nature of inter-Asian trade dynamics through a consideration of the role played by traders from northern Afghanistan’s Central Asian borderlands. It explores the role that traders from this region have played in commercial exchanges involving China, the Arabian Peninsula and a range of settings in West Asia. In addition to documenting the inter-Asian scope of these traders’ activities, the article also addresses the shifting nature of their identity formations in relationship to successive waves of migration. The traders often identify themselves in relationship to ethno-national identity categories (Turkmen, Uzbek and Tajik) that are politically salient in Central Asia and Afghanistan today. At the same time, the traders also emphasise their being from families that migrated from the territories of the Emirate of Bukhara during the early years of communist rule in the 1920s and 1930s. In the context of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, many of these families moved from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia, often staying for several years in cities and towns in Pakistan. Over the past three decades, Central Asian émigré families have increasingly established their businesses and communities in the Arabian Peninsula and Turkey; they also run offices in the trading cities of maritime China

Occasional Paper (Asia Society. Afghanistan Council), No. 19

This material from the personal archives of Professor M. Mobin Shorish is made available by the University of Arizona Libraries as part of the Afghanistan Digital Collections. Email [email protected] with your questions about this collection

The kottak antropology atlas

This atlas, which offers important reference maps to help students, is shirk wrapped with every copy of each kottak text.xiv, 41 p.: ilus.; 26 c

The kottak antropology atlas

This atlas, which offers important reference maps to help students, is shirk wrapped with every copy of each kottak text.xiv, 41 p.: ilus.; 26 c

Students atlas of anthropology

178 p. ; 28 c

The kottak anthropology atlas

xiv, 41 p. ; 24 c