[Review of] Stewart Culin. Games of North America Indians

About a dozen years ago, I had the opportunity to buy Stewart Culin\u27s classic work, Garnes of tile North American Indians, published in the 1902-1903 annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE), Smithsonian Institution. The original edition numbered 9,682 copies, of which almost half went to the United States Congress. Beautifully illustrated with more than one thousand figures (mainly drawings of recreative artifacts, plus 21 photographic plates), the heavy and gold-embossed volume was offered for $175 by an antique dealer in Maine. Because I knew the fellow, he was willing to shave$50 from the price. Although this was still a fortune for me at the time, I made the purchase, and the book continues to serve me as a reference. Today, this original edition is difficult to get and, no doubt, even more expensive. Because of its ongoing significance as a rich source of detailed information about traditional native entertainment, I welcome its republication by the University of Nebraska Press. The moderate price of this new edition puts Culin\u27s treasure within financial reach of many

Journal Cover, TOC, and Preface

Cover, Editors and Editorial Board and Table of Contents with authors names. Also Preface

Genetic Drivers of Heterogeneity in Type 2 Diabetes Pathophysiology

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a heterogeneous disease that develops through diverse pathophysiological processes1,2 and molecular mechanisms that are often specific to cell type3,4. Here, to characterize the genetic contribution to these processes across ancestry groups, we aggregate genome-wide association study data from 2,535,601 individuals (39.7% not of European ancestry), including 428,452 cases of T2D. We identify 1,289 independent association signals at genome-wide significance (P \u3c 5 × 10-8) that map to 611 loci, of which 145 loci are, to our knowledge, previously unreported. We define eight non-overlapping clusters of T2D signals that are characterized by distinct profiles of cardiometabolic trait associations. These clusters are differentially enriched for cell-type-specific regions of open chromatin, including pancreatic islets, adipocytes, endothelial cells and enteroendocrine cells. We build cluster-specific partitioned polygenic scores5 in a further 279,552 individuals of diverse ancestry, including 30,288 cases of T2D, and test their association with T2D-related vascular outcomes. Cluster-specific partitioned polygenic scores are associated with coronary artery disease, peripheral artery disease and end-stage diabetic nephropathy across ancestry groups, highlighting the importance of obesity-related processes in the development of vascular outcomes. Our findings show the value of integrating multi-ancestry genome-wide association study data with single-cell epigenomics to disentangle the aetiological heterogeneity that drives the development and progression of T2D. This might offer a route to optimize global access to genetically informed diabetes care

Genetic drivers of heterogeneity in type 2 diabetes pathophysiology

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a heterogeneous disease that develops through diverse pathophysiological processes1,2 and molecular mechanisms that are often specific to cell type3,4. Here, to characterize the genetic contribution to these processes across ancestry groups, we aggregate genome-wide association study data from 2,535,601 individuals (39.7% not of European ancestry), including 428,452 cases of T2D. We identify 1,289 independent association signals at genome-wide significance (P &lt; 5 × 10-8) that map to 611 loci, of which 145 loci are, to our knowledge, previously unreported. We define eight non-overlapping clusters of T2D signals that are characterized by distinct profiles of cardiometabolic trait associations. These clusters are differentially enriched for cell-type-specific regions of open chromatin, including pancreatic islets, adipocytes, endothelial cells and enteroendocrine cells. We build cluster-specific partitioned polygenic scores5 in a further 279,552 individuals of diverse ancestry, including 30,288 cases of T2D, and test their association with T2D-related vascular outcomes. Cluster-specific partitioned polygenic scores are associated with coronary artery disease, peripheral artery disease and end-stage diabetic nephropathy across ancestry groups, highlighting the importance of obesity-related processes in the development of vascular outcomes. Our findings show the value of integrating multi-ancestry genome-wide association study data with single-cell epigenomics to disentangle the aetiological heterogeneity that drives the development and progression of T2D. This might offer a route to optimize global access to genetically informed diabetes care.</p

Fine-mapping type 2 diabetes loci to single-variant resolution using high-density imputation and islet-specific epigenome maps

We expanded GWAS discovery for type 2 diabetes (T2D) by combining data from 898,130 European-descent individuals (9% cases), after imputation to high-density reference panels. With these data, we (i) extend the inventory of T2D-risk variants (243 loci,135 newly implicated in T2D predisposition, comprising 403 distinct association signals); (ii) enrich discovery of lower-frequency risk alleles (80 index variants with minor allele frequency 2); (iii) substantially improve fine-mapping of causal variants (at 51 signals, one variant accounted for >80% posterior probability of association (PPA)); (iv) extend fine-mapping through integration of tissue-specific epigenomic information (islet regulatory annotations extend the number of variants with PPA >80% to 73); (v) highlight validated therapeutic targets (18 genes with associations attributable to coding variants); and (vi) demonstrate enhanced potential for clinical translation (genome-wide chip heritability explains 18% of T2D risk; individuals in the extremes of a T2D polygenic risk score differ more than ninefold in prevalence).Peer reviewe

Two George Washington medals: Missing links in the chain of friendship between the United States and the Wabanaki Confederacy

The author discusses the origins and ownership of two peace medals presented by George Washington

To the Land of the Mistogoches: American Indians Traveling to Europe in the Age of Exploration

[T]hey had observed that there were men amongst us, full and gorged with all kinds of good things, and that their [compatriots] were begging at their doors, emaciated with hunger and poverty; and that they thought it strange how these have-nots could suffer such injustice,and that they did not seize the others by the throat or set fires to their houses." -Montaigne writing about the observations of Tupinambh visiting Rouen, 1562 By the time English Pilgrims sailing on the Mayflower landed on the shore of Massachusetts in 1620, perhaps as many as two thousand American Indians had already made the passage to Western Europe. About two-thirds went as captives, usually sold as slaves, but, of these unfortunates, almost all went to Europe before 1500 A.D. Although Indian slaving continued afterwards, few of the subsequent transatlantic voyages with Indians on board involved people destined for the slave markets of Spain and Portugal. Indeed, the vast majority of the voyages after 1500 A.D. were made by American Indians who traveled for other reasons-as adventurers, envoys, sightseers, or performers. As far as we know, they did not write down their observations. However, the Europeans with whom they had contact sometimes did. On the basis of ships' logs, merchant reports, travel accounts, and other historical records, we can usually determine their ethnic identities