Yuchi Ceremonial Life: Performance, Meaning, and Tradition in a Contemporary American Indian Community (Studies in the...

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 350 pages
• Published by: University of Nebraska Press November 1, 2005
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0803276281
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0803276284
• Book Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 14.4 ounces

Product Review
"[Jackson''s] considerable sensitivity to his cultural consultants and winsome writing style make this book a standout among ethnological works. . . . This book makes a valuable contribution to literature about tribes originating in the southeastern US, and is even more valuable as a model of commitment to the ethical exploration and documentation of intimate ceremonial identity."-Choice (Choice )

"Useful as a primer on the Yuchi. I am certain students and researchers alike will benefit from consulting this book."-Joe Watkins, Journal of Anthropological Research (Joe Watkins Journal of Anthropological Research )

"Yuchi Ceremonial Life is first-rate ethnography. . . . Its analysis of ceremonial life allows the Yuchi people to emerge as a distinct and vibrant community, an importance that has historical and political ramifications. . . . It will undoubtedly contribute to the ongoing attempt by Yuchis themselves to create a written record of their lives."-Andrew K. Frank, Indigenous Nations Studies Journal (Andrew K. Frank Indigenous Nations Studies Journal )

"One may now consider the outstanding scholarship of Jason Baird Jackson in Yuchi Ceremonial Life. His research and interaction with surviving Yuchis, in Oklahoma, has revealed them and their unique culture, finally, to all-thus ripping the veil that has hidden them. . . . To read Yuchi Ceremonial Life is to discover how little one knows about life, the past, and thousands of faceless peoples who were here in advance of the Euro-Americans. In short, this is a wonderful, perceptive study for those with interests in native history, ethnography, anthropology, and Americana."-The Chronicles of Oklahoma (The Chronicles of Oklahoma )

The writing is pleasantly fluent. The author includes many texts of oratory and commentary. The illustrations, maps and tables are useful as are the two brief appendixes. The encouraging implicit message of this book is that extensive cultural change does not necessarily entail the extinction of ethnographic interest."-R. H. Barnes, Anthropos (R. H. Barnes Anthropos ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description
The Yuchis are one of the least known yet most distinctive of the Native groups in the American southeast. Located in late prehistoric times in eastern Tennessee, they played an important historical role at various times during the last five centuries and in many ways served as a bridge between their southeastern neighbors and Native communities in the northeast. First noted by the de Soto expedition in the sixteenth century, the Yuchis moved several times and made many alliances over the next few centuries. The famous naturalist William Bartram visited a Yuchi town in 1775, at a time when the Yuchis had moved near and become allied with Creek communities in Georgia. This alliance had long-lasting repercussions: when the United States government forced most southeastern groups to move to Oklahoma in the early nineteenth century, the Yuchis were classified as Creeks and placed under the jurisdiction of the Creek Nation. Today, despite the existence of a separate language and their distinct history, culture, and religious traditions, the Yuchis are not recognized as a sovereign people by the Creek Nation or the United States. Jason Baird Jackson looks at the significance of community ceremonies for the Yuchis today. For many Yuchis, traditional rituals remain important to their identity, and they feel an obligation to perform and renew them each year at one of three ceremonial grounds, called “Big Houses.” The Big House acts as a periodic gathering place for the Yuchis, their Creator, and their ancestors. Drawing on a decade of collaborative study with tribal elders and using insights gained from ethnopoetics, Jackson captures in vivid detail the performance, impact, and motivations behind such rituals as the Stomp Dance, the Green Corn Ceremony, and the Soup Dance and discusses their continuing importance to the community.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Yuchi Ceremonial Life: Performance, Meaning, and Tradition in a Contemporary American Indian Community (Studies in the Anthropology of North Ame) (Hardcover) First of all I would like to mention what is missing in the Amazon advertisement for this book. The proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the Yuchi chiefs for the support of their ceremonial grounds. This statement is found inside the front cover of the book. Being of Yuchi descent I would like to provide a review of Mr. Jackson's book. Prior to his book being published there has been a very small amount of information about the Yuchi in print. If you are lucky enough to be able to find and afford what has been printed, it is mostly historical, the ways things were. Not only that, the material has very little comparitive analysis with the neighbors of the Yuchi, then or now. Jason's work is not only helpful in providing an extrodinary account of today's Yuchi but a very detailed comparative analysis of their neighbors. Something that I have yet to find with regards to Yuchi ethnology. Also, this comparison describes how their uniqueness does not support their inclusion into the Muskogee (Creek) Nation and that eventual federal recognition is only a matter of time. Anyone interested in native culture or how alive and well it is even today in the 21st century should take this opportunity with Jason's book. I look forward to seeing Jason at this year's Green Corn Ceremony at Duck Creek and hope that this is but the first of his continued work with and amongst the Yuchi.