FOUR DIRECTIONS INSTITUTE Teaching 3rd and 4th Graders to Love  California Indian History and Culture: An On-Line and In-Class Adventure Module 1:  Glossary

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acculturation The process by which culture is transmitted through continuous first-hand contact with different cultures.  Typically a subordinate culture acculturates toward a dominant culture.

aethnocentrism A disregard for the ethnocentrism of others in relating a story or literature, particularly oral.

anthropology, cultural The study of the behaviors of humans that are learned, including, among others, the social, technical, linguistic, and familial. The study of humans and their works.

anthropology, physical The study of human biology dealing with racial differences, the development of the human organism, changes in the body over generations, and the relationship between ecology and organism.

archeology That branch of anthropology that is concerned with the historical reconstruction of cultures no longer extant.

Aztec-Tanoan  A language phylum that may have been a living language during or soon after the Ice Age.  Ethnies who descended from this phylum include the Uto-Aztecans as well as all of the Tanoan Pueblos and the Kiowa.  

circularity The ubiquitous Native American concept that all things are interrelated, sometimes referred to as the "sacred hoop" or "many circles."  Circularity is demonstrated in American Indian literatures by being specifically mentioned and by repetitive returns to a central point of the story or by choruses or rondos.

confederacy Two or more ethnies fused into a unifying social organization.  This is usually done for purposes of security or defense.  A sovereign confederacy that owns specific territories is also a nation.

convergence The process by which different cultural traits from different areas become similar or merge.

cult A religious system with elements that typically include unquestionable truth, spying, economic control, social control, and threats.  The typical form of aboriginal American Indian religion

dendrochronology The analysis of tree rings to date artifacts.

dialect Language different in form though not different enough to be a separate language.  Theoretically it takes about 1,000 years for a new language to form after the fission of two peoples.

digger A term now considered somewhat derogatory used to describe hunter/gatherer Indians, especially of the Great Basin, who dug for roots for subsistence. The term was first applied to the Western Shoshone by the Crow in conversations with Lewis and Clark and was ultimately applied to all of the Great Basin ethnies.  Early settlers considered most California Indians to be diggers.

ethnie Any unified social organization including a tribe, nation, confederacy, community of villages, language group, or even a culture or historical identification of two or more of the aforementioned as a grouping.  A catch-all term.

ethnocentrism The feeling that one’s group has a mode of living, values, and patterns of adaption that is superior to all others.  It is coupled with a generalized contempt for members of other groups.  "...the view of things in which one’s own group is the center of everything, and that all other groups are scaled and rated with reference to it....   Each group thinks that its own folkways are the correct ones, and if it observes that other groups have other folkways, these excite its scorn."  Ethnocentrism may manifest itself in behavior such as warfare or in attitudes of superiority or sometimes hostility.  Violence, discrimination, proselytizing, and verbal aggressiveness are other means whereby ethnocentrism may express itself.

ethnology The study of culture on a comparative basis, often considered the same as cultural anthropology.

fable Any story in which the characters are talking animals and have both human and animal traits.

flint knapping The craft of fashioning tools and points from flint, chert, obsidian, quartz, and other stones.

glottochronology The chronological comparison of languages by comparing their specific basic vocabularies, called lexicostatistics.  Since languages theoretically change at a predictable rate, this allows linguists to estimate the time depth between two divergent languages.

Hokan  A language phylum that may have been a living language during or soon after the Ice Age.   Its earliest known territories were in present southern California.  It includes, in California, the Achomawi, Atsugewi, Chumash, Digueños, Esselen, Pomo, Shastans, Washoe, and Yumans.

isogloss A line on a dialect or language map that separates different dialects or languages. These lines are inherently dynamic and typically inaccurate.

legend An improvable story, often including miraculous events, that can be tied to a relatively specific point in history.

Macro-Algonquian  A language phylum that may have been a living language during or soon after the Ice Age.  Its earliest known territories are in the eastern United States.  Included in this phylum are all of the Algonquian peoples as well as the Muskhogeans and the Ritwans (Wiyot and Yurok) of northwestern California.

Macro-Penutian  A language phylum that may have been a living language during or soon after the Ice Age.  Its earliest territories may have been in southern Mexico.  Famous ethnies of the Macro-Penutian phylum include the Maya, Nez Perce, and Chinook.  Penutians occupied the entire central valley of California (Costanoan, Maidu, Miwok, Wintu, Yokuts, and Yukians).

linguistics That branch of anthropology which studies languages.

moiety A primary social division in which an ethnie is made up of two groups.  Each moiety often includes one or more interrelated clans, sibs, or phratries, and moiety exogamy is common.

motif An underlying theme around which a story or work of art is polarized.

myth An improvable story, almost always including miraculous events, that has no specific reference point or time in history.

Na-Dene or Athapaskan  A language phylum that may have been a living language during the Ice Age.  However, the Na-Dene did not arrive in North America from Siberia until after the Ice Age.  Famous ethnies of the Na-Dene language phylum include the Navajo, Apache, Haida and Tlingit.  All California Athapaskans owned territories in the northwest portion of the state including the Hupan, Mattole, Wailakian, and Tolowan speaking ethnies.

non-linear presentation Stories or literatures that follow no particular chronological order.

nation A sovereign social group with a definite area or territory, cultural homogeneity, and unifying social organization.  A tribe may be a nation if it is indeed sovereign and possesses territory.

pan-Indianism A modern convergence of Native American culture into a stereotype of dress, beliefs, and culture.  This phenomenon is particularly apparent in pow wows where Plains Indian cultures is dominant and the magnate for acculturation.

petroglyph A picture incised on rock.

polyvocalism More than one person telling the story.  This occurs in both oral and written stories and can also be accomplished by using multiple points of view in written literatures.

pow wow A Native American social event with a Plains Indian orientation that has taken a standard form around dancing.  Pow wows have their own particular etiquette.  The origin of the term is Proto-Eastern Algonquian for a religious ceremony.  The first so-called pow wow was in 1804 when Omaha tribe hosted Lewis and Clark in present Nebraska.

priest As opposed to a shaman, a medicine person/healer/religious leader who conducts all rites, ceremonies, prayers, dances, and songs in a strictly prescribed manner handed down for generations.

radiocarbon dating The analysis of radioactive carbon (C14) in organic archeological samples to date the samples.

shaman A person with special powers that  stems from its original source to which he/she has access.  Typically this person is a healer, medicine person, or religious leader.

Shoshonean An erroneous classification of the Uto-Aztecan ethnies, particularly southern California.  The term Shoshone is a relatively modern term coined by that ethnie when they acquired horses about 1700.  Shoshone means "men who ride" in the language of that ethnie.

totem An object toward which members of a kinship unit have a special mystical relationship and with which the unit’s name is associated.

tribe A social group with a definite dialect, cultural homogeneity, and unifying social organization.  It may include several sub-groups such as sibs or sub-tribes.  A tribe ordinarily has a leader and a patron deity.  The families or small communities making up the tribe are linked through economic, social, religious, family, and blood ties.

Uto-Aztecan  A language stock that became a living language after the Ice Age.  The great Uto-Aztecan fission probably took place in present Nevada about gigantic Lake Lahontan as a result of the Altithermal.   Famous ethnies of the Uto-Aztecan language phylum include the Aztecs, Hopi, Pima, Comanche, and Bannock.  Those in California are the Tubatulabl, the Takic speaking peoples of the south and Numic Paiutes, Western Shoshone, and Chemehuevi.

wickiup A domed or conical hut thatched with grass, tules, leaves, or wattles.

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