Bruchac, Margaret
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Disciplines
Arts and Humanities
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Social and Behavioral Sciences
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Position
Associate Professor, Coordinator of Native American & Indigenous Studies
Introduction
Museum Anthropology
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Publication The Mineral Springs of Saratoga(2007-01-01) Bruchac, MargaretPublication Object Matters: Considering Materiality, Meaning, and Memory(2017-12-04) Bruchac, MargaretHow do indigenous objects in museum collections "speak" to those who create, collect, curate, display, and observe them? The material traces in these objects obviously evoke connections to particular aesthetic values, beliefs, and practices, but do they also retain memories of the artisans who created them? Can these objects communicate across cultural and temporal boundaries? Do they have agency, outside of the people who handle them? How might the Native American objects in the Penn Museum, in particular, represent a "bundle of relations" that entangle collectors, collections, and communities?1 Students in my Fall 2017 "Anthropology of Museums" course at the University of Pennsylvania have been considering these questions while examining a selection of evocative Native American objects in the American Section of the Penn Museum.Publication Native Diaspora and New Communities: Algonkian and Wôbanakiak(2004-01-01) Bruchac, MargaretDuring the 1600s, Algonkian and Wôbanaki peoples in present-day New England and Canada found themselves in what has been called "the maelstrom of change," as Euro-American settlers started flooding into Native homelands. (1) The settlers were preceded by explorers and traders, who had carried not only trade goods but diseases. Population losses from influenza, smallpox, measles and other sicknesses caused a disruption in Native communities. Existing tensions between tribes led some coastal Native groups, such as the Wampanoag, to initially welcome small groups of European settlers and traders, who could provide trade goods, guns, and potential allies. European settlement led to Native political instability when international disputes made their way into local politics. As Native peoples were increasingly caught up in both inter-tribal and international conflicts, and crowded by European settlements, some Native communities began relocating to form new communities in diaspora, such as Kahnawake, La Montagne, Lorette, Odanak, Sault-au-Récollet, and Schaghticoke, and the praying villages at Natick, Wamesit, and elsewhere.Publication New Native American Studies Initiative at Penn(2013-12-01) Bruchac, MargaretPublication Mackosi’kwe’s Baskets: Marking Relationships(2015-01-01) Bruchac, MargaretOn August 1, 1938, before leaving the Maniwaki reserve in Quebec, Canada, anthropologist Frank G. Speck paid a visit to his old friends, Michel Buckshot and his wife Angelique, better known as Mackosi’kwe (also spelled Meshkosikwe, meaning “Beaver Meadow Woman”). Mackosi’kwe was skilled in pyroscapulimancy, a technique for divining future prospects in hunting and travel by scorching the shoulder blades of Indigenous deer, caribou, beaver, and other animals in a fire, and then reading the cracks and marks. In Speck’s case, she started with a deer scapula, followed by that of a hare, to predict an unexpected break in the return trip, but an otherwise safe journey home.Publication Schaghticoke and Points North: Wôbanaki Resistance and Persistence(2005-01-01) Bruchac, MargaretThe popular versions of New England's Native American Indian history often contain a gap in reporting on the Native peoples of the middle Connecticut River Valley after Metacom's War, also known as King Philip's War (1675-1676). Some nineteenth century historians have suggested that the Agawam, Nonotuck, Pocumtuck, Quaboag, Sokoki, and Woronoco peoples vanished altogether after this tumultuous event. A closer look at the surviving documentary records, however, reveals a far more complex story as Native families chose various paths of resistance and persistence. The Native families that remained in the valley, pursuing traditional lifeways, were poorly documented by European colonists who imagined them to be remnants and wanderers. Some Native individuals assimilated into white communities. Some married or were adopted into neighboring tribes, or traveled west with fur traders. Hundreds of Native families held tight to kinship ties as they relocated to places situated outside the colony of Massachusetts. Some of those relocations were temporary while they and their allies struggled to retake their homelands. Other relocations resulted in the formation of new communities that persist today.Publication Founding Schaghticoke and Odanak(2005-01-01) Bruchac, MargaretPublication Malian’s Song – Abenaki Language Glossary(2006-01-01) Bruchac, MargaretThe tribal name Abenaki is adapted from the original Wôbanakiak, a noun that combines the morphemes for dawn or white light (wôban), and land (-aki) with an animate plural ending to indicate the people who dwell in that place (-ak). During the 1700s, English, French, and Dutch attempts to pronounce Wôbanakiak or Wôbanaki resulted in many different spellings - Abnaki, Abanaki, Abenaki, Banakee, Wabanaki, etc. - that appear in colonial records. The most common modern pronunciations of Abenaki are the following: 1) Abenaki (stress the first syllable, and pronounce “a” as in “lab” and “e” as in “end”) 2) Abénaquis (stress the second syllable, and pronounce “a” as in “ah” and “e” as in “end”) 3) Abnaki (stress the first syllable, and pronounce “a” as in “lab”) 4) Abanaki (stress the first and third syllables, and pronounce “a” as in “lah”)Publication Indigenous Knowledge and Traditional Knowledge(2014-01-01) Bruchac, MargaretOver time, Indigenous peoples around the world have preserved distinctive understandings, rooted in cultural experience, that guide relations among human, non-human, and other-than human beings in specific ecosystems. These understandings and relations constitute a system broadly identified as Indigenous knowledge, also called traditional knowledge or aboriginal knowledge. Archaeologists conducting excavations in Indigenous locales may uncover physical evidence of Indigenous knowledge (e.g. artifacts, landscape modifications, ritual markers, stone carvings, faunal remains), but the meaning of this evidence may not be obvious to non-Indigenous or non-local investigators. Researchers can gain information and insight by consulting Indigenous traditions; these localized knowledges contain crucial information that can explain and contextualize scientific data. Archaeologists should, however, strive to avoid interference with esoteric knowledges, sacred sites, ritual landscapes, and cultural property. Research consultation with local Indigenous knowledge-bearers is recommended as a means to ensure ethical practice and avoid unnecessary harm to sensitive sites and practices.Publication Abenakis at Ashuelot: The Sadoques Family and Keene(2006-09-01) Bruchac, MargaretThe area around Keene, New Hampshire was originally known to the Abenaki Indian people as Ashuelot. Although the name is now best known as a river, it originally translated to “land between place,” referring to the flat land between the surrounding mountains, criss-crossed with trails that lead to other familiar places.