Reviews the early career of Margaret Mead (1928-1942) and study methods she used in Samoa, New Guinea, and Bali. Particular attention is paid to her examinations of sex roles and her own experiences as a female scientist. (Part of a theme issue on anthropological methods in educational research.) (SJL)

Describes the treatment by several novelists and ethnographers of the rainwitch myth of southwest native culture, which concerns a woman who has magical powers to bring about rainfall. Discusses the influence of classical mythology on its development in modern times. (DM)

Publishes and critiques the 1855 autobiography of Jesuit Father James Bouchard, born and raised a Delaware named Watomika. Contains information about Watomika's family, genealogy, and early years; his conversion to Christianity; and Delaware religious beliefs and practices. Examines the literary and ethnographic merits of the autobiography. (SV)

Patchwork quilting is an original folk art in the United States. Pilgrims first used worn out scraps of cloth to make bed covers in an age of scarcity. Featured here are stories on East Texas Quilts, their origins, the love and hard work which goes into the making of a quilt (Ira Barr and others). The techniques needed to construct a quilt are…

Describes the career of Father Berard Haile (1874-1961), a Franciscan missionary and anthropologist who befriended Navajo Indians in Arizona and studied their culture. Haile's career spanned five decades, and he maintained a Navajo residence longer than any other Navajo ethnologist. Describes his writings, special fields, scholarly limitations,…

The little known Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in the 1920s is an example of the marginalization of women in adult education. Its story, focusing on women as adult students and as makers of social change, enriches the history of the field. (SK)

Folklife is the study of tradition, of what carries forward through time, providing continuity and identity with a place or an activity. This collection of articles is intended to provide a forum for the discussion of theories and procedures of folklife study and to demonstrate both the variety of folklife communities and the unexpected…

Native American science is defined as activities of native peoples of the New World in observing physical phenomena and attempting to explain and control them. Problems in studying native science, ethnoscience and native science, archaeostronomy and ethnoastronomy, ethnobotany, agriculture, technology, and future directions are discussed. (JN)

Designed to attempt an assessment of the quality and quantity of information on traditional Navajo women in view of feminist concerns about the treatment of women in ethnography, data from 10 basic ethnographies on the Navajos and 14 published life histories of Navajo men and women are explored. (Author)

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Rural Electrification Act changed farm life dramatically. The miracle of electricity in rural East Texas is examined in "Electricity Comes to East Texas" (Brandi Anderson and others). Chronicled is a description of life without electricity and how everyday chores were done in its absence. Local citizens…

An American Indian professor discusses his concerns, contradictions inherent in his insider/outsider position, and the nature of cross-cultural discourse related to his family's participation at a university showing of an ethnographic documentary about the last Bole Maru leader ("Dreamer") of the Kashaya Pomo (a deceased family member).…

Panola County, Texas Sheriff Corbett Akins wrote a weekly column for the "Panola Watchman" in which he chronicled the adventures and mishaps of his force. He provides a wealth of information about East Texas life on everything from making fiddles, to running bloodhounds, to finding moonshine stills. The columns reprinted appeared from…

The Indian woman has been viewed as a subservient and oppressed female; often overlooked were the economic, social and political positions women held within tribal societies. The biographies and autobiographies of Indian women that have been obtained over the last century can be used to examine this contradiction in perspectives. These accounts…

In the early 1940s Dakota anthropologist Ella Deloria began talking to her mentor, feminist anthropologist Ruth Benedict, about the possibility of transforming her ethnographic research into a novel that would bring Plains Indian culture to life for the American reading public. In writing Waterlily, a historical novel that documented early…

Written and published by the students at Gary High School, Gary, Texas, "Loblolly Magazine" is published twice a year. Issues are frequently devoted to a distant theme. The theme of this issue, "East Texas Storytellers," attempts to capture some of the local color and regional history of eastern Texas. The first article,…