Description
Book SynopsisFor Native peoples of California, the abalone found along the state's coast has remarkably complex significance as food, spirit, narrative symbol, tradable commodity, and material with which to make adornment and sacred regalia. This book examines the cultural, social, and economic importance of abalone among the California Indian tribes.
Trade Review“
Abalone Tales shimmers like the mother of pearl in a California Indian necklace. Out from the shadows of the old colonial tradition, the book fulfills the overdue promise of a new collaborative anthropology. It accomplishes this with remarkable intimacy and intelligence, and in so doing gives us new ways of thinking about ethnography, Native America, and the global politics of indigeneity today.”—
Orin Starn, author of
Ishi’s Brain: In Search of America’s Last “Wild” Indian“Abalone Tales is a fine example of collaborative ethnography. It adds immeasurably to ongoing conversations among anthropologists and other social scientists about the still-emergent possibilities for producing dialogic, collaborative, and ethically responsible ethnographies.”—
Luke Eric Lassiter, Marshall University Graduate College
Table of ContentsAbout the Series vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Why Abalone? The Making of a Collaborative Research Project 1
I. Artifact, Narrative, Genocide
1. The Old Abalone Necklaces and the Possibility of a Muwekma Ohlone Cultural Patrimony 9
2. Abalone Woman Attends the Wiyot Reawakening 50
II. The "Meaning" of Abalone: Two Different Abalone Projects
3. Florence Silvia and the Legacy of John Boston: Responsibility at the Intersection of Friendship and Ethnography 62
4. Reflections on the Iridescent One 84
III. Cultural Revivification and the Species Extinction
5. Cultural Revivification in the Hoopa Valley 109
6. Extinction Narratives and Pristine Moments: Evaluating the Decline of Abalone 137
Conclusion: Horizons of Collaborative Research 161
Notes 173
Bibliography 179
Index 193
