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Vol. 49, no. 1 (Spring 2007)

Contents

Abstracts

“He Expects We Would Be Off from His Lands”: Reported Speech-Events in Tsilhqut’in Contact History

David W. Dinwoodie
University of New Mexico

Abstract. A remarkable series of politically oriented reports of speech events is preserved in the otherwise limited historical documentation of the Tsilhqut’in people. These speech events demonstrate that Anthony D. Smith’s ethnosymbolic approach is useful for elucidating First Nations group organization and integrity. Moreover, they suggest that systematic linguistic anthropological attention to attested speech events and reports of speech events might open to empirical view the process through which ethnosymbolism is constructed.

Archdeacon Robert McDonald and Gwich’in Literacy

Patrick Moore
University of British Columbia

Abstract. In the late nineteenth century, many, if not most, Gwich’ins in Alaska and the Northwest Territories became literate in their own language as a result of the efforts of Archdeacon Robert McDonald and his Gwich’in associates. This article utilizes the concept of “agency” to examine McDonald’s use of his Ojibwa and Scots background and educational training in the Red River Colony, and how his work was influenced by the wider social forces affecting Rupert’s Land during this period. McDonald successfully promoted literacy and enlisted Gwich’ins in these efforts because his approaches aligned with the Anglican Church Mission Society’s innovative policies endorsing local indigenous leadership, and with the desire of Gwich’ins to acquire the skills necessary to engage with the wider Euro-Canadian and Euro-American societies.

Birth-Order Terms in Lisu: Inheritance and Contact

David Bradley
La Trobe University

Abstract. Lisu has complex systems for naming people according to their order of birth and gender. The Eastern Lisu system is mostly cognate with similar systems found in closely related Ngwi languages such as Lipo, and was presumably the original Lisu system. Southern Lisu and Central Lisu name systems combine some terms from this system and some borrowed Chinese numerals with Lisu suffixes marking gender; this structure differs from that of Chinese birth-order terms. Another set of birth-order names as used in Northern Lisu was borrowed from a fairly distantly related Nungish language; these Northern Lisu moved into the Nungish language area a couple of centuries ago. It is striking that very similar varieties of the same language use such different systems of birth-order names, and that such a basic area of social categorization can be replaced in part or in full by borrowed lexical material.

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