Blessing for a Long Time: The Sacred Pole of the Omaha Tribe - Hardcover

Hastings (In'aska), Dennis; Ridington, Mr. Robin

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9780803239258: Blessing for a Long Time: The Sacred Pole of the Omaha Tribe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803239254 ISBN 13: 9780803239258

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 1997

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Robin Ridington and Dennis Hastings ingeniously adopt the conventions of Omaha oral narratives to tell the story and convey the significance of the Sacred Pole. Portions of classic anthropological texts (particularly Fletcher and La Flesche’s The Omaha Tribe), Omaha narratives, and other historical and contemporary accounts are repeated—each time in a different, more enlightening context—in a circle of stories seamlessly woven around Umon’hon’ti. The result is an innovative account that effortlessly glides between past and present. This unique blend of Omaha poetics, ethnography, and ethnohistory is a significant contribution to our understanding of the religious life of Native Americans.

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About the Author:

Robin Ridington is a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Trail to Heaven: Knowledge and Narrative in a Northern Native Community and other works. Dennis Hastings is the director of the Omaha Tribal Historical Research Project.

From Library Journal:

For centuries the life of the Omaha people was centered around their Umon'hon'ti (Venerable Man), a sacred pole. Then, feeling the pressure to assimilate and adopt Christianity, in 1888 the Omaha surrendered the pole to Harvard's Peabody Museum, where it remained for the next century. Ridington (anthropology, Univ. of British Columbia) and Hastings (Omaha Historical Research Project) narrate the sacred pole's story and describe its eventual return home. The cast of characters includes the pole itself, which takes on the persona of a respected tribal elder; Francis LaFlesche, an Omaha anthropologist who actively sought the pole for the museum but published singularly sensitive accounts of Omaha beliefs; and the authors, who, with tribal officials, were instrumental in effecting its repatriation. Written to be meaningful to both Omaha people and scholars, this account demonstrates the complexities involved in the return of a sacred object to an Indian community. An important addition to anthropology and history collections.?Mary B. Davis, Huntington Free Lib., Bronx, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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