A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Individual cultures have their own names, in their respective languages, for spiritual healers and ceremonial leaders in their particular cultures.
Alfred Louis Kroeber was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first professor appointed to the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. He played an integral role in the early days of its Museum of Anthropology, where he served as director from 1909 through 1947. Kroeber provided detailed information about Ishi, the last surviving member of the Yahi people, whom he studied over a period of years. He was the father of the acclaimed novelist, poet, and writer of short stories Ursula K. Le Guin.
Washo is an endangered Native American language isolate spoken by the Washo on the California–Nevada border in the drainages of the Truckee and Carson Rivers, especially around Lake Tahoe. While there are only 20 elderly native speakers of Washo, since 1994 there has been a small immersion school that has produced a number of moderately fluent younger speakers. The immersion school has since closed its doors and the language program now operates through the Cultural Resource Department for the Washoe Tribe. The language is still very much endangered; however, there has been a renaissance in the language revitalization movement as many of the students who attended the original immersion school have become teachers.
John Reed Swanton was an American anthropologist, folklorist, and linguist who worked with Native American peoples throughout the United States. Swanton achieved recognition in the fields of ethnology and ethnohistory. He is particularly noted for his work with indigenous peoples of the Southeast and Pacific Northwest.
The Bureau of American Ethnology was established in 1879 by an act of Congress for the purpose of transferring archives, records and materials relating to the Indians of North America from the Interior Department to the Smithsonian Institution. But from the start, the bureau's visionary founding director, John Wesley Powell, promoted a broader mission: "to organize anthropologic research in America." Under Powell, the bureau organized research-intensive multi-year projects; sponsored ethnographic, archaeological and linguistic field research; initiated publications series ; and promoted the fledgling discipline of anthropology. It prepared exhibits for expositions and collected anthropological artifacts for the Smithsonian United States National Museum. In addition, the BAE was the official repository of documents concerning American Indians collected by the various US geological surveys, especially the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region and the Geological Survey of the Territories. It developed a manuscript repository, library and illustrations section that included photographic work and the collection of photographs.
Nakota is the endonym used by those native peoples of North America who usually go by the name of Assiniboine, in the United States, and of Stoney, in Canada.
William N. Fenton was an American scholar and writer known for his extensive studies of Iroquois history and culture. He started his studies of the Iroquois in the 1930s and published a number of significant works over the following decades. His final work was published in 2002. During his career, Fenton was director of the New York State Museum and a professor of anthropology at the State University of New York.
The Alacalufan languages or Kawesqaran languages are a small language family of South America. They have not been definitely linked to any other American language family.
Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics is a writing system for several Algonquian languages that emerged during the nineteenth century and whose existence was first noted in 1880. It was originally used near the Great Lakes: Fox, Sac, and Kickapoo, in addition to Potawatomi. Use of the script was subsequently extended to the Siouan language Ho-Chunk. Use of the Great Lakes script has also been attributed to speakers of the Ottawa dialect of the Ojibwe language, but supporting evidence is weak.
Bora–Witóto is a proposal to unite the Boran and Witotoan language families of southwestern Colombia and neighboring regions of Peru and Brazil. Kaufman (1994) added the Andoque language.
Guaicuruan is a language family spoken in northern Argentina, western Paraguay, and Brazil. The speakers of the languages are often collectively called the Guaycuru peoples. For the most part, the Guaycuruans lived in the Gran Chaco and were nomadic and warlike, until finally subdued by the various countries of the region in the 19th century.
Paul Radin was an American cultural anthropologist and folklorist of the early twentieth century specializing in Native American languages and cultures. The noted legal scholar Max Radin was his older brother.
Frances Theresa Densmore was an American anthropologist and ethnographer born in Red Wing, Minnesota. Densmore is known for her studies of Native American music and culture, and in modern terms, she may be described as an ethnomusicologist.
Christian Feest is an Austrian ethnologist and ethnohistorian.
Aguano is the extinct language of the Aguano people of Peru. Loukotka (1968) identified it with Chamicuro, but Chamicuro speakers say that the Aguano people spoke Quechua . However, Steward (1946) notes that the Aguano had adopted Quechua soon after the Conquest and that their original language is unclassified. More recently, Campbell & Grondona (2012) leave Aguano unclassified due to lack of attestation.
The Tolupan or Jicaque people are an indigenous ethnic group of Honduras, primarily inhabiting the northwest coast of Honduras and the community Montaña de La Flor in central Honduras.
Puinave, Waipunavi (Guaipunabi) or Wanse is an indigenous language of Colombia and Venezuela. It is generally considered to be an unclassified language.
Proto-Iroquoian is the theoretical proto-language of the Iroquoian languages. Lounsbury (1961) estimated from glottochronology a time depth of 3,500 to 3,800 years for the split of North and South Iroquoian.
Xokleng or Laklãnõ is a Southern Jê language spoken by the Xokleng people of Brazil. It is closely related to Kaingang.
Raymond Maurice Gilmore was an American zoologist and a recognized authority on whales. He conducted the first census of California gray whales and is credited with creating public interest in their conservation by leading the earliest whale-watching excursions for the San Diego Natural History Museum. Guiding groups of whale-watchers beginning in 1958, Gilmore was the first onboard naturalist in San Diego; he continued his popular excursions for 25 years. Known as the father of whale watching, Gilmore was the leading expert on California gray whales.