For my research project I chose to study the Chewelah Band of Indians and how they have been largely excluded from history and show how their origin stories are provable. I was able to pull in research from many resources including historic, ethnographic, and governmental documents to support the oral history of the Chewelah Band of Indians.

Allan H. Smith was researching this group but did not end up publishing his research. Other ethnologists and Indian agents had made very short references to this group but have not discussed this group at length. So this research hopefully helps fill a gap in the record.

In my approach, I chose to combine oral histories and Allan H. Smith’s hypothesis that disease epidemics of the late 18^th century resulted in the Colville Tribe leaving the valley and concentrating their population up at Kettle Falls. The Kalispel then moved into the Colville River Valley followed by a group of Spokane and then other tribes began to mix in with the Chewelah. Bob Sherwood and Antoine Andrews told two oral history accounts, with first account telling of conflict, and the second account told of a time of starvation. I then chose to revolve the ethnographic research around the oral history, thereby making this history the foci. In this respect, it really helped to ground the research in a different light. By combining Smith’s hypothesis with the oral history, it seemed as though both perspectives fit together perfectly. I then filled in the gap with ethnographic and historic references to support each perspective. This has been a fascinating project for me. I am currently continuing this research and hope to get an article published on this in the near future.

For my project I researched the Chinese migrant communities of the nineteenth century working on the railroads. I decided to revolve my research around the precarity and futurity of migrant worker from Barbara Voss’ framework. Precarity in this case is risk assessment and futurity is the individual’s view of the future from their point of view.

What I then found in my research is that the easiest thing to write about was either the ceramic material culture and faunal remains from the animals they ate. There was a lot of valuable information about dietary practices and trade networks but surprisingly few about daily life. The findings were generally the same things in many places like porcelain and other ceramics and beef, chicken, and pork popular in chinese cooking alongside fish (Kennedy 2015, Porcasi 2017). The list goes on into shark and bear as well (Kennedy 2018).

It was also important to note the social challenges faced at the time such as institutional inequalities like various exclusionary laws and discriminatory zoning and taxation (Chace-Evens 2015) and social discrimination like the mob in Mono Mills (Sunseri 2015)

When I presented my findings to the class I was surprised by how few people were working on the archaeology for Chinese migrant communities but it might’ve been that those were just the only ones available online. In Voss’ article on transnational archaeology in China, there are notably many challenges in studying these same phenomena hear and in China such as the obvious language barrier but also practices like the way archaeology is done. There’s hopefully a lot more in physical text. This was surprisingly difficult to write as much meaningful synthesis as I wanted but it only goes to show the importance of expanding the field of archaeology and looking into things in a variety of perspectives.

For my final research project I decided to look at how we can observe African cultural resilience in the new world during the 17^th century through the use of Chesapeake clay tobacco pipes. To do this I first explored the pipe making traditions and decorative traditions of West Africa. I then compared this to the various styles and designs of Chesapeake clay tobacco pipes.

Tobacco was introduced to West Africa in the 16^th by Europeans returning from the New World. However, prior to this pipe making industries and the cultural practice of smoking was widespread in We

st African states thanks to the medicinal, spiritual and recreational use of cannabis. Following the introduction of tobacco it quickly gained popularity and spread throughout the region. The pipe making industries responded by producing pipes for the sole purpose of smoking tobacco. By the mid-17^th century the cultural practice of smoking tobacco and making tobacco pipes was well established in West Africa. Therefore, by the time Europeans began transporting slaves to the New World smoking was very much part of several West African cultural identities.

From left to right: Kwardata, Double Bell, Hanging Triangles and Cattle motif(Emerson, 1988)

In comparing West African cultural traditions with Chesapeake pipes it becomes clear that a number of the motifs used on the pipes have clear connections to West Africa. I focused my analysis on 4 such motifs: The Kwardata, the Double Bell, Hanging Triangles and the Cattle motif.  The Kwardata motif can be linked back to the Ga’anda people of Nigeria. The motif commonly found on beer vessels that were used in ceremonies that marked the transition between boyhood and manhood. The Double bell motif can be linked back to the Nsibidi language of the Ejagham people from South western Cameroon and Northeastern Nigeria.  This language is a unique form of ideographic writing that consisted of signs that encapsulate many powers including the essence of all that is valiant, just and ordered. The Hanging Triangle motif can be linked back to the decorative traditions of Ga’anda people. Finally the cattle motif can be linked back to the economic and religious importance of cattle in the pastoralist societies of Nigeria.

The presence of all of these motifs is a clear indication of the continuation of various West African cultural and religious practices. For example, despite not having the traditional objects for their ceremonies they members or descendants of the Ga’anda people were able to place the Kwardata motif on pipes and use it in place of beer vessels for their religious ceremonies.

Thanks for reading. If you want to know more about this topic I would highly recommend reading the article “Decorated clay tobacco pipes from the Chesapeake: An African Connection” by Matthew Charles Emerson.

Citations

Emerson, Matthew C. “Decorated Clay Tobacco Pipes from the Chesapeake.” University of California,Berkeley, (May), University of California Berkeley ,1988.