Siouan Sociology

Dorsey, James Owen, 1848-1895Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 90K words
Chapters: 9

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Siouan Sociology by James Owen DorseyAuthor: Dorsey, James Owen, 1848-1895,Language: English, Class: E011: History: America: America, Release Date: Oct 10, 2006

Editor's review

James Owen Dorsey was a nineteenth-century American ethnologist who recorded the languages and customs of Native North Americans over many years. Written in English and part of the American history and ethnography holdings of Project Gutenberg's public-domain e-books, this book describes the social organization, kinship relations, village life, and institutions of Siouan-speaking peoples, and is a primary source for understanding early ethnographic writing conventions. Its value lies in preserving field observations from a particular period, useful for anthropology, history, and Native American studies; readers should also recognize the limitations of early ethnography and treat its classificatory frameworks and modes of expression critically. The electronic edition makes proper names and institutional terms easy to search, suiting it for course supplementary reading or research indexing; deeper use should be combined with contemporary scholarly commentary and later ethnographic work.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Anthropology and ethnology students and researchers consulting early ethnographic materials
History readers studying Native American history and social organization
University teachers and students needing public-domain English texts for supplementary course reading
Academic readers interested in nineteenth-century ethnographic writing conventions

Not a good fit for

General leisure readers expecting an easy introduction to Native American culture
Readers who need a Chinese translation and cannot read English
Researchers who would cite this book directly as a contemporary authoritative ethnography

Reading tips

Begin with introductory works on the history of anthropology to understand nineteenth-century ethnographic methods and limitations, then move on to the main text.
Read by theme, such as kinship systems and village organization, taking notes to organize terminology and classifications.
Read alongside contemporary Native American studies or later ethnographies to identify period biases.
Use the electronic text to search proper names and institutional terms as a research index rather than reading it cover to cover.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or an academic work?

It is a sociological and ethnographic record of Siouan-speaking peoples by the nineteenth-century ethnologist James Owen Dorsey. It is an academic document, not a novel or popular introduction, and requires some disciplinary background and patience to read.

Do early ethnographic materials still have reference value today?

Yes, but they must be used critically. The book preserves field observations and classificatory records from a particular period and is useful for studying the history of the discipline and Indigenous societies. At the same time, its frameworks and language reflect the limitations of its era and should be read against contemporary research and Indigenous perspectives.

What background knowledge is needed to read this book?

A basic grounding in anthropology or American history and familiarity with the conventions of ethnographic writing are recommended. English reading ability is essential; understanding will be smoother if supplemented with introductory works on the history of anthropology and Native American history.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Dorsey, James Owen, 1848-1895 Author

James Owen Dorsey (1848–1895) was a nineteenth-century American ethnologist who devoted himself to the study of Native North Americans, especially the Siouan-speaking peoples. Five of his works are held here, including Omaha Sociology, A Study of Siouan Cults, Osage Traditions, Siouan Sociology, and Omaha Dwellings, Furniture and Implements. These writings center on the social organization, religious ceremonies, customs, traditions, and material life of peoples such as the Omaha and the Osage, and read as early ethnographic field records that emphasize kinship systems, clan structures, and oral traditions. Because public information is limited, details of his life and education cannot be confirmed; yet his surviving works offer relatively primary and concrete material for later study of Siouan culture and retain a certain reference value in North American ethnographic literature.