This project aims to plot long-term expression of ethnic identity by a North American Indian band, the Nikaneet (Plains Cree) of Maple Creek, Saskatchewan. It resumes research done between 1963-71. Research in 1956/66 was funded by a NIH Predoctoral Fellowship and Research Grant. Specifically, the problem addressed is one faced by Indians themselves: how to construct a morally defensive image of self in the circumstance that Indian identity has been publicly devalued. Nikaneet occupied an ethnic category at the bottom of the local stratification hierarchy. In the view of white people, they were moral outcasts, a judgment that was evidenced in conventional interaction between the two. The poverty and powerlessness of Indians was justified on these grounds. Indians took measures to rescue self-worth, one of which was the concealment of much of their cultural heritage. Now, an ethnic """"""""resurgence"""""""" is taking place in Maple Creek, in which Indians openly exhibit signs of their cultural distinctiveness. An annual, two-day pow wow is attended by Indians from distant parts of the U.S. and Canada. Nikaneet display their identity in other less spectacular ways, and have increased their participation in white institutions -- educational, economic, and governmental. In part, assertions are linked to national political events, as activism by a distant Indian elite has won tangible concessions, and provided a source of vindication for Indians of the authenticity of their claims. The primary task of this research is to document how these changes are dramatized in the day-to-day interaction of Indians and whites in the context of routine social occasions. Data will be gathered through interviews and from archival sources. The primary research method will be participant observation, in which the principal investigator will reside on the reserve for one calendar year.
