9408820 Briggs This research by a social anthropologist from Vassar College involves the recording and analysis of narratives by Native Americans about epidemic diseases which recently struck their poor, forest community. There was a devastating cholera epidemic as well as measles and whooping cough epidemics, none of which the Indians recognize as traditional diseases. Their stories represent the diseases as being inflicted by non-Indians in order to weaken their society. By analyzing how these narratives are formed, transmitted, and circulate from Indian to non-Indian contexts, the project will study how the symbolic aspects of diseases are represented. The knowledge to be gained form this research will help government agencies and NGOs communicate with ethnic groups to ameliorate the devastating impact of health crises in this area, and will add to our understanding of how ethnic groups who do not have a bio-medical understanding of diseases form their own cultural models of the diseases and how individuals in the groups use these models for social and political advantage. This sort of knowledge will be valuable for dealing with similar situations of inter-ethnic contact where each group's understanding of the source of the crisis is different.
