Mary W Helms
Biographic Data
| ID | 76742 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mary W Helms |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mary W |
| FAMILY NAME | Helms |
| SIGNATURE | HELMS M W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Carolina at Greensboro |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 63 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 489 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 63 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1969 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Ineffable Illumination. Early Medieval Church Treasure and the Preservation of Heaven's Light
Anthropos , Seite 103 - 118
Nourishing a structured world with living metal in Bronze Age Europe
For over a thousand years, European peoples intently deposited bronze artefacts into the earth. This essay examines the motivation for doing so from a cosmological perspective. It argues that depositions were believed to support universal life processes and assure availability of resources for people and polities by literally "feeding" universal creative energies. It is suggested that metallic ores were considered living materials that grew withi…
In Pomp Ride Forth. Selected Themes in the Persistence of the Wheeled Vehicle as High Political and Ideological Symbol in Western Europe
Anthropos , Seite 93 - 120
Joseph the Smith and the Salvational Transformation of Matter in Early Medieval Europe
In early medieval Western Europe, Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, was identified occupationally not only as a domestic woodworker but also as a blacksmith, the most mysterious, powerful, and sacrosanct category of supernaturally endowed skilled crafting known to traditional nonindustrial societies. After reviewing skilled crafting and especially smithing as ritual processes, this essay considers typological identification of Joseph the smith…
Dennis, Philip A: The Miskitu People of Awastara
Anthropos , Seite 593 - 594
Observations on Political Ideology in Complex Societies in the Tropics-and Elsewhere
A number of related themes are teased from the diverse essays composing this volume. The question of whether or not "the tropics" constitutes a unique setting for anthropological investigation is also briefly visited. The paper concludes with discussion of the basic ideological concept underlying the issue of political legitimacy in complex polities
The Spectacled Bear in Iconic Imagery of Ancient Panama and Colombia
Access to Origins: Affines, Ancestors, and Aristocrats
Creations of the Rainbow Serpent: Polychrome Ceramic Designs from Ancient Panama
Is it a wonderful life: Cosmology, commercialism, and alienation in the twentieth century
Miller, Daniel, ed. Unwrapping Christmas. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. x + 239 pp. including index. $29.95 cloth. Napier, A. David. Foreign Bodies: Performance, Art, and Symbolic Anthropology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. xxix + 223 pp. including bibliography and index. $35.00 cloth
Color and Creativity: Interpretation of Themes and Design Styles on a Panamanian Conte Bowl
Masters of Animals: Oral Traditions of the Tolupan Indians, Honduras
Resistance and Contradiction: Miskitu Indians and the Nicaragua State, 1894-1987
Los Cacicazgos de Nicaragua Antigua. Francisco Moscoso
Chiefdom rivalries, control, and external contacts in lower Central America
A number of years ago I presented an argument, based on ethnohistorical materials and cross-cultural ethnographic comparisons, concerning the general “type” of chiefdom organization evidenced by the several dozen polities of the Panamanian isthmus at the time of European contact. I concluded that these polities were characterized by a high level of status competition and rivalry among high-ranking men of influence, who sought to bolster or legiti…
Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World
Factionalism is an important force of social transformation, and this volume examines how factional competition in the kinship and political structures in ancient New World societies led to the development of chiefdoms, states and empires. The case studies, from a range of New World societies, represent all levels of non-egalitarian societies and a wide variety of ecological settings in the New World. They document the effects of factionalism on …
"Reading "National Geographic
South and Meso‐American Native Spirituality: From the Cult of the Feathered Serpent to the Theology of Liberation . Gary H. Gossen
Craft and the Kingly Ideal: Art, Trade, and Power
In ancient Mediterranean cultures, diamonds were thought to endow their owners with invincibility. In contemporary United States culture, a foreign-made luxury car is believed to give its owner status and prestige. Where do these beliefs come from? In this study of craft production and long-distance trade in traditional, nonindustrial societies, Mary W. Helms explores the power attributed to objects that either are produced by skilled artisans an…
Terra Cognita: The Mental Discovery of America
Contemporary Futures: Perspectives from Social Anthropology
Long-Distance Contacts, Elite Aspirations, and the Age of Discovery in Cosmological Context
Political Lords and Political Ideology in Southeastern Chiefdoms: Comments and Observations
This collection of papers highlights contexts in which ideology seems to have played a leading role in the political life of Southeastern societies. In this essay it is assumed that these polities operated within a general cosmological perspective based on belief in the consubstantiality of life. It is also assumed that association with qualities of distant time and space conveyed political legitimation to high elites. Building on these assumptio…
Empire and hinterland in lower Central America
The European discovery of a separate and distinctive 'new' world was an event of cosmic proportion not only because of the enormous social, political and economic expansion potential for the developing nation-states of the European peninsula; discovery of this distant realm also required significant reconstruction of basic European cosmography. In the centuries prior to the Age of Discovery, Europe, focussing on Rome and Byzantium, had balanced i…
The Nicaraguan Mosquitia in Historical Documents, 1844-1927: The Dynamics of Ethnic and Regional History. Eleonore von Oertzen , Lioba Rossbach , Volker Wünderich
Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World
Factionalism is an important force of social transformation, and this volume examines how factional competition in the kinship and political structures in ancient New World societies led to the development of chiefdoms, states and empires. The case studies, from a range of New World societies, represent all levels of non-egalitarian societies and a wide variety of ecological settings in the New World. They document the effects of factionalism on …
Ulysses' Sail: An Ethnographic Odyssey of Power, Knowledge, and Geographical Distance
What do long-distance travelers gain from their voyages, especially when faraway lands are regarded as the source of esoteric knowledge? Mary Helms explains how various cultures interpret space and distance in cosmological terms, and why they associate political power with information about strange places, peoples, and things. She assesses the diverse goals of travelers, be they Hindu pilgrims in India, Islamic scholars of West Africa, Navajo tra…
Asang; adaptations to culture contact in a Miskito community
Beyond the Myths of Culture: Essays in Cultural Materialism
Ancient Panama: Chiefs in Search of Power
Miskito Slaving and Culture Contact: Ethnicity and Opportunity in an Expanding Population
During the colonial era the Miskito Indians of eastern Nicaragua established fruitful commercial ties with English colonists in eastern Central America and Jamaica. Among the diverse items they traded with the Europeans were captives obtained by slave raids into surrounding areas. For Miskito society slaving also coincided with demographic growth and ecological readaptation. For English settlers in Jamaica, indigenes from Central America provided…
Women and the Ancestors: Black Carib Kinship and Ritual
The Cultural Ecology of a Colonial Tribe
Of Kings and Contexts: Ethnohistorical interpretations of Miskito political structure and function
Recent articles dealing with the Miskito "kings" and Miskito "kingdom" of eastern Nicaragua are reassessed and their conclusions reconsidered. Using the same data, the existence of a Miskito "kingdom" is questioned and the nature of the "kingship" and of the roles filled by Miskito kings and other regional leaders is reinterpreted. The influence both of the English and of traditional councils of elders is emphasized, and the kings' activities see…
Matrilocality, Social Solidarity, and Culture Contact: Three Case Histories
Using data from three seminomadic-semisedentary bilateral societies--the Apache (with special reference to the Chiricahua and Mescalero), the Miskito of eastern Nicaragua, and the Mbayá of the Paraguayan Gran Chaco--hypotheses are presented concerning the adaptive significance of the matrilocal residence pattern characteristic of these groups. It is suggested that the functional value of cores of consanguineally related women lay not in economic …
Craft and the Kingly Ideal: Art, Trade, and Power
In ancient Mediterranean cultures, diamonds were thought to endow their owners with invincibility. In contemporary United States culture, a foreign-made luxury car is believed to give its owner status and prestige. Where do these beliefs come from? In this study of craft production and long-distance trade in traditional, nonindustrial societies, Mary W. Helms explores the power attributed to objects that either are produced by skilled artisans an…
Succession to High Office in Pre-Columbian Circum-Caribbean Chiefdoms
Comparison and analysis of rules for succession to high office in the pre-Columbian chiefdoms of the circum-Caribbean, as reported in the early sixteenth century, suggest preference for 'determinate' modes of succession. Determinate succession modes, in turn, are seen as appropriate to other political and symbolic aspects of these circum-Caribbean polities
The Purchase Society: Adaptation to Economic Frontiers
A sociocultural category, termed the Purchase Society, is proposed as a framework within which to analyze adaptations by simpler societies living on the economic frontiers of both agrarian and industrializing states. Unlike peasantry, purchase societies maintain their political autonomy and are not enmeshed in the political controls characteristic of agrarian states. Consequently, their involvement with a wider society is characterized not by coe…
Nourishing a structured world with living metal in Bronze Age Europe
For over a thousand years, European peoples intently deposited bronze artefacts into the earth. This essay examines the motivation for doing so from a cosmological perspective. It argues that depositions were believed to support universal life processes and assure availability of resources for people and polities by literally "feeding" universal creative energies. It is suggested that metallic ores were considered living materials that grew withi…
Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517-1570
Frontier Adaptations in Lower Central America
Time, History, and the Future of Anthropology: Observations on Some Unresolved Issues
Presidential address, 24th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory, Albuquerque, New Mexico, October 9, 1976
On Julian Steward and the nature of culture
Creations of the Rainbow Serpent: Polychrome Ceramic Designs from Ancient Panama
Color and Creativity: Interpretation of Themes and Design Styles on a Panamanian Conte Bowl
Indians of the Americas: Human Rights and Self-Determination
Black Carib Domestic Organization in Historical Perspective: Traditional Origins of Contemporary Patterns
In a highly influential study of the domestic organization of the Black Carib of Livingston, Guatemala, Nancie Gonzalez (1969) identified two basic household types characteristic of that population: one form, comprising 54.7 per cent of her sample, centered upon a married couple, with or without children; the other, comprising 45.3 per cent of her sample, focused upon consanguineal rather than affinal kinship ties (Gonzalez 1969:68). Gonzalez the…
In Pomp Ride Forth. Selected Themes in the Persistence of the Wheeled Vehicle as High Political and Ideological Symbol in Western Europe
Anthropos , Seite 93 - 120
Observations on Political Ideology in Complex Societies in the Tropics-and Elsewhere
A number of related themes are teased from the diverse essays composing this volume. The question of whether or not "the tropics" constitutes a unique setting for anthropological investigation is also briefly visited. The paper concludes with discussion of the basic ideological concept underlying the issue of political legitimacy in complex polities
Is it a wonderful life: Cosmology, commercialism, and alienation in the twentieth century
Miller, Daniel, ed. Unwrapping Christmas. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. x + 239 pp. including index. $29.95 cloth. Napier, A. David. Foreign Bodies: Performance, Art, and Symbolic Anthropology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. xxix + 223 pp. including bibliography and index. $35.00 cloth
General: Cultural Ways: A Compact Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. Robert B. Taylor
The Cultural Ecology of a Colonial Tribe
The Purchase Society: Adaptation to Economic Frontiers
A sociocultural category, termed the Purchase Society, is proposed as a framework within which to analyze adaptations by simpler societies living on the economic frontiers of both agrarian and industrializing states. Unlike peasantry, purchase societies maintain their political autonomy and are not enmeshed in the political controls characteristic of agrarian states. Consequently, their involvement with a wider society is characterized not by coe…
Matrilocality, Social Solidarity, and Culture Contact: Three Case Histories
Using data from three seminomadic-semisedentary bilateral societies--the Apache (with special reference to the Chiricahua and Mescalero), the Miskito of eastern Nicaragua, and the Mbayá of the Paraguayan Gran Chaco--hypotheses are presented concerning the adaptive significance of the matrilocal residence pattern characteristic of these groups. It is suggested that the functional value of cores of consanguineally related women lay not in economic …
Asang; adaptations to culture contact in a Miskito community
Books Reviews
Book reviewed in this article: GENERAL AND THEORETICAL: Man in Adaptation: The Biosocial Background . YEHUDI A. COHEN, ed GENERAL AND THEORETICAL: Man in Adaptation: The Cultural Present . YEHUDI A. COHEN, ed GENERAL AND THEORETICAL: Man in Adaptation: The Institutional Frame‐work . YEHUDI A. COHEN, ed GENERAL AND THEORETICAL: Readings in Introductory Anthropology. Volume One: Evolution, Human Paleontology, Physical Anthropology and the Beginning…
Asang. Adaptations to Culture Contact in a Miskito Community
Ethnology: Other Peoples, Other Customs: World Ethnography and Its History . Wendell H. Oswalt
Middle America: A Culture History of Heartland and Frontiers
Middle America: A Culture History of Heartland and Frontier
Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650
Frontier Adaptations in Lower Central America
Coastal Adaptations as Contact Phenomena among the Miskito and Cuna Indians of Lower Central America
Time, History, and the Future of Anthropology: Observations on Some Unresolved Issues
Presidential address, 24th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory, Albuquerque, New Mexico, October 9, 1976
On Julian Steward and the nature of culture
Of gods and men
Burr Cartwright Brundage. The Fifth Sun. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979. xiii + 269 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. $14.95
Ancient Panama: Chiefs in Search of Power
The Frontier: Comparative Studies, Vol. Two. William W. Savage, JR. and STEPHEN I. THOMPSON
Comparative Perspectives on Slavery in New World Plantation Societies
Frontier Adaptations in Lower Central America
Succession to High Office in Pre-Columbian Circum-Caribbean Chiefdoms
Comparison and analysis of rules for succession to high office in the pre-Columbian chiefdoms of the circum-Caribbean, as reported in the early sixteenth century, suggest preference for 'determinate' modes of succession. Determinate succession modes, in turn, are seen as appropriate to other political and symbolic aspects of these circum-Caribbean polities
Linguistics: Journal of Latin American Lore, Vol 3, No. 2: Special Issue; Latin American Narrative: Function and Style . James M. Taggart and J. L. Fischer , eds
Origins of the State: The Anthropology of Political Evolution
Black Carib Domestic Organization in Historical Perspective: Traditional Origins of Contemporary Patterns
In a highly influential study of the domestic organization of the Black Carib of Livingston, Guatemala, Nancie Gonzalez (1969) identified two basic household types characteristic of that population: one form, comprising 54.7 per cent of her sample, centered upon a married couple, with or without children; the other, comprising 45.3 per cent of her sample, focused upon consanguineal rather than affinal kinship ties (Gonzalez 1969:68). Gonzalez the…
Beyond the Myths of Culture: Essays in Cultural Materialism
History (44 works) · Sociology (32 works) · Political science (26 works) · History (25 works) · Geography (24 works) · Anthropology (22 works) · Law (21 works) · Archaeology (19 works) · Art (14 works) · Philosophy (14 works)