Signs of identity, signs of memory

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2131024
AutoresCraig N Cipolla (0000-0002-0668-4517, autor de correspondencia)
Año2008
Volumen15
Número2
Páginas196-215
Fecha de publicación2008-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaArchaeological Dialogues (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1380-2038 • E-ISSN: 1478-2294
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1380203808002675
OpenAlexW2154001360
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas20
Referencias citadas50

This essay explores everyday practices as sites of memory-making, arguing that such practices have the potential to serve as markers and makers of cultural identity. I use frameworks of social memory to interpret 19th-century butchery practices on the Eastern Pequot reservation in North Stonington, Connecticut. Colonialism meant change for Pequot peoples, including shifts in family structures and the adoption of mass produced material culture. I argue that, within these abrupt changes, social memory and memory-making practices played a central role in maintaining and congealing indigenous identity. I examine evidence of changing butchery practices on the reservation as they related to the adoption of metal tools. Archaeological investigations demonstrate that even though the Eastern Pequot increasingly used metal tools for butchery, they also continued to use chipped tools made of either stone or glass. I suggest that this pattern is significant because of the 'mnemonic' qualities that chipped-tool usage might have carried on reservation grounds. These mnemonic practices served as binding ties for the reservation community

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Collective memory · Colonialism · Ethnology · Identity (music · Indigenous · Mnemonic · Political science · Reservation · Social group · Social identity theory · Social memory · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · Ecology · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · History · Law · Psychology