Frank Hamilton Cushing
Encyclopedia
Participant observation
Participant observation is a type of research strategy. It is a widely used methodology in many disciplines, particularly, cultural anthropology, but also sociology, communication studies, and social psychology...
as a common anthropological research strategy.
Early life
Cushing was born in North East, PennsylvaniaNorth East, Pennsylvania
North East is a borough in Erie County, Pennsylvania, northeast of Erie. Fruit growing was an early economic endeavor, and is still to this day, as this is a popular area for especially cherries and grapes. There is an annual Cherry Festival in the summer and an annual in the fall. It contains...
, and later moved with his family to western New York. As a boy he took an interest in the Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
artifact
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
s in the surrounding countryside and taught himself how to knap flint
Flintknapper
Knapping is the shaping of flint, chert, obsidian or other conchoidal fracturing stone through the process of lithic reduction to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing walls, and flushwork decoration.- Method :Flintknapping...
(make arrowheads and such from flint). He published his first scientific paper when he was only 17. After a brief period at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
at 19, he was appointed curator of the ethnological
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
department of the National Museum
National museum
A national museum is a museum maintained by a nation.The following is a list of national museums:-Australia:*Australian National Aviation Museum*Australian National Maritime Museum*, Sydney*Australian War Memorial*Museum Victoria...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
by the director of the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
. There he came to the attention of John Wesley Powell
John Wesley Powell
John Wesley Powell was a U.S. soldier, geologist, explorer of the American West, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions...
, of the Bureau of Ethnology
Bureau of American Ethnology
The Bureau of American Ethnology was established in 1879 by an act of Congress for the purpose of transferring archives, records and materials relating to the Indians of North America from the Interior Department to the Smithsonian Institution...
.
Work at Zuni
James Stevenson
James Stevenson may refer to:*James Stevenson , American actor*James Stevenson , English cricketer*James Stevenson , artist and author of children's books*James Stevenson...
anthropological
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
expedition to New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
. The group traveled by rail to end of the line at Las Vegas, New Mexico
Las Vegas, New Mexico
Las Vegas is a city in San Miguel County, New Mexico, United States. Once two separate municipalities both named Las Vegas, west Las Vegas and east Las Vegas , divided by the Gallinas River, retain distinct characters and separate, rival school districts. The population was 14,565 at the 2000...
, then on to Zuni Pueblo
Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico
Zuni Pueblo is a census-designated place in McKinley County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 6,367 at the 2000 census...
where Cushing, "went native", living with the Zuni from 1879 to 1884, becoming anthropology's first participant observer. (This credit is usually assigned to Bronisław Malinowski, whose work with the Trobriand Islanders followed Cushing's stay at Zuni by more than thirty years.) After some initial difficulties (the Zuni seriously considered killing him as he was obviously after their secrets) he was accepted by the community, adopted by the Governor of the Pueblo and participated in Zuni activities. In 1881 he was initiated into the warrior society, the Priesthood of the Bow. He received the Zuni name Tenatsali, "medicine flower." In 1882 he took his Zuni father and fellow Bow members on a tour to the Eastern United States which attracted considerable media attention. This can be seen as part of what Cushing called "the reciprocal method", where he would introduce his anthropological subjects to his own culture, just has they had introduced him to theirs (Green 1990:166). Such practice, a century ahead of its time, is now called "reflexive anthropology". During this tour Cushing married Emily Tennison of Washington, D.C. He returned to Zuni with his wife and her sister.
It was at this point that Cushing became embroiled in a political intrigue. In 1877, President Hayes had signed a bill designating the boundaries of the new Zuni reservation. One 800 acres (3.2 km²) section of Zuni territory called the Nutria Valley had been left out. Three land speculators, including Major W. F. Tucker, arrived in Zuni in late 1882 to claim the parcel for a cattle ranching operation. The angered Zunis appealed to Cushing for help, whereby he wrote letters to newspapers in Chicago and Boston in their defense. Unfortunately, Major Tucker's father-in-law was Illinois Senator John A. Logan, who would become a vice presidential candidate in 1884. Even though President Chester Arthur rewrote the Zuni boundaries in 1883 to correct the Nutria Valley omission, the damage had been done. Senator Logan's reputation had been tarnished in the "land grab" imbroglio. Logan, in his position as U.S. Senator, threatened the Bureau of American Ethnology director John Wesley Powell with funding cuts if Cushing's stay in Zuni was not terminated. Cushing was forced to return to Washington, ending his landmark efforts amongst the New Mexico natives.
He was able to return briefly in 1886 but personal and health problems ruined his stay for him. He was succeeded as leader of the Hemenway Southwestern Archaeological Expedition by archaeologist and ethnologist J. Walter Fewkes
J. Walter Fewkes
Jesse Walter Fewkes was an American anthropologist, archaeologist, writer and naturalist. He was born in Newton, Massachusetts, and initially trained as a zoologist at Harvard University...
.
Other work and death
He also did work at Key MarcoKey Marco
Key Marco was an archaeological site on Marco Island, Florida, which was excavated in 1896 by Frank Hamilton Cushing of the Smithsonian Institution. Cushing recovered more than 1,000 wooden artifacts from the Key Marco site, the largest number of wooden artifacts from any prehistoric archaeological...
(1896) and on abandoned villages in the American West, He came into contact with Stewart Culin
Stewart Culin
Stewart Culin was an ethnographer and author interested in games, art and dress. He believed that similarity in gaming demonstrated similarity and contact among cultures across the world.-Early life:...
on the World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
with whom he began to write about the history of game
Game
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
s. He choked to death
Asphyxia
Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of severely deficient supply of oxygen to the body that arises from being unable to breathe normally. An example of asphyxia is choking. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which primarily affects the tissues and organs...
on a fishbone on April 10, 1900, while on a research project in Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
.
Significance of work
Cushing was an innovator in the development of the anthropological view that all peoples have a cultureCulture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
that they draw from. He was ahead of his time as the first participant observer who entered into and participated in another culture rather than studying and commenting on it as an outside observer.
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator...
painted him in Zuni costume and John K. Hillers took photographs at Zuni, some showing him as a Bow Priest.
Books on Zuni by Frank Cushing
- Jesse Green, Sharon Weiner Green and Frank Hamilton Cushing, Cushing at Zuni: The Correspondence and Journals of Frank Hamilton Cushing, 1879-1884, UNMPRESS University of New Mexico PressUniversity of New Mexico PressThe University of New Mexico Press, founded in 1929, is a university press that is part of the University of New Mexico. Its administrative offices are in the Office of Research , on the campus of UNM in Albuquerque....
, 1990, hardcover ISBN 0-8263-1172-5 - Sylvester Baxter and Frank H. Cushing, My Adventurers in Zuni: Including Father of The Pueblos & An Aboriginal Pilgrimage, PMA Online Org Filter Press, LLC, 1999, paperback, 1999, 79 pages, ISBN 0-86541-045-3
- Frank H. Cushing, My Adventures in Zuni, Pamphlet, ISBN 1-121-39551-1
- Frank Hamilton Cushing and Barton Wright, The mythic world of the Zuni, University of New Mexico Press, 1992, hardcover, ISBN 0-8263-1036-2
- Frank H. Cushing, Outlines of Zuni Creation Myths, AMS Press; Reprint edition (June 1, 1996), Hardcover, ISBN 0-404-11834-8
- Frank H. Cushing, Zuni Coyote Tales, University of Arizona Press, 1998, paperback, 104 pages, ISBN 0-8165-1892-0
- Frank Hamilton Cushing, Zuni Fetishes, pamphlet, ISBN 1-199-17971-X and ISBN 1-122-26704-5
- Frank H. Cushing, designed by K. C. DenDooven, photographed by Bruce Hucko, Annotations by Mark Bahti, Zuni Fetishes, KC Publications, 1999, paperback, 48 pages, ISBN 0-88714-144-7
- Frank Hamilton Cushing, Zuni Fetishes Facsimile, pamphlet, ISBN 1-125-28500-1
- Frank Hamilton Cushing, Zuni Folk Tales, hardcover, ISBN 1-125-91410-6 (expensive if you search by ISBN, try ABE for older used copies without
ISBN ) - Frank Hamilton Cushing, Zuni Folk Tales, University of Arizona Press, 1999, trade paperback, ISBN 0-8165-0986-7 (reasonably priced)
- Frank H. Cushing, edited by Jesse Green, foreword by Fred Eggan, Introduction by Jesse Green, Zuni: Selected Writings of Frank Hamilton Cushing University of Nebraska Press, 1978, hardcover, 440 pages, ISBN 0-8032-2100-2; trade paperback, 1979, 449 pages, ISBN 0-8032-7007-0
- Frank Hamilton Cushing. Zuni Breadstuff (Indian Notes and Monographs V.8), AMS Press, 1975, 673 pages, ISBN 0-404-11835-6
Other Works
- Frank Hamilton Cushing. Exploration of Ancient Key-Dweller Remains on the Gulf Coast of Florida, University Press of Florida, 2000.
- Frank Hamilton Cushing, edited by Phyllis Kolianos and Brent Weisman. The Florida Journals of Frank Hamilton Cushing, University of Florida Press, 2005.
- Frank Hamilton Cushing, edited by Phyllis Kolianos and Brent Weisman. The Lost Florida Manuscript of Frank Hamilton Cushing, University of Florida Press, 2005.
External links
Compare
- Frank Hamilton Cushing on Wikinfo (Internet Encyclopedia)