“These Shall Come from Far”

Chapter 3 analyzes English claims to a central role in a global network of indigenous and English people connected by faith around the world, claims made manifest in Of the Conversion of Five Thousand Nine Hundred Indians on the Island of Formosa, a 1650 publication by Baptist minister Henry Jessey, printed by radical bookseller Hannah Allen. It reports on Dutch missions in Taiwan, comparing them with evangelism efforts in New England. The coda considers the experiences of an Algonquian woman who is unnamed in Jessey’s tract but is identified as a basket maker, speculating on the meaning she may have encoded in her basket designs. Though we cannot “read” them directly, the fact that she made them, coupled with the provocative arguments offered by recent scholars about Native material culture in the colonial period, enables us to reconsider the print archive in which she appears.

Pioneers in Optics: Antonie van Leeuwenhoek and James Clerk Maxwell

Leeuwenhoek was born in Delft, Holland on October 24, 1632. His father was a basket maker, and although Leeuwenhoek did not receive a university education and was not considered a scholar, his curiosity and skill allowed him to make some of the most important discoveries in the history of biology.James Clerk Maxwell was one of the greatest scientists of the nineteenth century. He is best known for the formulation of the theory of electromagnetism and in making the connection between light and electromagnetic waves. He also made significant contributions in the areas of physics, mathematics, astronomy, and engineering. He is considered by many as the father of modern physics.

Commentary: Can You Take Undergraduates to the Field? A Field School Example

We are in a Rarámuri rancho in the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua, Mexico when one of the eight undergraduate students participating in the ethnographic field school starts whooping with joy. He has just spoken a Rarámuri word/concept he learned in my ethnography class to one of the Tarahumara children following us around, and the youth has responded. The anthropology major, a junior, has an intellectual epiphany as he sees how his classroom experience holds meaning here. The geology-archaeology major has admitted earlier that her only goal in attending the field school was to go down into Canyon de Chelly instead of looking at it from above. She says she is not really interested in indigenous people- she prefers rocks. She spends the next day with an older Hopi woman. During their time together the young geologist and the older basket maker share life stories and so begins a meaningful and ongoing cross cultural friendship.

Now and Then: Fiber Meets Fibonacci; The Shape of Things to Come

AN OLD SAYING GOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS, “ARTISTS ARE born, not made.” For Billie Ruth Sudduth, this statement is not quite true. Billie Ruth, who lives in the North Carolina mountains, makes baskets that are prized by collectors from all across North America and have been displayed in the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. She is internationally known for her basket artistry and was the first woman to be designated a Living Treasure by the state of North Carolina. But she was not always a basket maker.

A New Approach to the Significance of the “Weighted” Spear Thrower

Many archaeologists continue to assume that spear thrower adjuncts were intended to serve some practical purpose related to the performance of the weapon despite the inconclusive results of the experimental use of the “weighted” spear thrower. Contrary to popular opinion, there is little evidence to substantiate the claim that atlatl weights increase the range or velocity of projectiles to any significant degree. A new approach to the problem is suggested by referring back to the original descriptions of archaeologically recovered spear throwers from the American Southwest. The fact that Basket Maker II atlatls were described as being characteristically flat in cross-section with surprisingly flexible shafts as well as reference to the former use of flexible spear throwers by A boriginal tribes of north A ustralia suggests that spear thrower adjuncts may have been intended as a means of exploiting the potential of such a weapon.