Bruce G. Miller

Aberrant retinothalamic projections resulting from unilateral tectal lesions made in fetal and neonatal rats

Abstract Aberrant retinothalamic projections after unilateral tectal lesions made in fetal animals are described. The results confirm, for the rat, Schneiders findings of aberrant projections to nucleus lateralis posterior and to the medial geniculate nucleus. In addition, it is shown that these projections occur even if the lesion is made just as the first retinal axons arrive in the tectum and that the projection to n. lateralis posterior is heavier in these animals compared with those receiving lesions at later times. The size of the projection also appears to vary according to the size of the tectal lesion and the amount of retinotectal recrossed projection. The relation of these findings to Schneiders theory of conservation of terminal space is discussed.

Temporal patterns of grazers and vegetation in a temperate seagrass system

Abstract The densities of benthic vegetation and invertebrate grazers were monitored in the seagrass system dominated by Zostera marina L. and Zostera japonica Aschers. & Graebn. in Padilla Bay, Washington. The primary invertebrate grazers included the isopod Idotea resecata Stimpson, caprellid amphipods and the gastropod Lacuna variegata Carpenter. Densities of Idotea and caprellids peaked in summer, and Lacuna density reached a maximum in winter. Spatial variation in densities was great, and was in the range of four orders of magnitude during some seasons. The mean, experimentally determined, grazing rate by Idotea was 0.95 mg dry wt. m −2 day −1 . At this rate, Idotea populations alone could remove up to 8 g dry wt. eelgrass m −2 day −1 . Based upon (1) high grazer densities, (2) the results of grazing experiments, and (3) experiments and observations by others showing the significance of caprellids and Idotea , we conclude that herbivory is an important process in Padilla Bay.

Creating chiefdoms: the puget sound case

The AA. critique an influential argument that rejects existing interpretations in claiming the existence of protohistorical chiefdoms in the Puget Sound area of Washington State. The case for chiefdoms is disputed for the use of dated theoretical models and for faulty ethnohistoric reconstruction. An alternative model is provided that builds on earlier scholarship. The AA. argue that reinterpretations created for contemporary political purposes may constitute « inventions of tradition », and point to some possible consequences.

Justice, Law, and the Lens of Culture

ts a peculiar fact that contemporary tribal courts and justice initiatives undertaken by indigenous communities of the United States and Canada are infrequently examined through an ethnographic and historical lens. Studies by criminologists and legal scholars, important as they are in documenting the overrepresentation of indigenous people in prisons and legal systems or in teasing out complex issues of treaty law and jurisdiction, inadvertently deflect attention either from considering the difficulties facing indigenous people attempting to conceptualize their own prior localized legal practices or, more significantly, from how they wish to regulate their reserves/reservations. Frequently the latter is regarded as a nonissue because indigenous u peoples legal cultures are treated merely as the opposite of whatever people of European descent are said to be doing or, equally unproblematically, as a question of culture, reproduced through generations. More ethnographic work is being done now to study both prior justice practices and to determine what contemporary community members view as significant about justice, an important development for sev~ 135 eral reasons. Indigenous communities in the United States do have tribal courts, and indigenous communities in Canada do engage in a variety of diversionary programs. It is a moment of potentially creative engagement, and in the Canadian dialogue at least, mainstream court officials claim they are looking to indigenous people for ideas for legal reform of the mainstream system. It is also a dangerous moment, although some

Evolution or History? A Response to Tollefson

You either grasp an interpretation or you do not, see the point of it or you do not, accept it or you do not. Imprisoned in the immediacy of its own detail, it is presented as self-validating, or, worse, as validated by the supposedly developed sensitivities of the person who presents it; any attempt to cast what it says in terms other than its own is regarded as a travesty-as, the anthropologists severest form of moral abuse, ethnocentric. (I973: 24)

Who Are Indigenes? A Comparative Study of Canadian and American Practices

There are currently hundreds of groups in the United States and Canada that clamor for state-to-state recognition by the federal governments as bona fide Indigenous peoples. This comparative study of American and Canadian policy and practice toward these nonrecognized communities is set in a historical perspective, focusing on legislation, administrative policy, and legal judgments that affect conceptualizations of Indigenes. This article argues that differences in these policies arise from divergences in national understandings regarding who Indigenous peoples are and how they can be administered and costs suppressed. The author contrasts the ways in which a formal and elaborate U.S. bureaucracy assesses candidate communities for recognition by applying flawed legal tests with a Canadian practice that largely overlooks the issue of nonrecognized communities.

Lushootseed Texts: An Introduction to Puget Salish Narrative Aesthetics@@@Our Tellings: Interior Salish Stories of the Nlha7kápmx People

This volume introduces the oral literature of Native American peoples in Puget Salish-speaking areas of western Washington. Seven stories told by Lushootseed elders are transcribed and translated into English, accompanied by information on narrative design and cultural background. Upper Skagit elder and cotranslator Vi Hilbert, a 1994 recipient of the NEH National Heritage Fellowship in Folk Arts, includes a cultural welcome and offers childhood reminiscences of the storytellers. Cotranslator Thomas M. Hess, associate professor of linguistics at the University of Victoria, parses the beginning lines of a text to show the grammatical structures; he also includes his recollections of working with the storytellers in the 1960s as a graduate student. Editor and cotranslator Crisca Bierwert, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, provides information on the processes of language translation and of rendering oral traditions into written form. Annotator T. C. S. Langen, who holds a Ph.D. in English literature and is a curriculum developer for the Tulalip tribe, provides analyses of Lushootseed poetics. The book includes information about purchasing audiotapes of the stories.