Indians of the Northwest Coast

by Philip Drucker

Overview

Written by an outstanding authority and profusely illustrated, this is a comprehensive study of the Indians that lived from Yakutat Bay in Alaska to the northern coast of California. Originally published in the Anthropological Handbooks Series of The American Museum of Natural History, this volume vividly recreates the complexities and attainments of this unique culture of aboriginal America.

The author first describes the land, people, and prehistory of the area and then considers each aspect of the culture: social structures and marriage customs, economy and technology, religion, rituals, art, wars, and feuds.

Philip Drucker, an authority on the ethnology of the Pacific Coast, was educated at the University of California and was formerly with the Bureau of American Ethnology of The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Illustrated with over 70 drawings

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789127775
Publisher:	Borodino Books
Publication date:	12/02/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	179
File size:	23 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Philip Drucker (1911-1982) was one of the leading anthropologists in the United States, and an authority on the aboriginal cultures of the American Northwest. He also played an important part in the early excavations under Matthew Stirling of the Smithsonian of the Olmec culture in Mexico, especially the site of La Venta.

Born on January 13, 1911, in Chicago, Illinois, Drucker was educated at the University of California, where he received his doctorate in anthropology in 1936. He undertook fieldwork on the Northwest Coast from 1933 onwards, making an ethnographic study of the Nootka Indians in 1935 as a Social Science Research Council predoctoral fellow, and an ethnographic survey of the Northwest Coast for the UCLA program in “Culture Element Distribution” in 1936. As National Research Council postdoctoral fellow in 1938, he made an archaeological survey and a study of the cultural adaptation and acculturation among Indians of the Northwest Coast.

The main Olmec expeditions were in 1940-1942 when he worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology in Washington, D.C. as a staff anthropologist (1940-1955). His first Olmec period ended when he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1942, seeing active service until 1945. He then joined the Smithsonian, but in 1948 he was ordered to active duty by the U.S. Naval Reserve as anthropologist to the American occupation administration for Micronesia, with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, serving until 1952.

From 1955-1966, Dr. Drucker largely gave up academic work and farmed in Mexico, married, and had two children. From 1966 he returned to academic life at the University of Kentucky, and elsewhere as a visiting professor.

Dr. Drucker was the author of many anthropological studies, among them Rank, Wealth, and Kinship in Northwest Coast Society (1939), Archeological Survey of the Northern Northwest Coast (1943), and The Northern and Central Nootkan Tribes (1951).