Book

Dancing with a ghost: exploring Indian reality

Octopus Books : Distributed by Butterworths • Markham, Ont. • Published In 1992 • Pages:

By: Ross, Rupert.

Abstract

This is one of the best accounts of hunter-gatherer mentality, and an anthropologist did not write it! Rupert Ross is a Crown Attorney who practices criminal law in northwestern Ontario. Before going to law school, Ross spent eleven summers working as a fishing guide north of Kenora, where he associated with Native people. This book grew out of a series of articles Ross published about his confusion over the way Natives behaved in the court system. Their silence when they should be giving testimony, or their unsolicited self-incriminating confessions, when they should be silent, baffled Ross. With help from Native informants, he began to understand their ethical system, in which individuals were not penalized or stigmatized for bad behavior. Instead, they were counseled by elders and subjected to ritual healing in order to bring them back into the family. Ross convincingly relates these practices to other aspects of hunter-gathering life: the threat of starvation, ethics of noninterference, mandatory egalitarianism, experiential knowledge, the extended family, and belief in supernatural spirits.

HRAF PubDate

2000

Region

North America

Sub Region

Arctic and Subarctic

Document Type

Book

Evaluation

Creator Type

Judicial Personnel

Document Rating

4: Excellent Secondary Data

5: Excellent Primary Data

Analyst

Ian Skoggard ;1998

Field Date

1968-1991

Coverage Date

1968-1991

Coverage Place

Contemporary Region, Kenora region, Ontario, Canada

Notes

Rupert Ross

Includes indexes

LCCN

92194570

LCSH

Ojibwa Indians