Ethnology of the Gros Ventre

Kroeber, A. L. (Alfred Louis)

Book

Ethnology of the Gros Ventre

Trustees • I (IV) • Published In 1908 • Pages: 141-281 , pl. VII-XIII

By: Kroeber, A. L. (Alfred Louis).

Abstract
The data for this study were collected by the author, a distinguished American anthropologist, during one of the very early field trips made in his professional career. The article presented here is lacking in over-all ethnographic coverage with little if any attention being given to kinship, kin groups, food processing, community structure, marriage, and various other aspects of human society customarily found in an ethnographic report of this type. Special emphasis is given, however, to decorative art, games, war and war experiences of individuals, personal supernatural powers, medicines and plants, tribal ceremonial organization, and intricate details of some of the more important Gros Ventre ceremonies (e.g., the Crazy-Dance, the Kit Fox Dance, and the Dog Dance, etc.). The author constantly employs culture element comparisons throughout the text, primarily in relationship to the Arapaho, and secondarily to other Plains tribes.

Sacred objects and places