Beaver
Beaver

Author: Rachel Poliquin

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2015-05-15

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1780234562

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With unique fish-like tails, chainsaw teeth, a pungent musk, and astonishing building skills, beavers are unlike any other creature in the world. Not surprisingly, the extraordinary beaver has played a fascinating role in human history and has inspired a rich cultural tradition for millennia. In Beaver, Rachel Poliquin explores four exceptional beaver features: beaver musk, beaver fur, beaver architecture, and beaver ecology, tracing the long evolutionary history of the two living species and revealing them to be survivors capable of withstanding ice ages, major droughts, and all predators, except one: humans. Widely hunted for their fur, beavers were a driving force behind the colonization of North America and remain, today, Canada’s national symbol. Poliquin examines depictions of beavers in Aesop’s Fables, American mythology, contemporary art, and environmental politics, and she explores the fact and fictions of beaver chain gangs, beaver-flavored ice cream, and South America’s ever-growing beaver population. And yes, she even examines the history of the sexual euphemism. Poliquin delights in the strange tales and improbable history of the beaver. Written in an accessible style for a broad readership, this beautifully illustrated book will appeal to anyone who enjoys long-forgotten animal lore and extraordinary animal biology.

The North American Indian: The Yakima. The Klickitat. Salishan tribes of the interior. The Kutenai
The North American Indian: The Yakima. The Klickitat. Salishan tribes of the interior. The Kutenai

Author: Edward S. Curtis

Publisher:

Published: 1911

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13:

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"[A] comprehensive and permanent record of all the important tribes of the United States and Alaska that still retain to a considerable degree their primitive customs and traditions. The value of such a work, in great measure, will lie in the breadth of its treatment, in its wealth of illustration, and in the fact that it represents the result of personal study of a people who are rapidly losing the traces of their aboriginal character and who are destined ultimately to become assimilated with the 'superior race.' It has been the aim to picture all features of the Indian life and environment--types of the young and the old, with their habitations, industries, ceremonies, games, and everyday customs ... Though the treatment accorded the Indians by those who lay claim to civilization and Christianity has in many cases been worse than criminal, a rehearsal of these wrongs does not properly find a place here"--General introduction.

A Short History of Costume & Armour
A Short History of Costume & Armour

Author: Francis M. Kelly

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 2013-02-19

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 048614612X

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DIVMeticulously researched, well-illustrated history of fashion covers 800 years of style: civilian and military clothing of English upper classes for both sexes, 11th–19th centuries, plus accessories. 342 black-and-white illustrations. /div

A Wealth of Thought
A Wealth of Thought

Author: Franz Boas

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2015-09-14

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 0295998601

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Although Franz Boas--one of the most influential anthropologists of the twentieth century--is best known for his voluminous writings on cultural, physical, and linguistic anthropology, he is also recognized for breaking new ground in the study of so-called primitive art. His writings on art have major historical value because they embody a profound change in art history. Nineteenth-century scholars assumed that all art lay on a continuum from primitive to advanced: artworks of all nonliterate peoples were therefore examples of early stages of development. But Boas’s case studies from his own fieldwork in the Pacific Northwest demonstrated different tenets: the variety of history, the influence of diffusion, the symbolic and stylistic variation in art styles found among groups and sometimes within one group, and the role of imagination and creativity on the part of the artist. This volume presents Boas’s most significant writings on art (dated 1889-1916), many originally published in obscure sources now difficult to locate. The original illustrations and an extensive, combined bibliography are included. Aldona Jonaitis’s careful compilation of articles and the thorough historical and theoretical framework in which she casts them in her introductory and concluding essays make this volume a valuable reference for students of art history and Northwest anthropology, and a special delight for admirers of Boas.

Trapping 101
Trapping 101

Author: Philip Massaro

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2020-03-24

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 1510716343

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Tips, tactics, and techniques for all skill levels. The ancient art of trapping goes back centuries, almost to the beginning of civilization. Native Americans used the pit trap, deadfalls, and snares, the Chinese documented the use of nets and pits in the fourth century BCE, and virtually every civilization can exhibit some example of the use of a trap in one form or another to procure meat, hides, or fur. The fur trade across Europe was dominated by the Russians, which provided furs to the greater part of Western Europe and Asia during the Middle Ages, which prompted the exploration of Siberia and its game rich forests. In North America, trapping was one of the primary reasons why settlers pushed West, taking advantage of the bountiful game across the continent. Fur was used not only for coats, hats, and mittens, it was used as a form of barter. The taking of a fur-bearing animal was and is a big accomplishment, as fooling a crafty animal on its home territory is no easy feat. In Trapping 101, veteran trapper Phil Massaro reveals all the secrets of the trade, from knowing where to set traps, to understanding and using various types of traps, to properly using scents. Tips and tactics for taking beavers, muskrats, weasels, raccoons, skunks, otters, and more are all covered. While there is a wealth of information in here for beginners, information that will help them pick up trapping with relative ease, there are many subtle tips and tricks that even a veteran trapper will appreciate. Times have, of course, changed since the days of the voyageurs and rendezvouses. There are many more people in this modern world, many more dwellings, many more towns and cities. But there is a place for trapping in all this, just as there are places for hunting and fishing. A knowledgeable trapper, following game rules and respecting the animals he is trying to trap, fits right into the grand scheme of Mother Nature existing in harmony with humankind. This book will help you achieve that.