In the early 1930s, anthropologist Ruth Underhill, a student of Franz Boas (see entry for 1887), began interviewing Maria Chona, an elder of the Papago (now the Tohono O’odham), while gathering information for an anthropological study of her tribe. Speaking through an interpreter, Chona told Underhill the fascinating story of her life, which Underhill recognized as a book in itself.
From their conversations, Underhill crafts Autobiography of a Papago Woman (later reissued as Papago Woman). The book describes the life of a strong woman who manages to satisfy her ambition to become a medicine women while observing the often constricting roles assigned to women among the Papago. Owing to Chona’s compelling story and Underhill’s mastery as a writer and an editor, Papago Woman will become a landmark in both anthropological and Native American literature.
“You see, we have power. Men have to dream to get power from the spirits and they think of everything they can—song and speeches and marching around, hoping that the spirits will notice them and give them some power. But we have power. . . . Can any warrior make a child, no matter how brave and wonderful he is?”
—medicine woman Maria Chona in Autobiography of a Papago Woman
The Indian Actors Association is founded.
Affiliated with the Screen Actors Guild, the leading union for film actors, the Indian Actors Association is established in Hollywood. The organization protects the interests of Indian actors by lobbying for better pay and benefits and by encouraging casting agents to hire Indians to play Indian roles. Among the association’s founding members are star athlete Jim Thorpe (see entry for SUMMER 1912) and writer and performer Luther Standing Bear.
D’Arcy McNickle’s The Surrounded is published.
The Surrounded, the story of the struggles of an Indian of mixed ancestry living on the Flathead Indian Reservation, is published as the first novel of Chippewa-Cree writer D’Arcy McNickle. Later trained in anthropology, McNickle will help implement the Indian Reorganization Act (see entry for JUNE 18, 1934) while working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Decades later, he will also be instrumental in organizing the seminal conference of the National Congress of American Indians (see entry for JUNE 13 TO 20, 1961).
The Alaska Native Reorganization Act extends the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) to Alaskan Natives.
By order of Congress, the Natives of Alaska were excluded from the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) (see entry for JUNE 18, 1934), largely because unlike other Native groups they receive government services from the Bureau of Education in the Alaska territorial government instead of from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. By extending the IRA’s provisions to Alaskan groups, the Alaska Native Reorganization Act creates new federally funded programs for self-government and economic development, thereby redefining the relationship between Alaska’s Native population and the U. S. government.
June 26
Congress passed the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act.
Because the governments of the large Indian tribes of Oklahoma were dissolved when it became a state, Congress specifically excluded them from the landmark Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) (JUNE 18, 1934). With the passage of the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act, this decision is reversed. The act gives Oklahoma Indians the same benefits that the IRA awarded to the rest of the Native American population.
World History
