Clifford, J. 1988

Clifford, James. 1988.The predicament of culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 381 pages. 0674698428(hardback); 0674698436 (paperback). Location: Dallas SIL Library 306 C637p. Interest level: general.

Connects history, literature, and anthropology in discussing the embattled Mashpee Indians of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Probes the late-twentieth-century predicament of living simultaneously within, between, and after culture. In August 1976, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council sued in federal court for possession of about 16,000 acres of land constituting three-quarters of Mashpee, Cape Cod's Indian Town. The Mashpee lawsuit was one of a group of land-claim actions filed in the late 1960s and l970s. This was a relatively favorable period of redress of Native American grievances in the courts. The Mashpee claim was different from others in that their institutions of tribal governance were elusive, they had intermarried with other groups, and they no longer spoke a common language. The jury decided the Mashpee did not constitute a continuous Indian language group. The judge's dismissal of the suit has since been upheld on appeal.

• Bibliography module: Clifford, J. 1988
• In overview module: Bibliography (Literacy): C
• In modular book: Bibliography (Literacy), by Doris Gallemore, Trudi C. Hunt, Jeanne Swanson, and Stephen L. Walter
• In document collection: Reference materials
• In bookshelf: Literacy

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