A Survey of Documentary Materials Available on U.S. Tribal Websites

ABSTRACT

This survey of official U.S. tribal websites examined sites for documentary materials of importance to each tribe that have been archived online, including such materials as historical essays, photos, videos, maps, newspapers, legal and historical documents, historical images, books, pamphlets, bibliographies, cultural and language materials. The materials found on those websites appear to be intended for the use of both tribal members and the general public. The result of the survey was to show that many of the same types of documentary materials held in tribal archives are also available on official websites, and to produce a current snapshot of the large array of tribal records which have been made openly available, although the length of time each document will be available on each site is unknown.

KEYWORDS:

• Tribal websites
• Native Americans
• documents
• archives
• records
• tribal identity
• historical
• American Indian
• archival materials

Author Bio

Michele Seikel is a cataloger at Edmon Low Library, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma. She can be reached at [email protected]

Notes

1. Walter T. Hagan, “Archival Captive—The American Indian,” The American Archivist 41, no. 2 (1978): 135.

2. Traci L. Morris and Sascha D. Meinrath, New Media, Technology and Internet Use in Indian Country: Quantative and Qualitative Analyses (Flagstaff, AZ: Native Public Media, 2009), 4, http://www.atalm.org/sites/default/files/NPM-NAF_New_Media_Study_2009_small.pdf. (accessed December 19, 2016).

3. Miriam Jorgensen, Sustaining Indigenous Culture (Oklahoma City, OK: Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums, c2012), 15, http://www.atalm.org/sites/default/files/sustaining_indigenous_culture.pdf (accessed December 18, 2016).

4. Census Bureau, Profile America, Facts for Features. American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, November 2013), October 31, 2013, https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/newsroom/facts-for-features/2013/cb13ff-26_aian.pdf.

5. 2015 Broadband Progress Report (Washington, DC: Federal Communications Commission, 2015), https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/broadband-progress-reports/2015-broadband-progress-report.

6. Miriam Jorgensen, Traci L. Morris, and Susan Feller, Digital Inclusion in Native Communities: The Role of Tribal Libraries (Oklahoma City, OK: Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums, 2014), 3, http://www.atalm.org/sites/default/files/Report.pdf. (accessed October 8, 2016).

7. Ibid, 19.

8. Rhonda S. Fair, “Becoming the White Man's Indian: An Examination of Native American Tribal Web Sites,” Plains Anthropologist 45, no. 172 (2000): 203.

9. Cherokee Nation website, www.cherokee.org. (accessed September 25, 2017).

10. “Cokie Gaston Anderson. American Indian Tribal Web Sites: A Review and Comparison,” Electronic Library 21, no. 5 (2003): 451.

11. Amber G. Young and Shaila M. Miranda, “Cultural Identity Restoration and Purposive Website Design: A Hermeneutic Study of the Chickasaw and Klamath Tribes,” IIIE Xplore Digital Library 2, http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6759019/. (accessed September 21, 2017).

12. Numu tekwapuha nomeneekatu website, http://www.comanchelanguage.org/. (accessed September 26, 2017).

13. Anderson, “American Indian Tribal Web Sites,” 452.

14. Shoshone Bannock Tribes website, www.shoshonebannocktribes.com. (accessed September 28, 2017).

15. Onondaga Nation website, http://www.onondaganation.org/aboutus/genealogy-inquiries/. (accessed September 29, 2017).

16. Fair, “Becoming the White Man's Indian,” 205.

17. Thomas E. Nelson, Zoe M. Oxley, and Rosalee A. Clawson, “Toward a Psychology of Framing Effects,” Political Behavior 19, no. 3 (1997): 221.

18. David Cuillier and Susan D. Ross, “Gambling with Identity: Self-Representation of American Indians on Official Tribal Websites,” Howard Journal of Communications 18, no. 3 (2007): 219.

19. Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope website, www.inupiatgov.com. (accessed September 25, 2017)

20. Hoh Tribe website, www.hohtribe-nsn.org. (accessed September 26, 2017).

21. Nativeweb website, www.nativeweb.org. (accessed March 25, 2017).

22. Online Tribal Newsletters and Newspapers, www.info.library.okstate.edu/tribal-resources.

23. Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians website, http://tmbci.kkbold.com. (accessed September 25, 2017)

24. Gaertner David, “Indigenous in Cyberspace: CyberPowWow, God's Lake Narrows, and the Contours of Online Indigenous Territory,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 39, no. 4 (2015): 56.

25. U.S. Tribal Documents Webliography, www.info.library.okstate.edu/tribal-resources.

26. Young and Miranda, “Identity Restoration and Purposive Website Design,” 7.