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Media Relations
Kansas State University
9 Anderson Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506
785-532-6415
media@k-state.edu

Information provided by K-State Media Relations, K-State's news service, may be reproduced without permission. The marks and names of Kansas State University are protected trademarks and may not be used in any commercial or private endeavor without the approval of the university.

Sources: Harald Prins, 785-4966, prins@k-state.edu;
and Bunny McBride, 785-532-6865, bmcb@k-state.edu
http://www.k-state.edu/media/mediaguide/bios/prinsbio.html

Thursday, August 28, 2008

DIGITAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF MAINE'S WABANAKI INDIANS BY TWO K-STATE ANTHROPOLOGISTS AVAILABLE ONLINE AT NATIONAL PARK WEB SITE

MANHATTAN -- Two Kansas State University anthropologists are the authors of the first-ever cultural history of the Wabanaki, indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting what is now protected as part of Acadia National Park on the coast of Maine. The work is now available on the Web site of one of the nation's major national parks, Acadia National Park in Maine.

"Asticou's Island Domain: Wabanaki Peoples at Mount Desert Island 1500-2000" represents a three-year project that was researched and written by K-State's Harald Prins, a university distinguished professor of anthropology, and Bunny McBride, an adjunct anthropology lecturer. The work was commissioned by the Ethnography Program of the National Park Service in cooperation with Acadia National Park, the Abbe Museum for Stone Age Antiquities and Maine's four Wabanaki Indian nations.

Acadia National Park is situated in the center of the Wabanaki ancestral homeland, which goes from Newfoundland, Canada, to the Merrimac River valley in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Native Americans have lived in this region for more than 10,000 years.

The two-volume, 620-page document is based on extensive research by Prins and McBride. It features a foreword by Donald Soctomah, Passamaquoddy tribal historian and tribal representative of the Passamaquoddy Indians to the Maine Legislature. Engravings, drawings, paintings, maps and photographs -- many never published before -- illustrate the work. It also includes a new coastal map and a 12-page timeline with geographical and historical overviews. The second volume, focusing on the natural history of the region, includes an illustrated and annotated inventory of some 250 plant and animal species used by Wabanakis for food, material culture and medicinal purposes.

Prins and McBride completed the work in late 2007. The National Park Service and Acadia National Park have distributed more than 150 copies of "Asticou's Island Domain" to libraries, scholars, Maine's tribal nations and other interested individuals. Now a digital version can be downloaded for free at:
http://www.nps.gov/acad/historyculture/ethnography.htm

Prins and McBride are longtime researchers of Maine's indigenous peoples and their traditional cultures.

From 1981-1991 they did historical research and community development work for the Aroostook Band of Micmac Indians in Maine. The work resulted in legislation by the U.S. Congress that granted the band official status as a federally recognized Indian tribe and almost $1 million to buy back lost indigenous territory.

In 1999 the Maine Legislature gave McBride a special commendation for her research and writing on the history of Native American women in the state, an honor initiated by tribal representatives in the legislature.

Prins has authored numerous landmark publications on the Wabanaki, including the book, "The Mi'kmaq: Resistance, Accommodation and Cultural Survival," and the documentary film, "Our Lives in Our Hands." He also served as principal research adviser for the award-winning film, "Wabanaki: A New Dawn."

His other works include a co-edited volume, "American Beginnings: Exploration, Culture and Cartography in the Land of Norumbega"; four co-authored and widely used anthropology textbooks, including "Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge," 12th edition; two co-edited special journal issues; and more than 100 scholarly articles, book chapters, reviews and encyclopedia entries.

He has been president of the Society for Visual Anthropology and visual anthropology editor of the journal, American Anthropologist. He earned a doctoraal degree from the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands and a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research. Having taught at Bowdoin College in Maine, he joined K-State in 1990, was promoted to full professor in 1996, and was named a university distinguished professor in 2005.

Prins has been highly honored for his teaching. The Carnegie Foundation for the Support of Education/Council for the Advancement and Support of Education selected him as Kansas Professor of the Year in 2006. He also served as K-State's 2004-2005 Coffman Chair for Distinguished Teaching Scholars, received K-State's Presidential Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching in 1999, and was the recipient of a Conoco Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching in 1993.

McBride writes often on cultural survival and wildlife conservation themes. She is the author of "Women of the Dawn," which was the winner of the Friends of American Writers Literary Award; "Molly Spotted Elk: A Penobscot in Paris," a best-selling biography; and "Our Lives in Our Hands: Micmac Indian Basketmakers." She also has curated museum exhibition based on her books.

In addition, McBride is the co-author of "The National Audubon Society Field Guide to African Wildlife" and three major introductory anthropology textbooks, with a fourth, "The Essence of Anthropology," an abridged edition of "Anthropology," forthcoming. From 1978-1988, McBride wrote nearly 100 articles for The Christian Science Monitor. She has contributed to many other papers and magazines and has chapters in a dozen books. She has been an adjunct lecturer of anthropology at K-State since 1996. From 1981 to 2002, she was a regular visiting lecturer of anthropology at Principia College in Illinois. She also has taught at the Salt Institute for Documentary Field Studies in Portland, Maine; served as an oral history adviser for the Kansas Humanities Council; and as a board member of the Women's World Summit Foundation, based in Geneva, Switzerland. McBride earned a master's in anthropology from Columbia University.