This video is the first of 12 presentations that were prepared as a symposium for the Society for American Archaeology’s 2019 meeting.
They were made into YouTube videos when the meetings were canceled.

Symposium Title
Notions and Strategic Uses of Personhood and Souls-Like Essences among Early Woodland,
​Middle Woodland, and Postcontact Indians of the Eastern Woodlands

Abstract
     Inspired by the work of ethnologist A. Irving Hallowell and more recent developments in the study of non-Western peoples’ ontologies, we present archaeological, bioarchaeological, ethnographic, and folklore documentation of Ohio Hopewell, Kentucky Adena, and postcontact Woodland Indians’ notions of personhood, including soul-like essences as constituents of a person.  We explore how these notions motivated and were expressed in mortuary rituals, formed a foundation for interpersonal and intergroup interactions, and were sometimes used strategically to create productive relations among groups and ties to places.  Major themes that crosscut the presentations are:  (1) the central place of ideas about soul-like essences in Woodland Indian concepts of the person; (2) the inclusion of other-than-human beings in the Woodland Indian cultural category of the person; and (3) the native logics and strategic uses of these two facets of personhood in forming and maintaining intercommunity alliances, in place-making, and in issues of apparent “territoriality”. 
​Symposium Organizer and Chair
Christopher Carr, Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University
 
Presenters and Titles of Papers
Christopher Carr, Professor Emeritus
Introduction:  Symposium Topics and a Historical Critique of Some Recent
Anthropological Views of Personhood

William Rex Weeks, Ph.D.
Come as Strangers, Leave as Friends:  An Invitation to A. Irving Hallowell’s Essay on “Ojibwa
Ontology, Behavior, and Worldview” for Soul-Searching Archaeologists

Mary Kupsch, M.A.
Soul Concepts of Postcolonial Woodland and Plains Indians, I:  A Systematic Survey of
Specific Ideas in Oral Narratives as a Foundation for an Archaeology of Souls

Brianna Rafidi, B.A.
Soul Concepts of Postcolonial Woodland and Plains Indians, II:  A Systematic Survey
of Concept Meta-Themes, Intercorrelations, and Regional Traditions

Heather Smyth, M.A. and Christopher Carr, Prof. Emeritus
Scioto Hopewell Ideas about Multiple Soul-Like Essences in Humans:  Mortuary Expression in
View of Postcolonial Woodland and Plains Indians’ Soul Concepts

Christopher Caseldine, Ph.D.
Soul Journeys to Afterlives:  A Systematic Survey of Postcolonial Woodland and Plains Native
American Ideas in Oral Narratives as a Foundation for Precolonial Mortuary Studies

Anna C. Novotny, Assistant Professor
Souls in Flight:  A Scioto Hopewell Ritual Drama about
the Journey of Souls of the Deceased to an Afterlife

Mark McConaughy, Ph.D.
Bird Effigies at Sugar Run Mound, Pennsylvania and
North Benton Mound, Ohio

Christopher Carr, Professor Emeritus
Scioto Hopewell Souls and Intercommunity Alliance-Making: Three
World-View Metaphors that Scioto Hopewell Peoples Lived

Andrew Seidel, Ph.D.
Persons and Places:  Ontology and Landscape Use
​among Kentucky Adena Groups

Kelley Hays-Gilpin, Professor
Discussion of Papers

Christine S. VanPool, Associate Professor
Discussion of Papers
 
Video Production and Audio Engineering
Brianna Rafidi, Christopher Carr