Features important information about Dene community life in the 1960s during the crucial period immediately following the move from bush to town. Deals extensively with the traditional economy, the structure of Dene Kinship, its role in social organization, and the role of the drum dance in the social life of the community under rapidly-changing circumstances.
Michael I. Asch is Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta and a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria. Dr. Asch graduated with a B.A., majoring in Anthropology, from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Columbia University. Dr. Asch's research has primarily engaged issues pertaining to relations between First Nations people and Canada, focusing on political, cultural and legal contexts. His publications include the books: Kinship and the Drum Dance in a Northern Dene Community (1988), Home and Native Land: Aboriginal Rights and the Canadian Constitution (1984) and the edited volume, Aboriginal and Treaty Rights in Canada. Currently, Dr. Asch is researching issues concerning representation of Indigenous peoples in anthropological theory, alternative ways to construct relations between Self and Other in Western political thought and on treaty relations. He served as an advisor with the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peopl