Fellowships
Periodically, the American West Institute grants endowed fellowships to scholars pursuing areas of active interest within the field. These year-long grants are open to qualified applicants and often support post-doctoral research or independent research toward publication in academic journals or public presentation.
We are currently seeking applicants with an active interest in fieldwork or bibliographical study in the following areas.
Ethnozoological Significance of the Western Gray Squirrel (Sciurus griseus) in the Cosmology and Oral Tradition of Western Indigenous Nations
Background. Despite considerable scholarly attention paid to megafauna — bison, elk, pronghorn — in the ethnozoological literature of the North American West, the symbolic, cosmological, and subsistence-adjacent roles occupied by smaller mammals remain comparatively under-documented. Sciurus griseus, the western gray squirrel, inhabits a range spanning oak and pine woodlands from the Cascade-Sierra corridor to the transverse ranges of the Pacific slope, territory that overlaps substantially with the traditional homelands of numerous Indigenous nations of the western United States. Preliminary review of the ethnographic record — collected largely by non-Native ethnographers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and therefore subject to the interpretive limitations of that era — suggests the squirrel figures intermittently as trickster, omen, or minor culture-hero in oral tradition, yet no systematic, cross-nation comparative study has been undertaken.
Scope of Inquiry. This fellowship solicits proposals for a comparative ethnozoological study examining the mythological, ceremonial, and everyday significance attributed to tree squirrels among Indigenous nations whose traditional territories fall within the species' historic range. Successful applicants will be expected to identify seven nations for sustained comparative analysis, selected on the basis of documented squirrel-related material in the oral-historical or ethnographic record, geographic distribution across the species' range, and — where appropriate and with proper protocols observed — the willingness of tribal historic preservation offices and knowledge-holders to participate in collaborative research.
Methodology. The Institute anticipates a mixed-methods approach combining archival ethnography (a systematic re-review of Bureau of American Ethnology reports, WPA-era folklore collections, and state historical society holdings), community-based participatory research conducted in accordance with tribal research protocols and institutional review board oversight, and, where feasible, semi-structured interviews with tribal historians and culture-bearers. Fellows are strongly encouraged to pursue formal research agreements with participating nations prior to the commencement of fieldwork, and to center Indigenous epistemological frameworks rather than impose external interpretive categories upon oral tradition.
Significance. A rigorous comparative treatment of squirrel symbolism would meaningfully expand the ethnozoological literature beyond its present preoccupation with charismatic megafauna, while offering a case study in how small, unglamorous, but ecologically ubiquitous species accrue cosmological weight in oral tradition. The resulting research is anticipated to be of interest to scholars of comparative mythology, Native American and Indigenous studies, and historical ecology alike, and may inform future collaborative projects between the Institute and participating tribal historic preservation offices.
The Colt .45 Pistol, Murder and Myth on the Frontier: Toward a Forensic and Ballistic Reassessment of Gunfight Historiography
Background. The received popular image of frontier gun violence — the ritualized, quick-draw duel enacted at high noon on a dusty street — owes considerably more to twentieth-century cinema and dime-novel convention than to the documentary or medical record of the nineteenth-century American West. The period sidearm most closely associated with this mythology, the Colt Single Action Army revolver chambered in .45 Colt and adopted by the United States Army in 1873, has been examined extensively by firearms historians and collectors, yet comparatively little scholarship has approached the weapon and its use from the standpoint of forensic medicine: what a .45-caliber, black-powder cartridge wound actually did to the human body, how frequently such wounds proved fatal, and what became of the wounded under the medical standards actually available on the frontier.
Scope of Inquiry. This fellowship supports an interdisciplinary reassessment of frontier gun violence integrating forensic ballistics, historical trauma medicine, and the documentary record of specific, well-attested shooting incidents. Central research questions include: what were the actual wound parameters — temporary and permanent cavitation, penetration depth, fragmentation — produced by period .45 Colt ammunition at documented engagement distances; what proportion of gunshot wounds recorded in period coroners' inquests, army surgeon reports, and local newspaper accounts proved immediately fatal versus fatal by subsequent infection; and to what extent the “quick-draw duel” convention popularized by twentieth-century film and fiction is supported, or contradicted, by contemporaneous accounts of actual shooting affrays, which more frequently involved concealment, ambush, multiple combatants, and repeated missed shots than the ritualized single-exchange encounter of popular imagination.
Methodology. Applicants should propose a combination of comparative wound ballistics analysis (informed by period ammunition specifications and, where appropriate, modern ballistic gelatin testing of black-powder .45 Colt loads for comparative reference), archival research into coroners' inquest records, army surgeon casebooks, and civilian physician records of the period, and, where accessible, forensic osteological examination of skeletal remains recovered from documented nineteenth-century frontier burial sites exhibiting projectile trauma. The multi-volume Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, compiled by the Surgeon General's Office and documenting the preceding decade's extensive experience with gunshot wound treatment and outcome, is anticipated to serve as a valuable comparative dataset, given its direct influence on the surgical training of physicians subsequently practicing in the western territories. Applicants are reminded that any proposed exhumation or osteological analysis is contingent upon appropriate permitting, landowner consent, and, where applicable, consultation with descendant communities.
Significance. A forensically grounded account of frontier gunshot trauma — its ballistics, its survivability, and the medical response actually available to treat it — stands to substantially revise the popular understanding of frontier violence, relocating it from the realm of choreographed spectacle to the considerably less tidy realities of infection, improvised surgery, and chance. The Institute anticipates that findings will be of interest to historians of medicine, forensic anthropologists, and scholars of the popular mythology of the American West alike, and may contribute directly to the Institute's broader project of interrogating cinematic and literary constructions of frontier life.
Coprolite-Based Reconstruction of Bison Migratory Foraging Patterns and Their Implications for Sioux Subsistence Strategy
Background. The subsistence economy of the nineteenth-century Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota (collectively, Sioux) peoples of the northern Great Plains was substantially organized around the seasonal migratory patterns of Bison bison, whose herd movements dictated the timing and location of communal hunts, seasonal camp relocation, and the broader logistics of Plains life. While ethnohistorical and documentary sources — fur-trade journals, missionary accounts, and later ethnographic fieldwork — offer valuable but fragmentary and often second-hand testimony regarding bison migratory behavior, comparatively little work has applied the analytical tools of zooarchaeology and paleodietary science directly to the question of what, specifically, bison herds were foraging upon at various points in their seasonal range, and how that foraging pattern in turn structured the foodstuffs available to and selected by Sioux hunters.
Scope of Inquiry. This fellowship supports archaeological and archaeobotanical research employing coprolite (fossilized dung) analysis of bison deposits recovered from documented kill sites, wallows, and seasonal range areas across the northern and central Great Plains, with the aim of reconstructing seasonal dietary composition and, by extension, herd movement patterns across seasonal range. The successful applicant will correlate these findings against the documentary and ethnohistorical record of Sioux seasonal subsistence strategy, including winter camp selection, communal hunt timing, and the processing and storage of bison products such as wasna and pemmican.
Methodology. Proposed methodology should include the collection and stable isotope analysis (principally carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios) of coprolite samples, complemented by phytolith and pollen analysis to identify seasonal forage composition, and macrobotanical analysis where preservation allows. Applicants are expected to secure appropriate permitting for sample collection on federal, state, or tribal land as applicable, and to pursue consultation and, where relevant, formal research agreements with tribal historic preservation offices prior to fieldwork conducted on or near tribal lands. Radiocarbon dating of select samples is anticipated to establish chronological control across the sampled deposits.
Significance. A robust, isotopically grounded reconstruction of bison seasonal foraging and migration would substantially refine current models of Plains subsistence ecology, offering an empirical check against — and potential elaboration of — the documentary record, while contributing original archaeofaunal data to the broader literature on Bison bison paleoecology. The Institute anticipates that findings will be of interest to zooarchaeologists, Plains ethnohistorians, and scholars of Indigenous subsistence strategy, and may inform future collaborative research with tribal historic preservation offices and natural history museums holding relevant faunal collections.
Interested scholars may apply via our contact page.