The Kickapoo Indians Essay Example for Free

The Kickapoo Indians Essay The growth of today’s youth in an endangered culture. I. Topic The Kickapoo Indians are a type of Native American people that have tribes across the United States. Stationed in Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma, the Kickapoo Indians have a culture that has not been looked over and talked about much in our world and lifetime. While they are part of the overall population of our country, we know little about them, and the influence they have on their children and the youth around them in the community. I want to study the youth culture and see how the Kickapoo Indians affect the other cultures around them. II. Literature Review I have done many searches on many sites to look for any research and studies on this tribe and the culture of these people. The states in which they live have the most information about them. The state with the most information is Texas, and there is more information on the Mexican Kickapoo Indians than the other three combined. III. Methodology To study the life and effect of the Kickapoo Indians, the plan is to join into their tribe under the clarification that it will be to show the world more about their culture. We would need to gain funding to help with living costs until the researchers are able to find suitable replacements in the area. We plan to ask permissions for this fieldwork to study the tribe currently in the lower portion of Texas. (see map) The plan is to win trust among the people, and slowly ask them to introduce us to their ceremonies, and beliefs and culture over time. We plan to gain at least three informants. We would pick an informant from each age group to better understand the evolution of the tribe through these past years. (Chapter 5 of Book). We would also like to accomplish a mapping process to understand how the distribution of the land works for the tribe as a whole. (Chapter 5) The tribe, being in lower Texas, will easily be reached by plane. No passports or documents needed for out of country fieldwork will be needed for this field research. The foreseeable problems would be being able to ain access to the tribe grounds, as well as integrate into their community without repercussions. We expect to be able to approach the tribe after a year to two years of preparations prior to the move. After we arrive we figure it will be at a max, an amount of 4 years to be able to gather the information we can from the tribe. We believe it will take a minimum of 2 years in order to gain the trust fully of the tribe. Then another two years to gain th e information from the three informants we hope to gain. IV. Ethical Considerations We are unsure of what type of ethical problems we will be facing when it comes to the Texas tribe of the Kickapoo Indians. Seeing as how these Indians are part of the American culture as well, it would be safe to bet that it would be one of the safer tribes in the world to visit. We can ensure confidentiality using methods placed by federal systems, and can refrain from using informants that fear for their safety among the tribe if they wish, so that they are protected. We can also alert the reservation law enforcement to make sure we are backed up in the protection of the people. We will do anything we can to ensure that any risk to being a participant in our fieldwork is minimal. (Activity 1 Information page) V. Conclusion In conclusion, we would like to study the Texas tribe of Kickapoo Indians to learn about how their youth continue to thrive in the traditions of their elders as they grow in the ever changing world on the United States. With the Kickapoo youth being a part of normal American society we get to see the influence of the traditions of their culture in them, as they influence others around them.