(M2 PressWIRE Via Acquire Media NewsEdge)
RDATE:28082008

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.

CONTACT: Harald Prins, K-State
Tel: +1 785 4966
e-mail: prins@k-state.edu
Bunny McBride, K-state
Tel: +1 785 532 6865
e-mail: bmcb@k-state.edu
WWW: http://www.k-state.edu/media/mediaguide/bios/prinsbio.html

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