Death's Acre Chapter Summary

In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will

During chapter three, human decay, is the main topic. Mary Roach goes to visit the University of Tennessee Medical Center. This is the only field research, in America, that focus on the decay of human bodies. Academics leave bodies to deteriorate in natural surroundings and then screen their “stages of chemical composition.” This information contributes to criminal investigations by making systematic standards to determine the time of death. Temperature, insect infestation, smell and other factors are monitored and

Forensic science has come a long way from where it was less than 100 years ago. It has only been relatively recently that the advancement of technology we use, has occurred. The Body Farm, an institute in Knoxville, Tennessee, is a place where dead corpses are left to rot and then studied on how the body decays in different circumstances. Death’s Acre: Inside the Legendary Body Farm tells about the farm from Dr. Bill Bass’ point of view, from the establishment of the farm, to the impact in the world of forensic science the farm has caused. David Pitt and Alynda Wheat offers their insight into the book in their reviews. The Body Farm has been a monumental stepping stone to the advancement of modern day forensic sciences. Dr. Bill Bass, is making

“How did you become a many-faces man, Mik-api” (Welch 95)? White Man’s Dog’s weighing curiosity on Mik-api’s life prompted an inquiry that would give the audience a better understanding of Mik-api and the experiences of a medicine man. In response to the question, Mik-api proceeded to recount the tale of his adventure in becoming a medicine man. James Welch illustrates the customs of Native Americans and their history in the United States in

In Chapter four Roach writes about the controversial topic of using cadavers in impact studies. At Wayne University Roach observes one cadaver being used in a simulated linear impact car crash (t bone car crash) and mentions that the cadaver, UM006, “is helping researchers figure out how much force a human shoulder… can withstand before it registers a serious injury” (Roach 87). Because of cadavers like UM006, we have made tremendous strides in automobile safety, and saved tens of thousands of lives (which could not have been done with crash test dummies). Roach also interviews Dennis Shanahan, an injury analysis and investigator of the TWA flight 800 crash in 1996. Shanahan was called in to investigate what happened to the plane, if it was a bomb (like most conspiracies claimed) where did it go off? This chapter focuses on how the cadaver’s injuries can help determine what happened to the plane. In Chapter 6 Roach studies another controversial topic: using cadavers for weapons research and ballistics testing. Roach talks about the history of using cadavers for ballistics testing, and how they are used today, and the ethical problems that come with it. Roach writes that researchers cope, “with a mix of compassion and emotional remove. ‘You treat them with dignity, and you kind of separate the fact that… you think of them as a specimen,’” (Roach 148). Chapter 7 was a shorter chapter devoted to experiments used to prove and

Mrs. Borden was found with her head crushed in. there was a hole about 1.5 X 5.5 inches along with a scalp wound where the flesh was cut off but not separated from the head. The wound was 2 inches long by 1.5 inches wide. On the left side there were four wounds. Three of them went into the skull, one taking apiece right out of the skull. Many of the wounds crushed through to the brain. Altogether she received 18 blows to the head (Porter 19).

Forensic anthropologist examine skeletal remains for elements of a skeleton that can give clues to the person it belongs to. The Kennewick man’s skeleton was found in surprisingly good condition meaning the damage to the skeleton was done in his life, not due to deterioration. The skeleton showed a projectile point lodged in his hip, five broken ribs that did not properly heal, two small dents in his skull, and a bum shoulder. These wounds show an insight to the lifestyle

1) Horace Minor’s Nacirema was taking a look the American public in the 1950’s when Minor wrote the article. It was a satirical piece to give an objective look ‘to’ Americans, and Westerners alike, from the outside perspective without the immediate knowledge that it was western culture, but instead trying with the façade of a tribe. This article was riddled with symbols and symbolism that drew direct connections from a mysterious tribe to a well known western culture. For example the doctors, dentists and psychologists were all forms of medicine men: the doctors were actually named medicine men, the dentists were named ‘Mouth men’, and the psychologists were knows as ‘the listeners’. All three practitioners, just like in western society, were held in high regard, were higher up on the social latter and were very important to the entire tribe. This mirrors the respect and social structure that western society has for these types of professions. Also, the body shaming of the women in the tribe and the lack of respect that man has for women in the work place and otherwise in western culture, especially in the 50’s, draws more connections to identify the tribe as Americans. I really loved the attempt to make our forefathers into tribal gods. Washington being named Notgnihsaw, a man who couldn’t and didn’t lie when being confronted about the cherry tree he cut down. He also crossed a frozen river to fight a war. Everything from the unrealistic vanity the tribe would experience

You are probably thinking Death 's Acre is a strange name for a book. And that a skull is a weird covering as well. So if you have not read the summary on the back of the book already you probably don 't know anything about the book and you are confused right now. So Death 's Acre is not only about the body farm in the hills of Tennessee for which forensics students study, but also about Dr. Bill Bass and his strange accounts in the forensic world with murders and anthropology. This book will take you places you have never been and as a reader I really suggest you read it.

The Civil War was fought with much carnage, and was one of America’s most ‘uncivilized’, wars with a soldier’s chance of survival about twenty-five per cent. While many were killed by other soldiers, usually through bullets, a large portion died as a result of disease such as: dysentery, mumps, pneumonia, typhoid fever, measles, and tuberculosis, diseases that are curable today. These diseases were spread through the horribly sanitized camps found on both sides of the war: Confederate and Union. And while many died from disease, some died from other soldiers’ bullets; these deaths may have been prevented if the technology, or overall techniques used by surgeons, during this time period were more up-to-date, as amputations were the main procedure

In the Casey Anthony case Jeff Ashton who is a former state attorney in Orange county Florida, and also the first prosecutor in the United States to get a conviction based on DNA decided to use a new Forensic method in the Anthony case. The smell of death would be the allowed as evidence for the first time ever. In the trunk of Anthony’s car was a stained area on the carpet and an odor. Ashton stated that the smell was that of human decomposition. That piece of carpet was removed, sealed and sent to Dr. Vass, a forensic anthropologist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. Voss has been studying human decomposition at the University of Tennessee’s “body farm”.

Grave robbing was a very huge problem during the 18th century, the robbers stole valuables and even bodies and or body parts. But why did body snatching become so popular, and what were the reasons for these morbid thefts? Also how much of grave robbing was a problem, and what were the consequences? The fascination for anatomy and physiognomy grew in the 1700s, and the need for human bodies was in high demand, “In 1752 the bodies of all hung felons were granted to anatomists but even this proved insufficient with growing numbers of medical schools spring up around the country. To meet this demand, a black market quickly emerged, trading in the stolen dead.”

But how do you tell what the bodies are getting to? I’ll tell you! There are forensic scientists that study bodies and then try to figure out how, when, where, and why whoever had this body, died! And how do these scientists do it, you ask? I don’t know! But what I do know, is that the scientists look at the height and weight of the skeletons, and then determine what age they were, so that they can then identify who the person was, and what they looked like. By doing this these special scientists

He uses more recent examples of infection of Amerindians to show that the spread of disease was not limited to the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Crosby used examples from the 1943 and the 1950s to show that just a little over fifty years ago the same pattern occurred when the Europeans traveled to the Americas. The first example, Crosby uses is in 1943 when “the Alaska Highway exposed the Amerindians of Teslin Lake to fuller contact with the outside world than they ever had before” (Crosby) . The Native Americans of this region were exposed to volatile diseases like the measles, whooping cough, and meningococcal meningitis. He also shows this through examples in 1952 where the Amerindians and Eskimos of Ungava Bay in northern Quebec had an epidemic of measles. Crosby point out that almost all of the community became sick and 7 percent of the community died. Even with the advancement in medical technology at the time the impact was still severe (Crosby). For the purpose of these two examples Crosby used secondary resources. The information given was a personal account of the Amerindians but rather an account of the historical event by outside commentators. The source of these specific two examples is Crosby’s own Virgin Soil Epidemics as a factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America. Crosby using himself as a resource can be seen as a weakness in

In 1700, his corpse was moved by way of the city to a more prominent crypt. While a necklaces become found on his skeleton bearing the date '1700', his body was hurriedly reinterred.