Utilizing Oral Traditions: Some Concerns Raised by Recent Ojibwe Studies; a Review Essay Rebecca Kugel Thomas W. Overholt and J. Baird Callicott, Clothed-in-Fur and Other Tales: A n Introduction to an Ojibwa World View(Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982). 198 pp. $23.00, Cloth. $11.00 Paper. Vivian J. Rohrl, Change for Continuity: The People of a Thousand Lakes (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982). 269 pp. $22.00 Cloth. $11.50 Paper. Victor Barnouw, Wisconsin Chippewa Myths and Tales; and Their Relation to Chippewu Life (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977). 304 pp. $25.00 Cloth. $9.95 Paper. Basil Johnston, Ojibway Heritage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976). 171 pp. $11.95 Cloth. Basil Johnston, Moose Meat and Wild Rice (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, Ltd., 1978). 188 pp. $16.95 Cloth. Eighty years ago Franz Boas urged that oral traditions be collected from Native peoples. He was convinced that such traditions could shed important light on the cultures and world views of non-Western tribal peoples. To date, the information contained in Native oral traditions has not been systematically utilized by scholars as Boas suggested it could be. The work of the exceptional few stands in contrast and once more proves the rule. These five books on the Ojibwe people attempt in varying degrees to utilize oral traditions to gain a better understanding of how Ojibwe people thought and viewed themselves, their society and the world around them. The theoretical constructs the five authors employ vary widely, as do their interpretations. Taken as a whole, these books demonstrate the difficulties inherent in utilizing oral traditions. They point up how badly a general theoretical orientation is needed if scholars are to use oral traditions to understand a culture on its own terms.

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Political factionalism in Native American communities has long proven a topic of interest to scholars. An observation by Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., suggests one compelling reason for this enduring fascination. "[N]o student of Indian societies, " he writes, "doubts the ubiquity nor the importance of factions in Indian affairs past or present." As a political phenomenon, factionalism is central to much of Native American history. It occurs in numerous Native societies, at various points in time, and under a variety of social, political and economic conditions. Yet, as Berkhofer laments, "the study of . . . factionalism is little advanced beyond the superficial description given . . . in 1936." Factionalism, it seems, has been as poorly understood as it is important. One significant cause of the unsatisfactory understanding of factionalism is to be found in the theoretical framework with which scholars initially approached the study of factions. In their earliest formulations, scholars theorized that factions were a uniquely post-contact development. Edward H. Spicer, in summarizing this position, argued that Native American societies, their processes and principles of governance rooted in consensus decision-making, did not expect "as a constant feature of community life any basic differences of viewpoint." The permanent presence of Europeans or Euramericans "almost immediately introduced a serious issue for dissent." Simply by their presence, these outsiders introduced a second set of cultural alternatives to which Native peoples had to adjust. This challenge to cultural and political consensus struck Native societies at their weakest point. Native societies fractured over which European-derived elements they wanted to accept, or the degree to which they wished to become involved with the newcomers as trading partners or military allies. The one condition Native societies could not handle was diversity; the sustained presence of Europeans or Euramericans forced them into just this untenable situation. Factions erupted inevitably from this unresolvable dilemma.