American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Introduction It is a commonly held notion in the U.S. that transforming an "underdeveloped" society into a more technologically advanced society with a higher economic standard of living results in an improved diet and better nutritional status. This notion, which persists to this day, colored the perceptions of early colonial administrators in America who believed that American Indians starved before the colonists arrived and would have continued to starve were it not for their aid. The colonists chose to believe that their arrival resulted in an improved life for those who preceded them. Yet, historical analysis of the diet of one Indian tribe, the Navajos, suggests that although contact with a more economically developed culture does lead to changes in diet, improvement does not necessarily ensue. In fact, the encounter with European cultures and subsequent economic and social changes was an initial nutritional disaster for the Navajo Indians, and there is evidence that even current Navajo adaptations to white American dietary practices are not consistently an improvement over the Navajos' early pre-Western contact diet.

The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) has been called "la plaque tournante" (the turntable) of the French empire in North America. Until that point, France had been aggressive and expanding; afterward, she was on the defensive, determined to prevent further dismemberment of her North American empire. Nowhere was this change more evident than along the Atlantic coast, where French peninsular Acadia was transformed into English Nova Scotia, while Ile Royale (Cape Breton) and Ile St.-Jean (Prince Edward Island), as well as adjacent mainland areas, such as the Gaspé and the St. John River, remained in the hands of the French. These regions were mostly inhabited by the Micmac, an Algonkian-speaking hunting and gathering people, with their close relatives the Malecite (including the Passamaquoddy, who spoke a variety of the same language), and later some Abenaki, living along the St. John River. To the south were Abenaki. In contact with Europeans for more than two centuries, and allies of the French for half that time, these peoples were usually the ones indicated by the expression "French and Indians" of colonial war fame. The Treaty of Utrecht profoundly modified their position, particularly that of the Micmac in Nova Scotia (with whom this paper is principally concerned). As the rival colonial powers squared off against each other in preparation for what would become the final round of imperial hostilities in the Northeast, Micmac and Malecite found that their position to play off one against the other had been greatly strengthened.

INTRODUCTION In 1834 the House Committee on Indian Affairs issued a comprehensive report, "Regulating the Indian Department," which analyzed the United States relationship with the Indian nations. Following a review of applicable laws, the committee concluded that Congress had overstepped its authority in legislating for tribes. Only legislation, the committee admonished, which fulfilled treaty obligations and to which tribes had consented in their treaties, was legal. Laws which did not meet these criteria, constituted "indirect and therefore vicious legislation." The committee concluded with the observation that "a recognition of the exercise of power without right is usually followed by the claim of the right..." Within fifty short years, the committee's prophetic words were reality. In 1885, Congress passed the Seven Major Crimes Act, which provided the federal courts with jurisdiction over Indians committing one of seven major crimes. The Kagarna decision the following year examined Congress' authority to pass this act and to assume criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country. The Supreme Court admitted that although no constitutional provision granted such jurisdiction, the authority was appropriate given the tribes weakened state from which ”arises the duty of protection, and with it the power.”

Compiled by Lillian Brewington, Normie Bullard, and R. W. Reising In recent years Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris have teamed to enrich the Native American Renaissance in a way previously unknown in imaginative literature. Working collaboratively, the pair, married since 1981, have agreed that first-draft creation should dictate subsequent claims to authorship. Whichever of the two writes the initial draft of a volume gains credit for that volume. Although multiple drafts have proven as crucial as consistent husband and wife interaction concerning content and style, first-draft primacy has governed the professional relationship, which to date has produced four critically acclaimed volumes. The first three carry Erdrich’s name, the most recent Dorris’s: Iucklight, a book of poetry published in 1984; Love Medicine, a novel appearing in the same year; The Beet Queen, a novel published in 1986; and A YellowRuff in Blue Water, a novel published in 1987. The method of collaboration and authorship-determination is so unusual, the success of the team so rare, and the future of their efforts so promising that critics and teachers are certain to find the following bibliography helpful. Each of the bibliography’s four parts treats an Erdrich-Dorris volume. Included and tersely annotated are reviews and essays from newspapers, journals, and magazines, as well as audio-tapes, which have appeared prior to October 1, 1987.

INTRODUCTION I accepted the task of reviewing the three books sent to me by this journal because I felt it provided me with an opportunity to review research directions in Southwestern archaeology during the last fifty years. Such an undertaking (and I use the term loosely) may signal my departure from the ranks of more rational colleagues, who may suspect that I have finally slipped over the edge into the abyss reserved for those whose only remaining professional goal is to "contemplate with perspective." But I also am compelled to offer my "perspective" because of the exceptional books this journal has asked me to review. Rarely do three titles (Ernil W. Haury's Prehistory of the American Southwest, edited by J. Jefferson Reid and David E. Doyel, University of Arizona Press; Social Adaptation to Food Stress: A Prehistoric Southwest Example by Paul E. Minnis, University of Chicago Press; and Prehistoric Adaptation in the American Southwest by Rosalind Hunter-Anderson, Cambridge University Press) encapsulate the history, present state, and future directions of a field of study so coherently. These works embody a longitudinal view of Southwestern archaeology and together permit a discussion of what we have learned during the past fifty years and what we still strive to know about prehistory in the American Southwest. My remarks focus on four pivotal areas of inquiry in Southwestern archaeology where change and rethinking have been commonplace during the last five decades: 1) the definition of cultures, 2) chronology construction, 3) subsistence and agriculture, and 4) population, disease, and sociopolitical complexity. The books that form the basis of this essay are each directly relevant to one or more of these issues. In the case of Emil Haury, it is safe to say that he (along with a few other important archaeologists of his day) defined our field of view on these as well as other key issues. Before I consider each of these topics, however, I comment briefly on the three books.