American Indian Culture and Research Journal

So long as the "Indian wars" were still going on, the American people had newspaper headlines and articles to keep them informed about the nature and character of the American Indian. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the fighting, the excitement, and the news about Indians had ended. Euro-Americans were still interested, however, and to satisfy that curiosity the short story became the primary vehicle by which writers expressed their thoughts about the American Indian. Such turn-of-the-century stories have been generally ignored as sources of information about the developing attitudes of the white man toward the American Indian. Literary scholars have understandably passed these stories over because almost all are artistically flawed: the characters are weak, the plots silly, and the themes simple-minded. Historians also have generally passed these stories over because they are, after all, fiction-"made-up" yarns by writers who tended to know little about the Indians they described, and who cared more about selling a story than telling a truth. (To be sure, some scholars no doubt knew that these short stories might yield up useful information about the changing popular attitudes toward the American Indian; but until recently no bibliography of the genre was available, and those who might have been interested in reading this body of fiction about Indians had no convenient way of finding it.) The purpose of this study is to show, through discussion of one character type as portrayed in stories published during a twenty-year period, that the turn-of-the-century short story can give us worthwhile information, not about Indians, but about the attitudes of many whites toward them.

In recent years, substantial critical attention has focused on the vogue of "the Indian" in American literature during the first half of the nineteenth century. Scholars have found this literature interesting, not primarily for its literary merits (outside of Cooper and a few others), nor as a source of information on Native American life and character, but rather for what it reveals about white American culture of the time and the underlying values and ideas which gave rise to and supported white attitudes toward the Indian. Thus, one finds studies with titles like The Savages of America: A Study of the Indian and the American Mind; Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier; Ignoble Savage: American Literary Racism, 1790-1890; and Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building. All of these works draw upon literature about the Indian in important ways to help support an analysis of white American culture and national character. An accurate and convincing analysis depends at least partly upon a complete survey and a balanced interpretation of the literature; one that is sensitive to the literary and cultural contexts in which it was produced. But most current studies of the period, as one might deduce from the titles listed here, lay undue stress on literature hostile to the Indian. They suggest that the small and harshly negative body of "Indian hater" fiction is representative of the whole, and that the "metaphysics of Indian hating" which this fiction embodies is an accurate reflection of nineteenth-century white ideas, values, and beliefs. Indian hater fiction, however, is far from representative. It is a minority and extreme genre of literature that arose and flourished in large part to counter the sentimental and Romantic views which prevailed at the time. In fact, a close examination of Indian hater fiction reveals that there was not a broad negative consensus of views about the Indian, as recent scholars have claimed, but rather a wide divergence and a persistent debate.

The role of the Lakota (also known as the Teton Dakota or Western Sioux) woman has been so completely overshadowed by that of the flamboyant Lakota warrior in ethnographic literature and elsewhere that we know very little regarding her thoughts and behavior during the tremendous societal upheaval which occurred during the move onto the reservation in the late nineteenth century. However, one feminine manifestation, the costume arts, provides us with information about her reaction to social change. At first glance it appears incongruous that, precisely when the traditional order was under its greatest stress in Lakota history, the women produced their most elaborate artwork, indeed lavishly covering everything in sight with beadwork. In 1889 an Anglo female missionary teacher at Standing Rock Agency on the Sioux reservation observed: "Under this shade the women did fancy work with buckskin, beads and porcupine quills brightly dyed, or sewed while the children played and the men loafed after sporadic attempts at farming or caring for a few cattle" (Jacobsen 1959: 46). In order to explain this behavior on the part of the women, clearly divergent from that of the men, it is first necessary to determine the function of the arts in Lakota society before the move to the reservation.

Interpreting Pawnee Star Lore: Science or Myth? Douglas R. Parks When Stars Came Down to Earth: Cosmology of the Skidi Pawnee Indians of North America by Vol Del Chamberlain. Los Altos, California: Ballena Press, 1982. 270 pp. $17.95 Paperback. The Pawnee were formerly a populous, semi-sedentary people, organized into small autonomous groups, who lived in permanent earth lodge villages along watercourses in east central Nebraska. They-and particularly one division, the Skiri-are noted among North American Indian groups for their elaborate ritualism and poetic interpretations of the heavens and the earth. Perhaps no other native people on this continent attached such an importance to the stars, who were for them a pantheon in the sky. Their cosmogony, which appears to be conceptually unique, told of celestial origins. Mankind was born of the unions of celestial gods: the first female was the child of Morning Star and Evening Star; the first male, the child of Sun and Moon. Each Skiri village traced its origin and its ritual to a particular star that, together with other stars, continued to control human affairs. Every individual, too, was related to a particular star. At one's birth, one star shone brighter than all others and would become known later in life when one fell ill, and a doctor who had power from an animal directly related to the patient's star was discovered and was able to treat the patient successfully. The fundamental importance of stars to the Skiri was immediately apparent to outside observers and recorders of their culture. The stars pervaded Skiri intellectual life and its physical manifestations ranged from the spectacular Morning Star ritual sacrifice to the subtle artistic representation of the Morning Star on cradle boards.

A Review and Comments on Indian Histories Karl E. Cilmont Nee Hemish: A History of Jemez Pueblo. By Joe Sando. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1983. 258 pp. $19.95 Cloth. Noon Neemepoo. By Allen P. Slickpo, Sr. and Deward E. Walker, Jr. Lawi-ID: Nez Perce Tribe, 1973. Our Home Forever: A Hupa Tribal History. By Bryan Nelson, Jr. and Others. Hoopa, CA: Hupa Tribe, 1978. 224 pp. Cloth. Walker River Paiutes: A Tribal History. By Edward C. Johnson. Walker River, NY: Walker River Paiute Tribe, 1978.201 pp. $9.50 Cloth. The Southern Utes: A Tribal History. By James Jefferson, Robert W. Delaney and Gregory C. Thompson. Ignacio, CO: Southern Ute Tribe, 1972. 106 pp. Cloth. Ogaxpa. By Joy Reed. Quapaw, OK: Quapaw Tribe, 1977. 119 pp. Paper. In the annals of North American history, there is a dearth of records for tribal histories. Since the multitude of original peoples on this continent left no written records, unlike the European settlers with diaries and letters, there is scant historical evidence to show who came when and from where. Hence, the only extant evidence is that which has been uncovered in various archaeological sites and petroglyphic inscriptions at scattered locations. Recent social and legal changes in the last half century have spurred more tribes to produce a written record, possibly as a gesture for recognition among most tribes, however, this need for "recognition" is deemed an Anglo societal concept.