Synopses & Reviews
Established in 1824, the United States Indian Service, now known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was the agency responsible for carrying out U.S. treaty and trust obligations to American Indians, but it also sought to "civilize" and assimilate them. In
Federal Fathers and Mothers, Cathleen Cahill offers the first in-depth social history of the agency during the height of its assimilation efforts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Making extensive and original use of federal personnel files and other archival materials, Cahill examines how assimilation practices were developed and enacted by an unusually diverse group of women and men, whites and Indians, married couples and single people. Cahill argues that the Indian Service pursued a strategy of intimate colonialism, using employees as surrogate parents and model families in order to shift Native Americans' allegiances from tribal kinship networks to Euro-American familial structures and, ultimately, the U.S. government. In seeking to remove Indians from federal wardship, the government experimented with new forms of maternalist social provision, which later influenced U.S. colonialism overseas. Cahill also reveals how the government's hiring practices unexpectedly allowed federal personnel on the ground to crucially influence policies devised in Washington, especially when Native employees used their positions to defend their families and communities.
Review
"Cahill's work is perceptive and astute. . . .[and] offers uncommon insights into myriad other topics."
-Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Review
"A social history in the best sense of the term."
-New Books Network
Review
"A major contribution to our understanding of how gender and ethnicity shaped Indian affairs in this era. The book is well written and deeply researched, and it gives readers a sophisticated and informed account of an era that remains understudied."
-North Carolina Historical Review
Review
"A new perspective on Indian-U.S. relations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. . . . An essential library addition for all scholars of federal policy and colonialism."--
-Western Historical Quarterly
Review
"An in-depth social history of the United States Indian Service.... Well-researched, interesting, even inspirational, Cathleen Cahill's
Federal Fathers and Mothers highlights Indian history and the American historical context and brings the term 'intimate colonialism' solidly into the lexicon."
-Southwestern American Literature
Review
"No ethnographer has ever written so extensively on a single shaman of the northwest Amazon. . . . A monumental study!"and#8212;S. D. Glazier, Choice
Review
"What Mysteries of the Jaguar Shamans of the Northeast Amazon will be most remembered for is the essential connection between myths, religious roles, social organization, and physical places. . . . Any anthropologist interested in shamanism or animism should take note of it."and#8212;Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database
Review
"Complex, detailed, fascinating, and well-written."and#8212;Rebecca R. Stone, Journal of Anthropological Research
Review
andldquo;Coming of Age in Chicago is at once a major contribution to the burgeoning literature on Chicagoandrsquo;s 1893 World Columbian Exposition as well as a critical examination of a crucial phase in the development of American anthropology. . . . Such notable personalities as Frederic Ward Putnam, Franz Boas, Daniel Garrison Brinton, and especially Frank Hamilton Cushing, as well as lesser luminaries, all come alive and shine forth in this sparkling, multifaceted volume.andrdquo;andmdash;Raymond D. Fogelson, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Chicagoand#160;and#160;
Review
andldquo;In this richly detailed account of anthropology at the fairandmdash;and of the fairandrsquo;s exhibits in the minds of anthropologistsandmdash;the authors deepen our understanding of the cultural origins of the anthropology profession.andrdquo;andmdash;Robert W. Rydell, professor of history at Montana State University and author of
All the Worldandrsquo;s a Fairand#160;and#160;
Review
andldquo;Coming of Age in Chicago presents an account of the interplay of anthropology and the public spectacle of the 1893 Chicago Worldandrsquo;s Fair that is both authoritative and engaging. Original documents and photo essays heighten the reading experience and help convey the material realities of anthropology at the fair, just as the discipline was coalescing.andrdquo;andmdash;Frederic W. Gleach, curator of the Anthropology Collections at Cornell University and founding coeditor of Histories of Anthropology Annual
Review
andldquo;Akim Reinhardtandrsquo;s Welcome to the Oglala Nation is a powerful combination of narrative description and primary documents that provides the reader with a deeper understanding of Oglala political history. Both the novice and the expert should find it useful.andrdquo;andmdash;David R. M. Beck, professor of Native American studies at the University of Montana and coauthor of City Indian: Native American Activism in Chicago, 1893andndash;1934
Review
andldquo;Gathered in these pages is the story of one of the Great Plainsandrsquo; ultimate survivors: the Oglala Lakotas. Covering the days when they first left the eastern woodlands for the prairie up to contemporary tribal politics, Akim Reinhardt has compiled vital information for scholars and armchair historians alike.andrdquo;andmdash;Stew Magnuson, author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder and Wounded Knee 1973: Still Bleeding
Review
andquot;Mysteries of the Jaguar Shamans is a tour de force, a remarkable work of deep understanding and expressive skill that should become a classic of Amazonian ethnography.andquot;andmdash;Donald Pollock, Anthropos
Synopsis
Cahill offers the first in-depth social history of the United States Indian Service (now the Bureau of Indian Affairs) during the height of its assimilation efforts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The USIS pursued a strategy of intimate colonialism, using employees as surrogate parents and model families in order to shift Native Americans' allegiances from tribal kinship networks to Euro-American familial structures and, ultimately, the U.S. government.
Synopsis
Mysteries of the Jaguar Shamans of the Northwest Amazon tells the life story of Mandu da Silva, the last living jaguar shaman among the Baniwa people in the northwest Amazon. In this original and engaging work, Robin M. Wright, who has known and worked with da Silva for more than thirty years, weaves the story of da Silvaand#8217;s life together with the Baniwasand#8217; society, history, mythology, cosmology, and jaguar shaman traditions. The jaguar shamans are key players in what Wright callsand#160;and#8220;a nexus of religious power and knowledgeand#8221; in which healers, sorcerers, priestly chanters, and dance-leaders exercise complementary functions that link living specialists with the deities and great spirits of the cosmos. By exploring in depth the apprenticeship of the shaman, Wright shows how jaguar shamans acquire the knowledge and power of the deities in several stages of instruction and practice.
This volume is the first mapping of the sacred geography (and#8220;mythscapeand#8221;) of the Northern Arawakand#8211;speaking people of the northwest Amazon, demonstrating direct connections between petroglyphs and other inscriptions and Baniwa sacred narratives as a whole. In eloquent and inviting analytic prose, Wright links biographic and ethnographic elements in elevating anthropological writing to a new standard of theoretically aware storytelling and analytic power.
Synopsis
Coming of Age in Chicago explores a watershed moment in American anthropology, when an unprecedented number of historians and anthropologists of all subfields gathered on the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition fairgrounds, drawn together by the fairandrsquo;s focus on indigenous peoples. Participants included people making a living with their research, sporadic backyard diggers, religiously motivated researchers, and a small group who sought a andldquo;scientificandrdquo; understanding of the lifeways of indigenous peoples. At the fair they set the foundation for anthropological inquiry and redefined the field. At the same time, the American public became aware, through their own experiences at the fair, of a global humanity, with reactions that ranged from revulsion to curiosity, tolerance, and kindness.and#160;Curtis M. Hinsley and David R. Wilcox combine primary historical texts, modern essays, and rarely seen images from the period to create a volume essential for understanding the significance of this event. These texts explore the networking of thinkers, planners, dreamers, schemers, and scholars who interacted in a variety of venues to lay the groundwork for museums, academic departments, and expeditions. These new relationships helped shape the profession and the trajectory of the discipline, and they still resonate more than a century later.
Synopsis
Popular culture largely perceives the tragedy at Ca?kpe Opi (Wounded Knee) in 1890 as the end of Native American resistance in the West, and for many years historians viewed this event as the end of Indian history altogether. The Dawes Act of 1887 and the reservation system dramatically changed daily life and political dynamics, particularly for the Oglala Lakotas. As Akim D. Reinhardt demonstrates in this volume, however, the twentieth century continued to be politically dynamic. Even today, as life continues for the Oglalas on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota, politics remain an integral component of the Lakota past and future.and#160;Reinhardt charts the political history of the Oglala Lakota people from the fifteenth century to the present with this edited collection of primary documents, a historical narrative, and a contemporary bibliographic essay. Throughout the twentieth century, residents on Pine Ridge and other reservations confronted, resisted, and adapted to the continuing effects of U.S. colonialism. During the modern reservation era, reservation councils, grassroots and national political movements, courtroom victories and losses, and cultural battles have shaped indigenous populations. Both a documentary reader and a Lakota history, Welcome to the Oglala Nation is an indispensable volume on Lakota politics.
About the Author
Curtis M. Hinsley is Regentsandrsquo; Professor Emeritus of History and Comparative Cultural Studies at Northern Arizona University. He is the coauthor (with David R. Wilcox) of The Lost Itinerary of Frank Hamilton Cushing and The Southwest in the American Imagination: The Writings of Sylvester Baxter, 1881andndash;1889. David R. Wilcox is the former head of the anthropology department at the Museum of Northern Arizona and continues to be an adjunct professor at Northern Arizona University. He is the coeditor of Zuni Origins: Toward a New Synthesis of Southwestern Archaeology.