Synopses & Reviews
The oldest living Crow at the dawn of the twenty-first century, Lillian Bullshows Hogan (1905and#8211;2003) grew up on the Crow reservation in rural Montana. In
The Woman Who Loved Mankind she enthralls readers with her own long and remarkable life and the stories of her parents, part of the last generation of Crow born to nomadic ways.
As a child Hogan had a miniature teepee, a fast horse, and a medicine necklace of green beads; she learned traditional arts and food gathering from her mother and experienced the bitterness of Indian boarding school. She grew up to be a complex, hard-working Native woman who drove a car, maintained a bank account, and read the local English paper but spoke Crow as her first language, practiced beadwork, tanned hides, honored clan relatives in generous giveaways, and often visited the last of the old chiefs and berdaches with her family. She married in the traditional Crow way and was a proud member of the Tobacco and Sacred Pipe societies but was also a devoted Christian who helped establish the Church of God on her reservation.
Warm, funny, heartbreaking, and filled with information on Crow life, Hoganand#8217;s story was told to her daughter, Mardell Hogan Plainfeather, and to Barbara Loeb, a scholar and longtime friend of the family who recorded her words, staying true to Hoganand#8217;s expressive speaking rhythms with its echoes of traditional Crow storytelling.
Review
“Fenton's memoir is so readable that I nearly finished it in a single sitting. Those who knew Fenton appreciated his talent for telling a story, whether as a comment to a large audience in response to a scholarly paper or in a small gathering over drinks or dinner. Fenton has always written in the same style as these oral presentations and he holds the same rapt attention from the reader that he invariably received from those fortunate enough to have heard him reminisce.”—Thomas Abler, author of Chainbreaker: The Revolutionary War Memoirs of Governor Blacksnake Thomas Abler
Review
"This fascinating book is part autobiography, part history, part memoir, part cultural guide, and part poetry. . . .and#160;Loeb and Plainfeather made the wise decision to adopt an ethnopoetic approach to the reminiscences, thus preserving not only Lillian's words but also the rhythm and structure of her speaking. This choice elevates the book. The stories themselves are interesting, but the preservation of oral performance lends an intimate and important cultural feel to the work."and#8212;J. B. Edwards, Choice
Review
"Essential reading for new and seasoned students and scholars of American Indian cultures."and#8212;Kelly M. Branam, Great Plains Quarterly
Review
"A must read for anyone interested in native, feminist, or humanistic studies."and#8212;Timothy P. McCleary, Montana, The Magazine of Western History
Review
"Hogan's stories read like an epic poem."and#8212;Cal Cumin, Billings Gazette
Synopsis
Iroquois Journey is the warm and illuminating memoir of William N. Fenton (1908-2005), a leading scholar who shaped Iroquois studies and modern anthropology in America. The memoir reveals the ambitions and struggles of the man and the many accomplishments of the anthropologist, the complex and sometimes volatile milieu of Native-white relations in upstate New York in the twentieth century, and key theoretical and methodological developments in American anthropology. Fentons memoir, completed shortly before his death, takes us from his ancestors lives in the Conewango Valley in western New York to his education at Yale. It affords valuable insights into the decades of his celebrated fieldwork among the Senecas, his distinguished scholarship at the Bureau of American Ethnology in Washington, DC, and his research at the New York State Museum in Albany. Offering portraits of legendary scholars he encountered and enriched through wonderful personal anecdotes, Fentons memoir is a testament to the importance of anthropology and a reminder of how much the field has changed over the years.
About the Author
Jack Campisi is a former associate professor of anthropology at Wellesley College and is now an independent consultant. He is coeditor of Extending the Rafters: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Iroquoian Studies and The Oneida Indian Experience: Two Perspectives. William A. Starna is a professor emeritus of anthropology at State University of New York College at Oneonta. He is coeditor of In Mohawk Country: Early Narratives about a Native People and Iroquois Land Claims.