Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860 by Richard Slotkin (review)

Reviews 243 course of human events, it is sensible to place their conception of astrology at the center of any interpretation of their mental world. The astoundingly intricate and comprehensive tables of calculations in surviving codices strongly suggest the Mayans were motivated by more than a purely abstract interest in astronomical matters. Waters is quite astute and persuasive in revealing how Mayan astronomy comes to take on an astrological orienta­ tion. But since his overall scheme requires relating past to present, he feels the need to connect Mayan with contemporary astrological speculations. Thereupon he takes on the burden of justifying the latter’s claim to a special truth. But this is unnecessary either to understand or validate Mayan thinking. Many readers will find such association irrelevant or irritating, however important it is to the author. Despite its idiosyncratic approach, Mexico Mystique will be influential. Though no one could possibly synthesize and order the vast chaos of legiti­ mate and misleading evidence on Mexico’s ancient cultures, Frank Waters has cut a path deep into the heart of its mystery. The academic community likely will despair at his reliance upon unverifiable, or arbitrarily chosen, hypotheses and reject out-of-hand his faith in contemporary seers. But his provocative recreation of the Mesoamerican mind in its religious mode cannot be so easily dismissed. Himself a transcendentalist native to America, Waters reminds us that there are more paths to understanding our common evolutionary ascent than most of us care to admit. And readers who already sense the collapse of basic tenets of Western technology and materialism will find in Mexico Mystique no counsel of despair, but high hopes for a new order of consciousness. Waters’ place in Indian literature and studies is already assured. This latest volume ultimately cannot but add another cubit to the imposing stature of a man who too tardily is finally being recognized as our most distinguished living author of the American Southwest. JACK L. DAVIS, University of Idaho Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860. By Richard Slotkin. (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1973. 670 pp. Notes, bibliography, index, 25.00, paper, $5.95.) Students of American civilization have long argued whether the externalist or internalist has the better research techniques. Literary critics and historians of ideas most often assert that close scrutiny of the work itself and ideas within the work is the best approach to literature. On the other hand, literary and intellectual historians contend that one ought also to know the historical circumstances and cultural milieu of the act of creation to have the fullest understanding of a work of art. The structure of the work under review allows for discussion of these two approaches. 244 Western American Literature Regeneration Through Violence is primarily a history of ideas; it deals with works and ideas within these works rather than centering on historical and biographical backgrounds. Slotkin’s large aim is to understand what kind of national myths emerged from the American frontier experience. It is a mind-stretching task and one that the author pursues diligently throughout his long book. Slotkin discusses at length the newcomers’ search for an understanding of their first years in the New World. He emphasizes the myths that arose from the experiences of whites with Indians and with the land. He includes long sections on the writings of the Puritans and the early captivity narra­ tives. He also demonstrates how Americans in the early 1700s gradually began to accept their wilderness environment and yet maintained many of their Puritan views that warned of the dangers of the new frontier. The author cites the work of Benjamin Church as a significant departure from the negative Puritan ideas about the Indian and a movement toward a more positive view of the hunter hero. Slotkin’s long chapter on Filson’s narrative of Daniel Boone is the best section of the book, although it is too strained in forcing Filson’s work into the framework of other myths. The book of Filson, argues Slotkin, unites the major themes, figures, and ideas of the American colonial experience. Slotkin furthermore points out how well-known writers like Benjamin Franklin, John Woolman, and...