Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring Prehistoric/Colonial Transitions in Archaeology

6. Between the Longue Durée and the Short Purée: Postcolonial Archaeologies of Indigenous History in Colonial North America

113 6 Between the Longue Durée and the Short Purée Postcolonial Archaeologies of Indigenous History in Colonial North America Stephen W. Silliman Archaeologists who study Indigenous cultures in the context of European colonialism are frequently caught in a conundrum of temporal scale. How do we represent, render, and interpret Indigenous practices and peoples in ways that not only respect the complexities of the colonial world and their actions therein but also situate their lives in the context of their own unique short- and long-term cultural histories? Capturing this duality has not been easy. Part of the problem is that archaeologists have not fully heeded the call by Lightfoot (1995) to conduct truly multiscalar, diachronic studies of colonialism and Indigenous responses to its many forms. Part of it also relates to the ways that archaeological concepts, terms, and methods are not yet decolonized and not yet attuned to the ways that people, past and present, relate to their own histories. On the one hand, some archaeologists (and other historical scholars) have interpreted colonial encounters and settlements as the decisive moment in Indigenous histories, a moment that either halts those histories or redirects them (see Hart et al., this volume). Indigenous people who pass through that pivotal gateway are often seen as significantly altered, as an amalgamation of different cultures, as disconnected from their traditions, as completely novel cultural forms, or, worse, as inauthentic. This might be called the short purée—the mixing and mashing of Indigenous and colonial cultures in relatively short order. The short purée takes an extreme form with the work of demographic nihilists, but other variants can be found in those approaches Stephen W. Silliman 114 that privilege the novel or creative experience of colonialism—a kind of “free play” of symbols and things—at the expense of the situated knowledges and experiences of Indigenous social actors. It also has a deep legacy in the acculturation approaches of the mid-twentieth century. On the other hand, some archaeologists and a few historical anthropologists opt to downplay the impact of colonialism, or at least recontextualize it, in light of long-term Indigenous histories that span centuries, if not millennia , before the arrival of European colonists. Regardless of its various theoretical origins, I will refer to this as an orientation to the longue durée. This reorientation grants primacy to Indigenous agency, tradition, and cultural structures that both predate and rival those of colonists and settlers, and it permits a view of Indigenous action as contributing, in part, to the direction of history. Such a view sometimes draws either metaphorically or conceptually on the Annales school of history. Other takes can be seen in the famous work of Marshall Sahlins in the Pacific (Sahlins 1981, 1985) or in newer work emphasizing Indigenous myths and metaphors (Vitelli 2011). Both perspectives have value, but they also have their limitations in the study of Indigenous histories across the “great divide” of so-called prehistorichistoric or precontact-postcontact periods (see Scheiber and Mitchell 2010). My objective in this chapter is to outline the positions and their problems and to propose a reorientation to the scale of memory and practice (see Stahl, this volume) as a way of potentially resolving some of the issues raised by these heuristically polar opposites. This resolution arises from, and can contribute to, decolonizing collaborative approaches to archaeology and history. In fact, my own thinking about this derives from the intersection of postcolonial theory , social theories of memory, archaeological data, and my long-term community partnership with the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation of southeastern Connecticut to study their past. I recount some of the interpretations and context of that research here to make these conceptual points. The Short Purée In the short purée perspective, colonialism serves as the most prominent inflection point in the arc of Indigenous histories. In its most extreme version , a “fatal impact” model proposes that Indigenous cultures and peoples were fundamentally altered by the presence of European colonists and colonies, frequently to the point of becoming unrecognizable in terms of their previous cultural ways. This narrative remains entrenched in the general American public’s perception of Native American history and deserves Indigenous History in Colonial North America 115 some attention here, although it has faded from most archaeological research agendas. The mechanism of fatal impact varies, though. Some see Europeanintroduced pathogens as the major debilitating agent, contributing...