Going Indian (review)

When anthropology professor James Hamill first delved into the Indian Pioneer Papers at the University of Oklahoma's Western History Collections, he encountered an interview with Mattie Bailey, the great-granddaughter of a Creek woman. "It occurred to me," Hamill says, "that Mattie wanted me to read her interview. She took time out of her life in January, 1937, to talk about her great-grandmother …. Mattie Bailey knew what she was doing; she knew that her interview would be recorded for other people to read and to learn from at other times. She submitted herself to the interview so that her story could be known and be part of some larger story. I felt a debt to Mattie Bailey …" (xi).

Indeed, oral historians, whether they create new interviews or use earlier interviews left by others would do well to remember Hamill's "Aha!" moment.

Going Indian makes respectful and detailed use of dozens of interviews taken from the Indian Pioneer Papers, created as a Works Progress Administration project in the 1930s, and the Doris Duke Collection interviews with Indians in the late 1960s and early 70s, as well as interviews Hamill tape-recorded in 2000 and 01 with nine members of various tribes in Oklahoma. Therein lies a peculiar aspect of this book. Following anthropological standards, Hamill, on the one hand, goes to great lengths to use pseudonyms with his interviewees and otherwise to hide their identity, as well as noting that the quality of his recordings, whose whereabouts are not reported, was sometimes problematic. On the other hand, he uses real names and tribal and other identifications for the interviewees whose words he quotes from the archival collections, without any apparent awareness of the contradictions in his approach. The Indian Pioneer Papers, to be sure, are only vaguely recognizable as oral history by contemporary definitions of the term: they were not recorded; they were sometimes presented in first-person, other times in third-person, more like a journalistic account than a transcript; they contain only limited information about the circumstances under which the interviews were conducted. Nonetheless, they, like the Doris Duke interviews, identify real people by name, giving them life and credibility as oral history. Readers can be forgiven for wondering why anthropologist Hamill was reluctant to cross into oral history territory and add his interviews to the public record.

For what he has to say about Indians and Indianness in Oklahoma today bears hearing. This book focuses on how Indians in this Southern Plains state perceive themselves as "Indians" rather than as members of particular tribes. It explores five themes in detail: the tragic, oft-told story of removal, reservations, and allotments in Indian Territory, Indian education, the significance and peculiarities of Indian bloodlines and blood quantum, Indian Christian communities, and the creation of institutions based on traditional tribal, not white, values. Hamill notes that for many people, the evolution of an Indian ethnic identity reflects a weakening of tribal identity and, thus, a near "total assimilation into the white world. This is a life-and-death concern for many who see Indianness as bringing on the end of tribal culture" (179). Hamill suggests, however, that a rise in Indian ethnicity may also serve to strengthen efforts to promote tribal culture as well.

Hamill recounts an interview with one of his sources whom he calls Pat. Pat describes a painting called "The End of the Trail," taken from a nineteenth century sculpture of a dejected Indian on a weary pony, which Hamill says "expresses a popular view of Indians as a vanishing race" (170). Pat tells Hamill he can't stand that painting: "There's no end of the trail here. My ancestors sacrificed just so we could still be here. They had rough times and times that they had to go through the same thing we're going through …. It's [the painting] just not true, it's a big lie, and unfortunately around Indian country people still believe that. It's like they are in a perpetual state of...