A Pretty Village: Documents of Worship and Culture Change, St. Ignatius Mission, Montana, 1880–1889, and: Zealous in All Virtues: Documents of Worship and Culture Change, St. Ignatius Mission, Montana, 1890–1894 (review)

Documentary collections are not very interesting to read. They do not offer judgments, synopsis, or continuity. As history, they are confining and uninspiring. Still, primary documents are far from sterile, for it is from them that narrative history is born. Years in preparation, the two volumes under review are examples of published documentary compilations that will assist writers of future narratives. The set is the product of a collaborative effort by editor Robert Bigard and a cast of more than a dozen academicians who served as consultants.

St. Ignatius Mission is located on the Flathead Indian Reservation, north of Missoula, Montana. The mission has a history that can be traced back to Father Peter John De Smet, S.J. Among Jesuit missions in the Pacific Northwest it may have been the fifth to be established, but in impact it was the crown jewel of stations, the showplace of the Society of Jesus. Initially positioned on the Pend d’Oreille River in Washington, circumstances urged its removal in 1854 to the Flathead Valley adjacent to the magnificent Mission Range of mountains. The church and school quickly became an assembly point for members of the Flathead, Kalispel, Pend d’Oreille, and Kootenai tribes. In 1875 the mission acquired a printing press, and with it, students and faculty issued sixty-six separate imprints including several dictionaries of native languages. The same period, unfortunately, brought about a notable change in the economy of the tribes, specifically the diminishment of the buffalo-based economy. Moreover, as Bigart writes, “the nineteenth century European ideology that permeated the St. Ignatius schools worked to supplant Salish and Kootenai culture” (A Pretty Village, p. 1). In 1880, when Bigart begins his documentary study, St. Ignatius Mission was in transition. By 1894, when Bigart concludes his second volume, the golden age of St. Ignatius Mission was over.

Selective editing is a fact of life when dealing with space limitations on the printed page; yet the reader is left to wonder about the choices made. Finding written records by students in the St. Ignatius schools, for example, was very difficult. That is understandable. Also, few of the documents relate to the pageantry that took place on major religious feasts such as Christmas, Easter, or St. Ignatius Day. That is the nature of documents. But, Bigart explains, letters with descriptions of Mission Valley scenery, histories of the mission, or “discussions of race and barbarism were deleted from the documents” (A Pretty Village, p. 7). Approximately two dozen Jesuits served at St. Ignatius Mission during the 1880s, yet the diary of only one man, Father Jerome D’Aste, who wrote between 1880–81 and 1888–94, represents them all. Even so, “only selected entries could be used in this collection,” and what is offered is “the editor’s best reading, without any guarantees that they are 100 percent accurate” (A Pretty Village, p. 4). Bigart acknowledges that the documents he selected “provide a narrow window” (A Pretty Village, p. 9).

It is disappointing that books and articles on the mission, the clergy, and the tribes are not used to add depth to the reader’s understanding of the documents. Save for footnote and bibliographic references in the editor’s two introductions, both documentary volumes are devoid of explanatory footnotes, which would have enhanced...