An Interview with Peter Nabokov

1 2 Historically Speaking September 2002 An Interview with Peter Nabokov IN AN IMPORTANT NEW BOOK, PeterNabokov exploresthe complexity ofAmerican Indian approachesto thepast. Nabokov, aprofessor ofAmerican Indian studies andworldarts andculturesat UCLA, bosdrawn on decadesofbis own research andrecentfindingsin ethnobistory, anthropology,folklore, andIndianstudiestowrite A Forest ofTime: American Indian Ways of History (Cambridge University Press, 2002). The result isan impressive work oftransdisciplinary scholarship. His exploration ofthe complex and varied ways thatAmerican Indian societies makesenseofthepastopensup thesubjectofAmerican Indian historicalimagination to thegeneral reader. In theprocess, Nabokov raisesa numberof importantquestions, especially regardingtheways historians approach the history ofnon-Western peoples. Readers o/Historically Speaking may wellfindsome ofbis claims challenging, perhaps evenproblematic, buttherecan belittledoubtthat Nabokov basfocused attention on matters that prompt historians to reflect on the nature, practice , andlimitations ofhistoricalinquiry. Toprovidereaderso/Historically Speaking with an opportunity to encounter Nabokovs provocativeworkandevaluateiton theirown, we have securedpermissionfrom Cambridge University Press to excerpt the concludingpages ofA. ForestofTime. Followingtheexcerpt, weprovide an interview with Nabokov which Donald Yerxa conductedon May 9, 2002. An Excerpt fromA Forestin Time* byPeterNabokov Castinga final glance overthese chapters, let me highlight a few ideas and diemes mat have direaded dirough diem. First, like the original Cambridge essay diatlaunched it, diis lengdiier prolegomenon toAmericanIndianways ofhistoryhasjoined with the late historian H. Stuart Hughes's "vision ofhistory,''which stresses "die central importance ofsymbols in establishing commonvalues ofa given culture ----- The symbol conveys the implicit principles by which the society lives, the shared understanding of assumptions which require no formal prooP (History asArtandas Science: Twin Vistasofthe Past [University ofChicago Press, 1975], 80). The differentIndian senses ofdie pastdiat stand as separate trees with their respective branches in this American Indian forest are notassemblages ofexistential happenings diat lackorganic connection. Usuallystructured in ways diatmayreflectdifferentcombinations of socio-economic, political, religious, and hence historical determinants, dieyall stress selected cultural meanings, common aspirations, and preferable social processes through die media ofwell-worn multivocal "condensed" symbols diat have swelled in content and stood die test of time. Such symbols and the ritualistic actions they empower serve to "naturalize'' history, to retrospectivelyreifydie contingent so diat, for instance, edinic communities come to acceptdieir origins, commemorations, and destinies as foreordained by higher powers. Second, in die articulation ofany Native society's historical consciousness, we mustalso rememberdiatdiesemastersymbols and root metaphors have almost certainly undergone transformations, the "plasticity" of which Hughes also speaks in his book and whose inventive presence has been evinced throughout this work. Within these Native philosophies ofhistory, moreover, highvalue is usually placed upon die maintenance ofIndian conceptual autonomy over time, in as outwardly consistent and inwardly reassuring a fashion as possible. Sometimes diis requires adjusting the facts and calls for retroactive enhancement in order for history to make sense in Indian terms, to integrate olderclaimsintonewsociopolitical climates, and to pass on essential meanings distilled from collective experience. Suspecting that labels such as "tradition" or "sacred" are employed as "a flag ofconvenienceto legitimate a position held onodier grounds" (JanVansima, "On HistoryandTradition ," in Paths in the Rainforests: Towards a HistoryofPoliticalTradition inEquatorialAfrica [University ofWisconsin Press, 1990], 258), or to exempt subject matter from empirical scrutiny, should not make us turn our backs on eidierdie persistence ofcertain social phenomena or the inherendy dynamic nature of culture itself. Uncovering the synthesized nature ofindigenousclaimsdoesnotmeandiat diey are composed ofdiin air. Study oftheir components and adhesive compounds identifies cultural processes that can also be upstreamed toidentifydieirpresence and consistency over earlier eras. True, a few "traditions " may be unmasked as individually perpetrated frauds, public relations strategies, or examples ofcollective self-delusion. But die factremains diat"historyisnotgiven and tradition is not static," asJames Collins puts it, and modulations or recombination of traditions do not make tribal agency and social identity "unreal or fictive, as terms such as 'constructed' or'invented' canimply, but [diey do] make diemprofoundlyhistorical" (Understanding Tolowa Histories: Western Hegemonies and Native American Responses [Routledge, 1998], 50-51).The trickliesinsimultaneously trackingdownhard factsanddieircultural and Reprinted from die final pages ofPeterNabokov'sA ForestofTime:American Indian WaysofHistory (Cambridge University Press, 2002), 232-40. Some citations have been eliminated. © Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with permission from Cambridge University Press. September 2002 · Historically Speaking13 historical contexts and nuances, widioutwhich diey don't mean much. Third, former times may be considered foreign countries by non-Indian historians, but to Native peoples they usually constitute familiar, contiguous, and ever...