Tribal Sovereignty and the Historical Imagination: Cheyenne-Arapaho Politics (review)

In this book, Fowler confronts the familiar "crabs in the bucket" image of Indian politics for the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma. Federal policy provides the benchmarks for her historical/chronological argument as she traces 130 years (1869–1999) of the personnel and performance of tribal leaders since the establishment of the joint reservation in Indian Territory. Two important points stand out in her narrative: the colonial arm of the federal government is long, and resistance is continuous if complicated. Throughout her account, surprisingly little is made of the dual nature of the tribe, although certainly it demonstrates both the "colonization of consciousness" and the "consciousness of colonization" (xvi).

Although she acknowledges factionalism as early as the allotment period and traces its exacerbation during reorganization, Fowler focuses her narrative explanation on the last quarter-century and especially on the economic and political consequences of the 1975 Self-Determination Act. By delegating new responsibilities to tribal officials while retaining federal control through contract approval and appropriations, Fowler argues, "638" engendered increasing political conflict and competition. It would seem, however, that equal time should have been given to another milestone of 1975: the new Cheyenne-Arapaho constitution. Under the Crow-like tribal government established by that constitution, every issue becomes a political issue, and "getting things done" is considerably more cumbersome than it is in the more efficient and more common forms of representative government. (The Crow, recognizing this, have seriously considered reorganization.) On the other hand, and just as important, this form of tribal government provides a greater potential for real self-determination than that which follows the federal model more closely. The opportunity for every voice to be heard may well be worth the cost in efficiency and federal frustration: certainly such a process is more "traditional," less "colonized."

Throughout the volume, Fowler focuses exclusively on the Cheyenne-Arapaho tribes. While this intense local focus is salutary in the present context of globalizing ethnographies, as the above comparison with the Crow suggests, a wider lens might have brought greater clarity to some of the issues. Among those issues is the central contrast between "individualism" and "tribalism," which reverberates throughout the volume. Individual crabs in the bucket, jealous of their fellow crabs to the point of dragging them down, typically undermine each other politically, "appropriating non-Indian discourse" (142) to demean and discredit them. "Individualism," especially as evidenced in competition and conflict, she finds, is driven by federal design and increases over time, to the detriment of its opposite, "tribalism." Certainly, however, competition and conflict are not new to Cheyenne or Arapaho society. Indeed, Jeff Anderson (2001) suggests that, far from being "disabling" or "socially disruptive," conflict is the very soul and substance of the Northern Arapaho community, as it expresses relations among the extended family groups that are its fundamental units. Fowler's dichotomous "individualism" versus "tribalism" construct probably obscures more than it elucidates.

While "individualism" is seen to flourish in the political realm, cooperative "tribalism" continues to prevail in the now discrete ceremonial/ritual realm (the latter understood to include powwows as well as Sun Dance and Arrow Renewal ceremonies). Of course, real and ideal cultures never actually coincide, and the ceremonial realm, defined necessarily as opposed to the slings and passions of day-to-day political process, invariably allows expression and education in the ideal. Certainly, as Fowler insists, ceremonies are a repository of culture history and of resistance to hegemonic dominance, including that appropriated by intratribal political discourse. At the same time, both are essential to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Way today.

Although dichotomous constructs and a too-narrow gaze interfere with the project, Fowler's assiduous documentation of the accomplishments of Cheyenne-Arapaho tribal government affords a more informed perspective for tribal members and historians alike. Most important is her insistence on the cumulative nature of those accomplishments, despite political rhetoric in which...