Handbook of the North American Indians, vol. 12: Plateau ed. by Deward E. Walker (review)

678 The Canadian Historical Review approach recommended elsewhere in the report, and ignores the increasing integration of all recording media in digital format and even as multimedia documents. Similarly, English heard input from some archivists about the history-based research substance oftheir work, and he heard from others an anti-historical perspective stressing the importance ofstandards, process, and technology. Yet the vision ofthe ideal archivist - or librarian - for the future in terms ofeducation, characteristics, and work and community focus is not addressed. One hopes that Roch Carrier, as new national librarian, and Ian Wilson, as new national archivist, will take many of the good ideas advanced by John English and weave them into coherent policies and programs to allow both institutions to flourish in the digital age. That renaissance will come not just as efficient managers and purveyors of electronic information but as centres of research by their professional staffs to provide the contexts necessary to allow researchers in all disciplines to interpret these institution's rich holdings wisely. One hopes as well that historians, among others, will actively engage in these processes , regularly demand an accounting of progress against many of English's recommendations, and lobby hard for funding for others. The future ofhistory depends on it. TERRY COOK University ofManitoba Handbook of the North American Indians, vol. 12: Plateau. Edited by DEWARD E. WALKER. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press 1998. Pp. xvi, 791, illus. $6i.oo The Plateau handbook is the most recent to appear in this Smithsonian Institutitm series of twenty volumes. Similar to the Arctic, Subarctic, Northwest Coast, and Northeast volumes, this volume includes a substantial tract of Aboriginal Canada - in this instance the south-central interior of British Columbia. As these volume titles suggest, this ambitious series, which was conceived in the 1960s, is in many respects a legacy ofan earlier era ofanthropology, when salvage ethnology, culture element distribution surveys, and the culture area approach held sway. The series editors continue to use a culture area approach to synthesize a plethora ofethnographic data on a continental scale. For some topics that are not well suited to this treatment, mostly those ofa historical nature, the editors adopted a thematic approach The individual volumes are structured in a similar fashion. The Plateau handbook is divided into five parts. The introductory section offers thematic chapters that deal with the changing definitions Book Reviews 679 ofthe region, the history ofethnographic and archaeological research in the area, the nature of the local environment, and an overview of the linguistic geography of the region. Collectively these chapters leave the reader with a sense that the Plateau, which is situated between the Rocky Mountains and the Coast Ranges, was a transitional region in terms of its geography and Aboriginal culture. Historically, the Plateau people were strongly influenced by their Northwest Coast neighbours to the west and, especially following the introduction ofthe horse after 1730, by Plains people to the east. These bordering culture areas, especially the Northwest Coast, have always captured much more scholarly attention, which has dampened research·on the Plateau area. Indeed, systematic professional anthropological research in the Plateau began as an aspect of Northwest Coast research in 1897, when the American Museum of Anthropology's Jessup North Pacific Expedition, under the direction of Franz Boas, hired pioneer ethnographer James A. Teit to work for three years as a Plateau researcher. Following in the Boasian tradition, T~it emphasized the comprehensive collection of information about language, customs, and life-ways with the objective ofmaking a full 'reconstruction' ofAboriginal culture. Teit continued his work on the Plateau as an employee ofthe Canadian Geological Survey, and he collected materials for the National Museum in Ottawa and the Field Museum in Chicago. Today, Teit is still regarded as one ofthe major contributors to the development ofPlateau ethnography because ofthe early date ofhis research and the widespread publication ofhis extensive knowledge.' Verne F. Ray, who began publishing on the Plateau in the early 1930s, is another early ethnographer: the first to move away from the particularistic approach that dominated the work of previous scholars by offering a major synthesis of Plateau culture in 1939· Subsequently, ethnographic research interests in the Plateau shifted and increasingly emphasized...