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Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 13, parts 1 and 2: Plains ed. by Raymond J. Demallie (review)
- The Canadian Historical Review
- University of Toronto Press
- Volume 84, Number 4, December 2003
- pp. 650-653
- Review
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
650 The Canadian Historical Review achieves two very important ends: first, it ably illustrates how thoughtful questions and the willingness to pose such queries will, more often than not, steer engaged inquiries in wonderfully creative, unexpected, and intriguing directions. Second, with the exception of some starchiness in the introduction and a few unseemly eruptions elsewhere, the collection also demonstrates that it is possible to be grounded theoretically without driving the real human beings out ofour inquiries. Taken together, these two accomplishments are no mean feat. And thus, ifwe can safely take Regulating Lives as an indication ofthe work to follow, the new Law and Society series from UBC Press will be invaluable. JONATHAN SWAINGER University ofNorthern British Columbia Handbook ofNorth American Indians, vol. 13, parts 1 and 2: Plains. Edited by RAYMOND J. DEMALLIE. General editor, WILLIAM c. STURTEVANT. Washington , DC: Smithsonian Institution 2001. Pp. 1376, illus. $101.00 Perhaps no image represents Indian peoples better among the general public than that of the Plains warrior. Thanks to popular writing and, more especially, the dubious contributions of Hollywood, the Plains warrior chief·astride his horse, with eagle-feather war bonnet trailing, often serves as visual shorthand to denote First Nations in general. Only the North-West Coast totem pole comes close to rivalling the image of Plains people as representing all Indian peoples. As the developers of such striking cultural products as the buffalo hunt and sacrificial rituals such as the Sun Dance, not to mention a legacy of conflict with the American military that includes numerous massacres of Indians by cavalry and the memorable annihilation ofCuster's troup by Sioux at the Little Big Hom, Plains First Nations bulk large as symbols ofAboriginal peoples historically. The Smithsonian Institution's magisterial series Handbook of North American Indians has now reached the Plains peoples with its volume 13, Plains. It has been preceded by works on ten other regions or topics, completing the specific studies of individual regions from the Arctic to the southwestern United States and bringing the series, which the Smithsonian began to discuss in 1965 and to publish in 1978, well past the halfway mark. Only the thematic and reference volumes remain to appear. Since the Plains region, stretching from Texas to Alberta, is second in geographical area only to the Subarctic (volume 4), it is not surprising that this volume is printed in two parts. Its sixty-seven chapters are outnumbered only by the seventy-two of the Northeast volume and the seventy-eight ofthat on California. The Plains volume, Reviews 651 then, is not just magisterial, it's massive. The volume opens with a series of essays on environment and languages, followed by a section on 'Prehistory,' then a shorter group of four essays on the history of the United States or Canada, divided at 1850 for the United States and 1870 for Canada. Some 300 hundred pages into the work, a section ofthirty· four chapters amounting to more than 600 pages treats the First Nations one by one, and a concluding group of 'Special Topics,' such as 'Intertribal Religious Movements' and 'Tribal Traditions and Records,' rounds out the collection. Volume editor Raymond J. DeMallie, a respected historian at Indiana University, assures readers that, although the volume was prepared over a long period, its contents 'reflect the state ofknowledge in the 1990s, ratherthan in the early 1970s when planning first began.' The Plains volume illustrates both the strengths and weaknesses for historians ofthe Smithsonian's approach to examining First Nations. Its coverage is extensive and detailed, usually provided by established authorities in their fields, and backed up with massive documentation. Plains contains more than 6000 references whose sources are detailed in a bibliography of 210 pages. Especially pleasing, as well as instructive, are the 573 illustrations consisting of maps, photographs, drawings, and reproductions ofpaintings and engravings. Some ofthe chapters dealing with First Nations normally resident in Canada or with Native-newcomer relations in Canada before 1870 are authoritative and comprehensive. As might be expected, the chapters by Hugh Dempsey on the Blackfoot and Tsuu Tina, labelled with the old-fashioned 'Sarcee' here, are particularly well done. Chapters by Ian Getty and Erik Gooding on the Stoney...