To Be Indian: The Life of Iroquois-Seneca Arthur Caswell Parker (review)

This is a readable biography of Arthur Caswell Parker (1881–1955), a prominent ethnologist, curator, archaeologist, and journalist of mixed Iroquois, Seneca, and Anglican descent. The book is organized chronologically and thematically, focusing on key aspects of Parker's career and intellectual development. Scholars of contemporary American Indian society and activism will appreciate Porter's compilation of extensive articles written by or about Parker.

Raised as a Christian, Parker attended a seminary and nearly became a minister. However, his manitou was his guiding spirit, and ultimately he went on to educate Americans in the spiritual teachings of Handsome Lake (76). Because he lacked an advanced degree in archaeology, he was unable to continue his promising ethnographic work, which came to a close in 1913. One regrets that Parker did not continue to work in the field, where "his serviceable understanding of the Seneca language," family ties, and passion for his material gave him advantages over more learned scholars (74). Instead, he went on to become director of the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences (1925–46), where he contributed to the popularization of Indian culture, albeit within the rubric of "vanishing Indians," with engaging museum dioramas, newspaper articles, and children's books.

Porter explains that in his ethnography and fiction, Parker chose to "present the Indian, specifically the Iroquois, in a good light—as progressive, enlightened and democratic early Americans" (90). Parker shared this goal with many other writers, who wanted to better the condition and status of Indians while preserving their stories, crafts, history, and cultural values. He was a member of the new educated Indian middle class, and his pan-Indian sentiment emerged from his shared experiences of frustration at the negative stereotyping of Indians. Porter might have expanded the discussion of Parker's commonalities with other members of the Indian elite in place of the extended sections that treat Parker's debts to white mentors and intellectuals.

Porter devotes at least half of the book to Parker's successful bid for the esteem of whites, which resulted in an honorary PhD from Union College (1940) and admittance to Freemasonry's highest rank. Parker accepted the dominant ideology of his age, which viewed race in terms of an evolutionary scale. He believed that through education the Indian people would surpass African Americans and Jewish and Catholic immigrants in social evolution (92). Although he used his adopted Indian name to impress his white audience, he regretted that he had to "play Indian" to cater to whites' expectations.

I found Porter's discussions of Parker's relationships with other Indians the most compelling and valuable parts of the book. Because of his privileged, bicultural upbringing, Parker was an outsider to the Iroquois he studied. Because his mother was white, he was denied tribal membership and had to be ritually adopted into a clan known by outsiders as the Seneca Bear Clan (65). Parker's resentment at this exclusion hardened his views on matrilineal descent and led him to write that "only animals, slaves, and some Indians . . . take their descent from the female line" (75). Parker's support for assimilation legislation alienated Indians who wanted to preserve their traditional political system. His grave digging led Indians of one reservation to cast a spell on him and those of another to "shove his tent and its occupants over a bank into a creek" (63). Parker's unscholarly self-promotion also irritated rival archaeologist J. N. B. Hewitt, of Tuscarora descent (87), and Parker could not see eye to eye with Dr. Carlos Montezuma over the role of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the future of Native America (94). Parker enjoyed better relations with Indian writers and artisans like Gertrude Bonnin and Jesse Cornplanter, whose work he admired (60). Parker corresponded with a "reservation acquaintance" and was generous to "deserving cases from...