A good, reasonably thorough, traditional ethnography

books:

	• The Blackfeet Raiders on the Northwestern Plains (Civilization of the American Indian Series) John Canfield Ewers University of Oklahoma Press, 1983 - 346 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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an american history of the blackfeet

I generally enjoy reading non fiction books to listening to popular music because... music is sooooo corporate. The downside of reading non fiction is that you can't really share your interest with anyone- this contrasts sharply with music- almost everyone has some opinion about some kind of popular music. Most people- even most readers- almost never read a non fiction book (exclusing self help and celebrity bios).

That's a shame, because the internet makes it so easy to buy cheap used books that even the most impoverished individual can keep a steady flow of books shipped to their home address without expending hardly any effort.

This particular volume I bought at the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning, Montana. Ewers, the author, was the first Curator of that place. The Blackfeet is a straight forward ethnography of the Blackfeet circa the early 50s.

Ewers is strong on providing transcriptions of statements by elderly Blackfeet who can speak first hand about their rituals and practices from back in the day. His description of "material culture" (what they ate, what they wore, how they lived) are stronger then his descriptions of their native religion and the non-material culture.

As you would excpect from a work of this age, Ewers offers little to no criticism of the united states government or its conduct towards the Blackfeet. He even goes so far as to praise the efforts of several "indian agents"- as corrupt and venal a bunch of men as you are likely to encounter in history.

The relative simplicity of Blackfeet culture makes this 300 pages an easy read. I would be interested in reading further about the original Blackfeet native religion- Ewers left me with many questions. I think that subject alone warrants a book- "The Religion of the Plains Indians.

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general overview of the Blackfeet

This book does an ok job of giving you a brief overview of the Blackfeet--although it is very introductory and does not go into as much depth as I would like on various subjects (religion, daily life, etc). One problem I have is that Ewers choice of words. He refers to the Blackfeet and other Native Americans as "red men" and bloodthirsty and other terms that are rather derogatory. If you can get past that... I guess it's not too bad.

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A good, reasonably thorough, traditional ethnography

This is a good, old-style ethnography of the Blackfoot. It provides a reasonably thorough account of material culture. It's weaker on traditional human culture, especially religious beliefs, but it does a decent job on the outward manifestations of interior beliefs.

As you would expect from this kind of ethnography, the book is descriptive, not explanatory. With very few exceptions, it also fails to make any comparisons with other cultures, and any comparisons concern only the tribe's near neighbors such as the Crow or Flatheads.

Because he did his work in the 1940s and 1950s, Ewers' respondents include elderly members of the tribe who recall customs of their pre-reservation youth. Along with the accounts of white explorers and traders, these provide Ewers' main sources for the history of the Blackfoot.

The parts that stick with me the most are the participants' views of horse raiding expeditions, and the views of "medicine" rituals and objects. Both of these are easily distorted by outsiders, and Ewers seems to get them right.

It's interesting to see the tension in this older ethnographic perspective. He's sympathetic to the tribe, he recognizes the inhumanity inflicted on them, and yet he also praises "good" Indian agents who try to help the Blackfoot learn to farm and ranch. He even has some good things to say about Indian boarding schools!

Simplifying a bit, Ewers tends to see the political and economic injustices inflicted on the Blackfoot but he cannot see the cultural injustices. The tension is evident even in the title, which refers to the "Blackfeet," even though he notes in the text that this plural is not used n the Blackfoot language and many Blackfoot insist on the singular usage that I have used in this review. Some are even offended by the term. It's not clear that Ewars would understand why this matters.

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thoroughly documented research

This book is a researcher's dream, and a pleasure to read. First published in 1958, this volume traces the history of the Blackfeet from pre-horse days through to the 1950's. The author displays a thorough understanding of his subject, and extensively annotates his work, paying meticulous attention to dates, places and names. John C Ewers was the first curator of the Museum of the Plains Indian near Browning, Montana, and many of the items in the museum collection were given to him at the time by elder members of the tribe at the time. He used primary sources for much of his information for this book, and corroborated details with these tribal elders as much as possible. This is a well-written, respectful history of the Blackfeet nation, and ought to remain in print for decades to come. Potential buyers should scan the Table of Contents page for an overview of subjects covered.

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