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The Blackfeet were the strongest military power on the
northwestern plains in the historic buffalo days. For half a
century up to 1805, they were almost constantly at war with the
Shoshonis and came very close to exterminating that tribe. They
aggressively asserted themselves against the Flatheads and the
Kutenais, shoving them westward across the Rockies. They got on
fairly well with English and Canadian traders during the heyday of
the fur trade on the Saskatchewan River, but on the upper Missouri
they took an early dislike to Americans, whom they called "Big
Knives." American fur traders, such as Manuel Lisa, Pierre Menard,
and Andrew Henry, were literally chased out of Montana by the
Blackfeet.
Contributions From The Museum Of The American Indian Heye
Foundation, V16.
The Plains Indian of the Upper Missouri in the
nineteenth-century buffalo days remains the widely recognized
symbol of primitive man par excellence-and the persistent image of
the North American Indian at his most romantic. Fifteen cultural
highlights, each a chapter made from research for a particular
subject and enriched by contemporary illustrations, provide a
sensitive interpretation of tribes such as the Blackfeet, the
Crows, and the Mandans from the decades before Lewis and Clark up
to the present.
In an attempt to understand and record the old culture of the
Indians, the author has developed, over the past 30 years, a
special ethnohistorical approach. The results, as seen here, are
enlightening both for other ethnohistorians and for historians of
more or less conventional bent. This book is abundantly illustrated
from historical sources.
Frank Raymond Secoy wrote this classic work while at Columbia
University in the early 195s. In his introduction, John C. Ewers
considers the influence of Secoy's book on scholars since its
original publication in 1953. Ethnologist emeritus at the
Smithsonian Institution, Ewers is the author of "The Horse in
Blackfoot Indian Culture" (1955), "Blackfeet: Their Art and
Culture" (1987), and other works.
"Plains Indian History and Culture," an engaging collection of
articles and essays, reflects John C. Ewers multifaceted approach
to Indian history, an approach that combines his far-reaching
interest in American history generally, his professional training
in anthropology, and his many decades of experience as a
field-worker and museum curator.
The author has drawn on interviews collected during a
quarter-century of fieldwork with Indian elders, who in recalling
their own experiences during the buffalo days, revealed unique
insights into Plains Indian life. Ewers use his expertise in
examining Indian-made artifacts and drawings as well as photographs
taken by non-Indian artists who had firsthand contact with Indians.
He throws new light on important changes in Plains Indian culture,
on the history of intertribal relations, and on Indian relation
with whites--traders, missionaries, soldiers, settlers, and the
U.S. Government.
'Two Leggings ...was one of the last Crow Warriors. From 1919 to
1923 he told his story of Crow life and wars to William Wildschut,
an ethnologist with the Museum of the American Indian ...This is
the poignant story of the end of traditional Crow life and
attitudes, which Two Leggings saw ending with the last warfare
rather than the death of the buffalo' - "Pacific Historian". 'This
is the story of Two Leggings' desire for fame, his rise as a
warrior, and his efforts to achieve a spiritual vision. He takes us
along on buffalo hunts, war parties against the Piegans, and horse
stealing raids against the Piegans and Sioux. His obsession to
become a chief and famous warrior drove him to repeated forays
against enemy tribes for scalps and horses. He relates the
religious relationship between vision fasts, medicine bundles, and
a war raid's outcome, sun dances in which performers pierced their
breast muscles with wooden skewers, and wife stealing between rival
warrior societies...It is a remarkable story' - "Chicago Tribune".
'This is a rare piece of Americana - a first-person account of the
psychological, religious, and social life of a nineteenth century
Indian. The dramatic recital is a real contribution to our native
biography, history, and ethnology, and an important treatise in a
fascinating but curiously neglected field' - "Baltimore Sun". 'A
valuable addition to our knowledge of the life of the Plains
Indian' - "New York Times". '"Two Leggings" lifts the curtain on a
kind of life it is almost impossible to imagine anywhere in the
United States during the second half of the last century. Mr.
Nabokov has preserved a priceless document not only for
ethnologists bur for plain readers as well...His narrative lays
open, as by a surgeon's knife, the inner world of Indian religion
and morality' - Mark Van Doren. Peter Nabokov is on the faculty of
the Department of Anthropology and the American Indian Studies
Program, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the author of
"Native American Architecture" (1988) and editor of "Native
American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian and White Relations from
Prophecy to the Present, 1492-1992" (1991).
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