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Book Review
| Kiowa Humanity and the Invasion of the State. By Jacki Thompson Rand. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008. xii, 198 pp. $45.00, ISBN 978-0-8032-3966-1.)
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| This work focuses on the role of colonialism on national and local levels and regarding the state, the commercial sector, and the developing field of anthropology (p. 8). Jacki Thompson Rand provides a good synthesis of the major developments in Indian policy and of national and anthropological views of Indians in the mid-to-late 1800s. Her core idea is simple but poignant: the impacts of U.S. government policy for the Kiowa were greatest in day-to-day life, and thus affected the basic elements of their culture (subsistence, economy, politics, religion, language)—their humanity. Rand aptly points out that rations were often more than adequately funded, short in supply, late in arrival (pp. 49–59), and used as a means to control tribal life. She provides enlightening data on artwork and sales, gender roles of young adults, Fort Marion prisoners, and reservation policies. |
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There are some problems, both with the data and the synthesis. Analogizing the American Indian experience to the Holocaust is not practical. Both are deplorable, but involved extremely different organization and methods. Reservation life, for example, was far less regulated, conscripted, and genocidal than concentration camps. The fact that people reach deep within to survive conflict, encapsulation, and culturally suppressive situations is not unusual. Rand criticizes the cultural-artistic focus of the National Museum of the American Indian (p. 10), which was designed by a consortium of native peoples. She also criticizes the display of native culture and peoples at expositions, but offers no alternatives. Would no exposure have been better? Many colonial powers have been less interested in preserving the native culture and history of conquered peoples. Given the language, organizational, and financial barriers of the time, how might native peoples have presented their cultures themselves? Other works have shown that individuals participated in expositions and Wild West shows for wages, travel opportunities, and excitement, and to escape reservation conditions. |
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