|
|
|
REVIEWS
THE 1870 GHOST DANCE
|
by Cora DuBois
edited by Thomas Buckley
|
| University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2007. Illustrations, maps, tables, notes, bibliography, index. 378 pages. $19.95 paper. |
| Thomas Buckley, an accomplished anthropologist who has done excellent work on the Yuroks of northern California, has edited a reissue of Cora DuBois's classic 1938 study of the 1870 Ghost Dance. This text is well known to specialists in far western Indian history and Native spirituality, but neither DuBois nor her subject is as generally recognizable as James Mooney's work on the Ghost Dance of the late 180s and 1890. Buckley attempts to rectify this discrepancy somewhat, though obviously the Wounded Knee Massacre will forever make the 1890 dance among the Plains Sioux more tragically memorable. While I enjoy reading through some familiar pages without inhaling mold spores and dust mites from an ancient library copy, I often wonder about the point of reissuing dated texts. In this case, however, Buckley has convinced me of its utility. |
1
|
|
Buckley gives three basic reasons for the reissue in his well-executed introduction. First, he cites the importance of the early wave of Ghost Dancing in 1870, which differed in many respects from the successor movement that famously spread eastward to the Plains instead of westward to the Pacific. Second, he offers the text as an excellent case study of salvage ethnography from the first half of the twentieth century. Third, he reminds modern readers of the significance of DuBois to the developing profession of anthropology and the field of ethnohistory. |
2
|
|
As Buckley carefully explains, DuBois followed many of the basic methods pioneered by Franz Boas and her advisors Robert H. Lowie and Alfred Kroeber. She avoids imposing her own narrative on the spread of the 1870 Ghost Dance, for example, and instead presents "traits" of the dance among individual "tribes," which are themselves problematic and dated constructions. Rather than presenting a comparative account of Earth Lodge Cult practices or even a straightforward narrative of its spread and development, DuBois breaks the discussion into disconnected accounts by region and tribe, leaving much of the plotting and assemblage to readers. Of course, her verbatim interviews are invaluable and have been important source material for subsequent generations of scholars, even if her approach has been largely relegated to the dustbin. |
3
|
|
Still, Buckley reminds us that peering into dustbins can be useful. He treats readers to an excellent overview of early anthropology and DuBois's place in its development. Clearly, there is a sense that Buckley is acknowledging his own debt to her, though his scholarship is several permutations removed. Graduate students and, depending on the institution, upper division undergraduates would certainly benefit from Buckley's primer followed by a reading of the actual text. General readers will probably be somewhat frustrated by the fragmented presentation, though the voices of Native participants who offered their views and memories to DuBois should prove enticing enough for many enthusiasts and contemporary Indian descendents. |
4
|
| Gray H. Whaley
|
| Southern Illinois University Carbondale |
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|