|
|
|
Reviews of Books
Grave Undertakings: An Archaeology of Roger Williams and the Narragansett
Indians. By
PATRICIA E. RUBERTONE.
(Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. Pp. xxii, 248.
$40.00.)
Reviewed by Donald W. Linebaugh, University of Kentucky
|
Roger Williams's A Key into the Language of America (1643) has long served as the most significant source on the culture of Rhode Island's Narragansett Indians. Scholars have relied not simply on A Key's glossary of Algonquian language, but also on the many observations of Narragansett life that Williams included. Then in the 1980s, the Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission and Narragansett Tribal Council investigated an accidental discovery: a colonial era, Native American burial ground. This cemetery (RI–1000) provided anthropologist Patricia E. Rubertone the opportunity to re-examine Williams's text and its impact on the history and interpretation of the Narragansett people. Employing textual, archaeological, and ethnographic evidence, Rubertone explores Williams's rise to historical sainthood, the canonization of A Key, and the part that Williams and his book play in our present grasp of the lives of the Narragansetts under colonial rule. Rubertone seeks to understand and make evident the process of translating Narragansett culture from the world of the seventeenth century to the present, particularly the difficulties inherent in writing about the "harsh and very painful realities of colonial domination" (p. xi). Such questions of cultural translation affect how native peoples like the Narragansetts "continue to make their way into the twenty-first century" (p. xv). |
1 |
|
In the first part of the book, "From Key to Canon," Rubertone examines how Williams's life story has been variously interpreted and continuously recast in historical texts and popular legend. Williams has been praised for his religious tolerance and celebrated as the founder of Rhode Island, but his greatest legacy may be his impact on the history and interpretation of the Narragansetts. Hailed as a pioneer of religious liberty, by 1800 he was largely forgotten. Both Williams and A Key increased in stature as antiquarian interest in early America intensified during the nineteenth century. The newly formed Rhode Island Historical Society first published A Key in 1827. At midcentury, scholarly and popular interest in Williams had coalesced, and plans were underway to memorialize his grave site. By the end of the century, Williams's legendary status was well established. Rubertone explores the use and misuse of his work as, for example, when Rhode Island officials in the late nineteenth century cited it to support the detribalization of the Narragansetts and when tribal leaders in the early twentieth century used it to re-establish their tribe and its land claims. |
2 |
|
Rubertone argues that Williams's role as an interpreter of Narragansett culture can be fully appreciated and understood only by exploring his encounters with native peoples. In the second part of the book, "Rethinking A Key," Rubertone analyzes how what Williams "saw, heard, and eventually wrote" (p. xvi) was shaped by the colonial context. A Key provided a phrase book for communicating, a textbook for evangelizing, and a descriptive account of the "manners and customs" of the Narragansett people. Reading A Key as "an instrument of discovery" (p. 97) highlights a series of omissions, questions, and ambiguities regarding Williams's interpretations of Narragansett culture and history, including religious beliefs, land ownership, kinship relations, social rituals, and death rites and funerals. |
. . . |
There are about 752 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
