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Indians of the United States: Four Centuries of their History and Culture by Clark WisslerReview by: William N. FentonThe American Historical Review, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Jan., 1941), pp. 413-415Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1838989 .
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Wissler: Indians of the United States 4I3
confidential conversations with M. Palologue, supposedly representing the French government as political director, and with M. Sauveur, a leading Schneider-Creusot director. Paleologue's idea was to base French eastern policy not on Poland and the Little Entente but on Hungary and to create a Danubian economic federation under French leading strings. The Hun- garians in good faith were ready to surrender control over their railways and Kreditbank to Schneider-Creusot and French economic interests. In return Paleologue would secure political concessions for Hungary in regard to boundaries, rearmament, and other matters. He declared that he was laying his cards frankly on the table, but in the end the Hungarians doubted whether this was really the case. He demanded immediate agreement on the economic advantages which France was to receive but was increasingly vague as to the political quid pro quo which he said would have to be worked out in the future. Furthermore, he apparently did not fully inform either his own government or the English and the Italians, to say nothing of Hungary's immediate neighbors. When Lord Curzon got wind of the affair, he expressed the opinion that "the French have played a shady game with the Hungarians". Ultimately the whole negotiation fell through when Paleologue was replaced by M. Berthelot.
Nearly half the documents relate to a great variety of subjects arising out of the war: repatriation of soldiers and prisoners; division of Austro- Hungarian state property; "atrocities" committed by Czechs, Rumanians, and Serbs in the separated territories; recognition of Hungary by other powers; the escape of Bela Kun from Austria and the danger of Bolshevism; and the treatment of minorities. These documents throw interesting light on postwar international procedure as well as on Hungary's own great difficulties.
Harvard University. SIDNEY B. FAY.
Wissler: Indians of the United States 4I3
confidential conversations with M. Palologue, supposedly representing the French government as political director, and with M. Sauveur, a leading Schneider-Creusot director. Paleologue's idea was to base French eastern policy not on Poland and the Little Entente but on Hungary and to create a Danubian economic federation under French leading strings. The Hun- garians in good faith were ready to surrender control over their railways and Kreditbank to Schneider-Creusot and French economic interests. In return Paleologue would secure political concessions for Hungary in regard to boundaries, rearmament, and other matters. He declared that he was laying his cards frankly on the table, but in the end the Hungarians doubted whether this was really the case. He demanded immediate agreement on the economic advantages which France was to receive but was increasingly vague as to the political quid pro quo which he said would have to be worked out in the future. Furthermore, he apparently did not fully inform either his own government or the English and the Italians, to say nothing of Hungary's immediate neighbors. When Lord Curzon got wind of the affair, he expressed the opinion that "the French have played a shady game with the Hungarians". Ultimately the whole negotiation fell through when Paleologue was replaced by M. Berthelot.
Nearly half the documents relate to a great variety of subjects arising out of the war: repatriation of soldiers and prisoners; division of Austro- Hungarian state property; "atrocities" committed by Czechs, Rumanians, and Serbs in the separated territories; recognition of Hungary by other powers; the escape of Bela Kun from Austria and the danger of Bolshevism; and the treatment of minorities. These documents throw interesting light on postwar international procedure as well as on Hungary's own great difficulties.
Harvard University. SIDNEY B. FAY.
AMERICAN HISTORY
Indians of the United States: Four Centuries of their History and Culture. By CLARK WISSLER. [The American Museum of Natural History Science Series.] (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company. 1940. PP. xvi, 319. $3.75.) THE book before us stands out among several recent general treatments
of the Indians of this hemisphere. Too often journalists have assumed that specialists are incapable of presenting the pageant of aboriginal America without recourse to technical language. Therefore, with no peculiar qualifica- tions for the job save an urge to write and an opportunity to publish, and more often having an axe to grind, writers have produced Indian books for lay readers. The results have been diffuse, colorless, and sadly out of focus both historically and psychologically. Wissler has no axe to grind. He stands
AMERICAN HISTORY
Indians of the United States: Four Centuries of their History and Culture. By CLARK WISSLER. [The American Museum of Natural History Science Series.] (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company. 1940. PP. xvi, 319. $3.75.) THE book before us stands out among several recent general treatments
of the Indians of this hemisphere. Too often journalists have assumed that specialists are incapable of presenting the pageant of aboriginal America without recourse to technical language. Therefore, with no peculiar qualifica- tions for the job save an urge to write and an opportunity to publish, and more often having an axe to grind, writers have produced Indian books for lay readers. The results have been diffuse, colorless, and sadly out of focus both historically and psychologically. Wissler has no axe to grind. He stands
This content downloaded from 185.44.79.62 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:18:44 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
414 Reviews of Books
at the peak of a long career of study and field work among the Plains Indians and of writing, teaching, and museum administration with the object of making his fellow man more familiar with the Indians of history. Wissler has proved that a scientist can write interestingly of the Indians of the frontier, their struggle to stave off white aggression, their mode of life, the changes that it underwent during white contact, and the great Indian per- sonalities of the time. I commend this work to general readers and students who feel the need of an introductory book on the Indian peoples of our country, and even mature scholars can benefit from Wissler's breadth of perspective.
Having previously treated the American Indian by culture areas, Wissler organizes his present work around a different scheme-the concept of the frontier. From postglacial times forward he steadily envisages America as a pioneer country whose inhabitants continuously encroached on a frontier. At first this frontier was pushed back from Alaska, but after white settlement it shifted from the Atlantic seaboard toward the West, where the Indians were its outstanding feature. Logically, his book falls into three parts: the aborig- inal pioneers of prehistoric America and their basic culture; the great Indian linguistic families, whose modes of life and historic fates he treats in inter- esting relief; and Indian life in general, including demography, a nice appraisal of family hunting economy, and various aspects of culture change attending the onset of reservation life. Finally, there is an impressive in- ventory of basic discoveries and inventions, culture traits which the Indians had devised without benefit of Eurasian contacts, "which should impress the money minded that the Indian contributed greatly to the well being of the world for which he is threatened with extinction".
The volume is well indexed, but it lacks documentation. Nor is there a bibliography, and only a brief list of general ethnological series is suggested for readers seeking further enlightenment. Wissler, however, appends an- swers to questions which museum visitors most frequently ask, and these should prove satisfactory for this level of interest.
Few mature scholars who read this book will fail to rise to occasional flashes of Wisslerian insight which illumine its pages and observations which come only from a mind that has long ago learned to interpret new evidence in terms of what ethnological research has established. Wissler's preoccupa- tion with distributions and diffusion and his arguments of necessary presup- position, for example, that stoneboiling presupposes containers (p. I3), will
seem strange to those who have not been made to feel the importance of these phenomena for historical process. Also his apt illustrations of the con- servatism of cultural patterns, such as that stoneboilers would at first put hot stones in brass kettles (p. 15), illustrate how men at all levels of culture cling to established behavior. Wissler's agrarian background emerges in a wholesome appraisal of the role of domesticated plants in the cultural growth of all the great civilizations of the world (p. 27).
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Hunt: The Wars of the Iroquois 415
The approach to tribal history by grouping tribes into linguistic families is novel. While easily understood, the classification has historical implications of age and area since the major language families occupy large blocks of contiguous territory or are divided by other stocks whose intrusion is prob- ably more recent, as is the case of the Iroquois between the Algonkins north of the Great Lakes and the related tribes of New England and the Middle Atlantic states. The treatment of the Indian wars of New England is par- ticularly well done, and Wissler offers some nice historical problems which need research, showing particularly the need of a general book on the culture of the Delaware, whose removal to Ohio he handles well. While he makes discriminating interpretative use of the facts of geography, ecology, and eth- nology, the historian may occasionally call him to task for his use of historical facts. In the time of Champlain the Iroquois were not harassing the Algon- kins (p. 96); the reverse was the case, and it was not till somewhat later that the Iroquois came into their own, as Hunt has recently shown. Also, while a contact between the Iroquois and the Pawnee, if it could be established that there was one, would have great significance for both archaeology and ethnology, since both peoples share certain culture traits in common, we wonder where the evidence is for the Iroquois quarrel with the Pawnee which Wissler presents so tantalizingly without documentation (pp. II6-I7).
Bureau of American Ethnology. WILLIAM N. FENTON.
Hunt: The Wars of the Iroquois 415
The approach to tribal history by grouping tribes into linguistic families is novel. While easily understood, the classification has historical implications of age and area since the major language families occupy large blocks of contiguous territory or are divided by other stocks whose intrusion is prob- ably more recent, as is the case of the Iroquois between the Algonkins north of the Great Lakes and the related tribes of New England and the Middle Atlantic states. The treatment of the Indian wars of New England is par- ticularly well done, and Wissler offers some nice historical problems which need research, showing particularly the need of a general book on the culture of the Delaware, whose removal to Ohio he handles well. While he makes discriminating interpretative use of the facts of geography, ecology, and eth- nology, the historian may occasionally call him to task for his use of historical facts. In the time of Champlain the Iroquois were not harassing the Algon- kins (p. 96); the reverse was the case, and it was not till somewhat later that the Iroquois came into their own, as Hunt has recently shown. Also, while a contact between the Iroquois and the Pawnee, if it could be established that there was one, would have great significance for both archaeology and ethnology, since both peoples share certain culture traits in common, we wonder where the evidence is for the Iroquois quarrel with the Pawnee which Wissler presents so tantalizingly without documentation (pp. II6-I7).
Bureau of American Ethnology. WILLIAM N. FENTON.
The Wars of the Iroquois: A Study in Intertribal Trade Relations. By GEORGE
T. HUNT, Assistant Professor of History in Western Reserve University. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1940. Pp. 209. $3.00.)
IN I626 the Iroquois were a relatively unimportant tribal group, not even dominant in the Hudson Valley; by I684 they had not only consolidated their position in New York State and Pennsylvania but had conquered, dispersed, or incorporated the Hurons, Neutrals, Erie, and Susquehannahs as well as raided extensively into Michigan and the Illinois region. This volume is a scholarly study of the causes of these wars and an appraisal of the extent of Iroquois success. It is a difficult period of colonial history on account of the fragmentary and often contradictory nature of the source material; the author has handled the records admirably to produce a logical treatise. He is convincingly critical of the older writers who affirmed that Iroquois success was due to superior political organization or to superlative bravery. Pro- fessor Hunt, relying largely on the Jesuit Relations and on the Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, proves that the League of the Iroquois did not even function as a unit at this period and that, consequently, Morgan's assumption of the strength and political great- ness of the league is unwarranted. The author's conclusion is that the Iro- quois wars were entirely economic in origin. Between i626 and I640 the Iroquois exhausted the supplies of beaver in their own territory and at the same time became dependent upon European goods. To continue this trade
The Wars of the Iroquois: A Study in Intertribal Trade Relations. By GEORGE
T. HUNT, Assistant Professor of History in Western Reserve University. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1940. Pp. 209. $3.00.)
IN I626 the Iroquois were a relatively unimportant tribal group, not even dominant in the Hudson Valley; by I684 they had not only consolidated their position in New York State and Pennsylvania but had conquered, dispersed, or incorporated the Hurons, Neutrals, Erie, and Susquehannahs as well as raided extensively into Michigan and the Illinois region. This volume is a scholarly study of the causes of these wars and an appraisal of the extent of Iroquois success. It is a difficult period of colonial history on account of the fragmentary and often contradictory nature of the source material; the author has handled the records admirably to produce a logical treatise. He is convincingly critical of the older writers who affirmed that Iroquois success was due to superior political organization or to superlative bravery. Pro- fessor Hunt, relying largely on the Jesuit Relations and on the Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, proves that the League of the Iroquois did not even function as a unit at this period and that, consequently, Morgan's assumption of the strength and political great- ness of the league is unwarranted. The author's conclusion is that the Iro- quois wars were entirely economic in origin. Between i626 and I640 the Iroquois exhausted the supplies of beaver in their own territory and at the same time became dependent upon European goods. To continue this trade
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