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A mouse roared on September 20, 1974, when the sixty-seven-member Kootenai Nation of northern Idaho declared war on the United States. As the war developed, the familiar tools of traditional Native American/US negotiations unfolded. A jaundiced state governor, an aggressive leader of local law enforcement, an excessive show of police force, the involvement of “friends of the Indian,” and passionate media all concluded with government-to-government negotiations. At the end of the negotiations, the Kootenai Nation had secured a reservation and funding to save the nation from extinction.

The Roots of Dependency, published in 1983, was a groundbreaking interdisciplinary examination of Euro-American-Indian cultural contact and its disastrous effects on Native Americans. Focusing on the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos, Richard White attempted to identify and isolate the various factors that contributed to the material decline of American Indian peoples. Roots of Dependency was widely acclaimed when it was first published, both for White's strong thesis and his new approach to Native American history. White's methodology differed from that of traditional historians most notably in his interdisciplinary approach and in his incorporation of a Native American focus and perspective into his narrative.' White began his study by examining the Mississippi Choctaw of the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, showing how their initial adaptations to Euro-American influences eventually turned to disaster. As Euro-American market forces penetrated their economy, the Choctaws were driven to overhunt deer populations to extinction and in the process destroyed their resources, environment, and economy. Although he also cited alcohol as a major element of this decline, White asserted that the Euro-American market economy was the "critical" factor in understanding the "fate" of the Choctaws. White claimed that the Choctaws "were lured into the market" by liquor, that the subsequent exchanges "were literally dictated by whites," and that ultimately"commerce ... left them hungry and vulnerable." White further asserted that Choctaw resistance was rendered "utterly superfluous" and that their actions served only to slow the destructive consequences of the market economy. By the 1770s, according to White, the Choctaws had become dependent upon Euro-Americans to adequately feed and clothe themselves.2

Since the publication of Gerald Vizenor's first novel, Darkness in Saint Louis Bearheart (1978) later retitled Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles (199o) the figure of the trickster and tricksterism itself has been central in understanding Vizenor's work. Whatever else the trickster might be thought to be shapeshifter, goad, wit, disturber of the status quo in Native American culture as elsewhere s/he is also a dissembler of meaning in narratives, one who "uncovers distinctions and ironies between narrative voices" (1993: 192). Vizenor invokes a kind of subversive postmodernism through the tricksters in Bearheart, which has various antecedents rather than only Native American or postmodern ones. I connect Vizenor's Bearheart to two examples from early America, texts that are replete with ironies and peculiarities in narrative voices and whose creators rely on what I define as "trickster tactics" to produce these texts. Further, the authors of these texts survived execution and captivity through these trickster tactics, which Vizenor shows is the only way to survive Bearheart's post-apocalyptic terrain. This essay seeks to give a lineage to this particular trickster role found in Bearheart by invoking two antecedents: The Soveraignty and Goodness of God: Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed; Being a Narrative of the

Political struggles over land claims in North America have long been matched by contesting images of Native peoples, a layered history recorded in oral traditions and in the print culture brought by Europeans. Indigenous leaders who are prominent in American popular culture tend to embody positions in Indian-White relations, whether they are heroes or villains in their narratives. The Coast Salish chief Seattle is one of these and, like most, he was an orator whose image was primped, plumped, and maligned for allegorical purposes during his lifetime and since his death.

and is. "The majority of ethnological reports on North American Indian cultures that were written by American-trained ethnologists during the period 1910-40 were couched in the 'ethnographic present' and purported to describe the 'aboriginal' cultures of various Indian groups."2 That is, anthropologists having a "normative" perception of culture pattern essentially ignored historical changes in Native American cultures and behaviors.' This ahistorical presentation of static culture characterized classic theoretical formulations as well as ethnographies of specific groups, including the Walapais and Havasupais.4 Ethnohistorical studies of cultural change during four decades have demonstrated that no "traditional ethnographic present" ever existed.' Yet studies continue to be published presenting data in an "ethnographic present" that ignores preceding key events that shaped the defectively depicted situation.6 As J. A. Paredes recently pointed out, moreover, the fallacy of the "ethnographic present" is but a single step removed from the racist fallacy that anthropological pioneer Franz Boas began refuting more than a century ago.7 Cherum's quite varied life experiences emphasize how key events occurring in the course of Native-newcomer interactions rapidly and significantly change the cultures and behaviors of both groups.8

Democratic theory holds participation to be fundamental in the political process. An accurate evaluation of a democratic government necessitates an understanding of the behavior of the groups of voters within the government's sphere. If voters in a particular group do not participate, the group will not receive political attention commensurate with its size. If a group is underrepresented in the political arena, the group's members and the democratic process suffer. Native Americans as a group are a substantial community in several states, and need to be considered significant participants in the political process. Although they comprise less than 2% of the voting age population nationwide, there are concentrations in several sparsely populated states large enough to make Native Americans significant players in the political system.' To increase our understanding of political participation, Native Americans should be considered as important actors in the process. In addition to the democratic implications of Native American participation, the investigation of Native American voting behavior can provide a unique perspective on all forms of participation. Research addressing smaller groups can lead to a broader understanding of all groups in the political process. Smaller groups offer a more easily accessible testing ground for initial hypotheses, and the relative homogeneity of many of these communities allows researchers to isolate factors that could potentially wash out in a large-scale analysis.

Early in Interpreting the Indian: Twentieth-Century Poets and the Native American, Michael Castro (1983:16) writes, "A desire for fuller spiritual awareness, including intimacy with the spirit of the land, is at the center of most of the works we shall consider here." It was through this "holistic" vision, Castro argues, that early translators and anthologists of Native American songs, myths, stories, and poems connected with such mainstream American poets as Hart Crane, William Carlos Williams, Charles Olson, and Gary Snyder. Only the last chapter concerns the work of Native American poets since the late sixties, when "interest in the Indian reached fad-like proportions" (Castro 1983:155). Castro (1983:170) cites the Civil Rights movement, protests against the war in Vietnam, and demonstrations at Wounded Knee in 1973 among the social and political events that led Indian poets like Maurice Kenny and James Welch to focus on the "general theme of social and cultural disintegration" as well as "holistic awareness."

Scholars today generally accept the fact that early Euro-American anthropologists, trained in a fledgling discipline, carried out to the field a suitcase full of cultural biases. In his study For Those Who Come After, Arnold Krupat notes how these biases shaped early American Indian autobiographies which, while providing vivid detail, were written mostly by white editors.' He enumerates the questions a late-twentieth-century reader must pose when perusing the genre, since early Native American texts in general "are always the consequence of a collaboration"

One of the most controversial kinds of studies anthropologists undertake is that of the biological remains of Native Americans. The motivations of physical anthropologists to study human remains often seem unfathomable to some members of Native American communities, and our methods seem also to be misunderstood. We recognize the differences between the values and spiritual beliefs of Native Americans and those of other Americans, and we respect the right of all people to maintain their personal belief and ethical systems. We want to explain the reasons why some physical anthropologists value the study of human biology and history, and why we place so much importance on the study of human remains. We also want to explain what kinds of information can be gained from such studies, the methods used in them, and the impact of these on the remains being studied. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA, P.L. 101-601) calls for the repatriation of Native American remains whose cultural affiliation can be determined by a preponderance of evidence. Physical anthropologists are willing to comply with NAGPRA's terms, but the need remains for long-term study of some skeletal collections before repatriation.

Researching, writing, and teaching American Indian history in a respectful manner calls for a set of professional ethics and scholarly responsibilities. As scholarship evolves, so must the treatment of American Indian history. Such ethics and responsibilities are not currently defined or recorded in any forum, or in any printed material, although historians previously have considered the importance of a fairer treatment of Indians in writing history.' The sensitivity of tribal knowledge, especially that of ceremonials, should compel scholars to publicly acknowledge a code of ethics and responsibilities to avoid exploiting American Indians. Repatriation, the selling of Indian burial remains and imitations of Indian artifacts, and the publication of sensitive Indian knowledge have resulted in a series of controversies forcing Indians to act against whites, and in some cases against Indians where Indians have desecrated tribal properties. The exploitation of American Indians has never stopped. It began with Indian enslavement when a lost Christopher Columbus landed in the Western Hemisphere. Indians have been victimized through centuries of land fraud and disease, the manipulation of warriors as mercenaries, the abuse of Indian women, and the capture of Indian children to meet enrollment quotas in boarding schools. This essay acknowledges certain moral ethics and professional responsibilities in this field-American Indian history. First this essay will identify those ethics and responsibilities and then provide arguments to convince historians and others of the importance of upholding such ethics and fulfilling responsibilities pertaining to the proper study and writing of American Indian history. First of all, the field must be carefully defined so the academy, as well as students and writers, understand what is meant by American Indian history. At this date, only parameters can be argued. Is American Indian history also called Native American history and is this acceptable? Is Indian History the history of Indian people and their nations relating only to other Indian nations? To non-Indian nations like France, Spain, Russian, England

""In the Presence of the Sun" presents 30 years of selected works by [N. Scott] Momaday, the well-known Southwest Native American novelist. His unadorned poetry, which recounts fables and rituals of the Kiowa nation, conveys the deep sense of place of the Native American oral tradition. Here are dream-songs about animals (bear, bison, terrapin) and life away from urban alienation, an imagined re-creation based on Billy the Kid, prose poems about Plains Shields (and a fascinating discussion of their background), and new poems that utilize primary colors ('forms of the earth') to express instinctive continuities of a pre-Columbian vision."--"Library Journal""The strong, spare beauty of In the Presence of the Sun is compelling evidence that Scott Momaday is one of the most versatile and distinguished artists in America today."--Peter Matthiessen." . . the images, the voices, the people are shadowy, elusive, burning with invention, like flames against a dark sky. For behind them is always the artist-author himself . . . a man with a sacred investiture. Strong medicine, strong art indeed."--"The New York Times Book Review"

began in Pennsylvania during the 1740s and continued in Ohio until the early nineteenth century. The church established thirty-two North American mission towns populated exclusively by converts and missionary families. Unlike related Puritan efforts, the Moravian programs worked inside Indian territories, in full cooperative contact with tribal societies. Missionary leader David Zeisberger was the first European immigrant to cross the Forbidden Trail established by the Seneca to repel colonial expansion, and he later became an adopted member of the Lenape, serving on the chief council. As a result of such participation, the primary source of ethnographic data for Lenape culture is the Moravian records. As these two cultures interacted, their spiritual worlds inevitably collided. Though they certainly bore resemblances, Moravian and Lenape religious systems differed, particularly in their practices of spiritual communication. Much attention has been devoted to the significance of dreams and vision quests in Lenape and other Native American religions. Moravian practices, however, have received little analysis, especially their application of chance properties to ascertain divine will.

HE FIVE PAPERS THAT FOLLOW were presentations in a conference entitled "Religion and Encounter: Mid-Atlantic Regional Contact Between Native American and Euro-American Peoples After the Voyages of Columbus." This conference, held on October 18 and 19, 1991, is part of a two-year program at Bucknell, The Columbian Quincentennial (1492-1992): A Critical Investigation. The "Religion and Encounter" conference focused on the role of religious world views in the early mid-Atlantic encounter of native and Euroamerican peoples rather than on Columbus or the events of his landfall. At the time of this early mid-Atlantic encounter the diverse native and European religious beliefs were interwoven with social, economic, political, and ritual practices. The conference papers, which were at once interdisciplinary and provocative, sought to provide new perspectives on these connections. This gathering was also structured to bring multicultural and interdisciplinary issues from out of the specialized academic literature into the curricular discussions for faculty and students at Bucknell. The search for an understanding of the relation of cultural "canons" and interdisciplinary cooperation is a major issue at a liberal arts institution like Bucknell with substantial commitments to engineering, liberal arts, and the natural sciences. The significance of such a conference, and of the resulting papers, served to emphasize several points for the Bucknell community, particularly the importance of having Native American speakers involved in discussions of early encounters in America. Thus, the conference was opened by Ron LaFrance, Director of the American Indian Program at Cornell University, who spoke on "Native American Oral Traditions Regarding Early Contact." On Saturday, October 19, the Seneca art historian, George Abrams, focused on "Early Encounter and Art Forms in Native Material Culture." Along with these native speakers, the scholars at this conference brought their diverse disci

For the residents of the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, mainstream medical care is often supplemented or replaced by a host of traditional practices: the Sun Dance, the yuwipi sing, the heyok'a ceremony, herbalism, the Sioux Religion, the peyotism of the Native American Church, and other medicines, or sources of healing. Thomas H. Lewis, a psychiatrist and medical anthropologist, describes those practices as he encountered them in the late 1960s and early 1970s.During many months he studied with leading practitioners. He describes the healers--their techniques, personal histories and qualities, the problems addressed and results obtained--and examines past as well as present practices. The result is an engrossing account that may profoundly affect the way readers view the dynamics of therapy for mind and body.

Researchers have an obligation to be accurate and precise in their scholarship. Book reviews should reflect the same standard of accuracy as other forms of scholarship. Therefore, I am writing to correct an error in G. Edward Evans' review of my book, Nations Within a Nation: Historical Statistics of American Indians (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1987), which appeared in the Winter 1990, issue of this journal. Mr. Evans wrote that my citation for a quotation from Henry Dobyns' Native American Historical Demography (1976) was incorrect "leaving one wondering about the other references in the book." Readers of the review may assume that Mr. Evans is correct. However, the statement made by Mr. Evans is in error: the citation which I provide for the Dobyns quotation in Nations Within A Nation (in note 1, page 4) is correct, as are the citations to Dobyns' works in the bibliography (pp. 223-234). Since Mr. Evans not only publicly pointed out a non-existent error but cast aspersions on the accuracy of the rest of the book based on the presumed error, I feel compelled to write this rejoinder. I appreciate the opportunity afforded by the editors to correct Mr. Evans' error. Paul H. Stuart

P OLYGYNY, WHICH IS THE MARRIAGE of a man to two or more women at the same time, has been reported for nearly all Native American societies. In all cases, however, only a small minority of men can participate in such arrangements, since the number of adult men and adult women in a human population is usually about the same. In North America, as elsewhere, polygyny is made possible by the marriage of women at a younger age than men, so that there are more women in the marriage pool at any one time, and by the normally higher mortalities of males from warfare and disease. From the perspective of Anglo-American culture, the motivation for polygyny in other societies is somewhat beclouded by myth. The pervasive Anglo-American idea that polygyny is sexually motivated on the part of the husband probably tells us more about the sexual fan

IN JANUARY 1892 INDIAN AGENT Major George LeR. Brown asked the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) for assistance with the Pine Ridge reservation population. Little more than a year after Sioux attempts to reclaim a fading tribal past ended tragically at Wounded Knee, he found precious little evidence of individual or community progress toward "civilization." The agent, arguing that "the pressing need [here] is for better homes and better cooking," requested the appointment of a field matron.1 Implementing an innovative Indian Service program begun in 1890, field matrons promoted assimilation through intensive domestic work with Indian women. Brown believed that Julia Kocer was an ideal candidate for the post. Interested in introducing tribal women to the "ways of White Women," she appeared to personify the "certified civilizer" reformers and OIA policy makers hoped to attract to the program. Major Brown saw Kocer as a potential catalyst for change at Pine Ridge. The OIA, however, did not share his enthusiasm.2 Neither impeccable qualifications nor genuine interest could alter the fact that Julia Kocer differed from other prospective field matrons. They were all Anglo-Americans. Educated, competent, and respectable, she was a mixed-blood Arikara Indian. The first Native American field matron might have been Julia Kocer. Assimilated and concerned with the welfare of her Arikara peers, she clearly represented the "new" Indian woman the OIA hoped to create.3 Nonetheless, the field matron corps remained closed to women like her until 1895. Then, Indian women could join AngloAmerican women in helping their tribal peers accept the "White Woman's [sic] road." From 1895 to 1905, they played an active and occasionally prominent role in civilization work. Neither their participation nor their visibility, though, could guarantee a permanent place in the program. While field matrons continued their work on reservations until the 1930s, Native American involvement declined rapidly after 1905. The story of Native American field matrons is a special, albeit abbreviated, chapter in the larger history of the field matron pro

ONE OF THE ENDURING MISCONCEPTIONS about Native American culture is that its sure and certain demise began with the colonization of the New World by Europeans. To be sure, the erosion of native traditions in fact occurred and certain rites and ceremonies have been lost forever. At the same time however, American Indians as a group have shown a remarkable resiliency that has enabled them to weather repeated assaults against their cultural institutions. That resiliency has been clearly reflected by the numerous cultural revitalization movements that have occurred over the course of the last two centuries. Among the more recent and well known of these movements, at least inside the Indian community, has been the Gourd Dance. Originally a traditional men's warrior dancing society, the Gourd Dance was shared in a general form by several Plains and Prairie tribes in the preand early reservation period. It dropped out of sight in the early part of this century, but was revived in the late 1950s when the Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes organized modern Gourd Dance groups. Since its revival the Gourd Dance has become an extremely popular part of contemporary Native American culture and represents a particularly potent Pan-Indian cultural revitalization movement. It has literally spread across the country and is currently practiced by as many as two dozen tribes, most of which had no ancestral form of the dance. The diffusion of the dance, however, has led to its gradual development as a social expression of Indianness that in most instances lacks the ceremonial and ritual importance once accorded it. Today, only the Kiowa Gourd Clan rigorously enforces the dance's traditional tenets; among the other Gourd dancing groups an air of informality pervades the dance, though it is generally taken to be a meaningful and sincere expression of modern Native American culture. The best introduction to the historical origin and development of the Gourd Dance comes from the Kiowas. Though a handful of other tribes had ancestral forms of the dance, among the Kiowas the

CONTEMPORARY NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE is puzzlingly redundant, a redundancy that is more significant than recurring stock scenes and characters first suggests. Echoes of D'Arcy McNickle's The Surrounded (1936, University of New Mexico, 1978) are heard in N. Scott Momaday's House Made ofDawn (Harper & Row, 1968, 1977); and shades of these two tellings are found in more recent Indian fictions like Leslie Silko's Ceremony (1977, Penguin, 1986) and James Welch's Winter in the Blood (1974, Penguin, 1986) and The Death ofJim Loney (Harper & Row, 1979, 1981). Along with John G. Neihardt's rendering of Black Elk's autobiography, Black Elk Speaks (1932) and other Native American oral and written tellings, McNickle's and Momaday's works seem more prototypic, more authentic, with each passing year. It is, moreover, the poetry of "singers" like Ray Anthony Young Bear, Simon J. Ortiz, Paula Gunn Allen, Joy Harjo, Wendy Rose, William Oandasan, Geary Hobson, and, again, James Welch-especially as found in Riding the Earthboy Forty (Harper & Row, 1971, 1975)-that brings into greater focus the impetus and end of this noticeable repetition of seemingly antiheroic, alienated, and benumbed protagonists, singers and speakers, at odds with their pasts and the times and places in which they find themselves. It is the simultaneous impetus of atavism and modernism-the need, as Young Bear phrases it, "to be there, standing beside our grandfathers, being ourselves" and, in meeting that need, thus to bring meaning to the present twentieth-century predicament.