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    Wilson History

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    The document discusses the field of American Indian history and argues that it has traditionally been dominated by non-Indian historians writing from their own perspectives rather than consulting American Indian sources and viewpoints. It suggests that for history to truly capture the American Indian experience, tribal historians must be consulted and oral traditions incorporated on their own terms.

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    Wilson History

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    ostebe
    27 views4 pages
    The document discusses the field of American Indian history and argues that it has traditionally been dominated by non-Indian historians writing from their own perspectives rather than consulting American Indian sources and viewpoints. It suggests that for history to truly capture the American Indian experience, tribal historians must be consulted and oral traditions incorporated on their own terms.

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    Wilson History

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    The document discusses the field of American Indian history and argues that it has traditionally been dominated by non-Indian historians writing from their own perspectives rather than consulting American Indian sources and viewpoints. It suggests that for history to truly capture the American Indian experience, tribal historians must be consulted and oral traditions incorporated on their own terms.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    27 views4 pages

    Wilson History

    Uploaded by

    ostebe
    The document discusses the field of American Indian history and argues that it has traditionally been dominated by non-Indian historians writing from their own perspectives rather than consulting American Indian sources and viewpoints. It suggests that for history to truly capture the American Indian experience, tribal historians must be consulted and oral traditions incorporated on their own terms.

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    American Indian History or Non-Indian Perceptions of American Indian History?

    Author(s): Angela Cavender Wilson


    Source: American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 1, Special Issue: Writing about (Writing
    about) American Indians (Winter, 1996), pp. 3-5
    Published by: University of Nebraska Press
    Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1184936 .
    Accessed: 02/10/2011 22:36
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    University of Nebraska Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American
    Indian Quarterly.

    http://www.jstor.org

    AMERICAN INDIAN HISTORY OR NON-INDIAN


    PERCEPTIONS OF AMERICAN INDIAN HISTORY?
    BY ANGELACAVENDERWILSON
    When the topic of writing about Indians comes up the first questions
    that come to mind are: Who is doing the writing? Why? And, what do the
    subjects have to say about this? These are questions that rarely have been
    considered by those in American Indian history, but they are extremely
    important when addressing the ethical and moral considerations that arise
    when subjectswho can speak for themselves arewritten about by those outside
    the culture.
    American Indian history is a field dominated by white, male
    historians who rarelyask or carewhat the Indians they study have to say about
    their work. Under the guise of academic freedom they have maintained their
    comfortable chairs in archives across the country and published thousands
    of volumes on whites' interpretations of American Indian history. Very few
    have attempted to find out how Native people would interpret, analyze, or
    question the documents they confront, nor have they asked if the Native
    people they are studying have their own versions or stories of their past. As
    long as history continues to be studied and written in this manner the field
    should more appropriately be called non-Indian perceptions of American
    Indian history.
    To truly gain a grasp of American Indian history, the other
    historians-tribal and family historians-must be consulted about their own
    interpretations of and perspectives on history. The majority of academic
    historians has so far ignored these people and attempted to write in the field
    with only a portion of the information, using only some of the available
    sources. If an archive somewhere were filled with information relevant to a
    scholar's study, and she chose to ignore it, accusations of sloppy scholarship
    would be hurled from all directions. But if a scholar in the field of American
    Indian history ignores the vast number of oral sources, the scholar's integrity
    is safe-through the use of such excuses as:
    "Indians have no records of this time period."
    "I don't know any Indians who will talk to me."
    "Oral sources cannot be validated and therefore are not trustworthy."
    "Fact cannot be distinguished from fancy."
    ANGELA CAVENDER WILSON, TAWAPAHATANKA WIN (HER BIG HAT
    WOMAN), IS A DOCTORALCANDIDATEINAMERICAN HISTORYATCORNELLUNIVERSITY
    AND A WAHPETONWAN
    DAKOTA.
    AMERICAN
    INDIANQUARTERLY/WINTER
    1996/6L. 20(1)

    ANGELACAVENDERWILSON

    "Oral accounts change with each generation."


    Would historians attempt to write a history of Germany without
    consulting any German sources?Would a scholar of Chinese history attempt
    to write Chinese history without consulting Chinese sources?Why is it that
    scholars in American Indian history have written so many academically
    acceptable works without consulting American Indian sources? Is it simply
    because most of our sources are oral rather than written? As more Native
    people are trained in history and call attention to these contradictions the
    excuses used by historians to exclude oral sources in their research will no
    longer be acceptable.
    Stories in the oral tradition have served some important functions
    for Native people: The historical and mythological stories provide moral
    guidelines by which one should live. They teach the young and remind the
    old what appropriate and inappropriate behavior is in our cultures; they
    provide a sense of identity and belonging, situating community members
    within their lineage and establishing their relationship to the rest of the
    natural world. They are a source of entertainment and of intimacy between
    the storyteller and the audience.
    These stories, much more than written documents by non-Indians,
    provide detailed descriptions about our historical players. They give us
    information about our motivations, our decision-making processes, and
    about how non-material, non-physical circumstances (those things generally
    defined as supernatural, metaphysical, and spiritual by Western thinkers)
    have shaped our past and our understanding of the present. They answer
    many other "why" and "how" questions typically asked by the academic
    community in their search for an understanding of "the American Indian
    past." So while archival materials may offer a glimpse into the world-view of
    Native people, the degree to which they can provide information on the
    American Indian half of the equation is quite small relative to what can be
    gained through an understanding of oral tradition.
    Work done in the fields of anthropology and folklore often has
    served to fill this void for historians in recent years,but even this work is often
    fraught with its own problems. Native people have, in most instances, had
    very little to say about the interpretations, analyses, and translations
    developed from the stories they willingly shared. It has been my experience
    that many of these works are filled with misinterpretations, mistranslations,
    lack of context, and lack of understanding (although certainly some exceptions exist in which scholars have been successful in incorporating Native
    voices into their work). At the very least these oral accounts collected by nonIndian anthropologists, ethnographers, and folklorists should be discussed
    with knowledgeable elders to determine the accuracy of their assumptions
    and the appropriateness of their use (preferably with those within the same
    family from which the original information was collected) before they are
    4

    AMERICANINDIAN QUARTERLY/WINTER1996/VOL. 20(1)

    HISTORY AND PERCEPTIONS OF HISTORY

    used in contemporary histories.


    Am I suggesting that all historians working in the field of American
    Indian history begin swarming to Native communities to record stories from
    our most precious elders?Absolutely not. I would not wish that fate on any
    Native group. For the few who have the sensitivity to address the ethical issues
    in the field and the desire for a more complete understanding of American
    Indian history I would suggest slowly developing acquaintances with Indian
    people and giving Native people from the community they are studying the
    opportunity to comment on their work while it is being written. Not only
    would this allow Native people input into how their history will be
    understood by the rest of America, it also would allow the academician the
    privilege of having community-endorsed work (credited in part to community members, I hope).
    This kind of work is not something that can be accomplished on a
    six-month research grant. Rather, it means years of involvement, building
    trusting relationships with Native people. The scholar must understand the
    internal mechanisms Native people have for determining within their own
    communities whether they have information relevant to a scholar's study,
    whether they feel a scholar is respectful enough of their culture to share their
    valuable insights, who within the community is authorized and informed
    enough to share the information, and what information is appropriate to
    share. The rewardsof this kind of scholarship may not come from a scholar's
    academic peers. Rather, the personal rewards reflected in the experiential
    learning process, the depth of understanding in analysis, and a sense of
    satisfaction in the realization of moral responsibilities should be enough to
    inspire many historians in the field of American Indian history to take this
    route.
    For those historians who do not have this sensitivity or desire, the
    contributions they make to understanding the written word are significant,
    but the limitations of their work must be acknowledged. The idea that
    scholars can "sift through" the biases of non-Indian written sources sufficient
    to get at the Indian perspective is presumptuous and erroneous. These
    scholars should not discontinue their research in the field, but they should
    discontinue the pretense that what they are writing is American Indian
    history. This kind of scholarship remains, instead, American Indian history
    largely from the white perspective.

    AMERICAN
    INDIANQUARTERLY/WINTER
    1996/\L. 20(1)

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