Note - NBC this morning had a piece on a photographer that helped determine a more accurate location for Fort Clatsop.
Indians' reflections on famous expedition
Reviewed by Dewey Hammond
SF Chronicle
Sunday, May 7, 2006
Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes
Edited by
Alvin M. Josephy Jr.
KNOPF; 196 PAGES; $24
By the time President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the wild, wild West, foreign traders, primarily British and French, had for decades been exchanging wares with Indians west of St. Louis. But it wasn't until the arrival of Army Capt. Lewis and 2nd Lt. Clark that those Indians' way of life was preserved in the written word -- the tribes themselves relied on oral tradition -- and it was another full century before "The Journals of Lewis and Clark," published in 1904, were made public.
Every story has two sides, and until now, the Indian point of view has scarcely been heard. The late Alvin M. Josephy Jr. concedes that the Corps of Discovery (the name given to Lewis, Clark and their men) is a "great American story," but he aims to retell that story from a different angle in his aptly titled anthology, "Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes." Josephy Jr. invited nine American Indians -- writers, educators, historians, politicians, tribal leaders -- to offer an answer to the following question: "What impact, good or bad, immediate or long-range, did the Indians experience from the Lewis and Clark expedition?"
Mimicking the spirit of unpredictable exploration, Josephy makes an interesting editorial choice: "The response to the question would remain in the unfiltered voices of the writers, no matter the theme, tone, or decibel level." Even in theory, this well-intentioned approach appears risky, but in practice, it's damaging. "Indian Eyes" ends up placing too much emphasis on modern-day Indian affairs and writers' personal histories, issues and marginally relevant anecdotes, resulting in a collection that neglects to effectively balance color and context.
Josephy fails to provide his contributors with enough direction, which results in his having to force-fit the essays into one of two parts, the first tending toward the modern-day Indian experience, the second relying more on Indian history and folklore. But they're not discernibly different. Even with direction, though, one suspects the anthology would still fail to be enticing, simply because many of the writers are neither strong enough in their technical skills nor convincing in their arguments.
The book opens with a dismissal of Lewis and Clark's respective places in history. "It was a routine venture now revered because we desperately need to have a heroic past, since that pleasure is denied to us in the present," writes Vine Deloria Jr., a Sioux Indian and longtime college professor, recently retired from the University of Colorado at Boulder. While the presence of white men may have been routine to the Indians, the Corps of Discovery's journey itself -- illness, unfamiliar territory, wild bears, occasionally aggressive Indians -- was far from routine, and arguably heroic. (Deloria suggests that bears may have acted aggressively toward the white men because they didn't share an Indian belief that bears are prophets.)
Bill Yellowtail's contribution reads as an open letter to modern-day Indians, in which he rips the tendency to play the role of the victim, courtesy of their well-documented collective struggles with educational shortcomings, unemployment and alcoholism. "We may as well call this what it is: a downward spiral of personal and community despair," he writes. Do current tribal struggles stem from American imperialism, stem from Lewis and Clark? Absolutely. But how is this revelatory?
It's not all bad, though.
Mark Trahant, a Shoshone-Bannock Indian and an editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, attacks smartly the accuracy of the history of democracy's introduction in America. The white men may have introduced the first American elections, but did they truly introduce democracy? "What if democracy was already present, just in a different form?" asks Trahant, who argues that Indian democracy simply took a different approach than the American model. "The differences between the two approaches were ignored in the first draft of the American master narrative. Instead the story becomes flatter, a simpler form; it becomes the overreaching 'our way is democratic, yours is not.' " Right or wrong, Trahant presents a new, believable and refreshing alternative to traditional history.
The strongest contribution here is by Roberta Conner, who intersperses Indian traditions and personal experience with a balanced history lesson that is unrivaled by her peers. She also provides the book's most interesting historical footnote: American settlers would often carve their names and dates on rocks and trees, not to be cute, but for political reasons: to preserve discoverers' rights. Conner adds to her credibility by conceding what Deloria would not: that Lewis, Clark and their men were brave. "When the United States and its citizens accept responsibility for the consequences that came after Lewis and Clark's mapping and recording, then they can praise a job done well. The members of the expedition were courageous, observant, astute, conscientious, and diligent about their duties."
Indians' reflections on famous expedition
Reviewed by Dewey Hammond
SF Chronicle
Sunday, May 7, 2006
Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes
Edited by
Alvin M. Josephy Jr.
KNOPF; 196 PAGES; $24
By the time President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the wild, wild West, foreign traders, primarily British and French, had for decades been exchanging wares with Indians west of St. Louis. But it wasn't until the arrival of Army Capt. Lewis and 2nd Lt. Clark that those Indians' way of life was preserved in the written word -- the tribes themselves relied on oral tradition -- and it was another full century before "The Journals of Lewis and Clark," published in 1904, were made public.
Every story has two sides, and until now, the Indian point of view has scarcely been heard. The late Alvin M. Josephy Jr. concedes that the Corps of Discovery (the name given to Lewis, Clark and their men) is a "great American story," but he aims to retell that story from a different angle in his aptly titled anthology, "Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes." Josephy Jr. invited nine American Indians -- writers, educators, historians, politicians, tribal leaders -- to offer an answer to the following question: "What impact, good or bad, immediate or long-range, did the Indians experience from the Lewis and Clark expedition?"
Mimicking the spirit of unpredictable exploration, Josephy makes an interesting editorial choice: "The response to the question would remain in the unfiltered voices of the writers, no matter the theme, tone, or decibel level." Even in theory, this well-intentioned approach appears risky, but in practice, it's damaging. "Indian Eyes" ends up placing too much emphasis on modern-day Indian affairs and writers' personal histories, issues and marginally relevant anecdotes, resulting in a collection that neglects to effectively balance color and context.
Josephy fails to provide his contributors with enough direction, which results in his having to force-fit the essays into one of two parts, the first tending toward the modern-day Indian experience, the second relying more on Indian history and folklore. But they're not discernibly different. Even with direction, though, one suspects the anthology would still fail to be enticing, simply because many of the writers are neither strong enough in their technical skills nor convincing in their arguments.
The book opens with a dismissal of Lewis and Clark's respective places in history. "It was a routine venture now revered because we desperately need to have a heroic past, since that pleasure is denied to us in the present," writes Vine Deloria Jr., a Sioux Indian and longtime college professor, recently retired from the University of Colorado at Boulder. While the presence of white men may have been routine to the Indians, the Corps of Discovery's journey itself -- illness, unfamiliar territory, wild bears, occasionally aggressive Indians -- was far from routine, and arguably heroic. (Deloria suggests that bears may have acted aggressively toward the white men because they didn't share an Indian belief that bears are prophets.)
Bill Yellowtail's contribution reads as an open letter to modern-day Indians, in which he rips the tendency to play the role of the victim, courtesy of their well-documented collective struggles with educational shortcomings, unemployment and alcoholism. "We may as well call this what it is: a downward spiral of personal and community despair," he writes. Do current tribal struggles stem from American imperialism, stem from Lewis and Clark? Absolutely. But how is this revelatory?
It's not all bad, though.
Mark Trahant, a Shoshone-Bannock Indian and an editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, attacks smartly the accuracy of the history of democracy's introduction in America. The white men may have introduced the first American elections, but did they truly introduce democracy? "What if democracy was already present, just in a different form?" asks Trahant, who argues that Indian democracy simply took a different approach than the American model. "The differences between the two approaches were ignored in the first draft of the American master narrative. Instead the story becomes flatter, a simpler form; it becomes the overreaching 'our way is democratic, yours is not.' " Right or wrong, Trahant presents a new, believable and refreshing alternative to traditional history.
The strongest contribution here is by Roberta Conner, who intersperses Indian traditions and personal experience with a balanced history lesson that is unrivaled by her peers. She also provides the book's most interesting historical footnote: American settlers would often carve their names and dates on rocks and trees, not to be cute, but for political reasons: to preserve discoverers' rights. Conner adds to her credibility by conceding what Deloria would not: that Lewis, Clark and their men were brave. "When the United States and its citizens accept responsibility for the consequences that came after Lewis and Clark's mapping and recording, then they can praise a job done well. The members of the expedition were courageous, observant, astute, conscientious, and diligent about their duties."
