An IntroductionAuthor(s): Frederick E. HoxieSource: American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 1, The History of American Indian Leadership(Winter, 1986), pp. 1-3Published by: University of Nebraska PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1184152 .

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The History of American Indian Leadership: An Introduction

by Frederick E. Hoxie

S TUDYING AMERICAN INDIANS IN an urban research center can be a schizophrenic experience. One can spend the day communing

with 17th century hunting societies and the evening at Comiskey Park. Reading ethnographies during business hours is poor preparation for evening rush hour on the "el." But jangled cultural sensibilities are not so detrimental to our work, for there is a larger schizophrenia that surrounds the general field of Indian history. On the one hand, scholars have stressed the uniqueness of Native American life. We emphasize to our students that Indian cultures were distinctive- nonwestern, nonchristian, nonliterate. But, at the same time, we decry the extent to which the historical "establishment" has ignored recent developments in native history. Textbooks remain relatively impervious to new scholarship, the popular culture appears content with "Chief Knock-A-Homa" of the Atlanta Braves, and the average citizen still believes that Indians don't pay taxes. Is Native American history a world apart or is it a piece of a larger mosaic? It is both; here is the source of our schizophrenia.

The issue of Indian leadership in the United States brings this broad concern sharply into focus. For one thing, historians have usually limited the Indians' role in American history either to warfare or victimization. Playing their parts as aggressors or victims, Indians in the national history have had little occasion to display their political institutions in our textbooks and monographs. Thus, most scholars have ignored the variety and complexity of native leadership systems. We know, of course, that Indian people had rich political traditions and distinctive modes of governance, but these seem to have had no impact on events, on history. Thus, if people stop to reflect on Indian leadership, they conclude either that there was none (Indians were so quickly defeated), or that what existed was so obscure that nonexperts wouldn't be able to grasp its structure.

The 1985 Newberry Seminars in the History of American Indian

Leadership were organized to combat and illuminate these confused but widely shared suppositions. The four papers produced by the series attempt to break down the barriers between Indian history and the history of other groups while maintaining a commitment to the distinctive qualities in Native American culture. They are a collective

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2 AMERICAN INDIAN QUARTERLY, WINTER 1986

cure for our special version of academic schizophrenia. The seminars took place between February and May, 1984. Elizabeth Colson's pre- sentation, "Political Organization in Tribal Societies: A Cross-Cultural View," introduced the series with a broad look at the problems that arise when westerners study non-western political systems. William Fenton's paper, "Tribal Politics and Indian Leadership in the 18th Century," drew on his vast knowledge of Iroquois governance and suggested some of the problems that attend efforts to extrapolate historical interpretations from anthropological data. Ernest Schusky delivered his paper, "The Evolution of Indian Leadership on the Great Plains, 1750-1950," in April. His presentation stressed the fluidity and flexibility of plains societies and described the major periods in the political history of that region. Finally, Nancy Lurie's essay, "Money and Politics: Economics and Indian Leadership in the 20th Century," described the cultural traditions that underlie political change. Her paper reminded the audience that continuities are as significant in tribal political life as change. Despite their different foci, the four papers have common concerns.

Each of the papers addresses the extent to which native institutions changed over time. Beginning with Colson's critique of her own seven books, Tribes of Central Africa, the authors assert that what looks to outsiders like a "typical" tribal entity is usually a unique polity with its own history of growth and decline. Native people may have been viewed or treated "typically" by colonial rulers, but they did not share identical political histories. Fenton further refines this point by showing how persisting institutions such as the Iroquois League could take on different meanings and emphasize different practices as cir- cumstances changed. Schusky follows with his narrative of political change among plains peoples, demonstrating that they could shift from band to "chiefdom" within a single year and showing that federal policy played a major role in the evolution of plains system. Finally Lurie argues that change in political practice-the advent of IRA governments or the rise of the welfare bureaucracy in the 1970s-did not alter fundamental tribal values. Thus what might look like change was not. Uniting these diverse perspectives, therefore, is the axiom that native political life is no less dynamic than that of western societies. Analysts who assume stasis or claim that there is a common pattern of political development in tribal societies are destined to be proved wrong.

These essays are a joint warning against "cookbook ethnohistory," that version of social history that lays ethnographies next to government documents and produces monographs filled with confident statements about the structure and quality of tribal political life.

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THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN INDIAN LEADERSHIP 3

Colson's essay shows precisely why terms like "tribe" cannot be transferred wholesale from one discipline to another. Even if the term has meaning in ethnographic descriptions, it cannot describe a political history; the implications are all wrong. The term can mask important differences or sugest qualities the society in fact lacks. To generalize about the political systems of North American tribes, therefore, leads to a kind of conflated thinking that serves neither history nor an- thropology. Fenton's discussion of the differences between political roles and political status among the Iroquois also carries a warning about transferring neat, ethnographic diagrams of leadership systems to historical circumstance. People may have held positions of leadership, but they may not have had the influence to exercise power. Schusky too warns his readers that labels ("band," "chiefdom," etc.) can deceive and change. Finally, Nancy Lurie warns that great structural changes do not alter a tribe's traditional definition of power and influence. Modern tribal politics, she suggests, reflect the interaction of self interest and cultural definitions of proper behavior. Consequently one cannot view contemporary societies as wholly "modern" or "tradi- tional."

These four essays are a useful introduction to the history of Indian political leadership. They suggest the scale and complexity of the subject. But they also share a cautious tone. Each author urges scholars to explore the particulars of tribal political life. One should not assume that political actions or political institutions can be quickly compre- hended. We need to understand the history, and the distinctive values that drive the society under scrutiny. To study the history of Indian leadership, then, one must understand more fully the nature of Amer- ican Indian social history and to see more clearly the relationship between individuals and institutions in that history. Understanding that injunction leads us inevitably away from two dimensional ren- derings of native experience and provides a means of alleviating our endemic schizophrenia, for understanding particulars is another way of probing the humanity of a people. Seeing a group more precisely helps illuminate its relationship to all of human history. Defining the subject in this way, the four authors challenge us to examine Indian cultures on their own terms and to check both preconceptions and jargon at the door.

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