Will, George F. and George E. Hyde
2002 Corn Among the Indians of the Upper Missouri (reprint). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Notes: Originally published 1917 by W.H. Miner Co.. ISBN: 0803298269Reviewed 24 Apr 2003 by:
Raymond A. Bucko <bucko@creighton.edu>
Sociology and Anthropology, Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, USAMedium: Written Literature Subject
Keywords:Indians of North America - Agriculture - Missouri River Valley
Corn
ABSTRACT: This reprinted ethnography focuses more on change than continuity, the past rather than contemporary cultures. An important contribution to the ethnography and history of Native American peoples, it recognises their important agricultural contributions.
First published in 1917, Corn Among the Indians of the Upper Missouri was reprinted by the University of Nebraska Press first in 1964, and more recently in 2002. As a turn of the century ethnography, this work differs widely from contemporary works on Native peoples, focusing more on change than continuity and stressing more the past rather than contemporary cultures. Nevertheless, this work is indeed an important contribution to the ethnography and history of Native American peoples and recognition of their important agricultural contributions to the world.George Francis Will was born in 1884, educated at Harvard University, and the focus of his work was North Dakota. An active archaeologist from 1905 and 1940, his works include The Mandans (1906), Archaeology of the Missouri Valley (1924), Indian Agriculture at its Northern Limits in the Great Plains Region of North America (1924) and Notes on the Arikara Indians and Their Ceremonies (1934). He died in 1955.
George Hyde was born in Omaha Nebraska on June 10, 1882. Like many anthropologists and historians of the period, he was not formally trained. Some of his publications include The Early Blackfeet and Their Neighbors (1933), Red Cloud's Folk: A History of the Oglala Sioux Indians (1937), Pawnee Indians (1951), A Sioux Chronicle (1956), Indians of the High Plains (1959), Spotted Tail's Folk: A History of the Brul‰ Sioux (1961). Hyde died in 1968.
The authorsÆ main thesis was that the native corn species of the Upper Missouri remain important for agriculture in this ecologically challenging area and should be more widely bred and distributed. They conclude with an accounting of Native tribes still growing corn and the native species that remain, providing a detailed accounting of corn growth characteristics and maturation rates.
Since the writing of this essay, major parts of the Missouri and other rivers have been dammed; innumerable archaeological sites and large tracts of land have been flooded and lost; and anthropological writing has shifted from memory ethnography (the attempt to reconstruct an ideal pre-contact life before the incursion of Europeans) to cultural continuity and the enduring identity of contemporary Indian cultures. Remarkably, many of these issues are nascent in this work, particularly in the authors' interest in extant native corn species and the tribes that grew them.
As the title clearly indicates, the authors take as their central point of analysis the role of corn agriculture for the tribes of the Upper Missouri river. They discuss the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara, and, further south, the Pawnee, Omaha, Otoe as well as groups that traded and/or raided for food such as the Assiniboine and Lakota (who come under particular opprobrium by the authors). This is basically an ethnohistorical work, the majority of data coming from a wide variety of sources: Native testimony, European trader accounts, military and explorer literature, archaeology, ethnographic literature, contemporary Indian agents, and the botanical study of native corn species.
The authors dispel some then-current stereotypes, such as the belief that Native women were simply ôdrudgesö or that native agricultural methods were technologically deficient. The work emphasizes the cultural importance of corn to the physical, economic, commercial, social and religious lives of these people. Although they all participated in a mixed economy of hunting/gathering and agriculture, corn was important not only for their diet but also for their social and ritual customs. In addition, the authors demonstrate how Native agriculture fueled both the fur trade and western European expansion.
The authors provide details on the species and types of corn grown (flour, sweet and flint corn), selective planting, cultivation, harvesting, cooking, and storing of plants. They try to trace the origins and diffusion of corn among these groups mindful that their information is incomplete. They also look at religious practices involving corn and buffalo attempting to ascertain which ritual complex was prior and which was more important. Rather than use the speculative theorization methods of their time, they do not theorize beyond their available data. The authors do contend that corn became less central to the life of these people with the mobility provided by the introduction of the horse.
While this is a book about corn and indigenous peoples, the work can also serve as a guide to the writings by early explorers of this area. The testimony of such witnesses as Lewis and Clark, Verendrye, Catlin, Carver, Larpenteur, Trudeau, Henry and Maximillian, is used to construct the narrative or sometimes simply laid out one author at a time. In addition to information from non-Natives, the authors provide Native testimony on the importance of corn, particularly by the Mandan Scattered Corn and her son, James Holding Eagle.
While the language and the evolutionary perspectives of the authors may give the reader pause if not sometimes shock given their use of certain vocabularies and their own cultural assumptions, this work remains respectful of indigenous peoples and their agricultural achievements. Although couched in rather paternalistic language the authors do at one point speak out against federal policy: ôSuch were some of the innocent beliefs and practices which the United States Indian Office has seen fit to wage a systematic campaign against, until the Indian women no longer dare to send their poor little gifts south with the migrating geese and ducks to the protectress of their fieldsö (271).
My only disappointment in the work is not with the material itself but rather the lack of a scholarly introduction in both University of Nebraska editions. While their press is normally very diligent to provide a context for republished works, this edition simply has a synopsis on the back cover, not even mentioning the original publication date. Introductions are crucial for reader comprehension, particularly with republished older works such as this. Nevertheless, this reprint is a service to Native readers and others and will well serve those interested in Indian Studies, indigenous agriculture, and history.
To cite this review, the American Anthropological Association recommends the following style:
Bucko, Raymond A.
2003 Review of Corn Among the Indians of the Upper Missouri (reprint). Anthropology Review Database. April 24. Electronic document, http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/cgi/showme.cgi?keycode=2161, accessed February 10, 2010.© Anthropology Review Database
(available online: http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/)