AN ETHNOHISTORIAN'S VIEWPOINT
by ERMINIE
W. VOEGELIN
During the past half century, or
throughout the period that
anthropology has been an academic
discipline in American uni-
versities, all branches of the
subject--physical anthropology, eth-
nology and archaeology, anthropological
linguistics and folklore--
have put much emphasis upon original
field research. No student
of anthropology is considered
professionally fully trained until he
or she has had actual experience in the
field collecting original data
on a field problem. For the ethnologist
this usually means field
work among primitive or, today,
semi-literate peoples having a
culture different from his own.
All anthropologists recognize the
two-fold value of field ex-
perience--not only does it serve to
educate the novice by affording
him contact with a contrasting culture
but field work also provides
most of our present-day knowledge of
primitive peoples. However,
anthropologists would be a brash lot
indeed if they were to insist
that their entire corpus of knowledge
rests in field reports. This
is especially true, as it happens, for
ethnologists, who are concerned
not only (a) with describing cultures,
in whole or in part, but
also (b) with analyzing them in terms
of pattern, structure, or
growth and change.
It is on this latter point that I wish
to speak for a moment. The
dynamic problem of culture growth and
culture change is one which
has engrossed many culture historians,
several of whom have made
notable attempts to deal with it in
long range terms by such
means as the comparative method.
Various postulates, such as that
of age-area, have been used--and their
validity controverted--in
efforts to reconstruct historically the
culture-history of primitive
peoples within particular areas over
long periods of time. Although
trained American ethnologists have
consistently refused to consider
the problem of origins, they have not
hesitated to occupy them-
selves with problems which the trained
historian refuses to con-
sider, namely, problems of historical
reconstruction based on in-
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ferential evidence. In 1916 the
anthropological linguist Edward
Sapir devoted an eighty-six page
monograph to exposition and
criticism of various methods for
establishing a time-perspective in
aboriginal American cultures.1
This monograph, which was in a
sense mainly programmatic, commanded
widespread attention and
respect among anthropologists for
several years after it was pub-
lished; yet it has had curiously little
influence in shaping the work
of historically minded American
anthropologists. Some eighty-one
of the eighty-six pages of the Time
Perspective are devoted to ex-
position (and criticism) of various
methods of inferring historical
changes. As Lewis and Fenton have
pointed out, only five pages
are given to discussion of the use of
direct historical evidence, and
of these five pages, only one is
devoted to the use of documentary
evidence for ethnological studies of
culture growth and change.2
There was, however, in Sapir's day, and
there has always been
since, a small group of American
ethnologists who were not at-
tracted to inferential long-range
historical studies, but whose in-
terests were none the less definitely
historical. For such ethnologists,
control over the data relating to
growth and change in particular
cultures was of primary importance,
rather than the length of
the time-span for which a historical
perspective could be obtained.
The farther back in point of time the
perspective extended the
better, but only if it could be
actually controlled. Inferential his-
torical reconstructions done in the
grand manner and covering
hundreds or thousands of years, hold
little interest for such
ethnologists. For them, documentary
sources, which Sapir passed
over so lightly in his monograph,
provide the corpus which, when
competently handled, can yield
historical perspective, and also can
be controlled. Therefore, it is to such
documentary material that
historically minded ethnologists
interested in something more than
the flat picture obtained through field
work, realize they must turn.
1 Time Perspective in Aboriginal
American Culture, A Study in Method (Canadian
Department of Mines, Memoirs, No. 90, Ottawa,
1916).
2 Oscar Lewis, The Effects of White Contact upon Blackfoot Culture (American
Ethnological Society, Monographs, No. 6, New
York, 1942), 2; William N. Fenton,
"The Training of Historical
Ethnologists in America," American Anthropologist, N.S.,
LIV (1952), 328-329.
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Recently, historically minded
ethnologists of this ilk have become
tagged by their professional brethren
as "ethnohistorians." When
the term ethnohistorian was first used
I do not know--it has
analogies, of course, with
"ethnogeographer" and "ethnobotanist,"
both of which have now attained
dictionary respectability. Since
"ethnohistory" has not as yet
appeared in either of two dictionaries
consulted (the Merriam-Webster Unabridged,
and the Funk and
Wagnalls New College Standard), I
shall attempt a working
definition of ethnohistory as: the
study of identities, locations, con-
tacts, movements, numbers, and
cultural activities of primitive
peoples from the earliest written
records concerning them, onward
in point of time. This is, I realize, an extremely broad definition; I
have purposely tried to make it as
inclusive as possible. Culture
historians may be critical of it
because it includes "cultural ac-
tivities," which they may regard
as their own peculiar province.
However, I see no reason why a
dichotomy should exist in historical
ethnology between ethnologists
primarily interested in identities,
past location, contacts, numbers, and
movements of primitive
peoples, and ethnologists interested in
the cultures of these same
peoples. The likelihood is that in
practice the historically minded
ethnologist will be interested in all
of these things; and since in
American usage ethnohistory is the more
general of the two terms,
it would seem to be the more
preferable.
For North American Indian peoples and
cultures, primary source
material written by European and
American travelers, missionaries,
army officers, bureau of Indian affairs
employees, traders, and so
forth, is available for time periods
varying between one hundred
and four hundred years, depending on
particular cultures. For some
native North American cultures,
historical material exists in abund-
ance; for others the corpus is
extremely limited. An example of such
contrast is the large body of
seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth-
century primary material available for
the Shawnee, an Eastern
Woodlands tribe, as contrasted with the
ten or a dozen (at best)
late eighteenth and nineteenth-century
primary source references to
the Tubatulabal, a small
Shoshonean-speaking group in east-central
California. To attempt a reasonably
complete ethnohistory of the
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Shawnee and their culture, presenting
contemporary field data and
giving it historical depth, is a task
calling for several years of in-
tensive work in the field, in the
library, and at one's desk. To attempt
an ethnohistory of the Tubatulabal
would be virtually to attempt
the impossible, because of the paucity
of the historical record for
this group.
The question may well be asked here as
to what sort of in-
formation the ethnohistorian hopes to
find in the documentary
sources. A categorical answer to such a
question cannot, of course,
be given; some ethnohistorical research
is extremely comprehensive,
and some is sharply focused on particular
problems. An example
of the latter comes to mind. Throughout
the Eastern Woodlands
the concept of a male supreme deity
prevails among all Eastern
Woodlands tribes, except among the
Shawnee, who at the present
time, as contemporary ethnological
field work has established,
worship a female supreme deity. This
female deity is generally
referred to by the Shawnee as "Our
Grandmother." As an eth-
nologist, accustomed to regard traits
with a wide distribution as
possibly (but not certainly) older than
traits with a limited dis-
tribution, I suspect that the Shawnee
female deity may be a recent
innovation in Shawnee culture. But this
surmise is based purely
on inference; it is of value only as a
point of departure. My next
task is to review all the documentary
evidence I can find, not, as it
happens, on Shawnee summer bark houses,
or on Shawnee popu-
lation figures, or on historic
locations of Shawnee groups in the
late seventeenth century, but
specifically on Shawnee religious be-
liefs and practices. And in an 1825
rather remarkable source I
find my surmise verified. A hundred and
twenty-five years ago all
groups of Shawnee, apparently,
acknowledged and worshipped a
male supreme deity, and "Our
Grandmother" was a distinctly
subordinate member of the Shawnee
pantheon.
How or why the change from male to
female deity came about
in the case of the Shawnee is a
question which still remains to
be answered. If the answer can be
found, it can only be found
in documentary material; Shawnee
informants of the present time
are convinced that ever since the
Shawnee were created, "Our
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Grandmother" has had them under
her special surveillance and
has figured as their supreme deity.
An example of extremely comprehensive
ethnohistorical research
is one which is now being undertaken
for the United States De-
partment of Justice by the anthropology
department of Indiana
University. That the immediate goal of
such research is applied is
of small consequence here, because out
of the research it is expected
there will come not only applied
results but a large corpus of
ethnohistorical material for all the
historic tribes of the Great Lakes-
Ohio Valley region, which can be used
as a basis for studies of
culture growth and change among the
tribes of this region. Re-
search on this project is focused on
aboriginal occupancy and land
tenure in the Great Lakes-Ohio Valley
area, and involves iden-
tification, movements, and so forth, of
thirteen so-called tribes or
confederacies--Chippewa, Delaware, Fox,
Huron, Illinois Con-
federacy, Kickapoo, Miami, Ottawa,
Potawatomi, Sac, Shawnee,
Winnebago, and Iroquois (Six Nations).
Since North American Indian concepts of
land tenure and actual
use of land differed materially from
our own concepts and practices,
the cultures of all the American Indian
groups under examination
must be considered, as well as the
movements and population of
these groups, their relationship to
their environment, and their
contacts with each other. Research on
the project during the next
three years will necessarily be both
extensive and intensive; at
least a dozen large cultural
categories, such as basic subsistence,
shelter, warfare, social and political
organization, and so forth,
will have to be covered before analysis
can be attempted and
conclusions drawn.
Therefore in closing I would like to
emphasize two points.
First, ethnohistory, as its name
implies, involves at least two
academic disciplines: ethnology and
history. Few anthropologists
have as yet been trained in
historiography, either general or as
applying to a particular area. Whatever
training they acquire is
at the present time largely
autodidactic, and while such self-imposed
training can be extremely valuable, it
cannot by an means be re-
garded as an entirely satisfactory
substitute for more formal in-
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Conference 171
struction. The historically minded
ethnologist needs to learn from
the historian not only the assumptions
which historians make in
dealing with documentary data, he is
also badly in need of learning
techniques and methods for locating and
controlling the body of
primary source material for the
specific area in which he is
interested.
What the ethnologist does with the
relevant source material
he unearths or is helped in unearthing
is his responsibility, but
whether he covers the sources
thoroughly, and evaluates them com-
petently, will depend largely on
whether he has been able to
establish a successful liaison with
professional historians. However,
as in any liaison arrangement, the
ethnologist also stands ready to
make his contribution. On the
theoretical level, the assumptions
which professional anthropologists make
may be of interest to
historians; on the more practical
plane, the ethnologist commands
a knowledge of ethnographical
bibliography and depositories for
ethnographical material, which the
historian concerned with primi-
tive groups would probably like to
become familiar with.
This brings me to my second point,
which in one sense at least
is a practical one. It is our hope that
the liaison between ethnology
and history will start, not next month
or next year, but imme-
diately. The Indiana University-Justice
Department ethnohistorical
project is a three-year research
project which began this fall. It
carries its own research staff of
anthropologists and graduate
assistants, who are responsible for
carrying the project through to
a successful completion. If to the
contributions which this nuclear
research staff is making, can be added
the contributions of other
historians and anthropologists who are
concerned with the Great
Lakes-Ohio Valley area and its native
peoples, a unique body of
material will ultimately be amassed.
Such material, housed in a
central location, would serve scholars
in two disciplines admirably
over a period of many years. More
analysis of the data could be
undertaken, for one thing, if
individual scholars were freed from
the need of each collecting all of the
data upon which analyses are
based. This, individuals must do at the
present time; it is our hope,
however, that they will not always have
to do so in future.