"Provides new insight into the complexities of the rich culture of Native Americans and their sufferings."—The North American Review
"An important and timely book."—Book Forum
Description
Reflecting a variety of disciplines, approaches, and viewpoints, this collection of ten essays by both Indians and non-Indians covers a wide range of historical periods, areas, and topics concerning the changes in Indian environmental experiences.
Subjects include the role of the environment in religions; white practices of land use and the exploitation of energy resources on reservations; the historical background of sovereignty, its philosophy and legality; and the plight of various uprooted Indians and the resulting clashes between Indian groups themselves as they compete for scarce resources.
From the Canadian Subarctic to Ontario’s Grassy Narrows, from the Iroquois to the Navajo, American Indian Environments is an important contribution to understanding the Indians’ attitude toward and dependence upon their environment and their continued struggles with non-Indians over it.
Table of Contents
Introduction, Christopher Vecsey and Robert W. Venables
1. American Indian Environmental Religions, Christopher Vecsey
2. Subarctic Indians and Wildlife, Calvin Martin
3. Indians as Ecologists and Other Environmental Themes in American Frontier History, Wilbur R. Jacobs
4. Justifying Dispossession of The Indian: The Land Utilization Argument, William T. Hagan
5. Iroquois Environments and “We The People of The United States:” Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft in the
Apposition of Iroquois, Federal, and New York State Sovereignties, Robert W. Venables
6. Refugee Havens: The Iroquois Villages of The Eighteenth Century, Laurence M. Hauptman
7. Victim Versus Victim: The Irony of the New York Indians’ Removal to Wisconsin, Robert W. Venables
8. A Report to the People of Grassy Narrows, Kai T. Erikson and Christopher Vecsey
9. Navajo Natural Resources, Peter Macdonald
10. An Iroquois Perspective, Oren Lyons
Notes
About the Author
Christopher Vecsey is Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of the Humanities and Religion at Colgate University. He has written extensively on religion in America and on the culture and religion of Native Americans.
Robert W. Venables is senior lecturer in the American Indian program at Cornell University.
December 1980