Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes: Nine Indian Writers on the Legacy of the Expedition (Vintage) | 
|  | | | Title: | Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes: Nine Indian Writers on the Legacy of the Expedition (Vintage) | | Author: | Alvin M. Jr Josephy | | Publisher: | Vintage | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 12 June, 2007 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 1400077494 / 9781400077496 | | List Price: | $14.00 | | You Save: | $2.80 | | Amazon Price: | $11.20 | |
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Product Description
At the heart of this landmark collection of essays rests a single question: What impact, good or bad, immediate or long-range, did Lewis and Clark’s journey have on the Indians whose homelands they traversed? The nine writers in this volume each provide their own unique answers; from Pulitzer prize-winner N. Scott Momaday, who offers a haunting essay evoking the voices of the past; to Debra Magpie Earling’s illumination of her ancestral family, their survival, and the magic they use to this day; to Mark N. Trahant’s attempt to trace his own blood back to Clark himself; and Roberta Conner’s comparisons of the explorer’s journals with the accounts of the expedition passed down to her. Incisive and compelling, these essays shed new light on our understanding of this landmark journey into the American West.
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Customer Reviews:
• An Impressively Wide-ranging Set Of Essays Charting More Than Just Their Journeys 08 July, 2006
Plenty of history books tell the Lewis and Clark expedition story from different angles; but here for the first time is the other side of the story from nine descendants of the Native Americans whose homelands were traversed by the two intrepid explorers. From a newspaper editor who writes of his childhood belief he was descended from Clark to essays which reveal family encounters, tribal law, or the expedition's long impact on tribes today, Lewis And Clark Through Indian Eyes provides an impressively wide-ranging set of essays charting more than just their journeys.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A14OJS0VWMOSWO
• The Indians Have It 05 July, 2006
Only a man of the lifelong sense of fairness and perspective of Alvin Josephy could have had the idea of letting Indian historians weigh in on such a momentous event. Alvin Josephy's intimate association with these writers gives the title of editor way more weight that it would normally get. This is a very important book, the last effort of a historian committed to the Indian side of the story. He lived to finish it--as he lived to understand and tell the Indian story. I am personally proud to have worked with and know Mr. Josephy for many years and I hope this book inspires young people to seek the other side of the story.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2BFGI1QPTSG5B
• Interesting, Probably Worth Reading For L&c Fans, But Not A Great Book 06 August, 2006
It is clear from Undaunted Courage or any version of the Journals that L&C could not have survived without the constant gracious help of Indians (which is what they call themselves in this book). The painful historical irony is clear without reading the book, especially with the Nez Perce (who kept the expedition from starving when the tribe could have killed L&C and taken their weapons, and who were chased out of their country a few decades later by U.S. troops). What is interesting in this book is how the various authors address this issue in the 21st century. There are passages about how the Indians must have viewed L&C at the time, but not much new. Various tribes are represented, and they have their own views on Sacajawea. The concept of the book was good, and there some are very good parts, but overall it's not compelling writing or reading. If the purpose was to record these views in a book, whether compelling or not, then it serves its purpose.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AUWS4WEQ3GS53
• Those Who Learn Not From History Repeat It. 05 October, 2006
Most good ideas are simple, and, as the title of this book suggests, it is a simple collection of some extremely profound ruminations by Native Americans on the acts and impact of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Nine extremely well educated authors were asked to address the effects of the Corps of Discovery for its bicentennial. They are not representative of the man in the street. They may, however, have captured the essence of feeling and sense of the collective beings of the many tribes whose lives were impacted forever, and give a foreboding of what manifest destiny may mean in the 21st century.
We learn facts, Sacagawea was not her name, she was not Shoshone, the natives shared their wives with the expedition, the Crows stole the Expedition horses and out traded Lewis and Clark by selling them nags, that the tribes knew of both oceans, had seen and dealt with Americans, Spanish, English and French before, that at least one of the tribes had sent emissaries to the east coast around the time of the American Revolution, and that Lewis and Clark, in reality, traveled fairly well known and used paths to the Pacific Ocean and back with the assistance of a multitude of tribes who fed and guided them. Although the natives viewed such a journey as difficult, there were regular trade routes established along much of Corps' path.
We learn too of the relationship of the "Corps of Discovery" to the doctrine of discovery that held the "civilized" countries could lay claim to all they discovered. Part of Jefferson's plan was to cement the United States' claim to the Louisiana Purchase. At least one tribe had to forcefully civilize the Corps when its members entered the homes of the tribe uninvited seeking food. After the starving Corps was reprimanded and made its apologies, it was fed.
We can also learn much of the Native American concept of God and the misinformation in Lewis and Clark's journals. The journal's report one tribe was a sun worshiping tribe when it was the custom of the tribe to worship the Great Spirit by facing toward the rising sun in the morning much as Muslim face Mecca. The sense of spirituality and connection with the land coursing through the various essays is the book's most powerful aspect.
We learn too of the absurdity of the "Great Father" in Washington concept. Though the eyes of hindsight, we all to clearly see how the lives of hundreds of thousands of courageous souls were lost by the "Great Father's" promises of help and threats of death to those who would not accept.
Cynics amongst us may see some parallel to the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq in which the Great White Father seeks to help the people to his way of life that he knows is best for them. Our manifest destiny now seems to be to force our way of life on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Korea, at least.
None of the authors addressed this 21st century vision of manifest destiny, but none embraced what the white man did to their ancestors and their way of life. Perhaps more could be learned and more might be said. More harm has been done by those who say they are there to help than those who outright admit they are enemies.
I am no Lewis and Clark scholar. However, any thinking person interested in both sides of the story will find this collection of essays provocative and probative of the lessons of our past that have important application to our present.
© Hamilton D. Moore
- Reviewed by customer ID: A5D7YGRTFDFTO
• Revising History 17 November, 2007
This book was interesting but resources are questionable. As Native Americans had no written language and Lewis and Clark were highly educated men with no agenda except to document what they experienced why would there be negative bias unless you put all of white Europeans at that time as having subversive motives. I think L&C were lovers of the Earth and were probably more akin to Native American values than most modern people today. Yes, they took government money but then so did Native Americans although they were taken advantage of because of their ignorance of economics. However, 15 million dollars for the Louisiana Purchase which included 530 million acres would be considered a great bargain by todays standards. I guess it is possible to try and understand what the various tribes thought and felt but just like all other cultural groups the Native Americans (Kenwick man included)were not a monolithic people. They were a vary diverse people with peaceful members and those members who were anything but.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3KWZX95YGY87U
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