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Constructive Criticism, April 18 2004
I believe this book was unfarily rated since it was rated by one angry environmentalist 3 or 4 times. This book had an agenda and the purpose was to get rid of the "Noble Saint" stereotype. It seems that some believe that this book is a conservative book while they don't realize that this book is supported by environmental historians such as William Cronon. My American Indian World views teacher (Choktaw) supports the breaking down of the Noble Savage stereotype, proffessors (Native American Studies proffessors)from my University support it and lecture about the Noble Savage stereotype. Another review mentioned how the book mentioned tribes that were less in tune with nature. That is not true because the hoop of life comes from the Lakota belief that everything has connection. As Cronon said "Why in the debates about pristine natural areas are "primitive" peoples idealized, even sentimentalized, until the moment they do something unprimitive, moder, and unnatural, and thereby fall from environmental grace?" The review critiqued the book saying it focued too much on modern day Indians. I'm not sure if he even read the book because the Chapters on Fire, Buffalo, Eden, and others focused mostly on past Indians. The Lakota when the still lived in the Plains, the Anasazi or Mississipian mound builders of the 10th century, Hohokam, Cree, Cherokee, Blackfeet, Crow, and many others. Like other reviews, this book is targeted at those who believe Indians were some sort of mystical beings that were ecological saints. These stereotypes are harmfull because as soon as an Indian does otherewise, their actions are condemned (ie Makah). Even so called positive stereotypes have negative impacts such as Asians are all smart, better at math, or all know martial arts. You can take the opposite stance and say all Whites are superior, have the better religion and more successfull. Instead of romaticizing the many American Indians, we should respect as a cultural people. The person from the Sierras should try and visit Indian Canyon or the Sun Rise Ceremony at Alcatraz. Native struggles today are usually concerned with sacred lands that was their ancenstral land and not so much on saving the Grey Whale or preservation. Because preservation excludes humans from living within the environment. A good book would be Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks by Mark David Spence or William Cronon's Uncommon Ground.
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Constructive Criticism, April 18 2004
I believe this book was unfarily rated since it was rated by one angry environmentalist 3 or 4 times. This book had an agenda and the purpose was to get rid of the "Noble Saint" stereotype. It seems that some believe that this book is a conservative book while they don't realize that this book is supported by environmental historians such as William Cronon. My American Indian World views teacher (Choktaw) supports the breaking down of the Noble Savage stereotype, proffessors (Native American Studies proffessors)from my University support it and lecture about the Noble Savage stereotype. Another review mentioned how the book mentioned tribes that were less in tune with nature. That is not true because the hoop of life comes from the Lakota belief that everything has connection. As Cronon said "Why in the debates about pristine natural areas are "primitive" peoples idealized, even sentimentalized, until the moment they do something unprimitive, moder, and unnatural, and thereby fall from environmental grace?" The review critiqued the book saying it focued too much on modern day Indians. I'm not sure if he even read the book because the Chapters on Fire, Buffalo, Eden, and others focused mostly on past Indians. The Lakota when the still lived in the Plains, the Anasazi or Mississipian mound builders of the 10th century, Hohokam, Cree, Cherokee, Blackfeet, Crow, and many others. Like other reviews, this book is targeted at those who believe Indians were some sort of mystical beings that were ecological saints. These stereotypes are harmfull because as soon as an Indian does otherewise, their actions are condemned (ie Makah). Even so called positive stereotypes have negative impacts such as Asians are all smart, better at math, or all know martial arts. You can take the opposite stance and say all Whites are superior, have the better religion and more successfull. Instead of romaticizing the many American Indians, we should respect as a cultural people. The person from the Sierras should try and visit Indian Canyon or the Sun Rise Ceremony at Alcatraz. Native struggles today are usually concerned with sacred lands that was their ancenstral land and not so much on saving the Grey Whale or preservation. Because preservation excludes humans from living within the environment. A good book would be Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks by Mark David Spence or William Cronon's Uncommon Ground.
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Worth reading, for a new perspective., Oct 17 2003
Kudos to Krech for bringing up a new twist on the historical "crying Indian" figure everyone is so familiarly brainwashed into identifying with. I was initially shocked and disgruntled by Kreches arguments because I have grown up with a 100% ecological Indian/Dances With Wolves impression of Native Americans. However, the book is stocked with evidence claiming the alternative, that Native Americans did have negative impacts on the environment possibly comparatively to that of the European settlers. Krech did a fabulous job avoiding the use of glittering generalities when presenting arguments. However, at times he almost seems to argumentative (with himself) which is why I give the book only four stars--he tended to write to the critics. At some points he tends to have random arguments, but overall, it is a fascinating piece, which brings up new ideas on the subject in a sensitive way.
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Understood ....... not "misunderstood", April 4 2003
By A Customer
It's hard to believe that the reviewer from Dec. 8, 2002, titled 'Misunderstood' ever read this book. The reviewer states "At least half the communicative burden should always rest on the reader". I couldn't agree more. I suppose this reader/reviewer sat back and absorbed some brilliant insight about "Disney-Pocahontas stereotypes". A scary thought, considering that this person is probably "college educated" (perhaps spelled 'college programmed). This book, and the aforementioned review, are both a sad disappointment. We have too many blind "educated" people writing and reviewing these types of misleading books.
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Misunderstood, Dec 8 2002
By A Customer
"If you are the kind of person who wants to believe in the culture of Western Civilization then this book is for you."This is exactly the opposite of the author's intent in writing this book. He meant to empower Native Americans by portraying them as regular human beings with the ability to be individuals, rather than all being Disney-Pocahontas stereotypes of earth-friendliness. He argues that this image is unfair, inaccurate, and demeaning. It is easy to come to the wrong conclusion if one skims this book and doesn't take the time to sit back and think about what's being said. I hardly think that is the author's fault, however. At least half the communicative burden should always rest on the reader, otherwise where is the learning experience in reading?
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Myth, not a lot of history, Jan 19 2002
Not much to say about this type of thing without becoming overly political. I think these kinds of books should be written by the people they purport to represent. We are passing judgement on a way of life so vastly different from the Western European way and through a filter of a couple of centuries.
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Obsessing about "idealized" Indians, Nov 25 2001
A pervasive myth about American Indians, and the perennial worry of certain scholars, is that Indians have been, or are being, over-idealized. Native Americans themselves have never blamed the over-idealization of Indians as the reason for anything of consequence that resulted from their historical encounters with Europeans, certainly not, for example, the reason for their removal to reservations, nor as the motivating factor in the decimation of their populations. Conversely, however, Indians know that it was the European over-idealization of themselves that has been the determining political force in these examples and in their attitude toward land and living space. The idea behind Indian reservations must be contemplated with a question from Vine Deloria’s God is Red: Do political and social formations reflect concepts of land?
Indians in southern America witnessed first hand the extremes of attitude toward environment when they saw their formerly pristine streets fouled by the European habit of urinating in the street and their horses defecating in the streets. What traditions reflecting concepts of land came into play when the Spanish and French wantonly burned Indian cities, or stole away their stores (for example, in 1582 Espejo carted away 40,000 cotton blankets and articles of clothing from the Southwest), or overturned their economy and destroyed their environment by herds of cattle? Despite this repeated history, the accusation against Indians of being over-idealized historically remains the enduring argument ever since the Christian/Pagan debates set the mold in the 15th and 16th centuries after the Indians were run off the island of Cuba in a relentless slaughter. Scholars such as Krech tend to come from variations of this long-standing, over mythologized school that postulates Indians as primitive savages.
Krech participates in this antiquated, solipsistic “dialogue” under the pretenses of concern that the image of the ecological Indian does untold damage to Indians. His is not honest scholarship. His deception begins with his title, The Ecological Indian, because he doesn’t mean in the least an Indian who is ecological, but one who is not ecological and never has been. He not only wants to rescue the term from its association with Indians but conquer ownership of the ideas inherent in the term as ideas intrinsic to European tradition, rather than Indian tradition. The paratactic coordination in his subtitle adds to his deception because Krech means not the history of the ecological Indian, but the history of what he tries to convince us is a myth. “Myth and Its History” would at least have been more honest, but it would have been better for him to be forthright about the real subject of his book and to have titled it honestly, The Myth of the Ecological Indian.
Usually these scholars aim their attacks on Indians at other Euro-based scholars, but what distinguishes Krech’s work is its underhanded ad hominem assault on Vine Deloria and other Indians whom he calls “self-proclaimed” traditionalists. This must be his new phrase for “blanket Indians”, the traditionalists from the rez-herding days who were ridiculed in much the same way. Krech’s overtext is a sarcastic reply to Deloria’s classic work, God is Red, a book that altered for Indians the course of academic studies on them and helped bring Indians to a realization of their traditional religion -- a way of life and direction of thinking that European authority misinterpreted and suppressed from 1492 through political and religious institutions, such as the Holy Inquisition. One way that Krech (the ch pronounced like the ck in crock) tries to prove the error of Indian thinking is by showing us how Indians responded when cornered by the European tactical agenda of conquest and trade monopoly. He presents this in terms of fortune opportunities for Indians, failing to mention how monopoly and conquest competition between European powers undermined Indian traditions of free trade and drastically altered their economy and access to goods, such as Native textiles, cotton, gold and copper and bountiful agricultural products and foodstuffs. In 1492 Europe had no cotton and clothed its people in animal skins, woolens and metal armor, whereas America had developed a cotton that today remains one of the longest cotton fibers in the world and they grew it in what is now the U.S. South and other parts of the U.S. Natives exported boat loads of cotton down the Tennessee and Mississippi to what is now New Orleans. American Indians over the millennia had developed a great store of knowledge of natural history and plant botany, to the extent that they were able to create edible corn, a development that relied solely on human ingenuity. Indians propagated many different foodstuffs and great varieties of each. And we have to assume a certain playfulness of culture evident in such inventions as hot chili peppers, popcorn, and spaghetti squash, foods that modern culture delights in to this day. What were the political and religious traditions that nurtured such prolific species varieties and living space for them? By contrast in 1492 Europe had few foodstuffs and reflected a knowledge of botany and natural history apparently inferior to American knowledge which held diversity as the key to life. On America life was celebrated and diversity reigned, diverse forms of life, diverse colors, many and various weaving textures and textiles, diverse languages. However, Krech tries to make the case, using Cherokee and Sioux examples, that myths and Indian superstition encouraged and promoted unrestrained killing of animals.
All Krech really ends up showing us in his anecdotal diatribe against Indians is the kind of earth citizen brought forth from the monopolizing, proselytizing and conquesting tendencies in Old World tradition. [...]
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Worth the read, Jan 31 2001
By A Customer
Although written in an academic style still a very interesting read. Dispells the myth of the uber-conservationist Indian and replaces it with a more factual, individual, and realistic representation of Native Americans. Many of the reviewers of the book seem to apologize for the information presented and the conclusions that others might reach because of it. The facts are accurate, but truth is not in general favor these days
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oh please!, Jan 10 2001
By A Customer
The research is, of course, correct in most places. The focus and following implied conclusions miss the truth. All Native American tribes differed. Krech focuses on groups that were less in tuned to the great circle of life. He goes on and on about certain specific facts about certain specific groups, focusing on facts (the way scientists do) and missing the overall "nature" of things. Not to mention his propensity to embellishment. He also does spend a lot of time focused on modern day indians who, like all human beings to find themselves in its path, have been assimilated by the tide of western civilization. A classic case of being the victim of an education steeped in empirical science.
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Beyond revisionism, April 25 2000
At first I thought that this book was yet another revisionist history of Native/Nature relations. However, I recently had an opportunity to interview Professor Krech and realized that much of his argument has been misunderstood and caricatured by people on both the right and the left of the political spectrum. Krech is not trying to state that Natives do not have a particular respect for nature but rather that their actions were often not congruent with the Western notion of "conservation" a la Gifford Pinchot or Aldo Leopold and certainly not the kind of "preservation" ethic articulated by Muir. Krech is deeply aware of the Native respect for nature and has lived and worked with native communities in Northern Canada. My only problem with the book is that he does not address the resurgence of native environmentalism in much detail. The work of Winona La Duke, Tom Goldtooth, Ward Churchill and others is briefly mentioned at the end but not much is provided in terms of how this movement has arisen. In my interview, I questioned him about this and he responded with great respect for native environmentalists, saying that he knew that their feelings were genuine and grounded in native history to some extent. However, their feelings for the environment have been realized in a modern context that is somewhat different from the less self-conscious relationship which ancestral Indians had with nature. Critics of Krech should certainly give him the benefit of the doubt and read his earlier works, particularly his criticism of Calvin Martin's first book (Keepers of the Game). Interestingly enough Martin has since changed his views and has taken a much more mystical approach to describing Native / environmental relations in his recent treatise: The Way of the Human Being". So please, reviewers and readers, try to step back for a moment and read this as an academic work which was well-intentioned, but perhaps needed another chapter at the end, further explicating the current rise of native environmentalism.
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