INTRODUCTION

Though curiosity about Native American people began with Columbus, distortions and misperceptions have an equally long history. The admiral began it all by miscalculating his position and calling his hosts "Indians." Over the centuries others compounded his errors by arguing with straight faces that Native Americans were the descendants of wandering Israelites, members of a separate branch of creation, or humans who had sunk into "stupid repose" because they lived in a hostile wilderness.

Happily, a tradition of scholarship has struggled to replace such myths with more plausible explanations. A century ago anthropologists began a systematic effort to record Native American languages, excavate ancient Native American settlements, and understand Native American traditions. In the decades since World War II other disciplines have joined the effort. Historians developed a more sophisticated method for presenting Indian experiences from an Indian perspective. Sociologists crafted models of cultural adaptation that avoided the religious and political moralism of the past. Literary scholars, taking seriously the indomitable creative energy of Indian communities, have begun to include native artists in the academic canon. In recent decades students and researchers from many disciplines have also begun to collaborate with one another and, most important, increasing numbers of American Indians have joined their ranks and taken leadership roles in the academic enterprise. Unfortunately, however, most of this innovative scholarship has remained beyond the reach of the general reader. The result is a remarkably persistent state of public ignorance.

Descriptions of Native American life have long been simplistic. George Washington, for example, could decipher British military intentions, but he viewed the nation's Indians — people who stopped his army dead in its tracks in Ohio — as "wolves." Thomas Jefferson struck a more sympathetic pose, but he spent a remarkable amount of time insisting that the corn-producing tribes of the Southeast and Midwest settle down and learn to farm. Theodore Roosevelt was similarly unconcerned with the details of tribal life, claiming at one point that the enemies of American expansion were so foolish that they would probably be willing to "abandon Arizona to the Apaches." Such self-serving and racist thinking persists in our insistence that "wild" Indians not "wander off the reservation" and in our remarkable tolerance for public caricatures, mascots, and slurs that would be condemned were they attached to any other racial or ethnic group.

When discussing Indians, most Americans do not worry much about facts. A joint French-Indian raid on the village of Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1704 was quickly labeled a "massacre," yet a brutal assault on a village of friendly (and sleeping) Cheyennes in 1864 was celebrated in the streets of Denver as a victory over "hostiles." A few years later the U.S. Supreme Court announced that Indians could not vote because they had neither been born in the United States nor "naturalized" like their immigrant neighbors. More recently, Hollywood producers have cast Italians to play Apaches and proudly falsified the life of Pocahontas — defending themselves in both instances by protesting that they meant no harm.

As appalling as the errors themselves is the fact that much of this historical distortion has been undertaken with the best of intentions. Columbus himself reported that the Arawaks who greeted him in the Caribbean were "guileless" and "generous." In the next century the French essayist Michel de Montaigne established the ideal of the Noble Savage in Western thought by routinely declaring European "civilization" to be inferior to "simple" Indian "barbarism." As imperial settlement and expansion gathered steam in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, other writers repeated this romantic theme. Alexander Pope rhapsodized about Indians who saw "God in clouds," while America's James Fenimore Cooper drew an enduring portrait of an imaginary Mohican, a man who was "an unblemished specimen of the noblest proportions of man." In our own time, unhappy city dwellers flock to ersatz tribal ceremonies hoping to relieve their distress by connecting with environmental virtue and ancient spiritual teachings. Some are content with expensive weekend workshops and designer leather costumes; others want to "become" Indian by locating a Native American ancestor or inventing a new identity out of whole cloth.

This history of ignorance, distortion, and well-intentioned stereotyping cries out for a corrective: a book filled with facts and well-informed interpretations. It should contain, as this one does, descriptions of Indian origins (from both an anthropological and a traditional Native American perspective), battlefield techniques, agricultural practices, and courtroom struggles. It should also explain Hollywood's congenital fascination with Native Americans and tell us something about the fakes and imposters who have pretended to be Indians. A curative and informative book published at the end of a generation of scholarly activism should also draw on the ideas of experts who have blossomed in all corners of the academic landscape in the past twenty-five years, attempting — as this book does — to condense their most interesting findings into brief essays that are buttressed with references to recently published books.

Because even reliable "facts" about Indians have found their way into nonsensical interpretations, a book that hopes to broaden and illuminate the public's understanding of Native American life should illuminate a few central ideas that non-Indians frequently forget. Four common themes run through the 447 entries in this book:

Indians Are People. Neither relics of a lost past nor forerunners of a utopian future, Native Americans are three-dimensional human beings who have been brilliant and brave as well as cruel and foolish. This book's entries acknowledge this fact, both in their descriptions of Indian actions in war and peace and in their multifaceted portrayals of cultural traditions and cultural leaders. Indian art is discussed in terms of individual artists as well as tribal traditions; political leaders are presented with all their various qualities — from the stubborn resistance of the Shawnee warrior Tecumseh to the political flexibility of the Crow tribe's Robert Yellowtail.

Indians Change. Entries in this book describe people and cultures over time. Tribal life is constantly adapting to new circumstances, and adapting to new technologies, and Native Americans have made choices about their futures and acted to alter both their history and the histories of their neighbors. Tribal entries generally include descriptions of migrations and internal divisions as well as a portrait of contemporary life among the group being discussed (one group, the Cheyennes, has two entries, reflecting their separation into northern and southern divisions more than a century ago). Other entries sustain this historical perspective. The essay on literature, for example, discusses some of the newest figures on the literary scene, the entry on art describes the evolution of new techniques and materials, and the essay on intermarriage discusses different features of that phenomenon through time. The biographies in the book describe innovators such as the Oxford-educated author John Joseph Matthews as well as defenders of tribal tradition like the Creek leader Chitto Harjo.

Indians Are a Permanent Part of American Life. Though they are often thought to have vanished completely or to be present only in scattered and isolated communities, Indians — the original inhabitants of the American continents — have survived repeated historical upheavals, participate in every aspect of modern life, and live in every corner of North America. Entries in this volume on major events such as the Civil War or on pivotal individuals like Joseph Brant and Alexander McGillivray make clear that Native North Americans are not bit players in the story of Canada and the United States, but people with a vital and continuing role in these nations' histories. Essays on religious freedom and contemporary arts point to the continuing relevance of Indian ideas and concerns in many parts of contemporary society.

Indians Have Voices. Whether cast in bronze or gazing quietly from sepia photographs, Native Americans in popular culture are usually mute. In the worlds of education and policymaking, there are those who continue to believe that decisions can be made without substantial Indian involvement. Equally disturbing are those who assert that a single Indian voice pronouncing "approval" of some travesty can somehow end all debate; they assume that any Native American is interchangeable with any other member of the group and that Indian communities and organizations cannot (or need not) be consulted. Though confined to print, this book has tried to battle this legacy of silence and simplification with dozens of entries written by Native Americans themselves.

Nearly half the tribal entries — from Creek to Hopi to Iroquois to Navajo to Zuni — were prepared by tribal members; all were written to present the group's view of itself and its history as well as to convey the basic facts of location, history, and principal defining traditions. Native American authors are indeed present throughout the volume, and a special effort was made to have the biographies of prominent individuals prepared by people from their tribes or families (see, for example, the portraits of Jim Thorpe and Levi General), and to have people who have been personally involved with certain topics write about those topics. Susan Williams, for example, a Sioux attorney who litigates water-rights cases across the West, explains water rights, while Osage scholar George Tinker, a professor of theology, presents religion, and Richard West, the Southern Cheyenne director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, examines repatriation.

Faced with the experiences of millions of people in hundreds of communities over some forty thousand years of history, it is perhaps inevitable that a wary editor will emphasize the volume's educational ambition rather than its universal coverage. This book acknowledges the size and complexity of its subject and covers it as fully as is possible in a single-volume work, but it does not claim to tour every point on the "circle" of Native American experience. Encyclopedia of North American Indians strives instead to introduce, to teach, and to invite further inquiry. It seeks to accomplish that goal with four types of entries.

First, there are descriptions of one hundred tribes, providing coverage of all major contemporary groups. Smaller native communities such as those around Puget Sound, in the Midwest and the plateau region, in the pueblos of the Rio Grande, and in California are discussed in regional entries that balance particular descriptions with discussions of common themes. Five entries on major languages (Lakota, Navajo, Cherokee, Cree, and Ojibwa) and four entries on major language groups (Algonquian, Iroquoian, Pueblo, and Salishan) supplement this tribal coverage, as does a general entry on American Indian languages.

Second, the book contains one hundred biographies, selected to provide representation from different regions and eras as well as to introduce readers to the many arenas in which American Indians have had significant careers. Readers will find biographies of familiar (though frequently misrepresented) figures such as Sitting Bull, Pocahontas, and Geronimo as well as profiles of the baseball star Charles Bender, diplomats and reformers such as Sarah Winnemucca and Charles Eastman, artists like María Martínez, and scholars as various as the Cherokee linguist Sequoyah and the modern anthropologist and novelist D'Arcy McNickle. Though a number of modern figures are represented, no living people are included among the subjects of the biographies.

Third, this encyclopedia draws people and places together around nearly one hundred interpretive entries that present brief overviews of significant topics, historical eras, and cultural traditions. Topics range from "African Americans and American Indians" to "Alcoholism" to "Beads and Beadwork" to "Bible Translations" to "Dreams" to Indian-white relations in a variety of eras in both Canada and the U.S. to "Voting." Like others in the volume, the entries in this third category have largely been produced by Indian and non-Indian people who have devoted years to the topic and written books on it, and who can therefore present both essential information and an introduction to major interpretive issues. Thus the "Treaties" entry, by a Native American law professor, explains why these frequently forgotten documents are so important to contemporary Indian people; "Birth," by a Lakota anthropologist, describes both the rituals associated with childbirth and the meanings attached to the event; and "Diseases," by a pioneering scholar in the field of historical demography, presents the evidence for what some have called the American "holocaust" that followed the introduction of European pathogens into the Western Hemisphere.

A final category of entries provides definitions for terms and events that are frequently mentioned and often misunderstood. Readers of these entries can learn about dozens of topics, including black drink, cradle-boards, grass houses, peyote, and the White Dog Ceremony. Included in this category readers will also find entries on a dozen major treaties and several famous battles. It should be noted that many of these entries were drafted by Native American graduate students who took on the assignments as part of their scholarly training.

Acknowledging the limits of both space and imagination that confine any work of this kind, most entries conclude with suggestions for further reading. These bibliographical references have been selected to favor books that are relatively easy to find over arcane scholarly articles and works that are rare or out of print. In addition, the entry on bibliographies, prepared by a distinguished Navajo librarian, features titles that will enable serious readers to supplement the references provided with individual entries.

The four types of entries make up a work containing 447 separate listings. Two hundred sixty authors prepared the signed entries; short, unsigned entries reflect the work of nearly two dozen others. The editor encouraged each contributor to share his or her special insights and interpretations while providing readers with the facts and figures they would expect to find in a reference work of this kind. As a result many entries speak with the distinctive voice of their author. Ottawa historian Cecil King, for example, combines the tribal stories of origin with conventional historical information, while Lakota linguist Albert White Hat writes with great passion about the contemporary significance of his tribal language as well as its history and principal characteristics. Beginning with "Abenaki," and ending with "Zuni," the Encyclopedia of North American Indians contains both a wide array of topics and a symphony of voices.

The outstanding scholars who prepared the entries for this work deserve thanks both for their effort and their good humor. To reduce a life's passion to fifteen hundred words is no easy task, particularly if one is writing in a contentious academic setting or trying to create a portrait of a respected community figure that will be recognizable to neighbors and relatives. Virgil Vogel's "Place Names" entry stands out in this regard. Drawn from his several books on Indian place names in particular states, and submitted only days before his death, the entry is both a wonderful summary of a subject that engaged Professor Vogel for many years and an invitation to others to explore the topic further. In addition I am particularly indebted to the Native American authors who agreed to write descriptions of their tribes or relatives knowing from the start that completing the task to everyone's satisfaction would be impossible.

The Encyclopedia's advisers — JoAllyn Archambault, Joy Harjo, Nancy Lurie, Peter Nabokov, Alvin M. Josephy, and Vine Deloria, Jr. — have provided steady encouragement throughout the project. Agreeing first that this book was a good idea and then worrying with me over entry lists, authors, and gaps in coverage, they have provided an essential source of advice and criticism. Several of them also allowed themselves to be recruited as authors and in that capacity made additional valuable contributions to the final product.

Supporting my efforts throughout this project has been the Newberry Library, a unique research library with spectacular holdings in American Indian history and culture and a tenacious commitment to public service and innovative scholarship. Work on the Encyclopedia began in 1992 when I directed the library's D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian and ended not long after I had been reincarnated as Vice President for Research and Education. Running steadily through this transition have been the generous support of the institution's leadership, particularly President Charles T. Cullen and senior research fellow Richard H. Brown, as well as the wise counsel and guidance of my valued colleagues John Aubrey, James Grossman, Craig Howe, Harvey Markowitz, and Helen Hornbeck Tanner.

Finally, to take a project of this size and complexity from pipe dream to publication in less than four years requires a steady team effort. Four stalwart individuals have seen me through the wilderness of entry lists, lost authors, and orphaned topics. In Chicago the superb work of Bonnie Lynn-Sherow, Rebecca Bales, and Amanda Seligman kept the paper flowing, the authors reasonably happy, and the pretension level low, while back at headquarters in Boston, senior editor Borgna Brunner and the staff at Houghton Mifflin set a standard of efficiency, accuracy, and insightfulness for us all to aim at. Special thanks go to assistant editors Holly Hartman and Amy K. Smith, designer Anne Chalmers, picture researcher Margaret Anne Miles, production supervisor Beth Rubè, proofreader Diane Fredrick, editor David Pritchard, and Carl Walesa, whose careful copyediting and deep involvement in the project provided a pleasant voice downstream telling us all that we were on the right track.

Frederick E. Hoxie