What does it mean to be an Alabama-Coushatta Indian on the reservation today, separated from ancestral territory and traditions by the intervention of white missionaries and government agents?

In vivid, efficient prose, author Jonathan Hook focuses on the Alabama-Coushatta Indians as he explores the emotional debate among contemporary Native Americans over how to determine who and what are "Indian."

Tracing the various European intrusions into Creek (Muskhogean) culture and their effect on the tribal life of the Alabamas and Coushattas, Hook shows how the upheavals eventually led the two tribes to the reservation they now share in Southeast Texas.

Supplementing scarce written sources with oral history from tribal members, Hook describes village organization, the matri-clan social pattern and marriage practices, and religion, including pride in being "a peculiar and beloved people of God." With unparalleled access to tribal traditions, he details notions of justice and order as exhibited in the "law of retribution" and the Green Corn Festival, when all crimes except murder were forgiven. He then considers the dual paths of searching for cultural identity today: the reintroduction of former cultural practices and creation of a synthetic new group identity by adopting pan-Indian practices.

Hook's work is a fascinating study of the dynamic nature of personal and communal ethnic identity. It will entertain and inform those interested in Native American history and tradition and will break new ground in ethnohistorians' study of identity.

 
Price: 45.07 USD