Review
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Title: Viewing the Ancestors: Perceptions of the Anaasazí, Mokwic, and Hisatsinom
Author: Robert S. McPherson
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Genre: Oral History, Ethnography, Folklore, Indian History
Year Published: 2014
Number of Pages: 242
Binding: Hard, with dust jacket
ISBN: 978-0-8061-4429-0
Price: $34.95
Reviewed by Laura Bayer for the Association for Mormon Letters
Scholars have long puzzled over the ancient pueblos of the American Southwest, trying to explain the “disappearance” of the peoples known to the Navajo as Anaasazí, to the Hopi as Hisatsinom, to the Numic peoples as Mokwic, and to politically correct contemporary scholars as the Ancestral Puebloans. They have sought answers in potsherds, tree rings, linquistics, and coprolites, but, Robert S. McPherson suggests, they have neglected one category of records that could flesh out the histories of these peoples.
For decades scholars assumed – over objections from native peoples – that when the ancestors of today’s Navajos, Utes, and Paiutes arrived in the Southwest they found only the impressive ruins of these earlier civilizations. Today, as McPherson notes, “more and more archaeologists and historians are accepting the idea that the Navajos and other nonpuebloan groups of Native Americans very well could have been present when the Anaasazí lived in the Four Corners region.”(34) He argues that their oral traditions “could explain far better than material remains why these ancient Puebloans left as they did.”(35)
McPherson’s introduction summarizes contemporary uses of Native American oral history as an interpretive source. He considers the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) investigation of the Pectol shields and the reevaluation of the Little Big Horn Battlefield after a 1983 fire, both of which validated oral accounts previously dismissed.
The first chapter outlines archaeological interpretations of Southwest prehistory, focusing on the Basketmaker /Pueblo cultures in the period from roughly 1000 BC to 1300 AD. The chapter ends with a discussion of two events documented through both science and Hopi tradition: the eruption of Sunset Crater in Arizona in 1064 AD and the destruction of Awat’ovi in 1700 AD.
The next three chapters explore three groups of stories that provide a wealth of information about the Anaasazi: explanations of the underworld and the emergence of humans in this world; accounts of the peoples’ journeys and settlements; and storytellers’ uses of the Anaasazi downfall as an exemplar for their own peoples.
The concluding chapters address the treatment of Anaasazi artifacts and sites in Navajo, Paiute, and Ute oral tradition; the impact of traders and archaeologists; and contemporary Navajo attitudes toward these “places of connection to the past that provide powers for today.”(196)
McPherson takes on a complex task: highlighting the ways in which native traditions bear on the academic/scientific record while simultaneously sketching the changing meaning of the stories within the native cultures over time. His book explores the fraught borderlands between culture, belief, and science, as well as the confluence of multiple academic disciplines. The uncertainty of this terrain ensures that his strategy will frustrate some readers who occupy the well-defended redoubts of each camp.
Of necessity the text is suggestive rather than comprehensive, and few readers will share McPherson’s deep familiarity with Navajo, Ute, Paiute, and Hopi traditions. Providing an overview of related tribal world views clearly has a higher priority in this work than focusing in detail on how these sources validate or challenge specific archaeological, scientific, and scholarly interpretations. Some readers will undoubtedly find it unsettling that the author accords the native belief traditions and the non-Indian scientific cosmology equal weight.
McPherson answers these concerns with a multifaceted argument. He reminds skeptics that scientific analyses, just like traditional stories, occur within a particular “social and ideological order.”(49-50) He points out that many elements of oral tradition can be confirmed by scientific methods – the tales contain specific references to known events and to sites whose modern locations can be identified. Finally, he argues, cultural perspectives need not be scientifically provable to be worthy of consideration on their own terms.
This study poses questions and suggests new directions enough to occupy scholars for decades. It contributes to the growing recognition of the value of oral accounts in scholarly research and establishes a welcome tone of respect for Indian cultural traditions. Let us hope McPherson continues to refine this approach and that others join him.