Customer Reviews

The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area

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A truly beautifully written book about the Native American people who populated the Bay Area, from Monterey to San Francisco. The descriptions of the land they inhabited as recently as 200 years ago makes wonderful reading aloud, and the Ohlone customs and beliefs will fascinate anyone living in the Bay Area. I rather fell upon this book at the SFPL, and can't believe my good fortune that it is available. As a high school librarian in SF, this can be well used by upper elementary through high school students wanting to know about the people and the place that existed long before SF was a settlement,when the area supported some of the densest populations of flora and fauna in America. The illustrations (b&w) will be much used as the basis for a mural on our area's history. They are clear and capture, in their intricacy, so many details that kids will relate to.

This book is a reissue of a wonderful, illuminating book that's destined to remain in print as long as there is a California. Painstakingly researched, The Ohlone Way is an engrossingly readable study of the way the Native Americans of the Bay Area lived in peace, plenty, and harmony for centuries before the Spanish missionaries came in and annihilated an ancient way of life in the space of two generations. There was plenty of food (acorns from the oaks, birds, small game, fish, and shellfish), the tulle reeds furnished material for clothing, boats, and shelter, there was no cause for violence, and the weather was mild. Now and then I suppose an earthquake came along and knocked down a few tulle huts, but they rebuilt them the next day.
Drive to the top of the hills above Berkeley on a clear day, look west toward the bay, San Francisco and Marin counties, and imagine no cities, just a land of plenty inhabited by many small widely-separated but inter-related tribes, little wisps of their fires rising skyward here and there...
Then put back the freeways and bridges and houses and cars and people - and think about what we've done. Then go out and buy another book, Ishi in Two Worlds for the story of what became of the last of these people.

A classic work selected by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the top 100 western nonfiction books of the twentieth century, The Ohlone Way: Indian Life In The San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area by Malcolm Margolin has endured the test of time as being keenly insightful and informative today as it was twenty-five years ago when it was first published. Offering descriptive presentations of the Ohlone way of life from rituals of childhood and marriage to daily life to spiritual practices, this 25th Anniversary Edition of The Ohlone Way is a very highly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library Native American Studies collections.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in the Native American and ecological history of the Bay Area. It is thoughtfully written and is an easy and enjoyable read. There is tremendous detail about the Ohlone culture and about the natural world of the Bay Area before European contact. The book also provides an interesting cultural study by bringing the reader into a world of values that are markedly different from our own. This is one of the best books I own.

THIS BOOK IS A STARTLING REVELATION OF WHAT THIS WESTERN COAST WAS BEFORE EUROPEANS CAME AND BUTCHERED AN ENTIRE RACE WITH THEIR DISEASE AND ALCOHOL ETC. THIS WAS A TRULY MAGICAL LANDSCAPE. LIKE SOMETHING FROM A DREAM. FLUSH WITH CREATURES NOW LONG GONE. THIS BOOK IS A POWERFUL PORTRAIT OF A LOST EDEN AND THE PEOPLE THAT COURTED HER.

I was pleased with the condition of the book. It was in the condition stated by seller.

This book does what many fail to: describe pre-contact Indians as HUMAN BEINGS. I guarantee you, if you read this book, you will come away with a profound feeling of kinship to these people (whose descendants, I might add, are still living in the Bay Area as a cohesive nation and trying to regain the "federally-recognized tribe" status that they lost after a massive bureaucratic screw up in the 1920s).

Please read this book, you'll be glad you did.

Malcom Margolin must have researched intensively to create this excellent book. Like historical fiction, it presents known information about the Ohlone people in a well-told story, giving a more direct, personal view to the reader, perhaps capturing the feeling of the times it describes. A mere 213 years ago when Oholone culture was at its incredible zenith, a time of great wealth and deep religious knowledge.

Unfortunately there were not many redeeming qualities to this book. The book was frustrating in its lack of citation and I believe the author lacks any historical credibility. The author himself admits that he has no credentials in history or anthropology. Furthermore, the few bits of interest are far outweighed by overwhelming amounts of unnecessary historical fiction.

As fascinating as many parts of this book were, The Ohlone Way was a disappointment. I began the book with no preconceived notions but almost immediately I was frustrated with the author's style of writing. I found it nearly impossible to tell when the author was writing factual, sourced material, or if he was filling in blanks with accounts of other native cultures from the same time period or if he was purely speculating based on his own notions of what native life must have been like. The author stated that he did use sources on the Ohlone as well as other peoples and yet he rarely used actual citations. Such a lack of sources led me to doubt the historicity of much of the author's statements.

Another bothersome characteristic of The Ohlone Way was how the author presented his information/conjectures. Much of the story sounded like some sort of bad soap opera or one of those intolerable after school specials. I didn't understand the purpose of the story about the hypothetical divorced woman who wallowed in her own depression. There was no need for the long, drawn out explanation of how she triumphed over her depression by weaving the most beautiful hypothetical basket ever seen. I understand the author is trying to be creative and make history more appealing to a wider audience but there are plenty of other ways to do so without resorting to writing cheesy historical fiction.

In closing, I would like to say that the Ohlone people and culture seem extremely fascinating but unfortunately I don't feel like I really know very much about them. The author's lack of citations, historical credibility, and his disregard for historical integrity have only led me to doubt nearly ever statement he made throughout the entire book. If he had taken out some of the fictional aspects of the book and spent his time more wisely on citing sources, The Ohlone Way could have been a most fascinating historical study rather than the somewhat silly novel it became.