One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark (History of the American West) [Hardcover]

Colin G. Calloway (Author)

Book Description

Series: History of the American West | Publication Date: October 1, 2003

This magnificent, sweeping work traces the histories of the Native peoples of the American West from their arrival thousands of years ago to the early years of the nineteenth century. Emphasizing conflict and change, One Vast Winter Count offers a new look at the early history of the region by blending ethnohistory, colonial history, and frontier history. Drawing on a wide range of oral and archival sources from across the West, Colin G. Calloway offers an unparalleled glimpse at the lives of generations of Native peoples in a western land soon to be overrun.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Author of First Peoples and a distinguished Dartmouth historian, Calloway concentrates on the Indian experience from the Appalachians to the Pacific, in a time frame from prehistory to the 18th century. The scope is staggering, but Calloway masters it, demonstrating a remarkable command of a broad spectrum of historical, ethnographic and archeological sources including printed material and oral traditions. Conventional American history moves from east to west. Calloway's narrative tends instead to follow a south-north pattern, with cultural innovations like corn and horses diffusing from Mesoamerica along the river-centered trade routes. Conventional histories of Indian-European relations place them at the center of the Native American experience in what became the United States. Calloway demonstrates that until the mid-18th century, the European impact was secondary and indirect on most of the cultures involved. Conventional myths assert the relative peacefulness of Native American interaction. Calloway shows that conflict was also a norm. Conventional wisdom presents Indian cultures as static, living in a timeless harmony with their environment. Calloway establishes that they were in fact constantly changing, adapting to climatic changes, animal migrations, ecological and technological innovations and, not least, the movements, peaceful and hostile, of other cultures. Indian response to European penetration was correspondingly flexible, ranging from partial accommodation to resistance, then rebellion, as European governments sought to move from asserting influence to exercising control. And Native Americans sustained that agency until the "Killing Years," the period from 1770 to the century's turn, when the impact of the American Revolution extended from the Appalachian Mountains to the Pacific Coast, and a smallpox pandemic unpredictably turned the Native American West into a graveyard. It was that last episode, mocking theories of historical determinism, that set the stage for the Lewis and Clark expedition to encounter shocked survivors and suddenly empty lands that seemed to invite European occupation. One Vast Winter Count is both a major work in its own right and a magnificent first volume in Nebraska's new History of the American West series.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Many bands of Native Americans recorded their histories on the hides of buffalo or other game animals; they were called "winter counts." That is the source of the title of this enthralling and brilliant survey of the history and culture of various Native American groups from trans-Appalachia to the Pacific. Calloway is chair of the Native American Studies program at Dartmouth College; he was selected to write the opening volume in a projected six-volume history of the American West. This is revisionist history; like other "new western" historians, Calloway focuses on place rather than process. That is, he views the West as a series of regions in which various peoples entered, stayed, left, but always changed the land and were changed by it. He masterfully integrates the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology, environmental science, and history to provide a wonderful panorama illustrating both the diversity and the vibrancy of these rich cultures. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 631 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press; First Edition edition (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803215304
• ISBN-13: 978-0803215306
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #833,626 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars VASTLY INFORMATIVE, February 3, 2004

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charles falk (Novato, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark (History of the American West) (Hardcover)

Colin Calloway has written an impressive debut volume for the University of Nebraska Press' History of the American West series. It weaves the latest archeological discoveries together with Native American oral history into cotemporary European accounts to produce a panoramic overview of 15,000 years of human existence is western America. His narrative ends at the point where coventional school textbooks begin -- with Lewis and Clark. This book has expanded my understanding by showing me that "The West is not a land of empty spaces with a short history..." Calloway wants us to see western history as a "long and unbroken continuum" that stretches backward in a vast spiral of years and forward beyond our own lifetimes.

Most of us have a static view of Native American culture in the West; a 19th century snapshot with tribal characteristics and territories frozen in place. Calloway gives the reader a motion picture full of swirling migrations and altered identitites -- the result of altered climate, technology, as well as of European intervention. He integrates important events in native history into the timeline of world history in a way I have not previously encountered. As the Revolutionary War raged east of the Appalachians, a great smallpox epidemic that reduced native populations by 50-75% was raging to the west. The land Lewis and Clark explored was far emptier than it had been just a generation earlier.

The diffusion of corn-growing into cooler regions of North America, starting in the sixth century C.E. initiated a revolution in Native American life. At the time the Normans invaded England, the Cahokias were building monumental earthworks and plazas amid fields of corn at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi. It was probably the largest city North America had seen until New York surpassed it at the end of the 18th Century. The Cohokias, like the Anasazi of the Southwest, had vanished before Lewis and Clark pushed west. The arrival of the horse on the plains in the 16th century coicided with climatic changes that expanded buffalo populations. Some native groups that had adopted the agrarian life forsook their cornfields, moved out onto the plains, and morphed into nomadic warrior cultures. The Sioux, Apaches, and Cheyenne were farmers before they were buffalo hunters.

Although ONE VAST WINTER COUNT is unapologetically academic, it is well written and very readable. Without interrupting the narrative flow, Calloway identifies his sources and earmarks points of scholarly disagreement. The book devotes less space to native cultures of the Pacific coast than to others. Calloway's explanation is that he had to rely heavily on the record created by Europeans (who came later to that region). He says he chose to make his primary focus "centers of action and interaction". He ends the book by pointing to the depopulation of the rural West, the exhaustion of water resources, and the return of the buffalo as signs that the endless spiral of winters may be making another turn.

49 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars One Vast Winter Count, September 12, 2004

By 

William E. Mendus (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark (History of the American West) (Hardcover)

Don't get me wrong. I learned a lot from this book. But I would not have learned nearly as much if I did not come to the book with quite a bit of knowledge. I suggest that you read the excellent "Atlas of the North American Indian" before you read this book, or at least that you have the "Atlas" by your side as you read this book.

The book has several very good features. One is the depiction of the adaptation of Native American cultures to changing circumstances, particularly climate change, the introduction of corn, the return of the horse and the acquisition of firearms. Another is the very valuable narrative thread throughout the book about trade with Europeans and the impact it had on Native Americans and on the relations of tribes to each other. Another is the section on the impact of the late 18th century smallpox epidemic. The book would be valuable for these alone.

If you would like to read more about trade with Europeans and the related impacts, I recommend "Before Lewis and Clark" by Shirley Christian.

But there are serious problems with the book. Where to begin? There are so many deficiencies that it is hard to pick a starting point.

Maps are few and late. Rivers are important to Native American history, but the first map showing a comprehensive view of the rivers of what is now the United States does not appear until page 127 and on that map the rivers are not named. The first map naming the rivers of what is now the northeast United States does not appear until page 229. Another map without river names appears on page 271. The Arkansas, Red, and Sabine Rivers are mentioned on page 105, but are not named on a map until page 329. The Angelina and Neches Rivers are also mentioned on page 105, but I cannot find them on any map in the book.

Terminology is introduced but not defined or explained. What the heck is a potlatch? The first reference is merely to a potlatch. A page later, there is a reference to a potlatch ceremony. But the author does not tell us what it is.

Likewise, confusion reigns regarding language and tribal groups. Early on, the author speaks of the Athabaskans. Pray tell, what is an Athabaskan? Is Athabaskan a tribe, a cultural group, or a language? There is one reference to later on to "Athabaskan speakers," but it is not in the index.

On pages 297 and 298 the author switches back and forth between the terms "Piegan" and "Blackfoot" several times. This will be confusing if the reader does not know that Piegan is generally taken to be a language and Blackfoot is generally taken to be a tribe and both terms describe almost the same group. And my terminology may not be exact here.

And what is an Algonquin? If the author had devoted just a few pages early on to an overview of Native American languages and cultures and how they intersect, the book would be much, much better. There are web sites that offer quite a bit of detail on Native American languages.

The author is obviously very knowledgeable and to an extent, I think that he is trapped by his own knowledge. He uses terminology that is familiar to him, but which may not be familiar to an average reader. He does not realize that he is writing over the heads of much of his audience.

There are strange gaps in the book. For example, there is no mention of the continuing discussion about the date of the first migration of humans to the Americas. And, there has been some very interesting work done lately on genetic relationships between various ethnic groups based on DNA analysis, but that work is not mentioned at all.

There are omissions that are apparently dictated by political correctness. For example, the author mentions that in Meso-America (wherever that is, because the author does not tell us) ball games had a sacred significance, but fails to tell us what that significance was. Again, you can search the web and find more information. Actually, Meso-America is a region covering some of the southern part of what is now Mexico and extending further south. The sacred significance of ball games was that the losing team was sacrificed. I'm not sure we know whether the players were volunteers or not.

On the other hand, for this day and age, the book is curiously Euro-centric. For example, there is no mention at all of Northwest Coast Native Americans until contact with Europeans. The Northwest Coast tribes have a fascinating cultural history with many features, such as totem poles, that are very distinctive. But there is not a word about their culture. Many other tribes are mentioned only on contact with Europeans. Do we know anything about them before contact?

My last few comments point to the largest deficiency of the book. There is very little treatment of Native American religion, culture or art.

There is some mention of religion particularly in the first chapter, but there is no overview. One common thread seems to be narratives about emerging from darkness into light. Is this in fact a common thread? The author is silent. A few pages devoted to an overview would have been very helpful.

There is very little discussion of Native American culture. OK, we know they ate corn (but the famous trinity of corn, beans and squash goes unmentioned) and later buffalo and there is some discussion in passing of leadership and adoption customs.

But other aspects of Native American culture are neglected. What did these people wear? What were their farming practices? How did they store and cook their food? How did they preserve their meat? What sort of houses did they live in, apart from lodges (or tepees), Pueblos or cliff dwellings? Did they bury their dead? What were their courtship customs? What customs prevailed before contact and how did they change with contact? And so on and on. Do we know anything about these things? If so, what are the sources? If not, why not?

Native American art is neglected entirely. My view is that Native American art is frequently very powerful and evocative. It was and is an important part of Native American culture. But there is almost no discussion of Native American art in the book, even though the book draws its' title from a particular form of Native American art.

Overall, the book fails. A popular reader depending on this book for a history of Native Americans in the period will be left very much short of where she or he should be. The editors would have been wise to break it up into two books and to spend some time to overcome some of the failings I have mentioned.

I don't know a book to recommend on Native American religion, culture and art. Perhaps another correspondent can suggest one.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First Rate Survey, August 29, 2006

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R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark (History of the American West) (Paperback)

This is an excellent survey of the history of the American West up to about 1800. For several good reasons, Calloway construes the American West as including much of Canada, the Old West of the early 19th and late 18th centuries - the trans-appalachian areas, and northern Mexico. Calloway begins with a nice precis of prehistory and covers major phases of North American native cultures such as the Missippian societies and events such as the spread of maize agriculture. Since much of the historical record per se comes from the accounts of early European explorers and settlers, the majority of the book is an excellent history of the interactions of native cultures with European invaders and the resulting effects on native societies. Calloway devotes ample space not only to oft discussed topics like the Seven Years War but also to excellent coverage of the Spanish and French Empires in North America, the coming of the horse, and the impact of European based trade networks. The emphasis throughout is the life and history of native societies. The quality of writing is excellent and the bibliography and footnotes are first rate.