The Zuni and the American Imagination (Hardcover)

by Eliza McFeely (Author) "O brave new world,/ That has such people in't!" muses Shakespeare's Miranda as she gazes for the first time on other people of European descent..." (more)
Key Phrases: other ethnologists, treasure cave, expedition report, Matilda Stevenson, Frank Cushing, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The ancient settlement of Zuni Pueblo has seen many visitors over the centuries, from Spanish conquistadors to tourists from around the world. For more than a century, it has also drawn great attention from anthropologists, three of whom--Matilda Coxe Stevenson, Frank Hamilton Cushing, and Stewart Culin--brought remarkably different views of the Zuni people to the professional literature.

In this study, historian Eliza McFeely considers the work of Stevenson, Cushing, and Culin at Zuni, which, though influential, often misrepresented the realities of life there. Although of mixed value for anthropologists today, their work, McFeely suggests, reveals much about what contemporary Anglo Americans wished Native Americans to be; their "scientific creation stories" point to the shortcomings and contributions of the anthropological enterprise. A woman committed to science and accustomed to having to struggle in a culture dominated by men, Stevenson, for example, gave undue import to the role of women in Zuni society and revealed secretly observed rituals while dismissing matters of spirituality as superstitious. Cushing, a writer of then-popular books, tended to turn all Zuni expression into fables. "When artifacts and informants could not answer his questions," McFeely holds, "he 're-created' the circumstances and allowed his own intuition to supply the missing links." And Culin was so entranced by Zuni material culture, by baskets and jewelry he acquired mostly from white traders, that he scarcely seems to have noticed the living people of the pueblo.

McFeely's critical study of fieldwork at Zuni throws light on Native American history, and the uses and misuses to which it has been put. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly
Ever since the publication of Ruth Benedict's bestselling Patterns of Culture in 1934, which imagined the culture of the Zu¤i Indians as a communal alternative to Western individualism, many Americans from utopian novelists like Aldous Huxley and Robert Heinlein to New Age seekers have been riveted by these natives of what is now New Mexico. In her first published work, which began as her dissertation at NYU, McFeely (who teaches American history at the College of New Jersey) explores the influence of the Zu¤is on American culture. Her focus is on the work of three turn-of-the-century ethnologists Matilda Stevenson, Frank Cushing and Stewart Culin which provided the foundation for Benedict's later, better-known studies. Though McFeely may overstate the importance of her own subjects in the complex relationship of Zu¤i to the American consciousness (after all, Benedict's work was more widely read), she offers a fascinating glimpse of the Dark Ages of American anthropology. For example, Stevenson introduced a Zu¤i "princess" to official Washington, apparently unaware that she was a berdache, a man who had chosen to identify with the women of the pueblo. Meanwhile, Culin prepared a hoard of "manufactured artifacts" to send to his Brooklyn Museum's ethnology halls. While Stevenson, Cushing and Culin were sincerely committed to preserving what they thought was a vanishing culture (Zu¤i is very much alive today), it's their "walk-on-the-wild-side" mentality that makes them such irresistible subjects. Despite repetitious, academic writing, McFeely's provocative study will appeal to American history fans, who will never again be able to look at museum dioramas of Native American cultures in the same way. Illus. not seen by PW.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang; 1st edition (April 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809027070
• ISBN-13: 978-0809027071
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,947,429 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Zuni anthropology, December 29, 2008

By	Russell Kyncl - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This work is an academic yet accessible review of the history of interaction between the Zuni Pueblo near Gallup, NM, and anglo anthropologists in the late 19th and early 20th Century. It is an engaging read that will be of interest to anyone facinated with Native American athropology, especially of the pueblo tribes.

The issues discussed still resonate in Zuni, and the stories are still being told in the ongoing discussions of the Zunis amoung themselves as they live the tension of maintaining their unique culture, language and religion in the midst of anglo dominance.