Book Reviews çj

Researchers a generation from now Haig-Brown, assuming the role of could use this as an instructive text for advocate, has melded history, anthro­ social history and as a data source for pology, , geology, geo­ trade jargon, technology, and local graphy, fish biology, and modern-day names for landmarks and fishing ter­ travel writing into a passionate argu­ ritories. It is also a good source of ment for attentive stewardship of one information about some of the low of the continent's great rivers. profile fisheries (like jigging and Full of anthropomorphic language, trolling), thus balancing the media's the book would have readers revere emphasis on the salmon industry. the river as a living entity. Haig- Helpful maps at the beginning of most Çrown suggests requiring every young articles pinpoint the story's setting, person in British Columbia to make and a generous selection of black-and- a trip down the river before letting her white photos, many from family or him vote in a provincial election. scrapbooks, add a personal element to However, reading this book would these accounts of life and labour on probably be the next best thing. While BC's coast. some readers may find his fervour a If Working the Tides has the feel of bit over the top, the book is excep­ a home video at a family reunion, then tionally well written and engaging — The Fraser River, by Alan Haig- a worthy recipient of the Roderick Brown, could be likened to a Holly­ Haig-Brown Regional Prize it took wood extravaganza. A beautifully home from the 1997 BC Book Prizes. produced book, most readers will Although seeing the Gulf of probably first be drawn to its visual Georgia National Historic Site iden­ element. Rick Blacklaws' photographs tified in the photo captions as the of the Fraser River, from its head­ Britannia Heritage Shipyards complex waters to its delta, are stunning. The was a disappointment, there is little else book's designer has taken full ad­ to mar the pleasure of poring over this vantage of his material, creating a book. In addition to learning a great visual effect that, with the captions, deal about the Fraser River and how appears to tell the story by itself. It it has shaped BC's land and peoples, would be a shame to consider the text the reader can enjoy a fine example of as a secondary element, however, as environmental advocacy writing.

How "Natives" Think: About Captain Cook, For Example Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. 318 pp. US$14.95

By KEITH THOR CARLSON, University of British Columbia

IVE YEARS AGO Marshall revisionist study The Apotheosis of Sahlins's reputation as one of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking F the most respected and influ­ in the Pacific threatened to destroy ential figures in seemed Sahlins's professional reputation. In secure. However, the professional ac­ The Apotheosis, Obeyesekere went colades given Gananath Obeyesekere's beyond challenging Sahlins's inter- ç8 BC STUDIES

pretations and methodologies to ac­ scholars have not "slavishly repeated cusing the old sage of perpetuating an the irrational beliefs of their ethnocentric, self-serving, historical ancestors" (e.g., Cook as god). Rather, untruth (that late eighteenth-century Obeyesekere's " has more Hawaiians considered Captain James in common with Cook's voyage than Cook to be their god Lono). In level­ his uncompromising criticism of it ling this charge, Obeyesekere ex­ suggests." pressed his conviction that only Sahlins believes that an under­ Natives can write Native history — standing of the "other" is achievable, that Sahlins is ideologically/racially but, contrary to Obeyesekere's "com- incapable of understanding how monsense suppositions," it is not Aboriginal people think. How ascribed. For, as Sahlin's makes clear, "Natives" Think: About Captain Cook, the shared experience of having been For Example is Sahlins's no-holds- "discovered" by Europeans is an barred work of revenge and refutation. insufficient basis for claiming a Sahlins argue? that Obeyesekere's universally shared Native world view. writing is "an example of how one To truly understand how Natives makes a pidgin anthropology — think one must first become which is at the same time a pseudo- intimately familiar with their local history — by substituting a folkloric ethnographic and historical context. sense of'native' beliefs for the relevant Objectivity is culturally biased, and Hawaiian ." He shows careful ethnography is crucial to ap­ that Obeyesekere's greatest flaw stems preciating other . In the wake from his assumption that as a Native of Sahlins's considered and logically Sri Lankan he is somehow endowed tight argument Obeyesekere's appro­ with insights into the way other priation of eighteenth-century Natives think — insights Sahlins and Hawaiian voice crumbles like a house other Europeans allegedly cannot of cards. hope to achieve. Sahlins finds this Sahlins exposes not only Obeyesekere's concept of exclusive shared world views sloppy ethnography, but also his among all "native" people not only twisted method of assessing the legiti­ offensive but, given that Obeyesekere macy of historical sources: Obeyesekere creates the impression that eighteenth- assumes that "the absence of a European century Hawaiians interpreted the mention that Cook = [the god] Lono world with a Western "bourgeois sense means that for Hawaiians Cook was of practical rationality," ironic. For not Lono ... while the presence of a Sahlins, such an obviously presentist Hawaiian mention that Cook = Lono agenda illustrates Obeyesekere's is an indication of the European myth propensity for reinterpreting the past to that effect. In other words, the in order to serve perceived contem­ European non-assertion is evidence of porary needs. That other scholars failed Hawaiian realities, while the Hawaiian to raise objections to Obeyesekere's assertion is evidence of European views is indicative of the sorry state beliefs." Sahlins does not stop here, of critical thought and peer review, however. In meticulous detail, he and the excesses of what some have documents how Obeyesekere's discus­ defined as the age of apology. Sahlins sions of archival documents is re- demonstrates that, contrary to proachably selective at best, and Obeyesekere's assertions, Western blatantly deceptive at worst. Many of Book Reviews pp

Cook's European contemporaries did, in common with current Northwest in fact, report that the Hawaiians Coast ethnohistorical debate, the regarded Cook as their god Lono. issues addressed in the Sahlins- In writing How "Natives" Think, Obeyesekere exchange are central to rather than How Hawaiians Thought^ ethnohistory. As ethnohistorians we Sahlins broadens not only the appeal must be cautious and reflective in our of his book, but the scope of his application of interpretive models, and critique. Northwest Coast historians we must be honest with regard to our tend to regard their field as a sub- archival and oral sources. We must not discipline of Canadian or American allow modern sensibilities and/or historiography — that is, we look east perceived contemporary political for our intellectual identity. Yet, the objectives to taint our research. In history of early contact here was as light of this publication, and despite much, if not more, a part of a broader the fact that Sahlins's depiction of Pacific experience than it was an eighteenth-century Hawaiians might extension of historical processes stem­ not coincide with modern Western ming from the St. Lawrence Seaway understandings of "practical ration­ or the Great Plains. If for no other ality" (and might, therefore, be reason than the temporal parallels politically unpopular in the short linking contact on this coast with term), Sahlins's place in history as a other parts of Pacific Oceania, we leading twentieth-century thinker and would be well advised to pay greater scholar appears secure. So too, one attention to the academic discussions hopes, are the exhaustive ethno­ emanating from our west. For while historical research techniques, the the particulars and even the subject cautious yet honest methodologies, matter of a controversy over Cook's and the critical processes of peer Hawaiian apotheosis may have little review Sahlins propounds.

Shingwauk's Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools J.R. Miller Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996. xii, 582 pp. Illus., maps. $29.95 paper,

By CELIA HAIG-BROWN, York University

HE GLOBE AND MJIL'S cover people] won't disappear unless their story on the Minister of issues are addressed." The Minister, TIndian Affairs' response to the and by implication too many Canadian Report of the Royal Commission on people, remain caught in "liberal assimi- Aboriginal Peoples (23 November lationist ideology" — expecting 1996) reaffirms James Miller's assess­ Aboriginal people to disappear. Miller ment of residential schools across concludes his study with the recog­ Canada and their persisting intent. nition that such ideology is impeding The Minister says: "There has to be any progress in bringing to reality an understanding that they [Aboriginal Aboriginal people's vision(s?) "of