Book Reviews

BOOK REVIEWS Abel, Kerry: Drum Songs: Glimpses of Dene History. Montreal: McGill- Queen's University Press, 1993, xxviii + 339 pp., black and white photographs, tables, maps, bibliography, index. [McGill-Queen's Stud- ies in Ethnic History series.] ISBN: 0-7735-0992-5, Cloth CDN $44.95; 0-7735-1150-4, Paper CDN $19.95. Kerry Abel grew up in northern Canadian resource towns but, not surprisingly, learned little from her schooling about the north and its Aboriginal residents. This personal experience inspired her research focus as an historian. With this book, she hopes "... to readjust the balance of historical writing" (p.x) and "... to answer the question of how these northern people have been able to maintain a sense of cultural distinctiveness in the face of overwhelming economic, political, and cultural pressures from the European newcomers to their homelands" (p.xi). While she does not claim to be writing an ethnohistory or history from Dene perspectives, she does incorporate a wide range of social, economic, and political topics. Dene or Athapaskan peoples are widely distributed across the western Subarctic, from Hudson Bay to interior Alaska. They live in northern California and in the southwestern United States. The Dene of this history are those occupying the Mackenzie River drainage, especially that part of it that later became the Northwest Territories, with some discussion of contiguous regions. A map showing the general population divisions used in this book would have been helpful. The narrative begins by outlining the history of human occupation of the Mackenzie Drainage to the point of contact with Europeans, drawing upon archaeological evidence and Dene oral traditions (Chapter 1) followed by a very broad-brushed picture of Dene life in the 18th century on the eve of contact with European traders (Chapter 2). The discussion suggests a lack of familiarity with anthropological approaches. There is some confu- sion in the text among archaeological cultures, divisions related to subsist- ence pursuits, and the cultures of socio-cultural groups (those with distinct identities). Oral traditions are introduced as the sources of "... the clearest detail of ancient history" (p.8), which may be true if one knows how to "read" cross-cultural texts. However, the narrative does not address the difficulties in eliciting historical information from cross-cultural oral traditions, but rather draws selectively upon stories relating to particular historic problems. The remainder of the book is divided into a series of chapters concern- ing the impacts of the fur trade (Chapters 3 to 7), the post-1870 expansion 396 Book Reviews of the Canadian state into the Dene region (Chapters 8 and 9), and post- world War II Dene political activism (Chapter 10). Her premises that the Dene have not been passive recipients of European actions, but actively involved in determining their own futures, even when Euro-Canadians made that difficult to do, is argued convincingly. Although their traditional territories were situated mostly beyond the Mackenzie Drainage, the Chipewyan were the first Dene to become involved with European traders, at a time when the Hudson's Bay company (HBC) was confined to its posts on Hudson's Bay. Abel presents early Chipewyan behavior as strategic, taking advantage of their proximity to the Bay to become shrewd fur trade middlemen (Chapter 3). European traders moved into the northwestern interior after 1763, establishing contacts with many other Dene peoples (Chapter 4). The consolidation of competing fur trade companies in 1821 set the stage for a new period in the fur trade (Chapter 5), usually considered to have been one of relative stability. Abel points out that the Dene were often unwilling to trade with Europeans, and that trade relations continued among different Dene groups, sometimes leading to hostilities. This situation was complicated by a new social group of increasing importance. The freemen, former fur trade employees who stayed in the Dene region following the merger, became part of the region's social formation. They married Dene women and contributed to a Dene-Métis population. Abel contends that the Métis continued to trade independently and were a source of ongoing connection with the Red River settlement. This allowed Dene trappers to by-pass HBC posts (a point also noted in Chapter 7), although the supporting evidence presented here is limited. She does not explore persisting Métis patterns of employment with the HBC or other aspects of Métis relations with Dene, important topics that warrant more elaboration. Chapter 6 focuses on the Christian missions to the Dene. The Dene welcomed the missionaries when they arrived in the mid-19th century but later rejected their demands when the missionaries were unable to recip- rocate in culturally-appropriate ways. By the end of the 19th century, most Dene were nominally Christian but interpreted Christianity from their own cultural viewpoints. In short, in religion, as in trade, the Dene were active recipients in the new value systems promoted by the missionaries. Abel does not examine the impacts of missionaries and the residential schools in the 20th century; a different situation due to government support for missionary initiatives. A turning point in Dene history occurred in 1870, when Canada acquired the Dene lands from the Hudson's Bay Company. The end of the Book Reviews 397 HBC's monopoly resulted in renewed competition by traders, a topic that is introduced (Chapter 7) but not pursued in later chapters. The remainder of the book deals with Dene societies in their dealings with the Canadian state after 1870, mediated by the signing of treaties (Chapter 8) and regulated by the Indian Act and other legislation, especially acts governing access to wildlife resources (Chapters 8 and 9). In the 20th century, the Dene had to contend with new and competing industries which, for the most part, did not provide them with benefits. Chapter 10 is a useful summary of the political activism of recent decades, especially Dene challenges to government policies and their involvement with political and constitutional development in the Northwest Territories. Abel's book synthesizes a wide body of scholarly work as well as drawing upon unpublished sources. It provides an overview of Dene history that will be enlightening for the general public and useful for undergraduate students, who will find the bibliography a particular benefit. It is not without problems, however, especially the omission of a discussion of Dene historiography. One must read between the lines of the text and bibliography to learn about the historical work done by other scholars, with a few notable exceptions. For example, Abel's discussion of the oral traditions of the White River ash fall does not clearly credit even her own co-authors in an earlier paper and publication about this subject, where this topic was explored in considerable detail (see Moodie, Catch- pole, and Abel, 1992). Work by anthropologists was summarily dismissed (pp.x-xi), despite their extensive contributions to the Dene historical litera- ture and the fact that Abel has obviously read and utilized these sources. Less seriously, the broad sweep of the narrative means that it must miss many of the shadings and nuances of Dene history. The focus on the Dene of the Mackenzie Drainage occasionally wanders, digressing for example, to the Yukon. The text contains some errors and difficulties that could have been eliminated by a good edit, preferably by someone familiar with Dene cultures and history. The information about the Dogrib hand game photo is incorrect (p.xxviii), as are some of the names of Treaty 8 signatories at Fort Chipewyan 8 (p.170). There are discrepancies between information in the text (p.175) about Treaties signed prior to 1910 and the information on Map 3 (p.166). Other areas are more gray: in some instances, motives are assigned to people that are in fact the author's speculation. Did Dene women adopt cooking pots simply for "the convenience of a ready-made utensil (p.75), or because they were impressed by specific properties about the pots? Abel suggests that orphans may have been killed following an epidemic (p.150), a viewpoint which is quite different from the usual 398 Book Reviews interpretations of infanticide and which thus requires supporting evidence. Reconstructing past lifeways and events is a highly complex business. With Drum Songs, Abel has made a commendable effort, giving us an easily read historical narrative that is particularly important in its efforts to identify the active roles that Dene played as they interacted with traders, missionaries, and government officials over time. Patricia A. McCormack Provincial Museum of Alberta 12845 - 102 Avenue Edmonton, Alberta Canada, T5N 0M6 Reference Moodie, D. Wayne, A.J.W. Catchpole and Kerry Abel 1992 Northern Athapaskan Oral Traditions and the White River Vol- cano. Ethnohistory 39(2):148-171. Alia, Valerie: Names, Numbers, and Northern Policy. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 1994, ix + 118 pp., map, photos, appendices, references. ISBN: 1-895686-31-8, Paper CDN $11.95. This book is a fascinating study of attempts by successive Canadian governments to influence and/or manipulate the traditional naming practic- es of the Inuit. As Alia remarks in the preface, names are an important facet of cultural identity. Not only do they identify individuals, but they also often express and embody power (p.1). The powerful impose their own patterns of naming on the less powerful. Geographical names in the Arctic have, until recently, been those of the non-Inuit (Qallunaat). Names of places are derived from the names of important explorers, e.g., Frobisher Bay; or other important personages, e.g., Victoria Island; or places, e.g., Devon Island, significant to non-Inuit society. Only in recent times have the Inuit been able to put traditional names such as Kuujuaq, formerly Fort Chimo, and Iqaluit, formerly Fro- bisher Bay, on maps.

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