680 american ethnologist

Gottlieb, for example, manages to circumvent history and identity. David Hurst Thomas re-
this difficulty in herchapter by using two fictive
views this struggle, principally between Native
authors, one a grandmother and the other a Americans and nonnative authors in this broad
male diviner. Their contrasting voices suggest ranging, timely, and important book. Thomas,
the tensions among belief, norm, and practice an archaeologist and curator at the American
that a single perspective cannot convey. Museum of Natural History, takes a clear and
forthright position in support of collaboration
A related difficulty is how to distinguish con-
between Native Americans and non-Native
scious efforts at socialization from a more dif-
fuse socially constructed set of child rearing scholars. In practice, such collaboration is dif-
practices within which children learn about ficult to achieve when human remains, mate-
their social world and construct their own per-rial culture, concepts of race and identity, po-
spectives. A cultural recipe approach cannot litical power, and the writing of history are at
easily make this distinction and tends to make issue.
all such practices appear normative; and, of All these elements collide in the story of the
course, the speaker cannot tell readers what Kennewick Man, a nearly complete 9,000 year
goes without saying. old skeleton found in Washington state in
Of the seven guides, three (by Gottlieb, De-1996. Certain skull traits suggested to the initial
laney, and Johnson) are based on the authors' investigator that this individual did not resem-
fieldwork; these carry slightly more convictionble any contemporary Native American popu-
than the others. All manuals provide refer- lation but instead looked Caucasoid. Major
ences for every nugget of wisdom—from chili- popular media highlighted this story using pre-
laced enemas to witchcraft precautions— sentist and essentialized ideas of race. In the
showing that, however fictional the manuals United States, the Native American Graves
may be, nothing has been made up. But, in Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
chapters based on published sources, the was still in its first decade of implementation.
authors must inevitably take greater risks withThis legislation, explained in historical context
problems of back-translation since the originalin Skull Wars, requires that Native Americans
source of the data (in speech, action, or report)
be involved when considering the treatment of
cannot always be known. Without an authen- their ancestors' remains and ritual objects, re-
tic native voice, readers cannot really be suredressing centuries when such control had been
who is claiming what. lost. The debate sparked by Kennewick led to a
Such technical worries, however, should challenge to NAGPRA because of the use of ra-
not obscure the genuine merits and pleasures cial characteristics to compare individuals
of this book. As a package of readable ethnog- separated by 9,000 years; conflicting and
raphies of birthing practices and a concise in-changing concepts of race, tribe, and identity;
troduction to the variety of children's worlds,and recent archaeological finds suggesting a
the collection could hardly be bettered. A complex early history of human settlement in
World of Babies should prove ideal for intro- the Americas.
ductory courses in anthropology and, more Skull Wars is essential reading for under-
generally, in the study of childhood. This bookstanding why this debate has received so much
is also a contribution to the debate about media attention and become a lightening rod
modes of ethnographic writing. in the factionalized world of American four
fields anthropology. The book is divided into
five sections, following a brief foreword by
Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, Vine DeLoria, Jr. In the first and shortest sec-
and the Battle for Native American Identity. tion, Thomas begins with the colonial period
David Hurst Thomas. New York: Basic Books, and early European appropriation (through
2000. xiii + 326 pp., endnotes, bibliography, naming) of Native American identities as well
index. as the lingering erroneous perception held by
colonial era Americans that Native Americans
JEFFREY L. HANTMAN
would disappear imminently. In the second
University of Virginia
section, Thomas revisits the birth of anthropol-
Kennewick Man is only one of the latest and ogy in the United States, reviewing the major
most publicized incidents in five centuries of figures in the field—Lewis Henry Morgan,
struggle over writing about Native American Frank Hamilton Cushing, Franz Boas, Ales
book reviews
Hrdlicka, Robert Lowie and Alfred Kroe-
ber—all of whom studied Native Americans,
In the third section, Thomas switches focus to
the debate over the earliest settlement of the
Americas and the current challenge to the Ber-
ing Land Bridge model of Native American ori-
gjns. Here, as in his conclusions, Thomas
makes clear that while he feels discomfort with
some efforts labeled as science, this does not
preclude him from valuing a scientific, inter-
disciplinary approach to anthropology: "Right
now, almost everything relating to the First
Americans seems to be up for grabs . . . an un-
mistakenly positive sign that archaeological
scientists are doing their job—maintaining
critical attitudes and avoiding the pitfalls of
orthodoxy" (p. 174).
In section 4, Thomas provides a background
to the NAGPRA legislation along with a brief
overview of the changing position, legal and
otherwise, of Native Americans in relation to
American society in general and to anthropol-
ogy specifically. In the final section, entitled
"BridgingtheChasm/'Thomasoffersa hopeful
view of an archaeology in which Native
Americans are not objects or informants, but
authors and collaborators via current case
studies. Most topics touched on in Skull Wars
have been discussed by others in detail else-
where, and Thomas amply references this lit-
erature. Thomas intends here to provide a
scholarly review accessible to anthropologists
and nonanthropologists that puts some current
controversies in a historical context. He has
done this with much success. Some may see
his work as an unrelenting critique of U.S. an-
thropology as a colonizing discipline, but one
cannot deny the problematic perspectives and
specific incidents that created such a disjunc-
ture between anthropologists and Native
Americans. Thomas's detailed critique of the
discipline's history is mitigated by his chal-
lenge to any simple dichotomization of the de-
bate into Native American versus anthropolo-
gist. Here Thomas pays attention to differences
of opinion—as well as evolving opinions—
within and between the many sides of the dis-
cussion.
Skull Wars provides a historical case study
of an issue in anthropological ethics that is of
global concern and spans all fields of anthro-
pology. Thomas presents the current and un-
usually public controversy in American archae-
ology in a manner that may lead some readers
to view collaborative research as presenting a
681
conundrum in terms of compromise in author-
ity in writing history and control of material
culture. Thomas discusses a challenge to as-
pects of scientific method by advocating a per-
spective in which ancestors are not objects,
American legal definitions of property are re-
considered, time is marked differently, and
oral history is considered along with history
drawn from written documents and material
culture. The author shows how this challenge
has cycled through debate in North American
anthropology and is not unique to the present.
In Skull Wars, Thomas argues that in this his-
torical moment American archaeologists must
find a balance that respects the voice, values,
and historical questions of the people about
whom they write. The writing of Native Ameri-
can histories through archaeology can only go
forward with such an approach and will be
greatly enriched by adopting this perspective,
Carnival and Culture: Sex, Symbol, and Status
in Spain. DavidD. Cilmore. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1998. ix + 244 pp., photo-
graphs, notes, bibliography, index,
Carnival Song and Society: Gossip, Sexuality,
and
Creativity in Andalusia. Jerome R. Mintz.
Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1997. ix + 267 pp.,
maps, index,
KRISTIN NORCET
McGJ,j U n j v e r s i t y
In these recent books, two longtime ethnog-
raphers of Spain serve up rich portraits of the
celebration of carnival in southern Andalusia,
a region known for its great beauty, exuberant
popular cultural traditions, and a population
deeply riven by class struggle and grinding
poverty. Every February for the three or four
days leading up to Lent, people in villages and
towns throughout this bastion of Mediterra-
nean folk culture explode in licentious revelry,
dressing in masquerade or transvestite cos-
tume, filling streets and local bars, and engag-
ing in ribald antics and lewd behavior that
scorn customary social taboos. The highlight
of Andalusian carnival festivities, and the main
focus of these two ethnographies, is the cos-
tumed wandering musical band that serenades
crowds with spicy picaresque songs or coplas.
The authors explore this rich reservoir of oral
culture to provide a deeper understanding of
Andalusian life.