Neither Wolf Nor Dog: American Indians, Environment, and Agrarian Change
Document Type
Book
Journal/Book Title/Conference
Neither Wolf Nor Dog: American Indians, Environment, and Agrarian Change
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Publication Date
1997
Abstract
During the nineteenth century, Americans looked to the eventual civilization and assimilation of Native Americans through a process of removal, reservation, and directed culture change. Neither Wolf Nor Dog explores the experiences of three groups--Northern Utes, Hupas, and Tohono O'odhams--with settled reservation and allotted agriculture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Each group inhabited a different environment, and their cultural traditions reflected distinct subsistence adaptations to life in the western United States.
Author David Rich Lewis shows how each group experienced the full weight of federal agrarian policy yet responded differently, in culturally consistent ways, to subsistence change and the resulting social and environmental consequences. Attempts to establish successful agricultural economies ultimately failed as each group reproduced its own cultural values in a diminished and rapidly changing environment. In the end, Lewis demonstrates, such policies and agrarian experiences left Indian farmers marginally incorporated and economically dependent.
Recommended Citation
Neither Wolf Nor Dog: American Indians, Environment and Agrarian Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). Paper edition 1997.
Comments
Originally published by Oxford University Press. Limited preview available through remote link. This book can be purchased through the publisher.