Montana 1911

Reviewed by: Montana 1911: A Professor and His Wife among the Blackfeet Jay Hansford C. Vest Edited by Translation from Dutch by Mary Eggermont-Molenaar, with contributions by Alice Kehoe, Inge Genee, and Klaas von Berkel. Montana 1911: A Professor and His Wife among the Blackfeet. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. 417 pp. Paper, $35.00. In June 1911 Wilhelmina Maria Uhlenbeck-Melchior accompanied her husband, Christianus Cornelius Uhlenbeck, a University of Leiden linguistics professor, to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation for a summer of ethnological field studies among the Pikuni (Blackfeet) Indians. It was Uhlenbeck's intent and purpose to record traditional Pikuni narratives using the Native language. On June 8, 1911, Uhlenbeck and Wilhelmina arrived in Browning, Montana. In the days that followed the Dutch couple was guided and cared for by Joe Tatsey and his family, who shared their camps with them throughout the short Montana summer. As Tatsey entered the Hotel Browning, where the Uhlenbecks were staying, Mrs. Uhlenbeck wrote: He [Tatsey] looked at me and I looked at him, until Uhlenbeck himself approached him. How friendly he seemed to be, this long, lanky man with his very dark complexion, his black eyes, his shining, black, straight hair, parted in the middle. "I am come at last, only a little slow," he declared. (34) With this acknowledgment a Pikuni elder introduced himself to a distinguished anthropologist and his wife, who insightfully recorded the remarkable collaboration that ensued in which they studied the Blackfeet language. Presented together with Uhlenbeck's Original Blackfoot Texts and A New Series of Blackfoot Texts, Mrs. Uhlenbeck's diary is an exceptional memoir filled with insightful observations and ethnological gems gleaned from her extraordinary powers of observation. Supplying a humanistic memoir, her diary significantly supplements the Blackfeet texts recorded by her husband. With her memorable account we meet the Blackfeet on personal terms that give them a familiar character and deep-seated humanity. Uhlenbeck's Blackfoot Texts volumes have intrigued me for many years. During the late eighties I was called upon to document the religious significance of an area of Blackfeet sacred geography as centered within the Lewis and Clark National Forest.1 As I studied Blackfeet sacred geography, particularly concerning the Badger–Two Medicine area, I carefully sought out the mythological sources that referenced the moralized landscape of tribal lore. Of course, Uhlenbeck's materials were essential to my study, but I sought [End Page 541] to find more than the books he had published. In fact, I traveled to archives throughout the region, including Alberta. However, no field notes or other archival materials revealing Uhlenbeck's work were to be found. In this period I also worked with Blackfeet students to study the traditional clan system, and, essential to this engagement, there was a paper written by Uhlenbeck's prized student, P. E. Joselin de Jong. Sharing this work with my students at Blackfeet Community College, I remained determined to seek out more archival evidence from these Dutch scholars. A few years later, in 1992, during my first Fulbright Award to Germany, I was invited to speak at the Rijks Universiteit in Groningen, the Netherlands. At this conference I was introduced to an elder Dutch scholar who acknowledged knowing the nephew of Joselin de Jong. Learning of my interest in these Dutch scholars, my host kindly made contact with the younger Joselin de Jong, and I departed for Leiden to meet with him. Arriving in this university town on a pleasant October morning, I walked a short distance into the city to Joselin de Jong's home, where a tall and most pleasant gentleman of about seventy met me at the door. He introduced himself as J. P. E. Joselin de Jong's nephew, and we discussed his uncle, a scholar among the Blackfeet, over morning tea. The younger Joselin de Jong began painting a picture of the two Blackfeet ethnographers that seemed to fit well with the overriding Dutch stereotype of sparse efficiency and care with words and materials. In the end he suggested that neither scholar was given to keeping excessive files and field notes. After their materials were published, moreover, both scholars most likely threw out

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• Montana 1911

  William E Farr•Ethnohistory•2007

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