Searching for the Bright Path
The Mississippi Choctaws from Prehistory to Removal
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11837231 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Theda Perdue (0000-0001-8781-854X, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Publication date | 2017-10-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | DATASET |
| Venue | The SHAFR Guide Online (REPOSITORY) |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim030280032 |
| OpenAlex | W1968873638 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
Searching For the Bright Path: The Mississippi Choctaws from Prehistory to RemovaL By James Taylor Carson. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. Pp. xvi, 185. Illustrations, index. $40.00.) James Taylor Carson's Searching for the Bright Path is, as the subtitle of the book suggests, a straightforward history of the Choctaws from before European contact to the removal period. As the latest addition to the University of Nebraska Press's Indians of the Southeast series, under the editorial guidance of Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, Carson's book an important and fitting successor to Patricia Galloway's Choctaw Genesis, 1500-1700, which was published in the same series in 1995. It as though Carson picks up the story and carries it forward through another 150 years. Like Galloway, he relies extensively on archaeology to understand early Choctaw history and then reads the Euro-American documentary record ethnohistorically to determine how Choctaw cultural ideas and institutions shaped the changes occurring within Choctaw society in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Unfortunately, the book's main point somewhat obscured by contradictions in the series editors' and the author's introductions. The editors say that the book revolves around the twin themes of persistence and (xi), but the author claims that his book is not a story of progress and decline, of resistance and survival, or of persistence and (3). The series editors seem right to me in their estimation of the book's contents, since Carson does go on to show how the Choctaws interpreted new developments in light of past beliefs and how deep cultural continuities influenced the direction of change. But Carson, I suspect, worries that readers will think of persistence and change as absolutes-the survival of certain cultural traits and the dying out of others-when he wants us to perceive of change and persistence as an ongoing relationship. Although his introduction could clarify better the subtle distinction for which he aiming, the rest of the book successful at making this point. Organized mainly by chronology, the book's chapters also bring out recurring themes important in Choctaw history: the tripartite geographical and political division of the Choctaw Nation into three distinct entities (usually designated as Western, Eastern, and Southern), the expectations inherent in the leadership of chiefs, economic transformation and its impact on the gendered division of labor, and spirituality
Archaeology · Art history · Prehistory · Resistance (ecology · Subtitle · Successor cardinal · Archaeology and Natural History · Classics · History · Philosophy
To Intermix with Our White Brothers
Interpreting Native Trans-Appalachia, 1670-1770
The Supreme Court's Role in Choctaw and Chickasaw Dispossession
Unexpected patterns of mitochondrial DNA variation among Native Americans from the Southeastern United States
Indigenous histories of the American South during the long nineteenth century
Tribal “remnants” or state citizens
By Her Hands
Borderlands in the Atlantic world
The Native South
Race and Culture
The Role of Ethnogenesis and Organization in the Development of African-Native American Settlements
Nations Colliding
Diasporic Women
| Citations per year | 0.57 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2003 - 2021 (19) |
| Highly cited | No |