Review of the book "Kulturwandel bei den nordamerikanischen Plainsindianern" by Jürgen Döring

2

I have chosen this specific book, because it deals with the aspect of horses in the Indian culture. As hippology and horse riding are hobbies of mine, I have a special interest in this specific aspect of Indian and North American culture from a horseman’s / horsewoman’s point of view. As I possess a solid particular knowledge in the field of horsemanship I am able to critically judge and evaluate literature which deals with the topic of horses.

Contents

At the beginning of the book the author presents a short survey of the literary sources that he had at hand for his studies. Afterwards he explains and defines the meaning of the terms ‘culture’ and ‘cultural changes’ from a sociological point of view. In this context he submits an ethnographic outline of the cultural history of the Cheyenne and the Comanches, i.e. the two tribes that are subject to his studies. In the following the author then presents a short discourse about the domestication of the horse, how it was brought to the new world, how it spread there and how and when the Comanches and Cheyenne took over the horse as part of their culture.

The following chapters give information about the number of horses a single Indian, an Indian family and a whole tribe owned. The author describes the way the horses were kept, cared for and bred by the Indians. The equipment for saddle-horses and packhorses are described. Then the several functions of the horses in the different techniques and strategies of hunting bison are discussed. Other topics are the importance of mustangs as a source for getting horses, the role of the horse in the different trade relations of the Indians, the horse’s role in warfare and in the intratribal relations of the Indians. Within the framework of the last aspect the author also describes the role of the horse concerning the Indian rights of inheritance, their religion and its role as a means of payment.

The book closes with a comparison of the ways of life of the Comanches with that of the Cheyenne before and after the

3

introduction of the horse into their cultures. The differences and parallels in the cultural development of the two tribes are described and a final, critical evaluation of the current state of scientific research and discussion concerning the role and meaning of the horse in Indian culture is given.

Assessment of the book

Structure

The structure of the contents appears to be comprehensible and logical. The list of contents is classified in a detailed way, which makes it easy to find information to specific aspects without a (missing) subject catalogue. The introduction of the book, containing the definition of the term ‘culture’, the description of the author’s sources and the ethnographic outline of Indian culture form a v ery good entry into the following discussion. The topic of the book is extensively worked upon. All aspects of every day Indian life, in which the horse plays some role or other, are discussed thoroughly. The comparison of the life of the Indians before and after the takeover of the horse as well as the tables and illustrations in the appendix and the extensive bibliography round off the book.

Contents

The information given about the Indian culture do make a well investigated and extensive impression. The author holds a position of critical distance concerning the reliability of his literary sources and compares different, partly strongly differing accounts from various sources (those contrasting accounts are especially apparent in the tables in the appendix). Unfortunately there are given only few sources of Indian origin. But this is due to the circumstance (as the author explains right at the beginning of the book) that there are not too many of such Indian sources available. The documentation of both the Cheyenne and the Comanche culture appear to be accurate.

4

As said before, all aspects of Indian daily life, in which the horse is somehow involved, are discussed. The final summary gives a comprehensible recollection of all the major results concerning t he horse’s influence on Indian life, so that all in all, this aspect is brought out perfectly well for these two tribes. Nevertheless, there are several aspects in the book I am not content with. I will discuss them in the following.

Cultural changes

The scientific definition of the term culture is sufficiently explained at the beginning of the book as far as the purpose of this definition is concerned, namely that of getting a definition which can be worked with within the framework of the given topic of the book. Nevertheless, the author could have used and cited more current literature (the dates of the cited sources range from the beginning of the 20 ^th century up to 1970, merely one of the cited sources was published in 1980) as the research on the object of culture is permanently progressing. The author could have presented different theories and models of culture and cultural changes, out of which he could have chosen a specific model for his paper.

A deficit of the definition the author gives for the term culture is the fact that culture is presented as something uniform: “Innere Widerstände der Kultur gegen die aus der Neuerung resultierenden Veränderungen dürfen nicht bestehen” (p. 11). This statement is not correct. To prove this, we can take the computer as an example. Although it has become an established element of western culture, there are still lots of people (especially elder ones) who refuse to accept it and to work with it. Another example, which would disprove the author’s statement, is t he existence of subcultures. Punks and Skins, for instance, are counteractive movements towards the dominant culture. Nevertheless, they are part of the overall cultural system.