Transforming Ethnohistories: Narrative, Meaning, and Community Edited by Sebastian Felix Braun

Abstract

In Transforming Ethnohistories, editor Sebastian Felix Braun draws together the work of various scholars who benefited from the tutelage of Raymond DeMallie. Perhaps best known for his anthropological work with the Sioux, DeMallie is a pillar of the Indiana University community—emeritus Chancellors’ Professor of Anthropology and retired curator of North American Ethnology for the Mathers Museum. He also cofounded the American Indian Studies and Research Institute (AISRI) on the Bloomington campus. According to former student and contributor Paula Wagoner, “Indiana University was a particularly good site for such an undertaking because of other related American Indian collections already being curated by the staff at the Mathers Archaeological Museum” (p. 170). DeMallie is considered by many an exemplary practitioner of ethnohistory, the interdisciplinary tool designed to help scholars create more comprehensive studies of Native peoples. Ethnohistory, Braun explains, “combines historical and anthropological perspectives, written and oral sources, the voices of dominant and oppressed people” (p. 10). DeMallie’s dedication to the ethno-historical approach clearly unites the essays in this anthology, as the various authors of Transforming Ethnohistories point to his contributions to the methodology and his mentorship of it in their own work.