The Penobscot Dance of Resistance is a thoroughly researched history of a Native American people’s circumstances in Maine. Based largely on primary sources from archives and fieldwork, MacDougall uses the metaphor of dance to illustrate how the Penobscots have been able to preserve their culture in the face of European domination, pressure, and assimilation. The performance of dance, music, production of art and crafts, and the stories of the culture hero Gluskabe continue to assert Penobscot identity through tourism displays, museums, and living history performances.
The Penobscot experience is one that is all too familiar to scholars of historical and contemporary Native American cultures. First, we learn of colonial exploration followed by commercial exploitation and the spread of European-introduced diseases and alcohol consumption that force the indigenous cultures to near extinction. Then, missionaries and assimilation government policies attempt to save the “Indian” from his so-called heathen existence, meanwhile swindling the people out of their land through crooked treaties and broken promises. The colonial governments assume that the local culture will either become extinct or assimilate into the dominate culture. Finally, in the late 20th century, Native cultures become empowered by the Civil Rights Movement, Land Claims settlements and other cultural developments that allow the Native peoples to assert their identity through the revival of language, arts, and music. The Penobscots share in this tragic yet revitalized history. MacDougall does an excellent job describing this part of the Penobscot experience through primary archival sources, though it makes for tedious reading at times.
Particularly interesting to the scholar of contemporary Native American cultural performances, is the chapter near the end of the book, titled “Birches and Baskets: The Commodification of Culture and Economic Resistance.” This chapter shows the reader that Penobscot culture is alive and revitalized in today’s society. Beginning in the 1970s and after the passage of the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980, Penobscots asserted their ethnic pride through the sale of baskets, canoes, and as tour guides and living history museum specialists. These displays allow visitors and scholars alike to experience and learn about Penobscot culture and provide the Penobscots with much needed income, even if the displays seem to exploit Penobscot identity. Unfortunately, the author leaves the reader hanging at the end of the book by giving only a short summary of the Penobscot cultural performances from the 1980s to the present. Overall, however, the book is an informative description of the Penobscot situation, which parallels the history of most other Native American groups.
--------
[Review length: 416 words • Review posted on January 26, 2006]