Authentic Indians: Episodes of Encounter from the Late-Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast

Raibmon analyzes how Indians in the late nineteenth century found themselves straddling concepts of modernity and authenticity that were constructed in opposition to one another. Government officials and Reservation agents continually pressed them towards "moderninty," while anthropologists and an emerging middle class white culture, interested in Native culture, continued to push them towards "authenticity." Within the confines of this struggle, Indians began to find ways they could use their emerging store of newly discovered "cultural capital" to their advantage. Raibmon's book contains fantastic scholarship and addresses a topic that needed to be studied more. Her study is fascinating. One of my personal favorites.

if you are going to read 1 book on Indians in the next year, read this one. the author may have written the 'best in world' discussion of how and by whom Indians are defined. probably the best book on the subject since "The White Man's Indian : Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present" by Robert F. Berkhofer