The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 94, July 1990 - April, 1991 Page: 135

Book Reviews 135
ing, and in many places charmingly written and illustrated. The photo-
graphs of University of Alabama student George Wallace bloodying the
nose of his boxing opponent, and of W. Lee Pappy O'Daniel posing
with a turkey, are alone worth the price.
Southwest Texas State Universzty DICK HOLLAND
Encyclopedia of Native American Trzbes. By Carl Waldman. Illustrations
by Molly Braun. (New York: Facts on File Publications, 1988.
Pp. xiii+293. Author's note, maps, illustrations, glossary, index.)
Perhaps the most important thing to say about Carl Waldman's Ency-
clopedia of Natve Amercan Tribes is that it should not be confused with,
or considered a competitor with, older Indian encyclopedic works such
as Frederick Hodge's Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, or
the new multivolume Handbook currently being published by the Smith-
sonian Institution Press. This single-volume encyclopedia offers nei-
ther the breadth and detailed coverage of the old Hodge classic nor the
up-to-date multiauthor scholarship of the new Handbook.
What it attempts, the Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes does fairly
well. It tries to assemble solid entries incorporating anthropological,
historical, and current status information on the most common major
tribes of North America, including Mesoamerica and the Arctic, plus
entries on the old Wissler/Kroeber "cultural areas" (that is, the "Plains
Culture Area," the "Southwest Culture Area," and so on) of the present
United States. And through the watercolor illustrations of the author's
wife, Molly Braun, the book endeavors to convey some idea of Native
American material culture, crafts, and art.
Given the enormous mass of secondary literature that exists on In-
dians, these are actually pretty limited goals, and realizing them is not
so very difficult. To my mind, the most useful thing about this encyclo-
pedia is its information on the current status of tribes, sections that
firmly put the lie to the old saw about "vanishing Indians," if, indeed,
that idea needs burying by now. Otherwise, scholars of Native Ameri-
cans might perhaps find this work useful for quick general information
on tribes outside their expertise, but not much else about the book is
compelling unless it is in the author's studied attempt to present eth-
nically balanced histories of cultural conflict, and even here he often
lapses into "Black Legend" treatment of the Spaniards. There are quite
a number of errors (Kadohadacho is misspelled, p. 33; the Dakota
Badlands are said to be mountains "rising up from the plains," p. 189; a
pre-contact Aztec beverage is said to be made from honey, p. 28), but
not irritatingly so. Except in demographics, a good deal of the new in-
formation in Indian studies is included. Yet the bibliography seems