Review Comments 209

without a trained population able to develop the use of those local communal assets they retain. The required talent for this renewal will come, perhaps, out of the schools, from veterans, from those who have unwillingly emigrated from reservation communities, and from many of the reservation tradition- alists. There are certainly alternatives to planless, individualistic, urban industrialism, and American Indians could bring their unique traditions to the task of their discov- ery and development.

It is clear Cox and I disagree but little on the issue of nationalism and its associated cultural renascence. But on the logical common ground between the Indians and their fellow oppressed, we express important differences. The isolation of reservation and urban Indians, not only from privileged Whites but from their like-situated fellow Americans, the Blacks, the Appalachian Whites, the Mexican-Americans, is a debili- tating legacy. Academic anthropology, be- cause it contributes most of the literature on American Indians, has through the selectiv- ity of its historical perspective on them, con- tributed to that legacy. Certainly the Indians see themselves as distinct among all the many American minorities. I see them in that light. Black Americans, many of whom want to form poor peoples’ alliances with the Indian groups, so see them. However, the American minorities caught in poverty have much more in common, in the struc- ture of their relations with the dominants, than they have differences. Discussion of the similarities between the Indians’ land alien- ation, the dispossession of the small farmers of America from the land, the failure to im- plement Reconstruction with land distribu- tion to the ex-slaves, and the similarities be- tween treatment of the pre-1848 Spanish land grants of the Southwest and the reser- vations are all far too long overdue. Simi- larly, synthesis of different scholarly works on the kinship arrangements that have grown up among the Indians. the Blacks, and mar- ginal White farmers should go forward, as also should the comparative history of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Bureau of In- dian Affairs.

This is the time to add to the efforts of those few workers who are going beyond the treatment American Indians have been tra- ditionally subjected to in scholarly and pop-

ular writing. To place the Indians in the whole texture of North American peoples, combining sociological and anthropological theory in interpretations, is the practical and scholarly need of this time. The Indians do not need friends like Steiner, who emo- tionalize their every historical adversity and contemporary challenge. The Indians might welcome outside scholars and popularizers who treat them as men. Their communities might also be treated as products of a differ- ent and no doubt more hazardous historical process than affected other American com- munities, but as human artifacts nonetheless, for which no apology nor indictment is called for, but analysis, understanding, and interest might be expected.

CLARK JOHNSON Windham College

SCOTCH’S REVIEW OF Essays on Medical Anthropology: A COMMENT I believe a word of clarification is called

for in the matter of Norman Scotch’s review (70:1197-1198) of the proceedings I ed- ited for the Southern Anthropological Soci- ety entitled Essays on Medical Anthropol- ogy. The reviewer has misconstrued the pur- pose of that issue and wronged the Society. Instead of criticism the Southern Anthropo- logical Society should receive praise for publishing its proceedings as an additional outlet for professional communication and as a means for the development of anthro- pology in the South. How many other re- gional professional societies have published proceedings?

There is a difference between published proceedings and a textbook or book of read- ings. Our particular proceedings was based on papers that were presented at an annual meeting of the society and included volun- teered contributions. It was not a sympo- sium organized to clarify the problem areas in medical anthropology and it was not based on selections from the field as a whole. I cannot understand why a published proceedings should be judged on the same basis as a textbook or reader. How many re- viewers have criticized the American Ethno- logical Society or other societies for not pro- viding complete coverage in their published proceedings on the tribe or Spanish-speaking people in the United States or other subjects chosen as a focus?

210 A merican A nthropologist [72, 19701 Professor Scotch speaks of the need for

textbooks and readers on the subject and says that the new publication by the Southern Anthropological Society will do little to remedy the lack of literature in the field. We, who were associated with this publication, would agree with this, and did not ever delude ourselves into thinking that this would be our goal. It is one thing to say that there is a necessity for material on the subject and another to criticize a society’s first published proceedings for not filling this need. We, too, along with Professor Scotch shall await with great anticipation the appearance of a text- book or book of readings on medical anthro- pology.

THOMAS WEAVER University of Pittsburgh

CARSTEN’S REVIEW OF The Changing Village Community:

A COMMENT I am disinclined to reply to reviews,

partly because of the impression, on reading the AA’s Discussion and Debate section, that however much personal satisfaction it may give the individuals involved I am not certain of the extent to which scholarship is advanced by these minor exchanges. (A cur- sory glance through AA files of a decade ago indicates that we devote appreciably more time now to such matters than we used to. Perhaps when some venturesome colleague explores the dynamics of our profession this interesting shift will receive its due.)

In his review of The Changing Village Community ( A A 71:510-511) Professor Carstens raises an explicit question about an important ethical matter, and this does need a reply. He states:

Whereas authors are ultimately responsible for their own works, readers should not lose sight of the influence that a “publisher’s se- ries” may have on the finished product. The possibility of this influence is suggested in several places in this book, notably in the brief discussion of Folk versus City (pp. 37- 38). At this point I gained the impression that Halpern had a good deal more to say about Maine, Tonnies, Durkheim, and the rest of the club than he was allowed to say.

This is simply not true. The only limita-

tions imposed by the publisher were those implicit in the format. Comments were re- ceived from academics associated with the series, and these were welcome. I was under no pressure from them to limit my remarks.

The reviewer refers to Eric Wolf‘s book on peasants, which appeared in a parallel Prentice-Hall series, and cites my failure to mention it. Certainly one is conscious of pertinent publications by scholars in the same field. Wolf‘s well-known and useful work has been recently cited by me else- where (“Peasant Society: Economic Changes and Revolutionary Transforma- tion” in Biennial Review of Anthropology, 1967, B. Siegal and A. Beak, eds., Stanford University Press, pp. 46-139). Concerning Carsten’s related comment about my ignor- ing Redfield and “the rest of the club,” I feel that appreciation of the work of others does not imply a need for constant reference thereto.

What is needed, I think, is a new point of view with respect to the study of peasant so- cieties. Far from focusing on peasantry as exclusively isolable, as Carstens implies I am advocating, it seems to me appropriate to investigate in more detail (by utilizing the results of scholarship in the other social sci- ences and humanities in addition to the in- tellectual traditions of our own specialty) the ways in which rural-derived values have de- termined the nature of our urban growth.

A very stimulating contribution from out- side the club is the recent essay by Roger Starr in Horizon (Winter 1968) in which he explicitly links the enclosure system in Eng- land with land use in central Manhattan and contemporary suburbia. The shock of expulsion was so great, Starr claims, that the creation of the individual homestead became an unquestioned virtue in the New World and one that continues as a strongly held value into our times.

Carstens attributes to me the sentiment “Let’s salvage peasantry now that savagery has gone.” Salvage implies future use. And although I have no desire to “exhort” any- one, as the reviewer says, it does, however, seem appropriate to suggest that a good, hard look at the displaced peasant in our- selves might be as heuristic as the typolo- gies, crude or otherwise. Wolf has called this