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The Ecological Indian: Myth and History. Shepard Krech III. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1999. 318 pp. Illustrations, notes, references, index. $27.95 cloth (ISBN 0-393-04755-5), $14.95 paper (ISBN 0-393-32100-2).
In The Ecological Indian: Myth and History, anthropologist Shepard Krech III sets out to prove that the image of the indigenous peoples and cultures of the Americas so regularly invoked to demonstrate humanity's capacity to live harmoniously with nature is a misleading one, more the product of image building by modern ecologists than a reality of history. That image of the American Indian as ecologist was epitomized in a 1971 Keep America Beautiful, Inc. campaign against litter depicting actor Iron Eyes Cody as a Native American who shed tears over thoughtless acts of littering and pollution. It was an effective campaign, Krech tells us, but did not reflect the true history of the relationship between Indian peoples...