Seven Generations of Iroquois Leadership: The Six Nations since 1800

Seven Generations of Iroquois Leadership: The Six Nations since 1800. By Laurence M. Hauptman. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008. xxxii, 326 pp. Cloth, $45.00, isbn 978-0-8156-3165-1. Paper, $22.95, isbn 978-0-8156-3189-7.)

In this volume, Laurence M. Hauptman provides an old-fashioned and albeit faulty approach to Haudensaunee/Iroquois history. He states that his fieldwork is not "overly reliant on oral history, which itself is fraught with inherent dangers" (p. xiii). He gives little insight into how this approach might be problematic when used with a nonwestern culture that is steeped in the oral tradition. Instead, he laboriously quotes various "colonial" anthropologists, such as William N. Fenton, on a variety of issues. (Colonial anthropologists often pretend expertise and objectivity while being active agents of the colonizing process.) He gives us no indication that Fenton and other such "Indian experts" are quite controversial and often detested in modern Iroquois society because of their attitudes. Surprisingly, he quotes "Indian experts" more often than the Iroquois people with whom he does fieldwork. In reality, Hauptman gives us...