Abstract
The historical Indian tribes of the south-eastern United States are diverse in language, but they share so many important characteristics that they form a cultural province. This is illustrated by the arrangement of Mr. Swanton's massive work (Smithsonian Institution: Bur. of^ Amer. Ethnology, Bull. 137. Pp. xiii+943+107 pl. Washington, D.C.: Gov. Print. Office. 2.75 dollars), in which a brief, purely historical sketch of each individual tribe is given first, leaving the material culture to be dealt with as a whole. The book may be considered as supplementing and bringing up to date the relevant parts of the great two-volume Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, edited by F. W. Hodge, published as Bulletin 30 of the same series in 1907 and 1910. The author regards it principally as a collection of source materials, and as such he hopes that it will be useful to future students. This hope should be fully realized, and in addition it will be a most useful book of reference. Some of the plates are not well chosen. It is difficult, for example, to see what is to be learnt from the rather distant group, in Edwardian dress, in front of a modern wooden building, labelled “Ladies Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Catawba Reservation” (Plate 5). The space occupied by this and some others might have been better employed in illustrating objects of material culture.
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Indians of the South-Eastern United States. Nature 160, 898 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/160898a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/160898a0