Indians of the West

"... The effort to cover so much material in such a limited book results in broad generalizations with little attempt to explain underlying structure. For instance, Northwest Coast Indians are characterized as 'wasteful' without context or explanation of the importance of the potlatch as a means of redistributing wealth within the society. The book declares, 'Strangely, all the California show more Indians lived off the rich land without making any effort to develop it into farms,' but does not explain why the Indians of that area had no need to farm in order to flourish. No information on contemporary Indian culture is given." show less