The Indians

The Old West #2

by Benjamin Capps

Lavishly illustrated account of the lives, religion, customs, sports, homes, horses, and history of the Indian tribes of the American West.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Historical, Westerns, Summer, Native Americans

240 pages, Leather Bound

First published July 26, 1973

About the author

Benjamin Capps was an award-winning novelist and chronicler of western life. Among his works are The Trail to Ogallala, The White Man's Road, The Warren Wagontrain Raid, Sam Chance, and The Indians and The Great Chiefs (Time-Life Old West Series).

Capps was also the author of numerous published short stories, articles, essays, and book reviews. In 1991 he won the Western Writers of America Spur Award for one of his short stories, "Cimarron, The Killer." He wrote on many subjects and did not consider himself only a western writer, even though his greatest successes were western novels.

However, he was primarily interested in the past and its influence on us today. Much of his writing's appeal lies in his knowledge of the Old West's folklore. According to Capps, his writing's aim was to be authentic and "to probe the human nature and human motives" involved in his stories. His works were painstakingly researched for historical accuracy and generally explored lesser known facets of the American frontier. The Western Literature Association honored Capps with the Distinguished Achievement Award in October 1986.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

The past is a fiction we make up continually. We're essentially living in the movie Memento: generations pass, we forget what we were capable of in the past, we have a sense that things have always been this way, then we do something horrible again and we find a way of denying it. Those soldiers who took the fucked up pictures of captives weren't acting on anyone's orders. It was purely an anomaly, right? Guantanimo Bay, that doesn't count because it's not TECHNICALLY within the U.S. border.

I'm going to defend this book to a certain extent, but first I have to tell you why it's irrelevant. I mean, take one fucking look at this cover. Look at the title. This book is thirty seven years old, and YOU KNOW it is politically incorrect without even opening the cover. This book is ALL ABOUT the Noble Savage, an idealized and fantastic understanding of the Native American tribes, who communed with nature and did mysterious dances and dressed in skins and furs. Courageous and on the verge of extinction, like the panda.

Now, we still have blanket terms we try to apply to all of these separate tribes, but they've evolved. Native Americans for a while, then American Indians for a while, and I think that Native American has again become the PC term. I dunno. But, my point is that, in academic circles, we now realize it's more appropriate to call these people by the tribe they come from than to try and find a blanket term that will sum them all up. We're also slowly realizing that it's more appropriate to call them by the names they called THEMSELVES, not the insulting names placed upon them by neighboring tribes. Some tribes, like the Indiana branch of the Miami tribe, are going through the process of trying to bring their language back into use, since so much of one's world view is created by the filter of language.

I've had a lot of espresso, and I just keep going and going, and still haven't made the first point I was planning on making! Bear with me. I'm focusing now.

I'm saying that we have become much more understanding of who Native Americans are (and were) since this book was published. In 2010, many people understand that the stereotype of the Noble Savage is just as destructive and insulting as the Insane Bloodthirsty Redskin stereotype. Well, maybe not JUST as destructive, but ALSO destructive. In either case, we are taking a simplified understanding of someone else that WE CREATED, and labeling another (set of) culture(s) with this.

In feminist rhetoric nowadays, there's a growing understanding that if you want to let someone who is underpriviledged speak, it is best to do this by actually LETTING THEM SPEAK, not interviewing them and reinterpreting their ideas, thoughts and world views through your own lens. This book is a highly outdated text because it fails to do any of this: the subject does not speak for his/herself, and some stereotypes are reinforced by the perspective this book was written from.

That said, for the time the book was written, I think the author did a fairly good job of being fair to the subject. The view of the Native American tribes was never outwardly negative, and I shouldn't expect writing from the past to live up to the values we have in the present. So, I appreciated a lot of the information in this book, and DID find it fascinating. But, from my forty-years-later perspective, this book sits quite comfortably in a patriarchal, self-serving historical tradition that I believe needs to be (and is being) overthrown.

[GoldGato · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Time-Life books always grab me. They're perfect for simple folks (like moi), yet worthy of better, given their leather bindings and picture/photo-driven collections. This volume focuses on the Plains Indians of the Great Empty (that's my name for the square states of the USA), explaining their way of living both before and after the onslaught of the Europeans.

The stories are fascinating, especially the obsession with the arrival of the horse ("God Dog"). Most tribes were decimated by new diseases, while others lost their territory to the Manifest Destiny settlers. The resulting massacres by both sides are brought hauntingly to life with the photos, especially the Minnesota Massacre.

I certainly learned quite a bit and wonder if this series has another volume on the East Coast Indians. Fascinating.

Book Season = Summer (counting coup)

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series is visually and tactilely elegant. Leather cover, slick pages, multitudinous artistic renderings of the time, photographs as available (the photos of selected Indians on pages 7-13 are powerful images), maps, and so on. This series also does a pretty good job of tackling its various subjects, from the cavalry to frontiersmen, to pioneers to women of the time to. . . . The focus here is Indians. The coverage is rather sensitive and is not undercut by stereotypes or condescension.

The book begins with a great peace council in 1840 among four major tribes--Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa. These groups had long fought with one another. At the council, they pledged peace among one another. The book notes that 1840 was something of a signal year in the Indians of the Old West. Settlers had begun traversing the West as they looked to settle even further west; the old trapping business began to close down. The total Indian population in the West was 300,000, a very small number to contend with the ensuing movement west of so many from the eastern United States.

A map on page 33 shows, as of 1840, where the significant tribes lived--Sauk and Fox and Eastern Sioux in what is now Iowa and Minnesota to the Delaware and Kansas in what is now Kansas/Nebraska to Apache in Arizona, etc.

The second chapter discusses the life of Indians within horses, important resources for the nomadic tribes. The history of acquiring horses is discussed (and see the map on page 51 showing the pattern by which horses spread on the continent) as the key role they played in the lives of tribes. Buffalo and their role in Indian life are also considered here. Chapter 3 inquires into the life of Indians in the Old West, including housing (tipi, for instance), cooking, clothing. The role of women is addressed as well. Other chapters examine religion, the invasion of whites, and the end of Indian power on the plains.

This is another solid entry in the Old West series, from Time-Life Books.

[J.D. Steens · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is titled, “The Indians,” but it’s about the North American Plains Indians, not Indians in general. The brief biographical information on the author mentions that he grew up on a West Texas ranch having to deal with “belligerent Comanches.” That might suggest a bias in this book, but I got no sense of such at all. Capps does an excellent job of making the reader feel, as much as an outsider can, what the life of these Indians was like: The constant fighting and raiding; the brutality toward each other and towards them by whites; the federal takeover of Indian lands (174 million acres, for example, between 1853-1857); the numerous, broken treaties; the attitudes of whites ("Manifest Destiny was in fact more a rationalization than a driving force," he writes. Under it, the frontiersman "was following a long-established principle, one taken for granted -- that the native people of the Americas had no moral right to stand in the way of the expansion of European civilization.”); the white man’s diseases; and, the white man’s attempt to assimilate the Indians. Capps also describes the daily life and rituals of these Plains Indians, which interestingly included a considerable role for rank and status. While Capps does not mention this, it seems noteworthy that we also named these people, who preceded Columbus by a few thousand years, for those who lived on the Indian subcontinent. The pictures and paintings in this book, as well as the text, were excellent.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the history of Native Americans told by a non-Native American who grew up on a ranch in Texas and has been fascinated by Native American culture since childhood. The book was published in 1973, so this may explain why the author uses the name "Indians".

I found the book fascinating. I don't know much about Native American apart from what I learned from old John Wayne's Western movies or, more recently, Kevin Costner's "Dances with wolves". This book gives an idea of how Native American lived: livelihood, religious practises, beliefs, clothes and more. It's a visual feast because everything is illustrated with really gorgeous pictures and drawings.

The hardest part of this book is the story of the Native Americans' war against American settlers, a bloodbath made of massacres after massacres. I didn't have the feeling that the author was taking anyone's side.

Now I think I have to find a reference book on native American history, preferably written by Native Americans, and compare the narratives.

[Truly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Menemukan buku ini tanpa sengaja. Hal pertama yg membuat jatuh hati adalah kover yg terbuat dr sejenis kulit buatan. Selanjutnya tentu isi yg unik.Bahkan dengan hanya melihat gambar saja, banyak hal yg bisa kita peroleh. Oh ya, gambar yang ada disajikan secara hitam-putih dan warna.

[Laura Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
Information is a little outdated but provides a wonderful window into history. If you have a chance to find a more recently written book that’s what I’d recommend.

[Britta Stumpp · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my grandmother's series which I read as a little girl. I recently inherited them all!

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this one as much, as others in the Old West series. Seems like they kind of glossed over, the United States treatment of native americans, at that time.

[James Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives an accurate presentation of the customs and traditions of the tribes of the Western Plains. It focuses on tribes between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains. The book is broken up into into an analysis of the evolution of Plains culture, the social and religious customs of the tribes, and their conflicts with the expanding United States. I would recommend this book to anyone who would like a broad overview of the Plains Indians.

[Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was first published in 1973 as a part of Time-Life Books "Old West" series. It was re-printed as the first book of a 24 volume series called "The American Indian" in 1993. The re-printed edition has a different cover.

[Mary D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stumbled on this book at a book sale, along with his Time-Life "Great Chiefs" book, at a time I wanted to read some basic history about Native Americans. It was interesting w/ good photos & graphics,

[AustinT · Rating 4 out of 5]

2010