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CM . . .
. Volume X Number 6. . . . November 14, 2003
excerpt: Plenty Coups remembered the time he led 20 Crow towards the winter camp of the Sioux on the Bighorn River. He carried the pipe and he kept spirits high with songs of bravery and war. When they finally found signs of the enemy, Plenty Coups fell silent, slipped into a wolf hide and crept to the top of a nearby hill. He howled, confident that against the pale moon any observer would surely take him for the gray animal. He finally spotted the Sioux party and scampered down the hill to inform his fellow braves. Plenty Coups outlined the plan of attack. They would take horses and scalps and count coup (strike the enemy with coup sticks). It would be a great victory. And it was. Plenty Coups had led the Crow into the Sioux camp, where his great war whoop caught the enemy by surprise. Whistling arrows soon gave way to thudding war clubs and slashing knives. On that day Plenty Coups' bravery had gone unmatched. Alone, he had advanced on four Sioux who had taken shelter in a nearby cave. Using rocks and trees as shields, Plenty Coups dodged the raining arrows and skipped to the cave until he was close enough to count coup on one of the Sioux. It was the bravest act a Crow could perform. The two volumes of Great Chiefs tell the stories of twelve native leaders who lived between 1763 and 1932. All but two, Crowfoot and Louis Riel, are considered American though two others, Tecumseh, the Shawnee chief, and the Sioux, Sitting Bull, are a part of Canadian history. Tecumseh fought in Canada with the British in the War of 1812 and Sitting Bull came to Canada after the defeat of Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. Most of the chiefs mentioned were warriors. The exception is Sequoyah, the Cherokee, who created a written Cherokee language. As a result of his intellectual pursuits, he was considered a witch and almost killed. A major theme in the books is the enormous pressure put on the native tribes and their leaders by the ever-advancing white population. The natives were gradually overwhelmed and forced from their lands, usually after a bloody struggle. In the process, most found the white leaders they dealt with, with a few exceptions, to be treacherous and dishonest. The U.S. government, as well, treated the natives very poorly, breaking treaties and ignoring pleas for help. The contents of Great Chiefs, therefore, tell a sad but compelling story. One can't help but sympathize with the natives as they struggled to maintain their traditional lifestyles. Tony Hollihan, the author, is a teacher. He has a Masters degree in Canadian and American history and a doctorate in the History of Education. Prior to Great Chiefs, he wrote several other books, including Sitting Bull in Canada. His books are interesting and written in an easy-going style younger readers will enjoy. The Great Chiefs volumes are, however, unusual for history books since Hollihan used only secondary sources. There would, of course, be no primary native sources, but there are government records covering various aspects of Indian history. The books are, therefore, less factual than most history books. There are few facts other than dates and names. Even some of these, such as the birth dates of a number of the chiefs, may be wrong. In many cases, Hollihan uses supposition instead of facts, as in the following example: "In the early summer of 1874, the southern Plains, likely somewhere in southern Kansas, provided the setting for an unusual event." Further, the events that took place when the chiefs were youths are all created by Hollihan based on the cultural experiences of the Sioux and other tribes mentioned. Since Hollihan also creates dialogue, his books are more like novels, not at all academic. This approach, however, would appeal to young readers who like a good story and want to read for pleasure. Normally in history books, dates are important. This is less so with Great Chiefs. Volume I, for example, begins with Sioux chief Sitting Bull, who lived from 1834-1890. Chapter 4 tells about Red Cloud, a Sioux who lived from 1821-1909. Chapter 2 of Volume II is about Crazy Horse, the Sioux chief who lived from 1839-1877. In order for the reader to get a better feeling for the period discussed, it would have made more sense to have these chapters together in the same volume. Hollihan also has a tendency to repeat stories. For example, in the chapter on Geronimo, we read twice of the killing of Chief Mangas Cloradas. Such events are often not mentioned in historical sequence. It thus becomes difficult to grasp their significance. The Great Chiefs volumes are illustrated with maps in each chapter. The maps show the areas where the chiefs and the native nations discussed lived. Without any distance scales, however, the reader needs an atlas to understand the great size of the territories mentioned in the text. Without them, the maps are of little value. Hollihan could just as easily have said, for example, that Sitting Bull's Sioux lived in the Dakotas and Montana. The reader would still need an atlas to ascertain the exact location. Wherever possible, black and white photographs of the chiefs and other native leaders are included. These are quite clear considering their age. Their inclusion is invaluable because they help the reader transform what would just be meaningless names into images of the remarkable men described in the text. There is no indexes in the Great Chiefs volumes, and this absence reduces their value as history books. They become, instead, a collection of interesting stories. There is nothing wrong with this, but readers impressed by the tales of a chief's heroics will need to make notes with page references if they wish to refer to them again. The absence of glossaries also detracts from the books' value. Hollihan uses many native terms such as tejanos (white men in Comanche) which, if included in a glossary, would have made a handy reference. Recommended. Thomas F. Chambers, a retired college teacher, lives in North Bay, ON.
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