Robert F. Heizer - Böcker

This new, expanded edition of The California Indians is a more comprehensive and thus more useful book than its predecessor, which first appeared in 1951 and was reprinted seven times. The editors have combined the selections, eighteen of which are new, into a general survey of California Indian native cultures. They have avoided highly technical studies because they intend their book for the general reading public rather than for scholars. The editors discuss the present-day Indians of California in a chapter written especially for this volume, and provide a new, extensive classified bibliography listing hundreds of published works arranged by culture areas and subjects. This list of references should prove useful to the nonprofessional who wishes to read further on a particular tribal culture or topic, such as Indian basketry or place-names or prehistoric rock art.

About the Second Printing:The authors have taken the opportunity presented by the second printing of this book to make a very few changes in the text. We became conscious, after the book was published, of occasionally imposing on the reader our own emotional reactions, and it is these subjective expressions which we have modified or deleted. A collection of 168 documents in the form of official letters from military personnel, Indian Agents, and unsigned articles in California newspapers dating from 1847 to 1865 dealing with the treatment of California Indians will be published shortly by the Peregrine Press of Santa Barbara. These documents will provide some of the original material which was used in writing The Other Californians and may, therefore, be looked on as a companion volume. From the Preface to the first printing:It is the authors' hope to provide in this book a social history of non-Anglo ethnic groups in California's past as illustrated by attitudes of prejudice and acts of discrimination directed against these groups.Historians have been aware that racial prejudice was displayed by California whites, but in general they have treated the subject as though it was an unimportant one, perhaps because race prejudice in the last century was not always considered inhumane in the collective conscience of Americans. We have drawn our information from many sources, and we have quoted liberally in the belief that the wording of the original accounts illustrate the atmosphere of the times much more objectively and forcefully than anyone could describe it. Long documents have not been incorporated into the text, but have been collected at the end in a separate section.

This information-packed guide describes patterns of village life, and covers such subjects as Indian tools and artifacts, hunting techniques, and food.

To Make My Name Good: A Reexamination of the Southern Kwakiutl Potlatch offers a definitive, lucid account of one of the Northwest Coast’s most discussed—and most misunderstood—institutions. Drawing on hitherto unpublished field notes, new translations, and extended interviews with master informants Charles E. Nowell and Ed Whonnock, Philip Drucker and Robert F. Heizer revisit the Southern Kwakiutl (Kwagyul) potlatch to show how it actually worked in practice. Situating their analysis against the towering archive of Franz Boas and subsequent interpretations by Ruth Benedict, Helen Codere, and Homer Barnett, the authors clarify where classic sources privilege what people say and believe over what they demonstrably do. The result is a functionally coherent portrait of potlatch as a formal procedure of social integration—publicly identifying group membership, validating hereditary names and privileges, and reciprocally recognizing status across host and guest communities—rather than the anomaly or pathology it sometimes appears in comparative literature.Methodologically forthright, the book advances a threefold standard of “ethnographic truth” (speech, belief, practice) and demonstrates how reading across these registers resolves long-standing contradictions in the Southern Kwakiutl record. Rich case material—from sequential descriptions of ceremonies to the careful tracking of gift distribution, rank order, and name transmission—anchors a reassessment with broad implications for Northwest Coast ethnology, kinship and status studies, and the anthropology of ritual and exchange. By restoring chronology, acculturative change, and local pragmatics to the center of analysis, Drucker and Heizer provide scholars and students of Indigenous studies, museum curation, and Pacific Northwest history an indispensable corrective and a model of rigorous reanalysis. Clear, concise, and empirically grounded, To Make My Name Good shows why the Southern Kwakiutl potlatch belongs at the heart of any serious account of social order, authority, and value on the Northwest Coast.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1967.

The Four Ages of Tsurai: A Documentary History of the Indian Village on Trinidad Bay offers a comprehensive exploration of the history and culture of the Yurok Indians of Trinidad Bay, California. The work focuses on the Tsurai village, one of the most well-documented indigenous settlements in California, detailing early interactions with European explorers, fur traders, and settlers. Through a series of primary accounts, the book illuminates the changing dynamics of the village from initial friendly encounters with Spanish and English explorers in the late 18th century, to the deteriorating relations during the fur trade period, and the eventual impact of the California Gold Rush in the 1850s. These firsthand accounts provide invaluable ethnographic detail, shedding light on the decline and disappearance of a pre-Caucasian civilization and offering historical insights into the fur trade, Spanish exploration, and the cultural background of California's coastal tribes.The book presents a wide array of primary documents, including journals and sketches from explorers, fur traders, and settlers, many of which have never before been available to the public. The Tsurai village site becomes not just a historical landmark but a symbol of the broader historical currents shaping the North Pacific region. Through the documentation of these experiences, the authors argue for the preservation of Tsurai as a significant archaeological site, rich in material culture and history. The work serves as both an academic resource and a call to action for local residents and the state to protect this irreplaceable site, ensuring that the unique heritage of the Tsurai village and its people is not lost to future generations.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1952.

To Make My Name Good: A Reexamination of the Southern Kwakiutl Potlatch offers a definitive, lucid account of one of the Northwest Coast’s most discussed—and most misunderstood—institutions. Drawing on hitherto unpublished field notes, new translations, and extended interviews with master informants Charles E. Nowell and Ed Whonnock, Philip Drucker and Robert F. Heizer revisit the Southern Kwakiutl (Kwagyul) potlatch to show how it actually worked in practice. Situating their analysis against the towering archive of Franz Boas and subsequent interpretations by Ruth Benedict, Helen Codere, and Homer Barnett, the authors clarify where classic sources privilege what people say and believe over what they demonstrably do. The result is a functionally coherent portrait of potlatch as a formal procedure of social integration—publicly identifying group membership, validating hereditary names and privileges, and reciprocally recognizing status across host and guest communities—rather than the anomaly or pathology it sometimes appears in comparative literature.Methodologically forthright, the book advances a threefold standard of “ethnographic truth” (speech, belief, practice) and demonstrates how reading across these registers resolves long-standing contradictions in the Southern Kwakiutl record. Rich case material—from sequential descriptions of ceremonies to the careful tracking of gift distribution, rank order, and name transmission—anchors a reassessment with broad implications for Northwest Coast ethnology, kinship and status studies, and the anthropology of ritual and exchange. By restoring chronology, acculturative change, and local pragmatics to the center of analysis, Drucker and Heizer provide scholars and students of Indigenous studies, museum curation, and Pacific Northwest history an indispensable corrective and a model of rigorous reanalysis. Clear, concise, and empirically grounded, To Make My Name Good shows why the Southern Kwakiutl potlatch belongs at the heart of any serious account of social order, authority, and value on the Northwest Coast.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1967.

The Four Ages of Tsurai: A Documentary History of the Indian Village on Trinidad Bay offers a comprehensive exploration of the history and culture of the Yurok Indians of Trinidad Bay, California. The work focuses on the Tsurai village, one of the most well-documented indigenous settlements in California, detailing early interactions with European explorers, fur traders, and settlers. Through a series of primary accounts, the book illuminates the changing dynamics of the village from initial friendly encounters with Spanish and English explorers in the late 18th century, to the deteriorating relations during the fur trade period, and the eventual impact of the California Gold Rush in the 1850s. These firsthand accounts provide invaluable ethnographic detail, shedding light on the decline and disappearance of a pre-Caucasian civilization and offering historical insights into the fur trade, Spanish exploration, and the cultural background of California's coastal tribes.The book presents a wide array of primary documents, including journals and sketches from explorers, fur traders, and settlers, many of which have never before been available to the public. The Tsurai village site becomes not just a historical landmark but a symbol of the broader historical currents shaping the North Pacific region. Through the documentation of these experiences, the authors argue for the preservation of Tsurai as a significant archaeological site, rich in material culture and history. The work serves as both an academic resource and a call to action for local residents and the state to protect this irreplaceable site, ensuring that the unique heritage of the Tsurai village and its people is not lost to future generations.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1952.

California is a contentious arena for the study of the Native American past. Some critics say genocide characterized the early conduct of Indian affairs in the state; others say humanitarian concerns. Robert F. Heizer, in the former camp, has compiled a damning collection of contemporaneous accounts that will provoke students of California history to look deeply into the state's record of race relations and to question bland generalizations about the adventuresome days of the Gold Rush.