Osage Women and Empire: Gender and Power

Abstract

This volume critically examines the history of the Osage Indians, beginning in the eighteenth century and focusing on approximately 150 years of changes in this culture. The author takes as one premise of Osage culture—and therefore, of the book—that spirituality and gender are interwoven and that one cannot fully understand the Osages without an understanding of these facets. After providing a brief overview of Osage origins, she presents a detailed understanding of Osage spiritual beliefs, with a core one being the complementarity of men’s and women’s roles in ensuring the universe is on its proper course. These roles are fairly traditional: men were hunters and warriors, whereas women possessed the force of fertility and therefore grew food and took care of household tasks. Her point is that in Osage culture, one side could not function without the other, so to understand Osages one has to understand these roles. The author explains them, and then shows how they changed over time.Edwards deftly documents the rise of the Osage Empire during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. From their location west of St. Louis they were poised to act as middlemen in the burgeoning postrevolutionary colonization of the West. The men were skilled hunters who were successful only because the women were also skilled hide workers; together, this resulted in an enviably successful enterprise that spanned a large area. However, as white settlement increased, and as over time hunting decreased, this began to change. By the mid-nineteenth century the Osage land base was increasingly restricted, first by Jeffersonian land policies and the US military and later by missionaries and settlements. The Osages were moved onto less fertile lands, which adversely affected women’s ability to fulfill their cultural roles. Men hunted less and less, and their roles were also affected. However, Edwards shows that the Osages adapted, using horses to become a more mobile society that was able to survive despite their lack of successful crops. Pressure from missionary schools also threatened to destroy their culture, but Edwards shows how the Osages resisted this pressure both culturally and individually. By the nineteenth century the Osages were reduced in number, though Edwards reiterates the point that losses from disease are really a symptom of larger structural inequities that made indigenous people more susceptible to disease. These inequities included the lack of fertile land and war with other nations like the Cherokees, who were themselves forced to relocate to this area.I was impressed by Edwards’s ability to show how spiritual beliefs deeply impacted divisions of labor and how the Osages sustained and modified these beliefs over time. As an archaeologist I was also left wanting to know more about their precontact origins, as I could not help but wonder how these affected their spiritual beliefs. Although the author cites some archaeological studies, more recent work on both the pre- and postcontact Osages would have added to this story. By contrast, she nicely concludes with a narrative about the nineteenth-century origins of wedding dresses among the Osages that shows their adaptive gender roles. Her discussions of berdaches in the first chapter adds to the knowledge of this group, and her discussion of tattoos and their meaning complement emerging studies of Native tattoo arts. The volume is noteworthy for its wonderful use of photos and accompanying captions to illustrate points in the text. Overall, this is a critical examination of an overlooked group that fully encompasses their history through its examination of gender. It would be useful to scholars and classes examining Native American history, culture change, gender roles, and nineteenth-century Native relations.