Owen Wister’s West: Selected Articles ed. by Robert Murray Davis

Abstract

278 Western American Literature and concluded that enough evidence of the battle remained to make a con­ trolled archaeological survey worthwhile and “perhaps address some of the still unanswered questions about the battle.” A two-year, two-phase project was then designed, and this book describes phase one, the archaeological inves­ tigations of 1984, conducted at Custer Battlefield National Monument. The text, while meeting professional requirements for reporting method­ ology, excavations, inventory summaries, and artifact descriptions and analy­ ses, has been written for general as well as scientific readers. However, the extreme care and attention to detail which archaeology requires may make portions of the text tedious reading for the non-scientist, although the firearms portion of chapter five should interest gun enthusiasts especially, as “it is the first time modern firearms-identific.ation techniques have been applied to a battlefield situation.” What would seem to be of most interest to Custer buffs and also liable to spark new debate about the century-old mystery is found in the last chapter, where the authors interpret their finds. First, they identify the firearms used by the Indians and offer “at least a partial answer regarding the minimum number of guns used by the Indians.” A chronology and sequence of the battle follows, “derived from the study of the spatial distributions of artifacts taken in combination with firearms-identification analysis and historical documenta­ tion.” Their scientific results negate some long-held opinions and should pro­ vide a base for further archaeological study of the area. Nearly fifty photographs, sketches, and maps contribute to an understand­ ing of the text. One very large map folded into an end pocket might also be used by on-site visitors to the Custer battlefield. DONALD E. GRIBBLE Hibbing, Minnesota Owen Wister’s West: Selected Articles. Edited by Robert Murray Davis. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987. 170 pages, $22.50.) Davis has edited a collection of short pieces by Wister written largely between 1893 and 1904, which provide fascinating glimpses of a writer con­ tinuously creating and interpreting his views of the West. Was he in fact its official spokesman, as these essays suggest? If a reader is bothered by Wister’s establishment condescension and righteousness, he is advised to read the essays individually and well-spaced, for they contain enough patronizing and sermon­ izing to make a simple body thirst for change. Those irritations aside, the reader will find several themes which cannot be easily dismissed, for they provide a connection between Wister’s consciousness of the West and the reader’s own. Because Wister made several journeys to the West, he refers often to the young easterner who steps down from the stage, or off the train, to turn his back deliberately for a time on the East, its civilization and amenities, to take on Reviews 279 the challenge of the raw western land as a test of character. But it is the visual impact of the West he refers to most powerfully. Throughout his life, in visits west and in thinking about those regions when in the East, Wister maintained an admiration verging on awe for this landscape. Wister came to recognize a fraternity of men, not unlike himself, who had been out there, who responded to mysterious signals and understood. In “Concerning the Contents,” written for the volume of Frederic Remington’s drawings published in 1897, Wister analyzes the “spell” of the West. It is not danger, freedom, or the “immortal life and purity of that air.” Neither is it the splendor of Nature, nor the chance for riches, nor the chance for crime (though there was plenty of both); nor is it yet adventure alone. What then? The spell of the West, he says, is “wilderness with its archaic silence.” The romantic tone of this essay is accompanied by something psychologically sound. The frontier, he thought, has ever been our great national romance. Was he the first to point this out? He saluted the West as “the only great romantic thing our generation has known, the last greatly romantic thing our Continent holds.” The last essay, written in old age, recalls a joyous trip to Yellowstone in 1887, following the...