"Sights and Sounds": A Total Approach to Teaching American Indian Studies

Abstract

THE RAPID GROWTH OF ETHNOHISTORY in the last fifteen years indicates that many scholars now realize it is impossible to write accurate American Indian history without understanding the cultural world of American Indians. Robert Berkhofer, Jr., was one of the first historians to argue for such an Indian-centered approach. In recent years others have followed his lead. James Axtell, in his The European and the Indian, stresses viewing history through the eyes of Indians as well as whites? Calvin Martin explores the Indians' cultural world view in his edited volume, The American Indian and the Problem of History.3 Francis Paul Prucha, in his The Indians in American Society explains ...it is necessary to know something of the world view of the Indians (because it is so different from our own), and we do not want to judge one culture by the norms of another.4 For many students, though, understanding the Indians' world view is easier said than done.