The Value of Ethnohistorical Reconstructions of American Indian Typical Personality: The Case of the Potawatomi

Abstract

The analysis of historical accounts of the behavior of individuals and groups is one anthropological method used to construct a pattern of psychological traits for particular cultures. The concepts of typical or national character involved in such assessments assume that patterns of psychological traits may be considered not only as individual attributes but also may be characterized as a persistent collective or cultural entity (Barnouw 1963). In studies of North American Indian groups the persistence of psychological traits, despite radically changed cultural environments, has been noted and postulated as a factof in difficulties in acculturation (Vogt 1957). Various studies of the Ojibwa Indians (Barnouw 1963) have affirmed the presence of a specific personality structure and the persistence of this structure over long periods of extensive cultural change. Hallowell's (1955) method of comparing historical observations and projective test results yields additional evidence of group personality patterns which have persisted over the last three centuries.