Ethnohistory and Historical Method

Ethnohistory and Historical Method
Author(s): W. Raymond Wood

Source: Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 2 (1990), pp. 81-109
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3Ethnohistory
and
Historical Method
W. RAYMOND WOOD
In the firstissue of the journal Ethnohistory, Erminie Voe

gelin (1954:2) commented that "if there are few ethnologically
minded historians, there are also equally few historically minded
ethnologists." Fortunately, this is no longer true either of ethnolo
gists or anthropologists of other persuasions, and it is increasingly
untrue of historiansas well (Axtell 1979; Martin 1978). The term
ethnohistory is today widely used in a variety of contexts and is
increasingly discussed in general anthropology texts. It is therefore
curious that one usually seeks in vain for listings in anthropology
department catalogs for either undergraduate or graduate courses in
the subject. That is, as popular as ethnohistory may appear to be
today, anthropologists are rarely trained to do ethnohistory. Formal
courses in the subject are being taught in only a handful of anthropol
ogy departments in the United States today.
There are many definitions of ethnohistory. All or most of them
stress a diachronic emphasis and the use of documents (Axtell 1979;
Carmack 1972; Hickerson 1970:7; Spores 1980:576; Sturtevant
1966:6-7; Wedel and DeMallie 1980:110). Here Iminimally define
the term ethnohistory, as it has been refined among those practition
ers of the art who have remained in the original tradition of the field,
as the use of historical documents and historical method in anthro
pological research. I stress the use of "historical method," discussed
later at length, because although it is?or should be?an integral
part of ethnohistory, this rarely is made explicit. Ethnohistorical
studies, therefore, are based on historical documents, but they are
written with anthropological insight: Their goal may be culture his
tory, the reconstruction of past lifeways, or understanding cultural
81
82 W Raymond Wood
processes. Although most works that are overtly labeled ethnohis

tory concern the "twilight zone" between prehistory and history,
study may focus on any topic for which documents exist, whether in
history or anthropology.
Since about the 1960s historians have come to accept anthropolog
ical insights and theory in their works, following such works as Berk
hofer's (1969) A Behavioral Approach to Historical Analysis. Ethno
history, once the province of anthropologists, has now entered the
mainstream of history in a variety of works. One of those most likely
to be familiar to anthropologists, and certainly worthy of study by
them, is The European and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of
Colonial North America (Axtell 1981). Examples of such fruitful
works continue to multiply.
It is the ignorance of historical method that generally handicaps
the anthropologist doing ethnohistory. All too often anthropologists
are guilty of accepting historical documents at face value, producing
poor results by simple acceptance of authority without establishing
criteria for selecting data. Dincauze makes the very apt point that
"documents are artifacts, not authorities," and thus must be sub
jected to historical criticism,- she goes on to make the observation

that historical criticism is "closely akin to the contextual analyses
of field archaeology" (Dincauze 1984:7, 9), in which the interpreta
tion of artifacts is linked to their stratigraphie setting and associa
tions. The first part of this chapter is therefore designed to provide a
primer in the technique and a brief introduction to the literature of
the field. Historical method is a systematic body of principles for
gathering, critically and presenting

examining, the source materials
of history (Garraghan 1946:33). Generations of historians have honed
the technique to a fine edge. Here I describe those aspects of the
technique of most value to beginning ethnohistorians. The remain

der of the chapter reviews modern standards for documentary edit
ing; that is, for editing historical documents and maps, and for the
transcription and publication of these sources. The examples used to

illustrate the text are drawn Great Plains, but they
from the northern
apply to problems that face ethnohistorians wherever they work.

Although the term document is normally reserved for written ac
counts, any source of data on the past may serve as a document.
Archaeological records, photographs, maps, and even the landscape

itself provide data that may legitimately be described as "docu
ments." Our concern here, however, will be with written primary
Ethnohistory and Historical Method 83
sources?those documents (manuscript or published) that were pro

duced by eyewitnesses to an event or by those who were directly
involved in the events under study. Secondary sources?those writ
ten by others?are, of course, important for those seeking an intro
duction to a topic, for they provide insight on how others have ap
proached a problem, information about primary documents, and
ideas for further research. Secondary sources are, however, to be used
with caution in analysis.
A very large literature in historical method exists. Louis
Gottschalk's Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method
(1958) is somewhat dated today, but is still a fine source with which
to begin a study of ethnohistory. An excellent book to follow it is
Robin W Winks's The Historian as Detective: Essays on Evidence
(1969). It contains many valuable lessons in method and is equally
engrossing as literature. Many other general texts are now available,
of which the volume edited by Shafer (1980), A Guide to Historical
Method, most closely approximates a primer for the method. The
literature, however, is varied; consult also Barzun and Graff (1985),
Cantor and Schneider (1967), Daniels (1972), Davidson and Lytle
(1982), Fischer (1970),Garraghan (1946),Hockett (1955), Lottinville
(1976),Pitt (1972), andVincent (1934). See also Altick (1950)andNev
ins (1962) for literary supplements to these more general treatises.
Cultural anthropologists also have contributed to this literature. See,
especially, chapters 8 and 22 inA Handbook ofMethod in Cultural
Anthropology, by Naroll and Cohen (1970), and Kluckhohn in Gott
schalk et al. (1945). In addition, it is instructive to consult Federal
Rules of Evidence (Graham 1981), which synopsizes current princi
ples underlying the common law of evidence in American courts.
Archaeologists will quickly discover that the concept of history in
most of these works is virtually identical to that of their own view
of prehistory. As Walter Taylor (1948) was fond of pointing out, both
history and prehistory are in fact constructions, not "reconstruc
tions," for too much information has been lost at every point in time
to make reconstructions possible in either discipline. Most history
is based on written testimony. Historians are quite cognizant of the
fact that only a small part of what takes place is observed; much less
is recorded; and what has survived is surely not always the most
important?save for the fact that those details are often all we have
to work with. In a parallel vein, archaeologists inescapably deal with
an equally fragmentary record of human material culture. "In short,
84 W Raymond Wood
the historian's aim is verisimilitude with regard to the perished

past?a subjective process?rather than experimental certainty with
regard to an objective reality. He tries to get as close to an approxima
tion to the truth about the past as constant correction of his mental
images will allow, at the same time recognizing that the truth has in
fact eluded him forever" (Gottschalk 1958:47).
Note that Gottschalk speaks of mental images, not reality; nor
does he speak of facts, for evidence is not fact but testimony about
facts (Shafer 1980:74). The most we can hope for is probability. Carl
L. Becker said it another way: "Let us admit that there are two his
tories: the actual series of events that once occurred; and the ideal
series that we affirm and hold in memory" (Becker 1932:222). Into
these "imagined facts and
their meaning" there also enters a "per
sonal equation. The history of any event is never precisely the same
thing to two different persons,- and it is well known that every gener
ation writes the same history in a new way, and puts upon it a new
construction" (Becker 1955:336). These notions are clearly conso
nant with modern anthropology in that we seek knowledge and
generalizations based on the careful examination of all relevant
evidence, realizing that "truth" is simply the best current hypothe
sis?a point of view that indeed characterizes all fields of science.
History and ethnohistory thus have precisely the same ends: the
imaginative construction of the human past within the constraints of
the evidence revealed as credible by the process of historical method.
Historical Method
A well-tried
method for establishing baselines for histori
cal studies exists, and most texts in historical method generally di
vide it into four steps: (1) formulation of a problem for which rele
vant documents are sought, (2) determination of which documents or
sources are authentic (external criticism), (3) determination of which
details in a source are credible (internal criticism), and (4) organizing
the reliable information into a narrative in which the problem is
resolved or refined (Gottschalk 1958:28). Here we are concerned with
the second and third steps?with the authenticity and credibility of
the documents we use. Authenticity and credibility must be consid
ered separately for each individual source, for many authentic docu
ments are quite lacking in credibility. Modern readers need not be
reminded that government or other representatives, no less than pri

vate individuals, commonly produce documents intended to deceive
or mislead their audience.
External Criticism
External criticism is concerned with the authenticity of a document.

This step deals with the document itself, not with its content or
meaning. In other words, is the document we

are using what it pur
ports to be? The idea of authenticating documents is a simple one,
but its application is sometimes quite complex,- see Gottschalk
(1958:118-38) and Shafer (1980:127-47), especially, for the steps in

doing so. Authentication generally focuses on the author and date of
a document, and on establishing the most precise reading of the text.
Ideally, the original (or photocopies) of a document must be used for

study, at least until one has verified that a published source is an
accurate and reliable transcription. It usually is best to avoid using
the term "original" in any precise discussion. Rather, discuss the
genesis, or derivation, of a document?for an authentic, credible
source may, for example, be a clerk's copy of an "original" source.
Historical forgeries are common. Such forgeries tend to be pro
duced for major historical events or personages, because this is
where counterfeiters realize
the greatest financial return for their
efforts. The recent
attempt to fabricate Hitler's diaries provides a
dramatic but not unusual case. Forged narratives for commonplace
past happenings are more rare but are nevertheless more plentiful
than one might expect, and they take many forms. Five examples
of forgeries from the Great Plains of North America offer illustra
tive cases.
The first example is a narrative

published by Edgar Allan Poe
(1840), which alleged to be the diary of trader "Julius Rodman" and
described hisascent of the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains
in 1790. Because it was based on the journals of Lewis and Clark and
other contemporary documents, it requires no great historical in
sight to identify it as a fraud by an author well known for such tricks
(Ketterer 1979:141-45). Apart from the patent parallels between
Poe's account and details of the Lewis and Clark
expedition, the fal
sity of the "journal" is indicated by the simple idea that no two
eyewitnesses will report the same elements in their descriptions.
Every independent account of any length will contain idiosyncratic
86 W. Raymond Wood
details or trivia that no other source mentions. An examination of

the counterfeit narrative for details relating to the Mandan Indians
shows that it contains nothing that cannot be found in other extant
sources.
More subtle in style is the forged "journal" of "Charles LeRaye"
(Robinson 1908), which has been accepted as authentic by numerous

historians. It appears to be an elaborate and plausible fabrication of
the adventures of a frontiersman who was captured by Plains In
dians. An study of its content,
exhaustive however, provides convinc
ing evidence that the narrative is a forgery. One example of several
will suffice: a firsthand account would not err as grievously as in the
instance of the "salt springs" near the mouth of the Niobrara River
where "LeRaye" and his companions allegedly halted to extract salt.
The springs, which still exist, contain not sodium chloride but
sodium sulfate (Glauber salt), an effective cathartic no one would
knowingly use as a food additive. Although the account appears to
be based on extant and reliable sources?including the journal of
Patrick Gass, a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, it seems
probable that the author also used other authentic but not presently
identifiable travel accounts to embellish the story (Dollar 1982).
Close scrutiny of the content of even the most plausible accounts
may, as in this instance, reveal them as unreliable.
A similar instance is The Adventures
of My Grandfather, an ac
count fabricated
by John Lewis Peyton (1867) concerning John Row
z?e Peyton's alleged escape and voyage in 1774 from the presidio in
Santa Fe across the Great Plains to St. Louis. A reprint with an intro
duction by Frederick Webb Hodge (1929) and an article using the
account as a "source" for the "Mound Builder" myth (Blakeslee
1987) appear to give this narrative credibility. However, although
"the absence of published critiques has allowed the story to be redis
covered and reprinted at least four times . . .historians have not for
gotten the tale; rather, they have ignored it" (Yelton 1988:161). The
reasons for their silence are clear, for numerous elements in the text
demand skepticism, including the fact that transcriptions of letters
that were purportedly written by Lewis's great-grandfather were in
fact dated after Rowz?e's death. Tests of the narrative, in short, point
to the fact that it is a story composed by John Lewis Peyton and is
best considered a historical novel.
Another form of forgery is illustrated by the journal of Jonathan
Carver, a narrative that describes the general setting of the upper
American Midwest in 1766-67. of his account published

The version
in 1778 contains material that was added
from contemporary travel
ers' accounts?providing such an apparent case of plagiarism that
the narrative was sometimes rejected in its entirety as being spuri
ous. A recent examination of the original (and reliable) manuscript
in the British Museum reveals that it was augmented with material
from other sources before publication?apparently by an editor re
tained by the publisher?in an attempt to make the book more in
teresting to the reading public (Parker 1976:30-32). The authenticity

and credibility of the original manuscript is thus assured, and amore
careful scrutiny of the archives simultaneously rescued a once-dis
credited source and benefited scholarship.
A special form of forgery is fabricating evidence to bolster a shaky
argument. Circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that Orin G.

Libby, a respected North Dakota historian, either fabricated evidence
himself or uncritically accepted evidence fabricated by a colleague
(Haxo 1941) to support his view of a poorly documented historical
event. Libby rejected the idea that the French explorer Pierre Gaul
tier de Varennes, the Sieur de la V?rendrye, had visited the Mandan
Indians in what is now North Dakota in 1738-39. Instead, he sup
ported the idea that V?rendrye visited the Hidatsa Indians at a point
on the Missouri River 180 miles upriver from the soundly
documented historic villages of the Mandan and Hidatsa (Libby
1909, 1916).
No historical, archaeological, or traditional evidence exists or even
suggests that the Hidatsa ever lived in that upriver locale, despite
Libby's claims to the contrary. Not one of his allegations concerning
the Hidatsa occupation of the area is supported, directly or indi
rectly, by any other source, despite eighty years of research. Hidatsa
villages left conspicuous ruins, but not one existed in the area he
claimed for them. Archaeologically, any identification would neces
sitate "the discovery of not just one site, but of a group of sites.
Whereas one could believe the partial or total loss of one (or of sev
eral) sites to the Missouri River, the loss of all of them strains belief"
(Smith 1980:84-89). Libby once published an expos? of the plagiar
ism he detected in David Ramsay's History of the American Revo
lution (1793). Libby's comment that Ramsay's accounts must be
"severely tested before
being taken for truth" (1902:703) is now
applicable own
to his work, at least for his studies relating to the
history of the Hidatsa Indians.
88 W. Raymond Wood
Internal Criticism
Credibility deals with the meaning of statements in a source and

provides a means to evaluate a document. Credibility is concerned
with the individual statements
within a document, not with the en
tire source. Sources
may be readily separated into two categories:
those produced by eyewitnesses to an event and those written by
individuals who were not present when the events being described
took place. Although we must keep in mind the fallibility of any
witness, the testimony of one who was on the scene at the time of
the event is generally more credible than that of someone who was
not there; the testimony of a nonwitness is hearsay evidence in his
tory (as it is in law) and must be regarded with suspicion. It is impor
tant to keep in mind that every detail in a document, even an authen
tic one, need not be accepted; the historian queries each individual
bit of testimony separately. That is, we seek particulars and do not
accept the entirety of any primary source. One of the most important
rules is that "for each particular of a document the process of estab
lishing credibility should be separately undertaken regardless of the
general credibility of the author" (Gottschalk 1958:143-44; empha
sis in original). Furthermore,
Itmight be well to point out again that what ismeant by calling

a particular credible is not that it is actually what happened,
but that it is as close to what actually happened as we can learn
from a critical examination of the best available sources.
A historical a
"fact" thus may be defined as particular derived
directly or indirectly from historical documents and regarded
as credible after careful testing in accordance with the canons
of historical method. (Gottschalk 1958:139-40; emphasis in
original)
Parenthetically, we should subject anthropological sources to the

same kind of scrutiny we give any other kind of document, for they
are subject to such biases as transient theory and method as well as
personal bias. Furthermore, many statements made in ethnographies

are based on the testimony of a single eyewitness or informant, and
we are rarely given clues to that person's position in the society being
described. Cultural biases and ethnocentrism often markedly affect
both observations and judgmental statements by eyewitnesses. This
has been shown to be particularly true of narratives written by
whites were captured by Indians that purport

who to be "true" ac
counts of the lives of their captors (Vanderbeets 1984) but in reality
reflect a general prejudice against Indians. Every documentary
source must be understood within the prevailing ideology of the
period of its composition, especially those narratives written for a
popular audience.
Native records for aboriginal Americans north of Mexico are suffi
ciently rare that the "winter counts," or calendars, of the Indians of

the Great Plains have attracted wide attention. These records consist
of bison robes painted with pictographic symbols representing mem
orable events in the yearly cycle of a particular tribal unit. Scholars
have studied these records for the past century
seeking to augment
the historical record, particularly for events predating the arrival of
Euro-Americans. To date, however, their interpretations remain at
about the same level as they were in the 1880s. Many of the different
counts depict the same
events, for there was much borrowing be
tween count-keepers. These counts therefore do not provide indepen
dent observations as to what was considered important to the count
keeper. Furthermore, winter counts are frequently dependent on
outside sources for interpretation; that is, "both meaning and chro
nology are established, if at all, on the basis of documentation inde
pendent of the winter counts" (Thurman 1982:173). In short, winter
counts must be used with the same rules that are applied to other
documents.
The means by which sources can be appraised are almost infinite,
and no brief essay can begin to elaborate on them. Several principles,
however, are basic: (1)Temporal proximity to the event is important,
for the greater the time lapse between the observation of an event
and its documentation, the greater the potential distortion in the
record, (2)What was the purpose of the document and what was its
intended audience? Was it written for the author's eyes alone, for
others, or for special interest groups? (3) How competent was the
witness? Expert and amateur witnesses differ widely in their ability
to report such things as numbers.
A detail is credible if it can pass three tests:
1. Was the primary witness able to tell the truth? Was the person
an eyewitness? If not, what was the source of the information?
Gottschalk (1958:150) repeats: "the primary witness and the
detail are .. . the subjects of examination, not the source as
a whole."
90 W. Raymond Wood
2. Was the witness willing to tell the truth? Egos and uncon
scious biases often are involved. Is the account internally
consistent? Is the author an interested witness, grinding axes,
protecting his own interests, or pleasing a superior? We can
place greater confidence in details that are of little conse

quence to the author. For example, early explorers likely had
nothing to gain in reporting matters such as housing details or
kinship, so these noncontroversial matters are usually re
ported accurately, given inevitable cross-cultural misunder

standings. In other words, one must probe the covert agenda of
the writer as well as examine the overt purpose of the docu
ment. Consult Shafer (1980:166-67) for a useful checklist of
internal criticism.
3. Is there independent corroboration of the detail? A single
statement, even by an unimpeachable source, can never be ac
cepted without reservation. Memories are fallible, and slips of
the pen are common. Accept details based only on the inde
pendent testimony of two or more reliable witnesses. Indepen
dence of testimony is critical, else, as Gottschalk said, we
confirm a lie. Unfortunately, some details simply cannot be
corroborated; hence the circumspect phraseology of historians
in saying, for example, that "Alexander Henry is our authority
for the statement that. . ."; to Captain Benteen,
"According
the cavalry under his command . . ."; and "if Eisenhower's
memoirs are to be believed . . ." (Gottschalk 1958:166
67, 170).
Take care in this last test, for some seemingly independent obser
vations derive the same source. For example,
from Indian testimony
concerning past events in their culture is commonly based on a com
mon mythology or oral tradition (Hanson 1979). Still, a great number
of contradictory statements appear in some ethnographic accounts.
Part of this occurs because many historic tribes were in fact compo
site groups with separate histories. Each of the three Hidatsa Indian
subgroups in North Dakota, for example, had its own origin tradi
tion. Early efforts to understand the Hidatsa were hampered by use
less attempts to reconcile these inconsistent accounts. Only when
the three groups are separately considered can many of the contradic
tions between them be satisfactorily resolved (Bowers 1965:14; Wood
1986). Oral traditions are without question a major source of infor
mation about a people and their past. Their use, of course, is subject
to many qualifications, but no full understanding of a people can be

gained without consulting them. Vansina's Oral Tradition as History
(1985; also Vansina a

1965) is useful adjunct to the anthropological
study of oral tradition in the ethnological literature. The pursuit of
oral tradition
will, however, quickly carry one into the realm of oral
history, the subject for another study.
All documents contain statements of varying reliability. Histo
rians agree that we all must use documents that are "tainted" in one
way or another. The trick is to identify the problems in our sources
and ascertain the level of probability of the credibility of important
details. Furthermore, "facts never speak for themselves. They must
always be cross-examined" (Kluckhohn and Leighton 1974:27). It has
been said that documentary material ismade up in large part of state
ments by more or less ignorant, partisan, unscrupulous, careless, or
incompetent persons, and that documentary analysis is little more
than carefully formulated, commonsense rules.
Another source of error also exists: Some of our materials are con
tained in accounts written by overly romantic writers like George
Catlin.Many of his observations on American Indians in his Letters
and Notes (Catlin 1841) are romantically distorted; in addition, inac
curacies in other details of this eyewitness account make it neces
sary to use his record with caution. In other words, in our appraisals
we must do what we routinely do in everyday life: make constant
judgments as we evaluate what others say orally to us in terms of

probability, plausibility, and certainty (Shafer 1980:55).
A final caution: Carefully check all translations and have their
accuracy verified by someone familiar with the meaning of words in
that time and place. Many translations and transcriptions are poorly
done. There are a host of reasons for this, ranging from casual stan
dards to the fact that some documents were written by poorly edu
cated subjects not well versed in grammar,- in addition, in older docu
ments especially, people sometimes wrote phonetically, obscuring
meaning and making it difficult for amateur translators to determine
which word is meant. Furthermore, the translator may have been
ignorant of the subtleties of the language. Some words that seem to
have obvious meanings to us today have changed over time and,
where they are not simply obscure, may actually be misleading.
Words, that
is, have histories. Consider carefully whether a docu
ment says what you think it says.
John Francis McDermott's (1941) collation of early French terms
92 W Raymond Wood
in the Mississippi Valley is a good introduction to the kinds of lin

guistic changes that bedevil translators. The nouns habitant and
habitation there did not mean "to live" or "to dwell" but instead
referred to "farmer" and "farm"?a significant change in meaning.
"A desert for a native of France would be a wild or deserted country;
for a Canadian it was a cultivated field" (McDermott 1941:2-3). One
can similarly err in translating the term league into English miles.
Although a distance of three miles is often accepted for the term,
seven different distances?both nationally and regionally?were de
noted by "league" (Chardon 1980).
An empathy for past values, beliefs, and behavior also is critical.
The American colonial era was another world, as distinct from our
own as Elizabethan England. Although many Americans are direct
and recent descendants of both worlds, they would be neither physi
cally nor mentally comfortable were they to find themselves living
in either of them. James Deetz has reminded us of the gulf in values
that separates such niches in time. Were amodern American actually
to meet most of the individuals with whose testimony they deal in
ethnohistory, "we would
experience a sense of culture shock as pro
found as if we had encountered amember of any other of the world's
exotic cultures. We mistakenly think of Americans in the seven
teenth century as ourselves but somehow simpler, 'quaint' perhaps,
but people with whom we would feel an instant empathy.. . .
Recog
nizing this fundamental difference permits us to consider the people
of that time more in their own terms, rather than in those categories
we impose on them" (Deetz 1977:156).
It is as important to retain a sense of detachment with one's ante
cedents as it is with those of other cultures, a point that is elaborated
in Lowenthal's The Past is Another Country (1985).
Documentary Editing and Transcription
Transcribing Narrative Documents
The objective of documentary editing is to produce a pub

lished text that makes it unnecessary for later scholars to consult an
original manuscript. Needless to say, this goal is rarely attained.

Such editing tasks are best left to the professional documentary
editor, but this is not always possible: All ethnohistorians eventually
must make their own transcriptions of documents important to their
research. Sooner or later one finds it necessary to quote some seg

ment of a previously unpublished document in support of one's topic,
and one may even wish to publish a more extended extract or even
an entire document in, say, an appendix. A document important to
you may simply never havebeen published, or perhaps those that are
in print are of uneven quality. Older published documents are espe
cially prone to problems, and pioneer documentary editors rarely

said very much about their transcription methods and standards.
There is a growing literature on documentary editing (e.g., Beals
1979), and a comprehensive Guide to Documentary Editing (Kline
1987) was recently published under the auspices of the Association
for Documentary Editing. It is a succinct introduction to the
techniques and literature of this field, although it is still worthwhile
to consult older studies by Carter (1952) and Tanselle (1978).
If a document is really critical to your research, obtain a legible
photocopy or microfilm of it and check it against whatever transcrip
tion you may be using, even when the editor of a published version
says it is a "literal transcription." Inmany instances the editor may
have silently modernized some words that originally meant some
thing quite different, silently deleted passages deemed prurient or
redundant, or otherwise bowdlerized or mutilated the text. An il

luminating example of a confession of nineteenth-century editorial
largess is contained in Elliott Coues's description of his editing of
the manuscript journals of Alexander
Henry. Coues admitted to hav
ing deleted superfluous words and tautological phrases, in addition
to which "almost every sentence was recast in favor of such gram
matical propriety as could
be impressed upon the composition with
out entirely rewriting it, reduced the copy to about two-thirds of its
. . . the of all this 'blue was a
original dimension; upshot penciling'
textual compromise between what I had found written and what I
might have preferred to write, had the composition been my own"
(Coues 1897:xiii). We are fortunate that these journals have been
edited recently using modern standards (Gough 1988).
A fine example of the necessity for consulting the original is illus
trated by the publication history of the journal of Fran?ois-Antoine
Larocque. This French-Canadian left a narrative of his exploration
west of the Missouri River in the summer
and fall of 1805 through
what is now western North
Dakota, north-central Wyoming, and
eastern Montana. In 1910 a clerk's copy of Larocque's narrative was
discovered and printed by Lawrence J. Burpee in the publications of
94 W Raymond Wood
the Canadian Archives. The following year, under the Canadian pol
icy of dual publication in English and French, it was issued in French
translation in the same series (Burpee 1910, 1911). In neither edition
was it stated that the original was in English, the language which
(despite his French extraction) Larocque preferred for his entire life.
At this point the story takes a bizarre turn.
Some years after its publication, Ruth Hazlitt, a Montana histo
rian, discovered the French translation and, assuming the original
had been in that language, translated it back into English. The result
was anything but satisfactory. Larocque's command of English had
been reasonable, but Hazlitt's retranslation left his language awk
ward and often confused his meaning. Equally serious was the im
proper translation of terms: the French term cabri (literally "goat,"
but in this context meaning the pronghorn antelope) was translated
as "caribou," leaving scholars to ponder why this boreal animal was
living in the short-grass plains of Montana. For nearly half a century
Montana historians have labored under the twice-translated and gar
bled language in this version (Wood andThiessen 1985:158-59).
Consulting printed sources is therefore risky, even when dealing
with well-known historians. Mildred Wedel finds that "the numer
ous editorial changes, deletions, and errors
that appear in Pierre
Margry's oft-cited six volume work of French archival documents
are one case in point." This matter is easily remedied, however, as
"many of the manuscripts he used are available in fair copy or micro

film in this country" (Wedel 1976:14). Wedel cites other instances of
misplaced trust in published documents and further reminds us that
adequately conducted historical research consumes a great deal of
time. This is especially frustrating for anthropologists who are accus
tomed to consulting and relying on published sources, but historians
have always been aware of how long it takes to research even the
simplest topic.
Making one's own
transcription is fraught with difficulties in spite
of the fact that the task seems, on the face of it, to be a simple one.
Some documents pose few problems, especially those by well-edu
cated individuals with a clear hand and whose spelling is good. Many
documents, however, contain faded text, obsolete or obscure words,
inconsistent spelling and punctuation, and a host of related prob
lems. Deciphering such documents requires at least rudimentary
skills in elementary paleography. Handwritten manuscripts can
rarely be reproduced exactly in printing, and complications in the
text such as those already mentioned make it even more difficult. In

the final analysis, only photocopies can provide "true" facsimiles of
any document?and even these do not necessarily reveal erasures
and other such changes.
No simple solution to these problems exists, but a useful literature
on how to prepare and publish transcriptions is beginning to appear.
For a good example of the editing of a complex set of documents,
consult the editorial procedures outlined in volume 2 of the Journals
of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Moulton 1986, 2:49-55).

Another recent example of the literature in this field is in Presidio
and Militia, by Naylor (1986). There
and Polzer is, however, one
ironclad rule in historical editing: Be consistent. State your editorial
standards and follow them. No single set of rules can ever apply to
all situations, for there are simply too many variables. One must
begin with a set of rules for transcription derived from appropriate

prototypes and modify them as necessary.
According to one widely read historical
manual, three general ap
proaches to transcription are currently in use: literal, expanded, and

modernized (Freidel 1974:27-36). The expanded and modernized
forms are used to produce readable texts for lay readers. For scholarly
purposes the literal approach is demanded. Here, one follows the
manuscript "absolutely in spelling, capitalization, and punctua
tion." However desirable this might be, it is rarely practical except
for brief documents or
excerpts. Every document must be ap
proached differently, for each offers a different set of problems. What
ever departures one may make from the literal approach must be
clearly set out in the introduction, and these departures must be

followed consistently throughout the text.
Transcribing Maps
Maps and charts summarize in unambiguous form contemporary

knowledge (and misinformation) about geography. Most early maps
are of course planimetrically inaccurate, but anthropologists are usu
ally more interested in the cultural data embedded in them than in

what they depict in the way of topography. Curiously enough, many
historical studies rely on maps more as illustrative material than as
primary documents in their own right; yet maps may yield data that
are impossible to obtain from narrative accounts. The use of maps is
governed by the same rules that apply to any other kind of document,
96 W Raymond Wood
although there are a few special considerations peculiar to represen

tations of topography. Many of the same general principles used for
historical and archaeological research are equally applicable to his
toric drawings and paintings. As far as I am aware, however, there is
no literature that discusses the use of maps and the graphic arts in
any useful detail.
The critical use of maps necessitates some knowledge of the his
tory of cartography. This is a very large and technical field, but sum
mary information may be obtained in a variety of sources (Bagrow
1964; Bricker and Tooley 1969; Brown 1949; Harvey 1980; Skelton
1972; Tooley 1949;Wilford 1981) and their bibliographies. Even a
rudimentary knowledge is of great help. Such matters as the fact
that Greenwich, England, was not always used as the prime meridian
for determining longitude are not common knowledge. Until about
1880, "the selection of a prime meridian was based on patriotism,
whim, convenience or misconception" (Brown 1949:282). From the
sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, longitude was reckoned from
such diverse points as one of the Azores Islands, Isla del Fuego in the
Cape Verde Islands, the island of Ferroin the Canary Islands, Toledo,
Cracow, Uranibourg, Rouen, Copenhagen, Pisa, Rome, Bologna, St.
Petersburg, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. "Every country had

its favorite prime meridian,- some had two, one for general land maps
and another for marine charts" (Brown 1949:282-83). The prime
meridian at Greenwich became a standard for Great Britain after
1794, but as late as 1881 no less than fourteen different prime merid
ians were in use for topographic maps alone.
When M. G. Mehl attempted to rediscover the location of the fos
sil mastodon that Albert Koch excavated on the Pomme de Terre
River in Missouri in the 1840s, he assumed the longitude given for it
was measured from Greenwich. Plotting the locale, he said it was
"obviously incorrect, for it describes a point in the Atlantic Ocean!"
(Mehl 1962:30). Using Washington, D.C., as the prime meridian

more accurately places the site in northwestern Missouri, although
not at all near the correct location in Benton County, in the south
west part of the state. Although Koch's reading of the longitude is too
poor to assist in properly locating the site today, the example illus
trates the point that one must begin map interpretation by being
knowledgeable about the basis for mapmaking.
It is obviously best to consult the original copy or a good facsimile
of a manuscript map. Most often the original no longer exists, and
one must dependon the reliability of a published version or of man
uscript copies. If one uses a published map, it may be possible to

trace its manuscript prototype to an archive. The situation usually is
well in hand with a first published copy, but better yet are copies of
the maps in constructional sequence: the surveyor's original draft, a
contemporary copy or the engraver's copy, and the engraver's pub
lished version. The least desirable sources are later editions, for
many maps were reengraved, translated, and reissued without being
updated for many years, even after newer and more accurate charts
were Fort Mandan,
available. the 1804-5 wintering post of the Lewis
and Clark expedition in present North Dakota, continued to appear
on maps for nearly a century after the expedition's return, in spite of
the fact that expedition records (published in paraphrase in 1814)
clearly state that the fort burned to the ground shortly after it was
abandoned in the spring of 1805 (Biddle 1814, 2:411). Plagiarism, in
short, is even more a danger in maps than in narrative documents.
A related problem is the silent updating of an existing map. In a
revision the cartographer may add features or legends to an older
map, so the final product contains material of differentages. This
might be difficult to detect when the additions are in the same hand,
but annotations by another person usually are obvious. A set of maps
carried by the Lewis and Clark expedition illustrates this problem
very nicely. Lewis and Clark carried with them a set of maps made
seven years earlier by a Spanish expedition, and during the expedi
tion William Clark made a number of notations on the maps in his
own hand. In one case the additions are conspicuous, but in most
instances careful inspection and handwriting analysis were neces
sary to determine which legends Clark had added (Wood 1981, 1983,
plate 4). Seven years is not a long time, but the tribes of the upper
Missouri River were in constant movement at the time of the expedi
tion, and the separation of the elements on the maps aids us in better
understanding the course of events in the area.

One index of reliability is, of course, the representation of rivers
and other landmarks with which the surveyor or engraver was likely
to be familiar. This leads us to a series of questions we should answer
before relying on any information on the chart. For example, how was
the map made? Did the maker employ a compass, astrolabe, or dead
reckoning? What did the surveyor or engraver think was worthwhile
to depict? Check contemporary travels against maps, dates of explo
ration, and the area itself. This is an important step in authenticating
98 W Raymond Wood
a map. If the map is a published

one, what were the engraver's
sources? Is the map
wholly original, or were the surveyor's data im
posed on an older base map? If so, can you identify that base map?
Who were the sources for the surveyor's data: Does the map reflect
only the maker's observations, or does it contain the observations of
others? What did these sources know of what
they told the map
maker: that is, were
they eyewitnesses? A biography of the surveyor
and the engraver may be important in revealing their training, con
scientiousness (or lack of it), and other information relevant to ap
praising the map. For example, the biography of Jean-Bap tiste Louis
Franquelin, the famous French mapmaker, and the commentary pro
vided for some of the major maps he produced of North America
(Delanglez 1943) permit us to use Franquelin's maps with a greater
level of confidence.
It is mandatory to know the geography of the area in question and
to have a "feel" for the country. With such a background you can
better identify landmarks and better interpret and understand the
statements and maps of travelers.
There is no alternative to person
ally following a map illustrating an explorer's route. Knowledge of

local history and physiography also is necessary to evaluate changes
that may have taken place since the map was made. "The ground
itself is a document which the scholar must not neglect" (Winks
1969:302). Today, retracing routes must usually be done by au
tomobile, as it is rarely practical to use the same means of transport
employed by the traveler. Nevertheless, reenacting a sailboat, canoe,
horseback, or foot journey will give one a deeper understanding of
such journeys than any other single element in such research.
Key maps that accurately portray the landscape for the time they
were made should be identified. Find those charts that served as the
base maps for later
cartographers (sometimes called "mother
maps"). Comparisons of these maps with less firmly dated ones
often prove illuminating. In his edition of the journals of Lewis and
Clark, Reuben Gold Thwaites (1904-5, vol. 8, map 3) published a
William Clark manuscript map he thought was a copy of a French or
Spanish manuscript map made before Lewis and Clark left St. Louis
in 1805.Carl I.Wheat (1958,2:204) dated it to 1805 in the belief that it
had been made at the headquarters of the expedition at Fort Mandan
in the winter of 1804-5. An examination of the map by Stephen A.
Chomko (1985), however, revealed that the course of the Mississippi
River above St. Louis was based on maps produced by the exploration
Figure 3.1. Genealogy of the Marquette and folliet maps. (References are to
Tucker [1942]and Temple [1975])
Jolliet original
(lost at Lachine)
Marquette 1673-74 Jolliet 1674

(Tucker, pi. 5) (Temple, pi. 58)
Thevenot
(Marquette) 1681
Anonymous 1762-73 Randin 1674-81

(Temple, pi. 56) (Tucker, pi. 6)
Randin
second copy
Franquelin
1678-79
Franquelin 1681
of that river by Zebulon Montgomery Pike in 1805 and 1806 that

were published in 1810. Internal on the map thus dates it to
evidence
about 1810, so that some parts of the map reflect information half a
decade after the date that Thwaites and Wheat ascribed to it.
to build a genealogy
It is useful for the charts one is using to clarify
the relations among them. For example, there are several maps based
on the 1673 exploration of the Mississippi River by Jacques Mar
quette and Louis Jolliet. The original chart or charts, believed to have
been made by Jolliet, were lost in the Lachine Rapids of the St. Law
rence River west of Montreal on his return home from that expedi
tion. Marquette subsequently produced his own map of their explo
rations, and Jolliet produced two others. One of them, now lost and
referred to as the "Jolliet X" map, is the apparent source for a variety
of dependent charts (Delanglez 1948) (see Fig. 3.1).
In contrast to the growing literature on
the editing of narrative
documents, very little has been written on the editing of maps. The
subject is not even mentioned in Kline's Guide to Documentary
Editing [1987). This is curious because, as one historical cartographer
100 W Raymond Wood
said, "maps are a precise index of geographical

knowledge" (Diller
1946:505). Maps, like narrative documents, must occasionally be
edited because they cannot be easily read and understood. Stephen
Wiberley's (1980) article, "Editing Maps," ismore useful in revealing
how maps are being used in contemporary historical atlases than as
a guide to editing them. Publishing an original map is often unsatis
factory because it cannot be legibly reproduced. The following points
may serve as a general introduction to cartographic editing in ethno
history.
1. No transcription, no matter how carefully prepared, can ever
fully replace the original. Corrections, erasures, and similar

modifications can rarely be depicted with enough precision to
satisfy all potential users of a given map, a dictum that, of
course, applies equally to narrative documents.
2. A careful transcription nevertheless can suffice for most gen
eral if not specific uses, and it serves as a point of departure for
the scholar demanding more detail. Many maps, especially
large-scale ones, must be reproduced when they are published
at such reductions that many legends cannot be read, even
when only part of the map is illustrated. A transcription is
therefore necessary if the reader is to read detail on the chart.
3. The first step in transcription is to reproduce the map itself by
faithfully tracing its linework and symbols. Itmay sometimes
be necessary to slightly exaggerate small-scale cultural or
physical features so they are not lost in the final reduced copy.
4. Many options are available for reproducing map text and
legends so they are legible. They may be set in type or hand
lettered to duplicate the original penmanship. In either case
they must be utterly faithful to the original spelling and
should accurately mirror the position and emphasis on the
original. Documentary editors must present documents as

close to the original form as possible. "Indeed, the position
that the text of a scholarly edition of any material can ever be
modernized is indefensible" (Tanselle 1978:48). I disagree with
Wiberley (1980:502)when he says it is logical to correct the
contents of old maps they differ fundamentally
because from
personal papers (although he retreats from this position in
asserting that most small-scale maps of America made before
1865 cannot be edited).
5. Color is usually cosmetic rather than really informative.

When color on old maps does transmit essential data, as in the
case of boundaries
without additional lines, it may be depicted
by hatching or stippling on the transcription.
A number of examples of varying format and size illustrate some
of these points. David Thompson's map of northwestern Canada,
drawn in 1814, is said to be "one of the greatest maps ever drawn, a
magnificent cartographic monument to its maker" (Wheat 1958,

2:102). At the same time it is too large to be legibly reproduced in
book or journal size. J. B. Tyrrell (1916) reproduced the entire map,
and parts of it were traced under the direction of Elliot Coues for his
editions of Alexander Henry's and David Thompson's journals
(Coues 1897). For examples of more recently redrawn maps, see Han
son (1980) for the George Drouillard maps of 1808;Wagner (1955) for
three maps by Peter Pond; and Wood (1981, 1982a) for transcriptions
of John Thomas Evans's 1796-97 maps of the Missouri River, and of
William Clark's 1803-4 mapping in the state of Missouri.
Many transcriptions were made of maps before photography made

exact reproductions possible. A famous collection of such maps was
produced by John G. Kohl, a German who came to the United States
in 1854 bringing copies of many early maps relating to the discovery
and exploration of America (Winsor 1904). Francis Parkman also
made careful hand transcriptions of a number of maps he found in
European archives, and which are now in the Winsor Memorial Map
Collection in Harvard College Library. Their value lies in the fact
that the originals of some of the maps he made no longer exist (e.g.,
see Temple 1975, pis. 55-57, 59).
Conclusions
The early historic period tends to be the most poorly inter

preted era in the culture histories of many parts of the world. The
reason is not hard to detect: Archaeologists may be trained to inter
pret the prehistoric past, but all too many of them still use historical
documents naively. Most historical archaeologists today, however,
are being trained in the use and interpretation of documents, and
degrees are now offered in historical archaeology through depart
ments of history and anthropology in several universities in the
102 W Raymond Wood
United States. Most archaeologists cannot escape the eventual use of

historical documents, for successful prehistoric societies everywhere
persisted into the period when written records were being prepared
either about them or by them. Far too many anthropologists use his
torical records as they would use modern monographs?except that
they tend, perhaps, to be more critical of the modern data than of the
older materials.
A cautionary tale is perhaps appropriate here. When Lewis and
Clark were ascending the Missouri River in the spring of 1805, they
passed a high cliff in what is now central Montana, the base of which
was littered with an "immence pile" of the carcasses of rotting
bison.A nearby stream was named Slaughter River (modern Arrow
Creek) in memory of the deceased bison. In their journals Lewis and
Clark proceeded to explain that the bison were the victims of a hunt
in which the Indians herded the unfortunate beasts toward the cliff,
then stampeded them over the precipice to their death (Moulton
1987, 4:216-17, 219). Their account of a bison kill conforms to the
particulars of comparable (and soundly documented) hunting prac

tices in the historic period in the northern Plains.
This locale has understandably been cited repeatedly as an exam
ple of a bison jump, or kill. But was it what it was purported to be?
An inspection of the locale reveals that the configuration on the
ground has no parallel with any of the many dozens of known bison
jumps in the northern Plains. The animals would have dispersed
over the rugged ground along the valley wall above the cliffs and
could not have been driven over the cliffs themselves. But why were
the bison piled at the foot of the cliff? Meriwether Lewis says the
river had away part of this immence
"washed pile of slaughter," a
clear indication they were at the river's edge. Lewis and Clark had
previously mentioned large numbers of drowned bison they had seen
along the river bank, but they did not associate them with those
they saw at Slaughter River. At the mouth of that stream, the con
figuration of its junction with the Missouri River, as revealed on

William Clark's map, would have acted to sweep floating bison
against the shore beneath the cliff and to accumulate the animals
they found there.
Why, then, did Lewis and Clark describe the bison jump? Members
of the expedition had had every opportunity to learn of this hunting
technique the preceding winter at Fort Mandan, where they had win
tered with the Mandan and Hidatsa, who practiced this form of hunt
ing. An inspection of the landscape revealsthat the perfectly sound

description of a natural catastrophe had been wrongly linked with
an ethnographically documented practice (Wood 1982b:4-5). The
landscape was a document that had not been critically appraised. In
this instance physical evidence takes precedence over and guides the
interpretation of documentary data.
The evaluation of historic documents is a time-consuming prac
tice. Archaeological research often is said to consist of 10 percent
fieldwork and 90 percent laboratory analysis. Archaeologists are
used to such work schedules but are impatient at the slow pace that
the critical analysis of documents demands. If sound ethnohistory is
to be done, however, historical method cannot be used casually.
Acknowledgments
I thank Richard Sheldon and members of the National

Historical Publications and Records Commission, National Archives
and Records Service, for the opportunity to attend the Tenth Annual
Institute for the Editing of Historical Documents (Camp Edit) in
Madison, Wisconsin, as an intern in the summer of 1981.1 am also
indebted to Stephen
A. Chomko, Jeffery R. Hanson, R. Lee Lyman,
John H. Moore, Gary E. Moulton, Joseph C. Porter, James P. Ronda,
and Thomas D. Thiessen for their comments on early drafts of this
paper, and to helpful comments by several reviewers.
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Ethnohistory and Historical Method

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Ethnohistory and Historical Method

Author(s): W. Raymond Wood

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In the firstissue of the journal Ethnohistory, Erminie Voe

processes. Although most works that are overtly labeled ethnohis

jected to historical criticism,- she goes on to make the observation

gathering, critically and presenting

technique of most value to beginning ethnohistorians. The remain

transcription and publication of these sources. The examples used to

apply to problems that face ethnohistorians wherever they work.

Archaeological records, photographs, maps, and even the landscape

sources?those documents (manuscript or published) that were pro

the historian's aim is verisimilitude with regard to the perished

reminded that government or other representatives, no less than pri

External criticism is concerned with the authenticity of a document.

meaning. In other words, is the document we

(1958:118-38) and Shafer (1980:127-47), especially, for the steps in

Ideally, the original (or photocopies) of a document must be used for

The first example is a narrative

details or trivia that no other source mentions. An examination of

More subtle in style is the forged "journal" of "Charles LeRaye"

(Robinson 1908), which has been accepted as authentic by numerous

American Midwest in 1766-67. of his account published

teresting to the reading public (Parker 1976:30-32). The authenticity

argument. Circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that Orin G.

Credibility deals with the meaning of statements in a source and

Itmight be well to point out again that what ismeant by calling

Parenthetically, we should subject anthropological sources to the

personal bias. Furthermore, many statements made in ethnographies

whites were captured by Indians that purport

period of its composition, especially those narratives written for a

ciently rare that the "winter counts," or calendars, of the Indians of

place greater confidence in details that are of little conse

ported accurately, given inevitable cross-cultural misunder

to many qualifications, but no full understanding of a people can be

(1985; also Vansina a

judgments as we evaluate what others say orally to us in terms of

in the Mississippi Valley is a good introduction to the kinds of lin

Documentary Editing and Transcription

Transcribing Narrative Documents

The objective of documentary editing is to produce a pub

original manuscript. Needless to say, this goal is rarely attained.

research. Sooner or later one finds it necessary to quote some seg

cially prone to problems, and pioneer documentary editors rarely

thing quite different, silently deleted passages deemed prurient or

redundant, or otherwise bowdlerized or mutilated the text. An il

"many of the manuscripts he used are available in fair copy or micro

rarely be reproduced exactly in printing, and complications in the

text such as those already mentioned make it even more difficult. In

of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Moulton 1986, 2:49-55).

begin with a set of rules for transcription derived from appropriate

proaches to transcription are currently in use: literal, expanded, and

clearly set out in the introduction, and these departures must be

Maps and charts summarize in unambiguous form contemporary

ally more interested in the cultural data embedded in them than in

although there are a few special considerations peculiar to represen

Petersburg, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. "Every country had

(Mehl 1962:30). Using Washington, D.C., as the prime meridian

one must dependon the reliability of a published version or of man

uscript copies. If one uses a published map, it may be possible to

understanding the course of events in the area.

a map. If the map is a published

ally following a map illustrating an explorer's route. Knowledge of

Marquette 1673-74 Jolliet 1674