Rifles, Blankets, And Beads Summary
“Rifles, Blankets, and Beads” delivers an entertaining perspective on the Northern Athapaskan village of Tanacross. This book is an outstanding resource to anthropologists, students, and educators. In reviewing this book, the author brings a descriptive writing style when analyzing the Northern Athapaskan village of Tanacross culture and history with a focus on the potlatch giving us insight details how the potlatch is seen and celebrated among the Tanacross people.
The author, William E. Simeone, is a great source on the Northern Athapaskan village of Tanacross because he lived there among the people. In addition to living there he also attended ceremonies in both Tanacross and surrounding villages, and participated in potlatches within
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Williams’s descriptive writing style in this book truly lets the reader feel like they are experiencing a potlatch themselves. He gives a good understanding to what the people of Tanacross are like through the use of sensory details by focuses on seeing and hearing. On the flip side there are some weakness too. Although William offers readers a good analysis of the potlatch, his book falls short of mentioning any possibility of confidentiality. There is the conflict of confidentiality in descriptive writing, and since William mentions in the Preface that the village knew he has written about the ceremony of a potlatch and some didn’t agree with it because they thought of it as a private matter this leaves open to the possibility of some of people in the village not being truthful because they tell the researcher what they think the researcher wants to hear. He gives no great detail how he overcame that to get accurate information from sources. Another weakness is the second half of the title of the book “Identity, History, and the Northern Athapaskan Potlatch” because by this title it leads one to think this book would be about all the Northern Athapaskans villages potlatches, not just a focus on the Northern Athapaskan village of
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