Life among the Indians: First Fieldwork among the Sioux and Omahas (Studies in the Anthropology of North American Indians)

By: Alice C. Fletcher

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Synopsis: Alice C. Fletcher (1838–1923), one of the few women who became anthropologists in the United States during the nineteenth century, was a pioneer in the practice of participant-observation ethnography. She focused her studies over many years among the Native tribes in Nebraska and South Dakota.Life among the Indians, Fletcher&’s popularized autobiographical memoir written in 1886–87 about her first fieldwork among the Sioux and the Omahas during 1881–82, remained unpublished in Fletcher&’s archives at the Smithsonian Institution for more than one hundred years. In it Fletcher depicts the humor and hardships of her field experiences as a middle-aged woman undertaking anthropological fieldwork alone, while showing genuine respect and compassion for Native ways and beliefs that was far ahead of her time. What emerges is a complex and fascinating picture of a woman questioning the cultural and gender expectations of nineteenth-century America while insightfully portraying rapidly changing reservation life. Fletcher&’s account of her early fieldwork is available here for the first time, accompanied by an essay by the editors that sheds light on Fletcher&’s place in the development of anthropology and the role of women in the discipline.