Originally published in 1981, this comprehensive work is an account of Great Lakes peoples--prehistoric, protohistoric, and early historic.

One of the most significant theoretical issues in contemporary American archaeology the role of oral tradition in scientific research.Ronald J. Mason explores the tension between aboriginal oral traditions and the practice of archaeology in North America. That exploration is necessarily interdisciplinary and set in a global context. Indeed, the issues at stake are universal in the current era of intellectual "decolonization" and multiculturalism.Unless committed to writing, even the most esteemed utterances are inevitably forgotten with the passing of generations, however much...