Ethnohistory: What Is It And What Does This Discipline Investigate?
History, no matter how hard it tries, is not a discipline detached from the context nor from the characteristics of the individual who studies it.
This is why there are many who consider that history, especially when addressing non-Western cultures, has not known how to study them, leaving aside the European vision.
Ethnohistory has attempted to correct this Eurocentric vision of the historical events of other cultures, trying to perceive the cultural reality of the ethnic group under study and seeing how they have perceived their own history. Let’s delve deeper into what exactly this field of knowledge consists of.
The term ethnohistory has a somewhat imprecise definition. The most accepted definition, and which is closest to the name that has been given to this field of knowledge, is that it is the branch that arises from history and anthropology.
This aims the study of the communities originating from a certain region from their own point of view and how they perceived contact with other ethnic groups, whether in the context of invasion or trade.
Although this is the most accepted and basic definition for the term, there are many alternatives given for the word ‘ethnohistory’. The most complete definition, offered by Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin, a pioneer in the field, is that it is the study of the identities, locations, contacts, movements, customs and habits, cultural traditions and population of an ethnic group
This definition has been the most used when studying communities that either no longer exist or have lost a significant percentage of their original territory, with Mesoamerican indigenous communities having an important role in the interest of ethnohistorians.
According to Paul Radin in 1933, it is not possible to accurately describe any culture without addressing in the most precise and closest way how the people who belonged to that same culture saw the world.
Seymour-Smith, in 1986, defines it as the union between the disciplines of history and anthropology, taking a closer view of how those who formed it perceived their own culture, especially taking into account aspects such as both local and popular history, and trying to escape from how the most dominant classes describe it. Ethnohistory can be understood as the study of how people make a representation of their own history.
Gene Weltfish considers that ethnohistory is the discipline that is responsible for the study of ethnic groups throughout the time they lived, from the present to the oldest moment of which there is evidence of their existence, based on the interpretation of the written documents in which they are referred to. He places special emphasis on aspects such as the way they buried their deceased, their own names, testimonies of survivors…
Whatever the closest definition to what ethnohistorians really think and do, the truth is that it must be taken into account that this field of knowledge, which has not yet been agreed on whether it is a branch of history and anthropology , an independent discipline, a method or a process, It emerged as a critique of the traditional view of history when addressing less favored ethnic groups
Ethnohistory, which emerged during the 20th century, although it was founded at a time when biological racism and many prejudices were being overthrown, sought to combat the paternalistic and supremacist vision that continued to exist among many academics when addressing the history of the indigenous Americans. As a discipline, history continued to have a very Eurocentric vision when it came to understanding historical events in non-white, non-Western cultures.
The ethnohistorical proposal is based on the need to try to understand the history of a culture from its own vision, understanding the interpretation made by members of the ethnic group in question
Thus, using, for example, the Cherokee, Iroquois or Sioux Indians, the aim was to understand how they experienced the conquest of the West and the expansion of the United States. As is known, there are many racist views of this event, showing the white settlers as heroes while the indigenous people, from whom the land was taken, are presented as the true enemies. Ethnohistory aims to change this vision, and be more empathetic with the natives.
Historical background
Although it is known that the term ethnohistory appeared at the end of the 19th century and Paul Radin, in 1933, tried to give it a definition, the first great step towards the formation and establishment of the discipline comes from the hands of the anthropologist Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin. in 1954. In that year, Wheeler-Voegelin published the first newsletter of the Ohio Valley Historic Indian Conference, which, over the years, would become the magazine Ethnohistoryspecialized in, as its name indicates, ethnohistory.
The emergence of this field is due to the work carried out by anthropologists following the Indian Claims Commission of 1946. This commission was established to clarify which transactions, during the years of US expansion, had been fair When the country was still young, white settlers bought land from the Indians, and many of these land purchases were, in essence, scams by the settlers on the Indians.
For tribes who claimed to have been defrauded to be entitled to any type of compensation, it was necessary that they could prove that they had occupied a certain territory. This is where anthropologists played an important role, studying both in library archives and in the civil registry and in the culture itself that claimed its part This is what is considered the beginning of what would later become ethnohistory.
Over time, ethnohistory has not only studied indigenous groups originating from what is now the United States and Canada. Research has also been carried out on what Mesoamerican civilizations, indigenous Polynesians, African tribes were like and what rights they have.
Methodology
Although not even ethnohistorians themselves have agreed on whether ethnohistory is really a discipline, a branch of history and anthropology, a method or a process carried out during the study of the historical events of a certain culture, What can be said is that As a ‘method’ they have in common taking into account how those who are members of a certain culture have experienced historical events
As we have already been commenting, traditionally, history has followed a vision characterized by giving greater weight to the opinions of Western historians than to those who come from other cultures and have experienced those historical events first-hand.
Ethnohistorians use the legal record, especially library material and laws, as well as physical evidence such as monuments, architectural elements, and everyday objects to learn how a given culture lived and demonstrate that they actually lived in the place studied. The testimonies of those who have managed to survive are also taken into account in case there has been an extermination or a drastic reduction in the population.
