Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology by Samuel J. Redman (review)

Reviewed by: Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology by Samuel J. Redman Jaime M. N. Lavallee (bio) Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology by Samuel J. Redman Harvard University Press, 2021 prophets and ghosts is a well-organized history of "salvage anthropology" defined as "the collecting and preservation of human culture deemed to be threatened. … not just collecting songs and stories but trying to document everything about a society and its heritage" (6). Redman acknowledges the challenges of an undertaking this large and that it is not a complete history—the breadth and depth would be more than this approximately three-hundred-page book could accommodate. Instead, he tackles the major players—institutions, government, and collectors—that shaped the course of salvage anthropology for the betterment (and for the not-so-betterment) of the field and the people that it studied. As a professor, I applaud the organization of the book and the chapters. Redman lays out the reasoning for each chapter, asking the reader to ponder questions within it. The inclusion of the impact of art by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists is a welcome connection to the ideologies of salvage anthropology, as well as the ways in which Indigenous Peoples connected to their own heritage and interactions with collectors (chapter 4). Chapter 5, "Cultural Salvage in California," achieves Redman's goal of showcasing a case study of salvage anthropology and its effects. The book unfolds history with a who's who of anthropology: individuals and their influences, as well as institutions. Often providing insight into personal motivations and sometimes cautiously speculating about what they might have been for the collector or institution—the juicy tidbits at times motivated me to read just a few more pages. The interwoven stories are illuminating as they bring the reader along for the ride throughout history, and they are also grounded in academically rigorous research. Prophets and Ghosts would be a suitable introduction for many, and any of the individual chapters would provide a good background of where salvage anthropology came from (chapters 1–5) and where it could go (chapter 6). Redman acknowledges that salvage anthropology is deeply embedded in colonialism. Settler colonialism created and perpetuated the "myth of the vanishing Indian." Salvage anthropologists sought out the "true" and "authentic Indian" bypassing adaptations (115–16) while simultaneously [End Page 114] reflecting modern Western society's views of "true and authentic" (123, 146–47) and valuable (157). These ideas continue to the present day; for example, within Canadian Aboriginal law, Indigenous Peoples must prove their Aboriginal rights only through connections to precontact practices and traditions; the original practice must not have a whiff of European influence or it is deemed non-Aboriginal and denied any present-day relevance. Thus, Indigenous Peoples are confined to precontact notions of hunting, fishing, and gathering; they are not seen as past and current economic actors who have always been capable of making a living from the resources around them. Redman does not tiptoe around the difficulties inherent in a field that was mostly exploitive, romanticized, and colonial. Collecting Indigenous Peoples' material culture was intended to "preserve" the sacred but not to allow its practice (82). The denial of Indigenous Peoples' basic human and civil rights is set within the historical context of nationalism, expansionism, and assimilationism. Without the government, museums, universities, and collectors removing Indigenous material culture (and thus the means of intergenerational transmission of knowledge), the goals of settler colonialism would not have been possible. Social evolution, which arose from Darwinism (24–25), aided in the creation and motivation behind salvage anthropology, and, ultimately, its professionalization into anthropology. Social evolution meant there was an inevitability and justification of the more civilized society (white) to dominate, eradicate, and assimilate the lesser civilized society (Indigenous). This played a major role in the race to collect, and thereby influenced what to keep and what was ascribed value as important knowledge and then later as art (31). Redman points out moments when salvage anthropologists and Indigenous Peoples collaborated. He has shown, where possible, the agency of Indigenous Peoples' cooperation to preserve their culture, such as the Omaha (67–70), as well as revitalization efforts...

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