PREFACE vii

work. To overcome the difficulties of language, of suspicion,
and of native reticence was a task in itself. And only when this
was accomplished and the investigator recognized as a friend,
could the information be obtained upon which the investigator
_ was to describe “his people.’’ As a broad generalization, the
attitude of American anthropologists to field work in America
is very different. Indians live near at hand; well-educated
interpreters and informants are usually available; there is no
thought of gleaning information from suspicious natives at the
ends of the earth; and, perhaps most important of all, so much
of Indian life has disappeared that the American anthropologist
must learn by interview and question, rather than by obser-
vation and participation. The American school has tended to
return repeatedly, often for short periods, to a small group or
even to a single informant, and to publish intensive studies of
aspects of culture with which the investigator is concerned.
_ Both approaches have their advantages. Anthropological-
ly, using that term in its broadest sense, American Indians
are better known than the natives of other continents; the pro-
fessional anthropologist knows where to find detailed studies
in technical journals and government publications, and to
combine them if he wishes to know the life of a people as a
whole. But to the anthropologist who is not a specialist in
America, as well as to scholars in other social sciences, this lack
of synthesis is a definite deterrent, and it may well be asked
whether the anthropologist has played his part in making
known the results of his branch to workers in cognate fields.
It was this which led R. H. Lowie to publish his Crow Indians,‘
and though the author reiterates that the volume contains
little that he had not made known in earlier writings in anthro-
pological journals, it is safe to say that the Crow Indians will
be read, quoted, and used when other reports on which it is
based have been forgotten.

4*New York: 1935.
5Jd., p. xi.