Powhatan's Mantle

Considered to be one of the all-time classic studies of southeastern Native peoples, it's revised for twenty-first century scholars and students.

Demonstrates how ethnohistory, demography, archaeology, anthropology, and cartography can be brought together to illuminate life in the early South. This book includes four essays, on calumet ceremonialism, social diversity in French Louisiana, the gendered nature of Cherokee agriculture, and the ideology of race among Creek Indians.Considered a classic study of southeastern Indians, Powhatan’s Mantle demonstrates how ethnohistory, demography, archaeology, anthropology, and cartography can be brought together in fresh and meaningful ways to illuminate life in the early South. In a series of provocative original essays, a dozen leading scholars show how diverse Native Americans interacted with newcomers from Europe and Africa during the three hundred years of dramatic change beginning in the early sixteenth century.

For this new and expanded edition, the original contributors have revisited their subjects to offer further insights based on years of additional scholarship. The book includes four new essays, on calumet ceremonialism, social diversity in French Louisiana, the gendered nature of Cherokee agriculture, and the ideology of race among Creek Indians. The result is a volume filled with detailed information and challenging, up-to-date reappraisals reflecting the latest interdisciplinary research, ranging from Indian mounds and map symbolism to diplomatic practices and social structure, written to interest fellow scholars and informed general readers.