Algonquian and Iroquois natives of the American Northeast were
described in great detail by colonial explorers who ventured into
the region in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Beginning
with the writings of John Smith and Samuel de Champlain, Gordon
Sayre analyzes French and English accounts of Native Americans to
reveal the rhetorical codes by which their cultures were
represented and the influence that these images of Indians had on
colonial and modern American society. By emphasizing the work of
Pierre Franaois-Xavier Charlevoix, Joseph-Franaois Lafitau, and
Baron de Lahontan, among others, Sayre highlights the important
contribution that French explorers and ethnographers made to
colonial literature. Sayre's interdisciplinary approach draws on
anthropology, cultural studies, and literary methodologies. He
cautions against dismissing these colonial texts as purveyors of
ethnocentric stereotypes, asserting that they offer insights into
Native American cultures. Furthermore, early accounts of American
Indians reveal Europeans' serious examination of their own customs
and values: Sayre demonstrates how encounters with natives' wampum
belts, tattoos, and pelt garments, for example, forced colonists to
question the nature of money, writing, and clothing; and how the
Indians' techniques of warfare and practice of adopting prisoners
led to new concepts of cultural identity and inspired key themes in
the European enlightenment and American individualism.