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3. INDIGENOUS EMPIRES AND NATIVE NATIONS: BEYOND HISTORY AND ETHNOHISTORY IN PEKKA HÄMÄLÄINEN'S THE COMANCHE EMPIRE

  1. KARL JACOBY

Article first published online: 5 FEB 2013

DOI: 10.1111/hith.10655

Issue

History and Theory

History and Theory

Volume 52, Issue 1, pages 60–66, February 2013

Additional Information

How to Cite

JACOBY, K. (2013), 3. INDIGENOUS EMPIRES AND NATIVE NATIONS: BEYOND HISTORY AND ETHNOHISTORY IN PEKKA HÄMÄLÄINEN'S THE COMANCHE EMPIRE. History and Theory, 52: 60–66. doi: 10.1111/hith.10655

Author Information

  1. Columbia University

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 5 FEB 2013
  2. Article first published online: 5 FEB 2013

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Keywords:

  • Comanche;
  • emic;
  • etic;
  • indigenous epistemology;
  • ethnohistory;
  • historical method

ABSTRACT

How should historians write Native history? To what extent should one privilege Native terms, sources, chronologies, and epistemologies? And to what extent should historians align Native history with concepts developed for other peoples and places? These crucial questions about emic (insider) and etic (outsider) approaches to the past are cast into sharp relief in Pekka Hämäläinen's award-winning The Comanche Empire. This essay charts the perils and possibilities of each position. It then explores possible ways to move beyond the emic/etic division that has dominated many of the recent debates about Native history through a rereading of an episode in which Comanche history collides with US and Mexican history.

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