THIS CHAPTER examines how three ethnographies from the 1930s wrote Native American speech: John G. Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks (1932), William Ralganal Benson's “The Stone and Kelsey ‘Massacre’” (1932), and Ruth M. Underbill's The Autobiography of a Papago Woman (1936). Each text sought to reconstruct in writing its subjects' oral remembrances of nineteenth-century Native American realities. My aim in focusing attention on thirties ethnography is threefold: to continue to rethink the much-maligned “political literature”s so prevalent in the 1930s, to correct a generalized misperception about the lack of critical awareness in older ethnography, and to contribute to ongoing debates about ethnographic strategy.

One of the peculiarities of these three early ethnographies is that despite the critical acclaim each of the three texts has received, other critics have asserted that they are not faithful or authentic representations of Native American history, culture, and speech. Black Elk Speaks has received especially harsh commentary; there are suggestions that the text is more white than Indian, more fraudulent than factual account. Although commentary on Benson's account is limited, accusations focus on the ways Benson misconstrues the historical dimensions of the events he recounts. The criticism against Underhill also cites her misrepresentations of her subject's speech. According to the critics, Underhill editorializes more than she records this Papago woman's life story. In sum, these criticisms are merely a small part of more general attacks on the authenticity of thirties oral texts produced as a result of cross-cultural collaboration.