Choctaw Women in a Chaotic World: The Clash of Cultures in the Colonial Southeast.

Choctaw Women in a Chaotic World: The Clash of Cultures in the Colonial Southeast. By Michelene E. Pesantubbee. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, c. 2005. Pp. xii, 208. Paper, $21.95, ISBN 0-8263-3334-6; cloth, $39.95, ISBN 0-8263-3333-8.)

In her narrative of the changing roles of Choctaw women between 1699 and 1763, Michelene E. Pesantubbee asserts that French actions served to "curtail [Choctaw women's] involvement in many aspects of Choctaw society" (p. 6). With an eye to women's experiences, the author "draw[s] on European documents, Choctaw oral history, archaeological records, linguistic and anthropological studies, histories, and the experiences of native people throughout the Lower Mississippi Valley" (p. 3). She describes increased violence in the Southeast, the demise of the Green Corn ceremony, and the declining importance of the symbol of Corn Woman.

Pesantubbee's findings about Choctaw women generally reinforce Theda Perdue's conclusions about Cherokee women. For example, Pesantubbee reminds us that southeastern migration and emergence stories undergirded women's significance as farmers; that women's control over corn gave them considerable influence in matters of tribal diplomacy until the money economy marginalized their economic position; and that European colonizers enslaved and exploited many Indian women. Nevertheless, Pesantubbee covers new ground. In an excellent chapter, "A Violent Landscape," she traces women's declining control over captives as Choctaw warriors found a French market for scalps and slaves. She points out that the Choctaw civil war of 1748 witnessed the complete breakdown of the matrilineal system of regulating internal disputes.

The most informative chapter, "Restoring Balance to the World," investigates the role of femme de valleur, women who prepared bones for funerals and carried the bones during relocation. Pesantubbee argues that this role brought Choctaw women honor and status until colonization eroded traditional mourning customs. Pesantubbee's weakest chapter, "The Novel World of the Jesuits," addresses the important topic of the Jesuits' influence on Choctaw society. But the author relies too heavily on examples from New France. It seems unlikely that the Choctaw, who had only one missionary most of the time and no praying towns, were heavily influenced by the Jesuits' misogynist attitudes. Specialists of southeastern Indian history will be disappointed that Pesantubbee has not unearthed new documents, but students interested in Choctaw women's experiences will find this an instructive and readable text.

WENDY ST. JEAN

Purdue University, Calumet