Political and Historical Ecologies 9

It is impossible to encompass "Native American Ecology" in a single essay, or even, perhaps, in a single book. This is due in part to the vastness of the available literature and in part to the vastness of the topic-itself. It is also because there is no unitary or single "Native American Ecology"; given the nature of ecology; there are many Native American ecologies. I have therefore elected to fodls on two themes that I think are essential to understanding the ecology of Native Americans: Political Ecology and Historical Ecology. I emphasize the former because there is no coherent political ecology of Indian people and there should be, for reasons to be developed below. I emphasize the latter because it is an intellectual approach that can be used to proVide a framework for the vast literature on Native American ecology and "for developing a political ecology. Some readers may anticipate a historical review and analysis of the seminal work of anthropologists (e.g., Wissler, 1926; Kroeber, 1939; Steward, 1938,; Suttles, 1962), historians, geographers and others on the subject.Ido not pursue that direction here, While such a history would be extremely valuable, it is an essay, even a book, in its own right and is far beyond the scope of this chapter. Ellen (1982) is an excellent beginning point for such a work. I draw my examples .from western North America, primarily the Plateau and Northwest Coas!, since these are the regions I know best. I turn first to Political Ecology and use that discussion to introduce that topic and secondly to develop an argument for the necessity of a coherent Historical Ecology of Native Americans.