Killing the White Man's Indian

A new generation of politically astute Native Americans is developing aggressive tribal governments bent on resuscitating once-moribund cultures and on managing federal programs without the paternalistic oversight of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Bordewich, a roving editor for Reader's Digest, who spent three years visiting reservations, believes that today's tribal sovereignty movement represents the best hope in decades for restoring economically crippled communities. Yet the movement, in his opinion, is tinged with separatist ideology and an ``overwhelming, largely irrational fear of yet more loss and betrayal.'' Arguing that in some states, Native Americans' claims to water and fishing rights and their demand for sacred lands pose a threat to local economies, Bordewich maintains that the sovereignty movement runs the risk of creating a multitude of independent statelets, some economically unviable and ill governed. His vibrant, compelling, diversified portrait of contemporary Native Americans dispels whites' lingering stereotypes of Indians either as permanent victims or as morally superior beings living in primeval, unchanging communion with nature. (Feb.)