Tim:
The answer to your question is very complex. I live in Minnesota, which has a long history of interactions between whites and Native Americans (mainly Lakota Sioux and Ojibwe). Old attitudes die hard but there has been much progress here over the last 50+ years. It is a long and complicated story, and not one that can be told adequately here. There have been many books written on the subject, and each part of the US has its own history of how whites came to displace Native Americans, and the legacies of those interactions that persist today.
You make a good case for collectors of the weapons from Plains tribes to consider those developed after contact with whites as being meaningful variants of more traditional weapons.
I agree that the notion of a "Reservation Period," to describe the confinement of tribes to relatively small areas, is not particularly helpful. There have been several "Reservation Periods" beginning with the initial containment of Native Americans who had been free to roam widely in their customary manner, to periods of abject poverty and starvation with erosion of their traditional cultures, to the modern Casino-fueled economies of many tribes. [The latter refers to the presence of gambling casinos that are owned by the tribe. Since each reservation is a sovereign territory, state gambling laws do not apply and casinos can be operated--hence enormous income for often a small number of local tribes people.]
Your example of the Zulu and other South African weapons being viewed differently from modern Native American examples overlooks the fact that collectors are from outside the region in which these are produced. In the U.S. we have many collectors for whom these are locally produced goods and for whom there may be a long and personal family history of contact with Native Americans. For example, I know several families who lost relatives to raids during the so-called Sioux Uprising of 1862. Even after 150 years there are still lingering feelings and prejudices in this part of the country. You might like to read online about the Dakota War of 1862 to get some of the details.
It's complicated.
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Originally Posted by Tim Simmons
I am having a problem with the term Reservation period. It starts around 1860 and is not without conflict right up to 1890's and latter. The use of the term seems to down grade Native American culture. As if all fighting stopped and Native American life was devoid of its own sophistication. This is odd as collectors. We accept the weapons, art works and cultural sophistication of say the Zulu and other South African peoples also living on restricted home lands. The artifacts of the Zulu for example do not get the same somewhat scornful treatment. Why is this? Genuine 19th century South African artifacts are very common. Weapons, ceremonial regalia all very common but not questioned is the same way. Why should genuine artifacts of the Plains Nations be not so common or at least plentiful?
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