Two Crows Denies It : A History of Controversy in Omaha Sociology

Abstract

In Two Crows Denies It, R. H. Barnes undertakes an ambitious historical analysis of anthropological scholarship about Omaha kinship systems. His groundbreaking work offers a critique of this established scholarship, including the work of Lévi-Strauss, Dorsey, and Fletcher. In comparing the primary and secondary accounts of Omaha descent, relationship, and naming systems, Barnes reveals the dissonance between the reality of Omaha society and the scholarship that has formed around it. Not only does he put forth a new and more realistic interpretation of Omaha sociology specifically, but in so doing he provides a reinterpretation of an aspect of anthropological theory.