American Indian Culture and Research Journal

In volume 7, number 1 (1983) of this journal there appeared three reviews of People of the Sacred Mountain, a book by Father Peter J. Powell. The reviews raised a number of controversial questions. For a student of Cheyenne culture and history, these reviews point to at least three important issues that warrant commentary. First, there is the question of what constitutes supereminent Native American historical scholarship. Second, there is the question of ethics associated with the collection and dissemination of ethnographic data about Native American communities. And last, there remains a related issue surrounding the ethics of reviewing books. That is, should the reviewers extend their analysis of a book to address personal questions about the author’s relationship with the Indian community and the world of publishing? All too often, controversial issues that are brought forth in a scholarly context are either ignored or, if debated, reduced to a personal diatribe. In either instance, critical questions are never adequately addressed. It is in this context that this commentary is written, with the hope that the more significant issues brought forth in these reviews will be generally productive for Native American scholarship.