Cheyenne Way: Conflict and Case Law in Primitive Jurisprudence

by Karl N Llewellyn, E. Adamson Hoebel

Overview

The Cheyenne Indians, in sharp contrast to other Plains tribes, are renowned for the clear sense of form and structure in their institutions. This cultural trait, together with the colorful background of the Cheyennes, attracted the unique collaboration of a legal theorist and an anthropologist, who, in this volume, provide a definitive picture of the law-ways of a primitive, nonliterate people.

This foundational study of primitive law presents the folkways in law of the Cheyennes through the technique of the American case lawyer, adjusted to the requirements of the anthropologist with his scientific understanding of human behavior and realistic sociology. Particularly appealing to the general reader are the law cases themselves. Based on individual episodes that reflect the legal procedure of the Cheyennes over a period of more than sixty years, the cases are heroic narratives in the finest tradition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780806118550
Publisher:	University of Oklahoma Press
Publication date:	09/28/1983
Series:	Civilization of the American Indian Series , #21
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	394
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.95(d)

About the Author

Karl N. Llewellyn taught for over thirty years in the law schools of Yale, Columbia (where he was Betts Professor of Jurisprudence), and the University of Chicago. He was a leader in deep and realistic study of the institution of law, especially in relation to other behavioral fields.


E. Adamson Hoebel was Emeritus Professor of Anthropology in the University of Minnesota. He had many opportunities to observe Indian tribes, including Cheyennes, Comanches, and Shoshones. Besides this book and others, he was coauthor of The Comanches: Lords of the South Plains also published by the University of Oklahoma Press.

Editorial Reviews

“Planned and executed upon a novel and striking pattern . . . this book appeals to the lawyer, the sociologist and the collector of Indian lore, as well as to the general reader.”—New York Times Book Review


“Llewellyn and Hoebel have made a brilliant contribution. . . . not only to social anthropology and the sociology of law but to social science at large.”—Yale Law Journal


“The Cheyenne Way is a stepping stone and a landmark in the program of social science. . . . and will prove of great value to social science, anthropology, and to the theory of law, primitive and crystalized.”—Lawyers Guild Review


“A remarkable picture of the system of law and jurisprudence evolved by a primitive people . . .  and as practiced by them over a long period of years. . . . The individual case histories reveal the working of the warrior societies, the degree of authority exercised by the chiefs, and the mores of a primitive people. . . . More than a study of the jurisprudence of this single tribe, [the book] deals with the evolution of law and legal procedure among various other primitive peoples of the world.”—Edward Everett Dale, Journal of Southern History


“Here is pioneering in the Sociology of Law. . . . The cases themselves are so beautifully alive that an elementary school child will forget to go to sleep reading them; so will the adult.” —Columbia Law Review

From the Publisher