BACKWASH OF THE FRONTIER—-HALLOWELL 453 
paid scarcely any attention to the total effects upon American cul- 
ture of our continuing contacts with Indians. 
One of the things that anthropologists have discovered is that 
while Indians may “clothe” themselves, so to speak, with many of 
the accouterments of white man’s culture, this is often no more 
than skindeep. Even when the Indian is brought into close contact 
with the white man for more than a generation, and despite mission- 
ary efforts and educational opportunities, there is a psychological lag 
to be taken into account which indicates a dimension of the accultu- 
ration process about which we know too little. 
In contrast to this side of the acculturalization picture in the United 
States, it is interesting to recall, when white adults, and especially 
children, were captured in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries by 
many different groups of Indians and lived among them in daily in- 
timacy, the apparent ease with which these individuals adjusted them- 
selves to Indian culture. Turner speaks of the “occasional instances 
of Puritans returning from captivity to visit the frontier towns, Cath- 
olic in religion, painted and garbed as Indians and speaking the Indian 
tongue, and the halfbreed children of captive Puritan mothers.” 
While there were many hundreds of white captives taken, we have 
detailed and reliable information on only a few cases, including indi- 
viduals who were abducted as children. These “white Indians” often 
refused to return to the mode of life into which they had been born, 
even when given an opportunity.’?. In the 18th century Crévecoeur 
asked: “By what power does it come to pass, that children who have 
been adopted when young among these people, can never be prevailed 
on to readopt European manners?” Such individuals sometimes for- 
got their native speech, like Cynthia Ann Parker, captured by the 
Comanches in 1886 at the age of 9. When recaptured by the whites 
as a grown woman, all she could remember was her name. Other 
captives praised Indian character and morals and some of them 
adopted an Indian world view and religious beliefs. It was said of 
Mary Jemison, abducted in 1758 at the age of 15, that “she was as 
strong a pagan in her feelings as any Indian,” that all her religious 
ideas conformed to those of the Senecas, and that “the doctrine taught 
in the Christian religion she is a stranger to.” Of William Failey, 
abducted in 1837, his brother-in-law and biographer wrote: “In fact, 
his long residence among the Indians has made him an Indian.” Don 
Ryan in “The Warriors’ Path” (1937) and Conrad Richter in “The 
Light in the Forest” (1953) have given this theme modern novelistic 
treatment. The latter book was soon republished in paperback form 
(1954), and Walt Disney has made a movie of it. 
Benjamin Franklin must have been highly impressed by the atti- 
7 Erwin H. Ackerknecht, White Indians, Bull. Hist. Med., vol. 15, pp. 26, 30, 1944. 
