Forgotten Fires

Forgotten Fires: Native Americans and the Transient Wilderness

By Omer C. Stewart

H.T. Lewis and M.K. Anderson (editors). University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. 2002.

This book is based on a manuscript, completed in 1954, by American anthropologist Omer Stewart. A professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Stewart had at the time already spent many years investigating indigenous burning practices, mainly by conducting extensive interviews with native people throughout North America. Editors Lewis and Anderson have added to Stewart’s work an introduction, anthropological and ecological critiques, references, and annotations.

Stewart considered study of indigenous burning—“the way aborigines have employed fire to change the face of the earth,” as he put it—as his primary academic calling. Working at a time when fire’s effects were considered wholly negative and the stereotype of American Indians living in a pristine wilderness had yet to be questioned, Stewart was criticized by researchers in both ecology and anthropology and labeled a “fire maverick.” From today’s perspective, we can see that Stewart was way ahead of his time in claiming that the role played by fire in human cultural and physical evolution was as important as those of language and tools and that fires purposefully set to achieve ecological outcomes and meet economic needs shaped wildland ecosystems across the United States.

In this volume, Stewart’s clear voice articulates the foundations of the view of fire that largely prevails today. This book, therefore, is a must-read for anyone who wants to restore the land by considering its history of management and burning by indigenous people in the United States.