Llewellyn, K. N., and Hoebel, E. Adamson. The Cheyenne Way: Conflict and Case Law in Primitive Jurisprudence. [Oklahoma:  The University of Oklahoma Press, 1941. $3.00.]

As the subtitle indicates, this is a legalistic study of and on case material among the Cheyenne Indians. Apparently the Cheyenne Way is not so primitive at all and cases are handled with good tact and

intuition. There are three parts: The Study of Primitive Law;, Cheyenne Law-Ways, and The Law-Jobs and Juristic Method.

One readily may see with the authors that among the Cheyennes there was “juristic deftness,” “a working harmony on into the future,” “soundness and permanence,” and “a regime of implicit principle and case work.” Most interesting is the Cheyenne punishment for homicide, a banishment for five or ten years. This was not the equivalent of death, for it was possible to join other tribes. Nor was homicide frequent, for the Cheyennes were a self-disciplined people. Fighting among the boys was not very common. The number of children in a family was limited to permit the fewer children to have more advantages. This reviewer wonders if it was the fact that he was so civilized that at least contributed to the downfall of the American Indian before the incursions of the more barborous white man.