MOHEGAN CHIEF: The Story of Harold Tantaquidgeon

It's like reading a biography of a neighbor, the fine, upstanding member of the community type. Harold Tantaquidgeon chased rumrunners while he was in the Coast Guard: served overseas in WW II; and has spent much of his time promoting the study of Indian culture and passing on his knowledge in Boy Scout camps and schools. His most distinctive feature is that he is among that small group of the still surviving tribe of Mohegans, and has done much to ensure that the old traditions and lore won't die out. His biography might have done much more to demonstrate a perfectly civilized, twentieth century man and his family, heavily influenced by its special cultural history. Instead Tantaquidgeon has been given the hero treatment with dialogue that is natural only to a juvenile biographer, and every indication that WW II was created for his particular benefit. And that doesn't reveal the man at all.