Hoebel, E. Adamson (1906–1993)

Edward Adamson (“Ad”) Hoebel was an accomplished ethnographer of American Indians and the author of two important anthropology texts. Nevertheless, Hoebel's greatest reputation was in law. He studied anthropology at Columbia under Franz Boas (1858–1942) and Ruth Benedict (1887–1948). When they discouraged his interest in Plains Indian law, he turned to Karl Llewellyn (1893–1962), the legal realist, and produced a PhD dissertation on the politics and law of the Comanche.

The two later collaborated to produce The Cheyenne Way (1941), using the empirical case study method to establish that Cheyenne society required social control and that this social control occurred within bounded groups, was made by authorities within these groups, and had sanctions. With this work, they conclusively proved that one might find law in a ...