Reservation Life as Depicted in Contemporary Native American Literature
Diplomarbeit
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Magistra der Philosophie
an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
vorgelegt von Katharina HASLINGER
am Institut für Amerikanistik
Begutachterin: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr.phil. Roberta Maierhofer, M.A.
Graz, 2017
Acknowledgements
Firstly, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude for my supervising professor and mentor Ao.Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr.phil. Roberta Maierhofer, M.A. who supported and guided me in the writing process each step of the way. Her input was essential for shaping this thesis.
My parents, Juliana and Franz, have played a vital part in my development and their ongoing emotional and financial support throughout the course of my studies was detrimental for me. Thank you! I would also like to thank my grandmother Juliane and my sister Elisabeth.
I especially want to thank Clara for being my safety net, always having an accessible ear and her infectious optimism. A big “hvala” to Mirjam, for brightening my days, absolute loyalty, and wholehearted support. I owe special thanks to Martin for being my shoulder to lean on, cheering me up and believing in me. Moreover, I am deeply grateful for my friends who shared my joys and troubles, as well as the ups and downs of student life with me throughout the past years in Graz. In particular, I want to thank Melanie, Nicole and Victoria for supporting and motivating me not only during the process of writing this thesis, but also for making our shared university courses fun. Last but not least, I am very thankful for the continuing long-distance friendship with Elisabeth and Luwam; our adventures exploring Australia and Europe are among the best experiences I have had so far.
All of you have contributed far more to this thesis than you are aware of and I am deeply grateful to have you in my life.
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Table of Contents
Introduction ...... 1
1 Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature ...... 4
2 Singing the Blues: Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie ...... 15
2.1 “The Reservation Breathes” and Exhales Ambiguity ...... 16
2.2 Sherman Alexie´s Writing Style, Narration and Stylistic Features ...... 17
2.3 Hybrid Representation of Culture and the Value of Music ...... 20
2.4 Traces of Native Mythology and Magic ...... 24
2.5 The Residents of Wellpinit ...... 26
2.6 Challenges on the Reservation ...... 32
3 Temptation and Seduction/ New Gods: The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich ...... 46
3.1 Lipsha´s Homeland...... 47
3.2 Narrating in the Communal Voice and Stylistic Features ...... 48
3.3 Clash of Cultures – The Tribal Belief System and Catholicism ...... 50
3.4 Characters, Relationships and the Community on the Reservation in North Dakota 56
3.5 Gaming with Money, Feelings, Faith, and Coincidence ...... 61
4 Individual Dreams and the Female Perspective Addressed in The Rez Sisters by Tomson Highway ...... 69
4.1 “Plain, Dusty, Boring Old Wasaychiagan Hill” ...... 70
4.2 Dramatic Mode and Native Languages ...... 71
4.3 Nanabush – The Trickster ...... 74
4.4 The Focus on Female Characters and Their Dreams ...... 76
4.5 Obstacles Denying the Characters Happiness...... 80
Conclusion ...... 84
Bibliography...... 88
Introduction
“There´s a whole bunch wrong with white people, too,” he said. “Ain´t nothing gone wrong on the reservation that hasn´t gone wrong everywhere else.” (Alexie 186)
Within the United States of America certain territories are officially recognized by the government as Native American reservations and thus these areas are reserved for tribal communities and their members. According to the 2010 U.S Census, a fifth of the 5.2 million Native Americans belonging to the various tribal nations live on reservations. (“Living Conditions” online) These reservations are recognized as sovereign, self-governing bodies within the territory of the United States. Tribes have the power to pass and enforce their own laws and tribal members living on reservation grounds are obliged to follow these laws. The U.S. Congress, however, also has a certain degree of power over the Indian tribes in determining the limits of Native American sovereignty under the law of the United States. (Williams Robert 334)
Provided that a Native American is a registered member of one of the 317 recognized nations, they receive benefits from the United States government. (Grassian 9) Regardless of these government funds, the living conditions in the reservations prove to be difficult as the Cherokee scholar Jace Weaver highlights:
The statistics, which are often repeated are staggering. The average yearly income is half of the poverty level, and over half of all Natives are unemployed. On some reservations, unemployment runs as high as 85-90 percent. Health statistics chronically rank Natives at or near the bottom. Male life expectancy is forty-four years, and female is forty-seven. Infant mortality is twice the national average. Diabetes runs six times the national average. The worst part is that these statistics have not been changed in thirty years. Substance abuse, suicide, crime and violence are major themes among both, urban and reservation populations. (12)
Despite this dominant and bleak approach towards the realities of modern Native Americans, that is being reproduced over and over in the literary interpretation of contemporary Native American life, this thesis aims to take a different angle, namely to analyze three instances of contemporary Native American fiction holistically attempting to do justice to the depicted realities on the reservation.
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To begin with, an outline of the American literature produced about Native Americans will be provided as a basis for contextualizing this thesis. As a second step, literature produced by Native Americans will be introduced, its characteristic features will be highlighted and the history of literature by the first people on U.S. American soil will be addressed. The next section will be devoted to an analysis of the three contemporary Native American texts. The books will be regarded as a depiction of contemporary Native American realities and will be analyzed in terms of their narrative mode, the setting, the characters and their dreams as well as the portrayed communities. Furthermore, the challenges these characters have to face will be questioned and addressed in this thesis. The described difficulties the characters experience will be viewed as exemplifications of struggles possibly present on the reservation and will be considered from an interdisciplinary viewpoint. An additional question I will try to answer with this thesis is the characters´ motivation for either staying or leaving their traditional homeland and tribal community as well as what encourages the characters´ return to the reservation in the chosen texts.
The books addressed in this thesis, are chosen deliberately as each of them makes certain aspects of contemporary on-reservation life visible, thus making the experiences of modern Native Americans accessible for a wider audience. The chosen books are intriguing as they incorporate contradictions, which will be addressed in the respective sections of this thesis. Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie, aids in establishing the reservation as a living space and throughout the book contemporary issues such as alcoholism, blood quantum and societal expectations will be discussed. The value of “community” is evaluated and a discussion of under which circumstances the members of the tribal community support one another and the situations in which they are not able to fulfill this is part of this thesis. The second piece of Native American literature analyzed is The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich, introduces the topic of gaming and the transgression of rules applying outside the reservation. The reservation is portrayed as living space that enables the protagonist to find love, however, the girl he has chosen can only find her fulfillment in an off-reservation lifestyle. These first two novels portray contemporary reservation life from a point of view that is rather focused on the male sphere, as in both novels the main characters are mostly men. This changes with the third text that is analyzed in this thesis. Tomson Highway´s The Rez Sisters takes a closer look at the realities, dreams and hopes of Native American women. I consciously chose this text in order to shine light on approaches towards on-reservation life from the female perspective.
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In this thesis, I will argue for Lomawaima´s point of view promoting the approach to Native American culture as a minority with “A Valued Past and a Vibrant Present.” (Lomawaima 290) An intriguing aspect of Native American history is its strongly connection with the Euro- American founding of the United States of America and Native Americans are thus also mentioned in the U.S. Constitution as the only racial or ethnic minority. (Huyser et al. 542)
Writing about Native Americans and literature produced by Native Americans raises the question how the indigenous peoples in the United States should be referred to. Native Americans used to be called “Indians”, however, this term is highly problematic for the following reasons. Firstly, the term “Indian” can be traced back to Columbus who incorrectly thought he had discovered the “Indies” and thus called the indigenous population he encountered in the New World “Indians”. (Gray 2) In addition, the term “Indian” is a construct that the Europeans imposed on the Native population upon contact in their aim to colonialize the new-found continent. Native Americans were prior to contact not united through a common term; the individuals were known as members of their respective tribe. Referring to members of profoundly different tribal communities, unique in terms of their cultural background, their languages, and traditions, by a uniting term, entails arguably also a loss of identity. (Utter 25) Moreover, the fact that the term “Indian” was used in various racist documents and policies passed by the Euro-American government agencies, means that it has an offensive connotation. (Monchalin 3) Due to these reasons, I will refrain from using the term “Indian” in this thesis, apart from instances when it is used in the secondary sources I worked with in the corresponding paragraph. I consciously decided to apply the term “Native American”, as it is from my knowledge the more widely accepted politically correct term. In this thesis, the term “Native Americans” is used in circumstances when it is not possible to name the individual tribes and as an easier way to collectivize all the indigenous tribes as well as the First Nation being implied. This is done even in recognition that some researchers are also opposed to this term, because it homogenizes the diverse groups. Despite the fact that the phrase fails to distinguish between tribal groups in terms of their linguistic and geographical diversity as well as their cultures, customs, and traditions, the chosen course appears to be the most sensible approach to refer to individuals as well as groups who are descendants of those native to the North American continent. In this thesis, I will also make use of the term “indigenous”, which can be traced back to a Latin word stem meaning “sprung from the land” and is applied to “define peoples in relation to their colonizers.” (Monchalin 2)
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1 Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature
This first section will be devoted to a brief outline of literature produced in connection to the tribal nations dwelling in North America. Firstly, the portrayal of the indigenous population in the literary context will be addressed and secondly, the roots of literature produced by Native Americans will be explored. Moreover, the concept of the Native American Literary Renaissance will be introduced. There are certain characteristic features unique to literature produced by the indigenous population of the United States and Canada, such as the “homing in” plot and a distinct form of humor. Both features will be briefly discussed in this chapter.
The indigenous population of North America has been portrayed as the “Other” in literature over centuries. The accounts of the first explorers in the New World range from depicting the Native tribes as hospitable locals offering supplies, as well as portraying them as cannibals. (Ruppert “Anglo-American Literature” 383) Amongst the first European encounters with the Native American population was the expedition led by Christopher Columbus. His judgement of the peoples indigenous to the North American continent was that that they “should be good servants” and, moreover, would have the innate potential to be converted to Christianity. He wrongfully assessed that that the Native Americans had no religion and he believed that they had no language either. (Lundquist 17) In 1580 Michael Montaigne emphasized the “state of purity” of indigenous tribes in North America, promoting the idea that the Native population had no literature and were not aware of mathematical concepts. The Frenchman highlighted the absence of slavery and unemployment, whilst however, viewing the Native population as innocent barbarians. (18) Lundquist assesses that the European scholars often engaged in “bipolar thinking” in terms of the peoples indigenous to North America, where they were placed on the opposing and often negatively connotated end of a binary comparison. The White Man saw himself as “civilized” and placed the Native Americans on the contrasting position as “uncivilized.” It can be noted that the early Puritan settlers in the New World appropriated images of the Native population to fit their own agenda, where they considered themselves as god-chosen assigned the task to convert and eventually civilize the Native Americans. Berkhofer commented that the European settlers regarded the help they received from the Native Americans in their discovery attempts as god´s will and the Native population was viewed as the Lord´s agents. (19) Captain John Smith described the indigenous population of North America as inferior and referred to them as “salvages”. (Gray 25-26) The Puritan minister John Winthrop shared this attitude which reflects the opinion of the early colonial attempts; he
4 considered the Native population to be “wild” and regarded them as “poor people”. (28-29) When the Native culture and population is viewed in more positive terms, the authors wrongly underestimate the advancement of the tribal communities and portray the “simplicity” and “primitive” lifestyle of the Indians as a virtue. (35) In the Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson Native Americans are “Pagans” and “ravenous beats”, “resembling the devil in their cruelty, savagery and capacity for lying.” (44) The indigenous population is depicted as the enemy in the genre of the captivity narrative. Washington Irving, however, is one of the few voices in American literature, who portray the indigenous population as great comedians, mocking whites among themselves, and imitating animals; the author notes that “there cannot be greater gossips.” (Lowe 193) During the era of Enlightenment many philosophers shared the view that the Indians had to be educated rather than exterminated and that continuing efforts would make them realize that giving up their culture and land would be a reasonable, if not necessary, step. Literature produced during that time still consisted, to a large extent, of captivity narratives and recounts of warfare with the indigenous population. A prime example of this attitude is Charles Brockden Brown´s Edgar Huntley, where the Native Americans are depicted as “perpetrators of atrocities.” (Ruppert “Anglo- American Literature” 385) In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century there is a shift; in the romantic movement, Native Americans were portrayed as “men of emotions and sensibility.” The myth of Manifest destiny, according to which the European settlers were destined to take over North America, was also reflected in literature, where Philip Freneau portrayed the indigenous population as noble men and members of a dying race who were aware of this fact. (386) Summing up, the portrayal of the Native population in the early American literary history is rather negative and they are depicted as underdeveloped, uncultured, and unrefined. This attitude continued to influence government policies with regard to Native Americans, right up until the middle of the 20th century.
At this point, this thesis moves on from the depiction of Native Americans in literature to the second aspect of this introductory chapter, where literature and oratory produced by Native American writers will be in the focus. Similar to the controversy concerning the politically correct way of referring to individuals and groups with indigenous heritage in North America, is the issue of whether or not the diverse variety of authors, whose mother tongues can be traced back to seven distinct language families, can all be united under one phrase, namely “Native American writers.” It is highly important to keep Michael Dorris´s argument in mind that through the linguistic and cultural diversity of the various tribes, that “there is not such a thing
5 as Native American literature.” The anthropologist and writer, who was married to Louise Erdrich, highlights the impossibility of uniting 300 tribal communities, conversing in 200 different Native tongues, under one concept. (Jacobs 5) Owens, being well-aware of Dorris´s argument, however, regards the “contemporary Indian novel” as a tool for the recovery of Native American culture. Owens believes that authors with tribal heritage are through the concept of a uniting Indian novel able to express their opinions in raising their voice and can be heard by the dominant society. Jacobs defines the notion of a “Native American novel” as literature produced by indigenous writers, who are writing about Native Americans “with a decidedly Indian articulation of life.” (9)
It is essential to be aware that Native American literature existed long before the first Europeans set foot on U.S. American soil. Indigenous oral tradition influences contemporary Native American authors profoundly, which is the reason why it is essential to first examine Native American orality and oral literature, before addressing written literature. Susan Berry Brill de Ramírez highlights, that oral literature can be even more complex than written texts. (Berry Brill de Ramírez Folklore 329) The former also has the potential to adapt by incorporating current influences from the outside world as well as at the same time upholding traditions. (Jahner 213)
The North American continent was settled even before 30,000 B.C. and the first peoples brought along a comprehensive metaphysical worldview that was expressed in oral form. (Wiget 1) The early accounts of Native American expressions encompass myths, highly repetitive songs, tales and legends, which were all passed on verbally as the starting point of American literature. (Van Spanckeren 3) Songs, as lyric poetry, were traditionally led by powerful drums or rattles, however, the most important instrument was the human voice. (Wiget 26) Poems also played a vital role in the passages of life, as “integrative ritual poetry” with was recited in order to facilitate the rites of passage such as being born, entering puberty, sickness and eventually death. (33) The cultural diversity among the Native American tribes is also visible in their artistic expression and their differing living conditions also manifest themselves in these oral stories. Other influences on the respective tribe and the oral literatures they produce, are the tribal communities´ belief systems as well as how the tribe is governed. A characteristic element that encompasses a majority of these early tribal expressions, is the notion of the nature as the “spiritual as well as physical mother.” This orally transmitted canon covers a vast variety of different oral genres, specifically “lyrics, chants, myths, fairy tales,
6 humorous anecdotes, incantations, riddles, proverbs” and legends. (VanSpanckeren 3) The various forms of oral expression mirror epistemological realties (Jahner 223) and thus one should refrain from regarding them as primitive forms of expression. It is rumored that during the colonialization of North America, European settlers are said to have praised the distinguished use of metaphors in tribal oratory. (Brander Rasmussen 301) In addition, creation stories are vital to the preservation of the cultural heritage of the tribes. (VanSpanckeren 3) These legends offer explanations for the creation of the world and astronomical concepts such as the stars, the sun, and the moon. They also provide the basis for rituals and recount the discovery of comestible goods and resources such as corn and buffalos. Native tribes also explain the evolution of mankind through these creation stories. (Gray 4) Wiget highlights the cross-tribal trend of an “Asexual Spiritual Being” as center of the creation of the world. Upon the first contact, a mythological mediation figure appears and its body occasionally transforms into the primal flora and fauna on earth. After this period, a trickster figure is responsible for further creation. The last period of a creation myth is the “Legendary/ Historical Period”, when mankind surfaces. (Wiget 3-5)
Bahr outlines that one definition of Native American oratory is that they are considered “speeches addressed to the European settlers in defense of Indian lifestyle, property and liberty” which were used as means of persuasion. (107) Oratory is designed to receive opposition (Bahr 108) and they were also frequently recorded in written form, for instance, the petition the Cherokee tribe sent to the U.S. congress in 1829. (109) It proves to be difficult for scholars to analyze these oratories in a comprehensive way, because in most oratories of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the versions in the respective tribal languages are missing. Being able to compare the English version with the one in the indigenous language would add a vital aspect to the study of oratory. (111) In addition to speeches addressing the colonizers, Native American oratory also had other functions in the tribal community, however, only a few of these instances are documented. (107)
The oral tradition, being one of performances, is an interdependency of verbal and tonal ways of expression. (Wiget 2) In the tradition of storytelling the listener plays a vital part in the process and through their presence a conversation develops between the storyteller and listener. This interaction is detrimental to the act of storytelling (Berry Brill de Ramirez Oral Literature 6) and the interactive aspect of the storytelling tradition is also visible in oral texts. (12) Even when an oral act of performance gets “written down and becomes “fixed”, it is still oral.” (3)
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The vital influence of orality on the storytelling tradition should not be underestimated. (5) It can be observed that Native American writers tend to include features of the oral style in their written texts; they frequently rely on oral techniques such as repetitions, directly addressing the reader through questions, and interjectory. (Chang 131)
Before contemporary Native American literature, which developed out of the Native American Literary Renaissance, will be addressed, a brief historic outline of texts produced by writers connected to a tribal community will be given in order to contextualize the more recent developments. Brander Rasmussen highlights that the pictography produced by Native American tribes can also be regarded as writing and he refers to the remarkable painting documenting the tribal history of the Dakota on buffalo skin as a prime example. The tribal elders collectively commemorated major occurrences throughout the year on so-called winter counts (Brander Rasmussen 300), which provide valuable insight into Native history and traditional practices as well as former living conditions and realities of Native American tribes and communities. Keeping in mind that pictography was also a vital tool for recording history, this chapter will proceed to literature produced by Native writers composed on paper. The oldest written record “employing western notions of literacy” produced by a Native American is a letter written in 1663 written in Latin by Caleb Cheeshateaumauk, a Wampanoag. (Lopenzina 317) Approximately a century later, Samson Occum, member of the Mohegan, published his “Sermon on the Execution of Moses Paul” and his Choice Collection of Hymnes and Spiritual Songs (1774) as the first Native American writer to publish his work in English. (Wiget Chronology)
According to John Gamber, authors indigenous to North America and Canada have produced and published literature since the middle of the 19th century, with John Rollin Ridge, a Cherokee, as one of the pioneers in the field with his novel The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murrieta, the Celebrated California Bandit (1854). Almost forty years later, the first Native American novel by a woman was printed, Wynema: A Child of the Forest (1891), written by the Cree writer Alice Callahan. (Gamber 448) After the publication of these groundbreaking novels, which paved the road for their successors, an attempt to balance the concept of the indigenous novel between the “novel of resistance” with the unparalleled brutality expressed in John Rollin Ridge´s novel and the “novel of assimilation” is noticeable. (Teuton 318)
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However, Native Americans do not only feature in literature with an Anglo-American focus. Through the well-known Karl May novels, Germans and Austrians were also very much exposed to the depiction of Native Americans as “noble salvages” in literature through the characters of the Native American Winnetou and his German blood-brother Old Shatterhand. May´s adventure novels are set in the American Old West and facilitated a high interest in Native American matters in the German-speaking part of the world. (Zacharasiewicz 10)
Gamber highlights the fact that common themes among texts produced around the Termination Era, when “American Indian Relocation policies” ruled, include cultural dislocation, growing outsider status within the society, poverty as the result of missing formal education as well as increased drug abuse and violence. He connects this trend to the demographic shift of Native Americans moving into the cities; before WWII only 8 percent of Native Americans were urban Indians in contrast to over two thirds of the Native population living in cities nowadays. (Gamber 450)
Noticing a growing interest in literature produced by Native American writers in the 20th century, Kenneth Lincoln wrote a text named “Native American Renaissance.” This phrase was later utilized to name the whole literary movement. (Gamber 448) The literary critic defines the Native American Renaissance as “a written renewal of oral traditions translated into Western literary forms.” Traditional Native literature has been regenerated (Lincoln 8) and the beginning of the literary movement can be traced back to the late 1960s and the publication of Scott Momaday´s novel House Made of Dawn. (Grassian 10, Jacobs 3, Jahner 218) Roemer assesses that the novel awarded with the Pulitzer Prize partly reinvents Euro-American conventions and argues that the author included sophisticated borrowings from the modernists William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. (397) The movement should be viewed in the historical context it developed in; in the 1970s a growing number of minority groups and those who were hitherto excluded from the canon, claimed their position next to members of the dominant culture. Through the political and cultural developments in the 1960s and 1970s, the literary canon could be opened, granting indigenous writers and people of color, as well as female authors and writers with ethnic background a well-deserved position. The political revolution in the United States with the Civil Rights Movement and the Red Power movement, facilitated a “literary revolution” which made the Native American Literary Renaissance possible. (Jacobs 4) The stepping stones of the Red Power movement, namely taking over Alcatraz by Native American activists in 1969, the occupation of the Wounded Knee battleground and the march on
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Washington to demand treaty rights a decade later, assisted in the process of creating the “homing in” plot (Teuton 324) which will be discussed at a later point. Teuton considers this narrative of the return to one´s homeland and tribal traditions, as the Red Power novel. (324)
It can be argued that there has been a shift in the interpretation of resistance and how Native American novelists illustrate this topic in the middle of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century. Concepts that were formerly regarded as assimilation to Western conventions, such as urbanization, studying at university, or exploring the European continent, were reinterpreted as modern ways of resistance in this new era, proving to the wider society that Native American are also capable of these actions. (Teuton 320) James Ruppert points out that text produced by Native American writers in the postmodern age are read and appreciated by a wide audience:
“Native American writers write for two audiences – non-Native and Native American – or in many cases three audiences – a local, a pan-tribal one and a non-Native contemporary American one. The attempt to satisfy those audiences generates the peculiar construct of the art.” (“Mediation” 128)
In addition to Sherman Alexie, Louise Erdrich and Tomson Highway, who are discussed in this thesis, another contemporary Native American author is Gerald Vizenor. The Ojibwa author wrote besides his novels, poems and short stories also some highly regarded critical and theoretical texts in the field. (Gamber 452) Other contemporary indigenous authors are James Welch, a member of the Blackfeet tribe, and the Laguna Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko.
In the following paragraphs, typical features of literatures produced by indigenous writers residing in the United States and Canada will be presented. It is vital to remember that not all the complied characteristics apply to every text produced by Native American and First Nation writers. It can be argued that numerous indigenous authors are including characteristics of earlier Native literary and oral developments in their work. (Jahner 212) The literary scholar Connie Jacobs even goes so far as to state that fiction produced by writers with Native American heritage “is the oral tradition out of which it arises.” (Jacobs 12) Lincoln assesses that the Native American Renaissance novelists recall the storytelling custom and the ritual of recording historic events on winter coats, which influences their work. He argues that contemporary poets continue the tradition of “visionary singers” and shamans. Native Dramatists producing their work in the twentieth and twenty-first century, can, from his point of view, be regarded as modern versions of “ritual priests and cultural purveyors of daily tribal life.” (Lincoln 41-42) 10
Contemporary Native American writers incorporate the rhythms of their tribal language in their writing, provided that they have sufficient knowledge of it. This can occur either on purpose or unconsciously. (Berry Brill de Ramírez Folklore 338)
Another salient feature of contemporary Native American literature is the allusion to the concept of a cyclical time rather than a linear timeline common in the Euro-American literary tradition. In the Native American interpretation, it can be argued that stories continue and a prime example for this technique is Louise Erdrich´s Love Medicine opening and closing with June´s story. (Jacobs 14-15) The concept of cyclical time is a typical feature of the Native American oral tradition and the incorporation of this concept in written form can be regarded as a negotiation between two worlds. (Chang 131)
The inclusion of a trickster figure is one of the key elements in literature and oratory produced by Native Americans and thus is still a vital part in contemporary indigenous literature. The cross-cultural phenomenon of a trickster is also part of the cultural heritage of groups located in Africa, South Asian and Oceania. (Roush 210) Despite the devaluation of the trickster figure by Carl Jung, a psychologist with Swiss background, as conveying the amoral aspect of the psyche and thus being inferior (VanSpanckeren 3), the concept of the trickster can be regarded as the “oldest expressions of mankind.” (Radin xxiii) The trickster tales can be compared to aspects in Greek mythology, which is considered the birth place of Western culture. The trickster, as a culture hero, can be a mystical figure, such as the twin brothers, or based on a historic persona, such as Hiawatha. Trickster tales are stories of “love and war” as well as “animals and spirits.” They offer magical explanations of the respective tribe´s history as well as explanations for geographical formations. (Gray 4) Tricksters are ambiguous and often even contradicting embodiments of either creator and transformer, or destroyer. Wiget outlines that “one personal, the sum of all possibilities, can encompass at least three distinct roles: the aggressive Culture Hero like Monster-Slyer, the cunning promethean Culture Hero, and the bumbling, overreaching Trickster.” (Wiget 15) The trickster has no moral standards; he is uncontrollable. (Radin xxiii) Despite the fact that the trickster frequently takes on the shape of an animal, such as a coyote or a raven, it does not have a certain form. Radin explains the relationship between the trickster figure and humor as follows:
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“Laughter, humour and irony permeate everything Trickster does. The reaction of the audience in aboriginal societies to both him and his exploits in prevailingly one of laughter tempered by awe. There is no reason for believing this is secondary or a late development. Yet it is difficult to say whether the audience is laughing at him, at the tricks he plays on others, or at the implications his behaviour and activities have for them.” (xxiv)
Humor has always played a vital role in Native American cultures and it can be argued that humor, especially survival humor, has made it possible for Native Americans to survive the genocide by the European colonizers. (Roush 206) Freud declared that humor is a “social process” that only occurs within human interaction grounded on a strong basis. Considering the focus on community within the tribal groups, it is the perfect breeding ground for humorous expression. (Lowe 193) Deloria assesses that the frequency and intensity of the use of humor increases with the hopelessness and urgency of the discussed issue. From a historical point of view, humor was used as a strategy to humble fellow tribal members and thus reintegrate them in the community, which will be further addressed in the chapter focused on The Rez Sisters, which is analyzed as a third example of contemporary Native American literature in this thesis. (cf. 4.2 Dramatic Mode and Stylistic Features) This playful badgering was established as a common practice and soon the tribal members started making fun of themselves to express modesty and cope with their own vices. (Deloria 147) Additionally, deep historic wounds, which developed through the colonial atrocities committed on the Native population, are addressed in the Native American culture through humor and irony. A pan-tribal phenomenon of Custer jokes exists; even tribes who were not on the warpath against Custer have their own jokes about him. (148) One of these jokes is that the battle against Custer and his Seventh Calvary was the “last navel engagement of the Indian wars” due to the enormous water that was needed for the exaggerated number of Natives defending their homeland against Custer´s regiment. (150) The humorous anecdotes also include the first contact with Columbus (148) and the continued attempts of converting the Native communities. (152) A typical technique for tribes located in the southwest of North America is an entertaining and ambiguous use of words and phrases. (154) The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service are also frequently mocked. (156) Moreover, it is also common to address issues in a witty one-line comment, such as the reply to the question why Native Americans were the first on the North American continent. The Indian return is recorded to be “we had reservations.” (166) The Standing Rock Sioux Vine Deloria Junior summarizes Native American humor as follows:
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“Humor, all Indians will agree, is the cement by which the coming Indian movement is held together. When a people can laugh at themselves and laugh at others and hold all aspects of life together without letting anybody drive them to extremes, then it seems to me that that people can survive.” (167)
A common theme on the content level is the “homing in” of Native American characters outlined by William Bevis. He sets the basis by discussing the “leaving plot” in the Western genre of bildungsroman, with the prime examples of Moby Dick and Sister Carry, focused on personal development. Bevis assesses that in America this genre developed into the theme of “leaving home for better opportunities in a newer land.” The “homing in” plot, as a typical feature of Native American literature, describes in contrast a return to the Indian land. Native American characters consciously decide to move back to the place they are connected to through family and tribal ties and where they are closer to tribal traditions. (Bevis 581-583)
Additionally, a distinct characteristic of contemporary Native American literature is the “relatedness of all things”, which stresses the co-existence and interdependence of mankind with animals and nature. This Native idea of wholeness also enables the individual to find their place within the world and their respective community. (Jacobs 15) In addition to the thematic incorporation of the Native wholeness, the balancing act of maintaining an Indian identity despite the influences of the Western society and colonialization, is a topic that is still very prominent in contemporary Native American literature. Its beginning can be traced back to the publication of Mourning Dove´s Cogewea, the Half- Blood, in 1927. (Teuton 323) The fragmentation of Native Indian identities is a common theme in contemporary literature that can be explained through the enforced relocation of the Native population and the resulting genocide and ethnocide. Indigenous authors frequently focus on the present effects loss of land, languages, and tradition has on the mental health of the tribal nations. Native literature can be regarded as an analysis of the fragmentation of Native identity as well as an approach centered towards healing. Lundquist assesses that the “power of words and storytelling” are a vital theme in the coping process of addressing the cultural fragmentation in literature. Moreover, the strong connection with the tribal land that plays into the Native American sense of identity is a pressing issue addressed in contemporary literature. Bloodlines are also a common feature in the literary efforts to describe the fragmentation of the indigenous inhabitants of the North American continent. (Lundquist 201-204)
At the opening of this section, the concept of Native American literature encompassing the different tribes was established. At this point, however, another question surfaces, namely the
13 question as to how this literature can be viewed from a theoretical point of view. Thomas King discussed this question in his essay “Godzilla vs Post-Colonial.” He criticizes the use of the term “post-colonial” applied to Native American literature as from his perspective this term expresses the notion that there would have been some improvement from the pre-colonial and colonial period respectively, to the post-colonial period. This idea of improvement or progress could then also be applied to the literature produced in these periods and the lifestyle the people shared in these periods. (King 243) Moreover, it is problematic to force the bright and diverse indigenous cultures into the Western linear way of thinking about the past and enforcing the order of pre-colonial, colonial and ultimately post-colonial. Thomas King questions these implications and argues that the notion of post-colonial writing denies contemporary Native American authors the link to their tribal traditions through promoting the idea that recent writing in the field developed out of the oppression performed through the colonizers. The possible alternatives, he suggests instead of the term “post-colonial”, are “tribal”, “interfusional”, “polemical” and “associational” as they “avoid the sense of progress in which primitivism gives way to sophistication.” (243) He defines “tribal literature” as written or oral expressions existing and being known first and foremost among a tribal community or group and usually passed on in the respective Native American mother tongue. Within the wider society these literatures go unnoticed, primarily due to the language barriers that exist and the lack of motivation of the communities to make their stories, myths, and legends available for a wider audience consisting predominately of cultural outsiders. The second adjective, that can be applied to certain forms of Native American literature, is, according to Thomas King, the term “polemical”. He defines polemical literature as one that addresses the confrontation between Native and non-Native cultures or literature highlighting the supremacy of Native cultures and traditions over Anglo-American conventions. These polemical literatures can either be in the respective Native language of the tribal nations or even in English or French. The American- Canadian novelist with part Cherokee heritage defines the term “interfusional” as “a blending of oral literature and written literature,” where metaphors, rhyme structures, characters and addressed topics can often be traced back to the oral tradition. Lastly, the term “associational” can, in his opinion, be applied to contemporary texts produced by authors with indigenous heritage. This body of literature shines light on the daily routines of Native Americans, which is, in contrast to the Western approach to the organization of a story, rather flat without any major turning points. Moreover, associational literature concerns itself frequently with the community rather than focusing on an individual. According to King, associational literature provides rare insight into indigenous cultures for non-Native readers. (244-245)
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2 Singing the Blues: Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie, who published Reservation Blues in 1995 as his debut novel, is the son of a Coeur d´Alene father and a mother of Spokane Indian descent. (Grassian 1) The currently most controversially discussed Native American writer (Grimm 305) grew up on the Spokane Indian reservation, where he was born with a hydrocephalus and thus suffered from physical impairments throughout his childhood. This made him an outsider in his community, but thanks to his relocation to a high school outside the reservation in Reardon he connected with his new peers. Leaving the reservation and continuing his academic career at university, where he was also exposed to poems, Sherman Alexie developed an interest in the field of literature. He felt he could identify with a line of Adrian Louis´s poems referring to the speaker being caught “in the reservation of [one´s] mind”. This key moment in Sherman Alexie´s development as a writer made him focus on the reservation as starting point for his writing. (306-307) He writes books with the rationale to challenge his audience in their beliefs and he acknowledges that his texts might even offend people. (Baker online) In Reservation Blues, he is successful in making his readers reconsider their stereotypes about the bleach reality of Native Americans living on the reservation through celebrating traditional lifestyles and highlighting the possibilities of the on- reservation way of life.
The book opens with the arrival of the African American Blues musician Robert Johnson at the Spokane Indian reservation, who brings along his guitar, the starting point for rock music in Wellpinit. The focus of Reservation Blues is on the aspiring all-Indian blues and rock-and- roll band Coyote Spring consisting of Thomas Builds-the-Fire, Junior Polatkin and Victor Joseph. The founding members are joined by two Flathead Indian sisters, Chess and Checkers Warm Water, who complete the band with their powerful voices. The band wins a band contest which attracts a record company´s interest, however, they eventually do not secure the deal and have to face their failure. Junior commits suicide and Thomas and the Warm Water sisters decide to leave the Spokane reservation and move to the city outside the reservation boarders. The Blues musician Robert Johnson, however, consciously chooses the on- reservation lifestyles when he decides to further seek spiritual treatment in Big Mom´s care and thus stay at the Spokane Indian Reservation.
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2.1 “The Reservation Breathes” and Exhales Ambiguity
Considering that various of Sherman Alexie´s texts are set on the Spokane Indian Reservation, Grassian draws a connection between Sherman Alexie and William Faulkner. (Grassian 6) The main setting of Reservation Blues is the 156,000 acre Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington State, where Sherman Alexie was born and raised. (Grassian 1) In Reservation Blues the reader finds out that the reservation was established 1881, with Wellpinit as the only town on the reserve. (3) The depiction of the Spokane´s habitat is well-balanced between positive and negative images. Upon entering the reserve, Robert Johnson declares the beauty of the reservation: “This is a beautiful place.” (7) The reservation becomes a place of refuge for the Blues musician. He repeats his primary evaluation after his recovery many weeks later. (“Besides, it´s beautiful here. And Thomas, I have seen everythin´.” 303) The Spokane Indian reservation is described as a peaceful and quiet place, where animal sounds can be heard at night, creating a cozy atmosphere. Furthermore, Sherman Alexie states that the “reservation breathes” (86), which, from my point of view, expresses the constant changes the reservation undergoes; it does not lie idle, it is breathing and thus also alive. This reading of nature as being a living entity is in accordance with Kathyrn VanSpanckeren´s observation that, generally speaking, in tribal stories nature is portrayed as a living concept with spiritual powers. (VanSpanckeren 3) In strong contrast, Thomas remembers “all the dreams that were murdered here, and the bones buried quickly just inches below the surface, all waiting to break through the foundations of those government houses.” (7) This devastating image of “murdered dreams” can be understood as a reference to the dire living conditions and bleak statistics describing on- reservation life. Grimm argues that in Sherman Alexie´s writing the reservation is depicted as restricting in the geographical as well as in the mental sense. (Grimm 306) Despite the pessimistic illustrations, the homeland of the Spokane Indians is a powerful place; Thomas put it as follows: “But the reservation still possessed power and rage, magic and loss, joys and jealousy.” (96), which highlights positive as well as negative aspects of the tribal land as living space and makes the reader realize that for a fulfilled life both sides of the emotional spectrum are essential.
In addition to the Spokane Reservation, the reader follows Coyote Springs to the Flathead reservation in Montana (55), where Chess and Checkers Warm Water join the band. (78) Thomas, Victor, Junior and Chess win the band contest in Seattle (156) and the band scuppers
16 their chance to sign a record deal in New York which would have been their great breakthrough. (230)
Eventually, Thomas, Chess and Checkers leave Thomas´s native land in order to find fulfilment in the outside world. (298) Even though the focus of this thesis is on reservation life, Sherman Alexie highlights with the novel´s ending that for modern Native Americans a life outside the tribal territory is also a possibility. The lives and the challenges of urban Indians differ vastly from those of Native Americans living on tribal lands and exploring these aspects would go beyond the scope of this thesis.
“Those horses were following, leading Indians toward the city, while other Indians were traditional dancing in the Longhouse after the feast, while drunk Indians stood outside the trading Post drinking and laughing.” (306)
2.2 Sherman Alexie´s Writing Style, Narration and Stylistic Features
The speaker, who enables the reader to gain insight into the life at the Spokane Reservation in Reservation Blues, is not identified, however, he can be described as an authorial narrator. According to Vera and Ansgar Nünning, an authorial narrator is “situated outside the world of the characters” and thus does not feature in the text. Being aware of the internal thoughts and feelings of all characters alike, this narrator is omnipresent and has the “temporal privilege of being able to survey the entire course of narrative events in the past, present and future.” (Nünning and Nünning 113) The reader finds out about Father Arnolds dream (163-165) as well as conversations between Checkers and Chess. (187)
Apart from the omniscient and omnipresent authorial narrative situation, which allows the reader to get to know various main characters at a deeper level and thus highlights the diversity of life at the reservation, Sherman Alexie uses various narrative techniques. He even produced a soundtrack in collaboration with the Colville Jim Boyd with the songs featured in Reservation Blues. (Hafen 68) Every chapter of the novel is framed by the lyrics of a presumable Coyote Springs´s song foreshadowing the dominant themes of the section. Chapter four, for instance, opens with the lyrics to the song “Father and Farther” (93-94) addressing the issues of paternal alcohol abuse through the lines “Sometimes father, you and I are like two old drunk who spend
17 their whole lives in the bars.” (94) The chapter then addresses the alcohol dependence of the protagonist´s father and its effect on the protagonist Thomas. Moreover, problems such as loneliness and hunger (1), the tradition of treaty making and treaty breaking (31-32), the Trail of Tears and falling in love (53-54), the boarding school trauma and the whitewashing of Jesus (131-132) are addressed and foreshadowed in these lyrics. The problem of urban Indians (221- 222) is foreshadowed in chapter eight through the “Urban Indian Blues.” Some of these matters will be addressed further in in the section exploring the challenging aspects of present-day reservation life. (c.f. 2.6 Challenges at the Reservation) The use of the lyrics at the beginning of each chapter is a very innovative way to address issues that Native Americans have to cope with at the reservation and to briefly highlight their struggles. This literary technique can be regarded as reference to the development of Native American literature. As discussed in the introductory chapter (cf. 1. Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature), Native American literature is rooted in oral storytelling, and thus this incorporation of this narrative technique bridges the gap between traditional ways of passing on stories and legends to future generations, and contemporary Native American literature. In addition to the discussed use of lyrics within the book, newspaper articles (59, 83, 89, 175, 293) and “a live interview on KROK, Seattle´s best rock” (156-160) are also included in the novel. Furthermore, Thomas´s journal entries (48, 154, 204) and a farewell letter from Junior´s former girlfriend Lynn (242) are part of the novel. A fax (189-190), Victor´s curriculum vitae (297) and a note from Junior to Big Mom (215), further advance the development of the plot. The plot does not unfold in a strictly chronological way; it instead features numerous flashbacks, dreams, and visions of the characters. The visions can be understood in terms of another link to traditional Native American literature, which features this textual characteristic as well.
It can be noted that Sherman Alexie frequently relies on humor in his texts to address historic and current wrongdoings against Native Americans. The author relies on this stylistic feature especially when discussing circumstances of inequality as the result of white hegemony. Generally speaking, the Spokane writer uses dark humor to focus on problematic issues of on- reservation life, such as dire living conditions, financial hardships, alcohol and drug abuse, as well as the loss of traditional values and customs. (Heldrich 25) Sherman Alexie manages to reach the American public through his texts in which he points out the experiences and realities of contemporary Native American life through humor and anger alike. (Roush 205) This characteristic of dark humor features in Reservation Blues, for instance, when the interior of the Flathead church is described and it is noted that, “folding chairs proved the existence of
18 god.” (106) The church is rather dull and basic in Chess and Checker´s memory, with the multifunctional seating as a highlight.
“The sisters walked to the church, which was one of those simple buildings, four walls, a door, a crucifix, and twenty folding chairs. Those folding chairs were multidimensional. Set them up facing the front, and they served as pews. Circle them around a teacher in the middle, and you had Sunday School. Push them up to card tables, and you feasted on donated food. Fold those chairs, stack them in a corner, and you cleared a dance space.” (105-106)
This enthusiastic description of the various uses of folding chairs exemplifies Sherman Alexie´s use of dark humor best. His sharp tongue is also very appreciable in “The Reservation´s Ten Commandments as Given by the United States of America to the Spokane Indians” (154) recorded in Thomas´s journal where issues such as the continued dependency of Native tribes through government welfare practices are addressed. “Remember the first of each month by keeping it holy. The rest of the month you shall go hungry, but the first day of each month is a tribute to me, and you shall receive welfare checks and commodity food in exchange for your continued dependence.” (154) He also comments on the loss of tribal heritage and land: “Honor your Indian father and Indian mother because I have stripped them of their land, language, and hearts, and they need your compassion, which is a commodity I do not supply.” (154) Through his ability to balance humor and anger, he manages to educate his audience about Native Americans issues, whilst still being entertaining. Tillett argues that this intentional, well-balanced application of humor, can be regarded as an advancement of the traditional trickster figure. In this interpretation, the goal of humor is besides challenging stereotypes imposed on the indigenous population, also exposing political issues. (Tillet 137)
Literature produced by Native American writers, can be even more intriguing on a linguistic level. For the most part of his academic career, Sherman Alexie attended “mainstream, predominately white schools” and has acquired the Spokane language only on a basic level. (Grassian 2) Nevertheless, his writing features certain characteristics which are worth considering. A salient feature is his application of the term “enit?” which has various functions within the novel. “Enit” is frequently used as a question tag, when instances of direct speech feature in Reservation Blues. This is, for example, exemplified in the following statements: “Little bit early, enit?” (51), “But that lead singer is kind of cute, enit?” (55) and “You´re Flatheads, enit?” (60) Moreover, the phrase can also be used as an answer expressing agreement when, for instance, Victor replies “Enit, it´s better than hearing another one of his goddam
19 stories.” (98) to a question (“That´s a pretty good deal, enit?” 98). From a linguistic point of view, it can be noted that the characters often disregard grammatical rules in their application of direct speech; this happens when “was” is used instead of the grammatically correct “were” (“We thought we was two hours late by real time. At least an hour late by Indian time” 51, “They knew what they was doing.” 89). Occasionally “do” is used instead of “does” (“This van don´t want to go to Seattle, enit?” 133). Having Stuart Hall´s assertion in mind that “language is one of the `media´ through which thoughts, ideas and feelings are represented in a culture” (Hall et al. xvii), it can be argued that culture also manifests itself in language use. Thus, cultural outsiders often cannot comprehend regional terms as they do not share the insight knowledge of the respective community. It is noteworthy that also reservation slang features in Reservation Blues and it is even more significant that Thomas does not know the term, which makes him stand out:
“He didn´t know what snag meant, although every other Indian on the plant understood that particular piece of reservation vocabulary: snag was noun and verb. A snag was a potential lover or the pursuit of a lover. Snagged meant you´d caught your new lover.” (61)
2.3 Hybrid Representation of Culture and the Value of Music
In order to draw informed conclusions in terms of how culture is portrayed in Reservation Blues, one has to be aware of the definition of the term and what the construct entails. According to the sociologist and cultural theorist Stuart Hall, the term has undergone a historic development which led to it having a wider meaning. Briefly summarized, the concept of culture can be defined as “shared meanings.” (Hall et al. xvii) Traditionally, it used to refer to “the best that had been thought and said” in a society, whereas, from a more contemporary point of view, the term also includes various aspects of mass culture and popular culture. This means that culture also manifests itself in “widely distributed forms of popular music, publishing art, design and literature.” (xvii-xviii) When the concept of culture is viewed from a social studies perspective, it refers to a certain way of life and how this lifestyle differs from others. (xviii)
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Throughout the novel, explicit references to mainstream media and culture are very common and Berglund attests that Sherman Alexie´s texts appeal to his wide audience due to these references to contemporary popular culture. Berglund goes as far as to claim that mass entertainment can be regarded as the modern form of rituals. (Berglund xxvi) This mixture of mainstream culture with indigenous cultural heritage can be referred to as hybridity, however, Hafen is skeptical towards this term, as it is, from her point of view, problematic in terms of connected issues of identity and authenticity. She outlines “if hybridity is a phenomenon of assimilation and acculturation, then the origin must be somehow diluted.” However, one has to be aware that this would regard indigenous cultures as static. In reality, the contrary applies; Native cultures have adapted in order to withstand the cultural and literal genocide. (Hafen 63) In my opinion, this blending of indigenous and popular culture allows the reader to identify to a certain extent with the characters and their lives, due to the shared ritual of being aware of and often also consuming the same products of mass pop entertainment. This stylistic measure can be interpreted as a method to make the reader aware of the fact that the reservations and especially the people living on the reservations are indeed part of the U.S. They consume the same music and thus have something in common with the average American through being exposed to the same cultural influences as the majority of North American citizens. The blues musician Robert Johnson, who was a master of the Mississippian delta-blues and an influential figure for the development of Jazz, is included as a character in the book and his recovery and spiritual development feature in the novel. Furthermore, also frequent references to well-known pop musicians are also made in Reservation Blues. Elvis (34), Hank Williams, Buddy Holly, and Aerosmith (45), for instance, are mentioned in the book. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (51) and the US hard-rock band KISS (79) are also acknowledged in the novel. Victor even draws a comparison between the Beatles and Coyote Springs, making himself “McCartney and Lennon all rolled up into one”, comparing Thomas to George and Junior to Ringo. (41)
Referring to Stuart Hall´s definition of the construct of culture, also music is also a vital part of the expression of culture. Music takes on different roles within the novel and in the following paragraph Berglund´s assessment of popular music as a new form of rituals can be regarded as affirmed. The reference to “fancydancing” alludes to traditional rituals and the context of music, affirms Berglund´s claim.
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“[Victor] played the guitar like a crazy man, and chords and riffs and notes jumped out of that thing like fancydancers. If you looked close enough, you saw the music rising off the string and frets.” (41)
In Reservation Blues a short creation myth is invented in which the world is created on a day- to-day basis: “Big Mom played a new flute song every morning to remind everybody that music created and recreated the world daily.” (10) The man-who-is-probably-Lakota considers music as a dangerous entity: “You be careful with that music enit? Music is a dangerous thing.” (12); a belief shared by the Catholics on the Spokane reservation who despise Coyote Springs and assess that “Rock´n´roll is the devil´s music.” (33) In a conversation with Thomas, the guitar declares that music is essential to a fulfilled life and can help overcome obstacles. (“The music. Y´all need the music.” 23) The guitar´s claim is supported through the allusion to slavery and how African Americans used music as a way of resistance and source of strength.
“But Thomas also heard something hidden behind the words. He heard Robert Johnson´s grandmother singing backup. Thomas closed his eyes and saw that grandmother in some tattered cabin. No, windows, blanket for a door, acrid smoke. Johnson´s grandmother was not alone in that cabin. Other black men, women, and children sang with her. The smell of sweat, blood, and cotton filled the room. Cotton, cotton. Those black people sang for their God; they sang with joy and sorrow. The white men in their big houses heard those songs and smiled. Those niggers singin´ and dancin´ again, those white men thought. Damn music don´t make sense.” (176-177)
In the passage above, Sherman Alexie links the fate of Native Americans and African Americans, and highlights how both minorities were suppressed by white settlers. It is essential to remember the difference between the two marginalised groups and acknowledge the primacy of indigenous peoples´ tenure on their forefathers´ soil.
References to blues music are woven into Sherman Alexie´s novel, which is no surprise considering that the title of the book is Reservation Blues. Hafen highlights that quite a considerable number of early jazz and blues artists are of Native American descent and assesses that Sherman Alexie included blues, which started as a countercultural movement, as a form of subversion and resistance. The application of the trope has two distinct uses. Firstly, it mirrors the reality of reservation life because the residents listen to various music genres. Secondly, it can be argued that Alexie uses music as a mediator, urging the reader to think for themselves and question popular culture. (Hafen 63)
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In addition to music and musical references, also other common practices feature in Reservation Blues, which establishes a feeling of shared culture and thus creates mutual approximation between different groups. One instance, that makes the reader identify with the Flathead Indians in Montana, is their expression of delight during the concert Coyote Springs plays. “A few flatheads even raised lighters, flickered their bics” (55), which is also considered to be common practice off the reservation. Another experience that can be described to embody the American way of life best, is having a meal at McDonalds, which is where priest Arnold received his calling into priesthood. (34) Through the incorporation of such shared practices and the aforementioned references to mainstream musicians, Sherman Alexie makes the reader aware of the many ways in which Native Americans are similar to his partly non-Native audience. As mentioned previously, texts produced by indigenous authors cater for three highly distinct audiences, non-Native readers, readers with tribal affiliations and a pan-tribal audience. (Ruppert “Mediations” 128) Sherman Alexie, aware of the various audiences of his writing, manages to establish a link between the non-Native American audience and the indigenous characters through this described technique, which enables the reader to identify with the characters in his texts even though their lives and backgrounds differ.
The novel also includes implicit references to the Catholic tradition and biblical stories. One instance when this can be observed is when Big Mom divides the fry bread and thus ensures that everybody receives a piece.
““Watch this,” Big Mom said as she grabbed a piece of fry bread and held it above her head. “Creator, help me. I only have a hundred pieces of Fry bread to feed two hundred people.” Big Mom held that fry bread tightly in her huge hands and then tore it into halves. “There,” Big Mom said. “That is how I will feed you all.” The crowd cheered, surging forward to grab the fry bread. There was a complete feast after all.” (302)
This excerpt can be regarded as an implicit reference to Matthew 14:13-21 where Jesus feeds the five thousand. In addition, Big Mom´s ability to walk on water (27) might remind the reader of Jesus, who is able to fulfill the same task in the bible story. Moreover, the “The Reservation´s Ten Commandments as Given by the United States of America to the Spokane Indians” (154) can be interpreted as a satire on the Decalogue which offers guidelines for Christians, Jews and Muslims for their relationship with God and their fellows. These instances of intertextuality further establish connections between the dominant mostly
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Catholic white U.S. American experience and tribal mythology. The latter concept will be addressed in more detail in the next section.
2.4 Traces of Native Mythology and Magic
The following section will address the inclusion of Native mythology in Reservation Blues. Firstly, the term mythology will be investigated in a Native American context through a lecture given by Tomson Highway on the University of Ottawa. As a second step the traces of Native mythology in Reservation Blues will be pointed out and analyzed.
The aboriginal Canadian playwright and novelist, whose play The Rez Sisters will be discussed at a later point in this thesis (cf. 4. Individual Dream and the Female Perspective Addressed in The Rez Sisters by Tomson Highway), outlines the meaning of the term mythology and views in the context of the Cree language and culture he was born into. He defines mythology as “the story of the spiritual movements of people across [a] landscape.” (Highway “Mythologies” 19) and traces the term back to its Greek roots, meaning the “discourse on narrative, or the art of storytelling.” (21) In Tomson Highway´s mother tongue, however, there are three specific equivalents to the word narrative, which he summarizes in the following paragraph:
“The first term is achimoowin, which means `to tell a story´, or `to tell the truth.´ The second is kithaskiwin, which means `to tell a lie´, meaning `to weave a web of fiction´, as it were. And the third, which lies at a point exactly halfway between these first two is achitoogeewin, which means `to mythologize. ´ Meaning that in the visionaries of my people, the thinkers who gave birth and shape to the Cree language as we know it today, chose the exact halfway point between truth and lie, nonfiction and fiction, to situate mythology.” (21-22)
Even though Cree and Spokane Indians differ profoundly in terms of their respective languages and cultures, the insight into the Cree definition of mythology can be regarded as a directive regarding how certain events described in Sherman Alexie´s novel can be judged and how their validity can be assessed. An incident in Reservation Blues worth revisiting after Tomson Highway´s clarification, revolves around the Coyote, the trickster that the band is named after. The trickster figure is closely linked to literature produced by Native American authors (cf. 1. Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature). The incident recounted in Reservation Blues when Junior´s water truck is magically found in a dance hall even though it cannot possibly fit through the door due to its measurements, is attributed to the trickster. After 24 this episode, Junior loses his position with the BIA and the band has found its name. (45) Reading this episode with the background information and the insight into Native mythology provided through Tomson Highway, the reader can conclude that the occurrence can be regarded as neither truth nor lie, but rather as the notion located in the exact middle between the two concepts, and is therefore a myth.
Noteworthy is also the trickster figure itself and its role in Reservation Blues and the Spokane culture in general. Thomas defines a Coyote in his diary as follows:
“Coyote: A small canid (Canis latrans) native to western North America that is closely related to the American wolf and whose cry has often been compared to that of Sippie Wallace and Janis Joplin, among others. Coyote: A traditional figure in Native American mythology, alternately responsible for the creation of the earth and for some of the more ignorant acts after the fact. Coyote: A trickster whose bag of tricks contains permutation of love, hate, weather, chance, laughter, and tears, e.g., Lucille Ball.” (48)
Through these definitions, the reader gains insight into the role of the trickster in Spokane Indian mythology, in which the Coyote is responsible for interpersonal relations on the spectrum ranging from attraction to resentment, and also has power over atmospheric conditions. As outlined in the excerpt, the Coyote plays a vital role in the Spokane Indian myth of creation and according to Clayton Hanson, the trickster was responsible for the creation of the Indian Falls on Spokane land. (Hanson online) These magical instances attributed to the trickster, opens up the discussion of the concept of magic in Reservation Blues. Generally speaking, tribal stories traditionally feature magic and surreal instances. Sherman Alexie resorts to this measure and includes magical episodes in Reservation Blues. The guitar is a dominant magic element of the novel, it can fix itself after Junior and Victor damaged it (21), it can talk (21) and it can even play itself. (22) Another magical incident in relation to the guitar takes place at the band practice when Victor hits an open cord and the fillings of the Christian protestors, who are opposed to Coyote Spring´s rock music, were shaken out of their teeth. (34) These magic powers that the guitar possesses, can be interpreted as reconciling as well as potentially destructive power of music in general. It appears as if the guitar has magical powers, but it also equips the person playing it with supernatural abilities: “Victor grew extra fingers that roared up and down the fingerboard. He bent strings at impossible angles and hit a note so pure that the guitar sparked.” (78) Furthermore, telepathy also features in the novel as an additional magical aspect. The Warm Water sisters are able to communicate through their minds, which proves to be a very useful skill when Checkers provides her younger sister Chess
25 with dating tips (“Checkers sent a telepathic message to her sister: Invite him back to the house, you fool. You got him snagged.” 61). In addition to the magical objects and supernatural talents, such as Big Mom´s ability to walk on water across Nejoamin Pond (27), the homeland of the Spokane Indians is also described as being magical. Power and magic are attributed to the reservation, “the reservation still possessed power and rage, magic and loss, joys and jealousy.” (96) which is another link to Native American mythology which regards nature as a living concept and the relationship to it as a sacred bond. (Schweninger 2)
2.5 The Residents of Wellpinit
In this subchapter, a characterization of selected characters will be provided and a short assessment of the community of Wellpinit will be given. In his poems, short stories, novels and movies Sherman Alexie uses recurring characters and additionally in Reservation Blues the Spokane author brings historic individuals back to life to include them in the storyline.
The main character in Reservation Blues is Thomas Builds-the-Fire, the lead singer of Coyote Springs and “misfit storyteller of the Spokane Tribe.” (5) Even though Sherman Alexie introduces Thomas with these words, he is, according to Jeff Berglund, opposed to this characterization as he is afraid that it encourages his readers to draw a connection to constrains put on Native American literature. These constraints are in the Spokane author´s eyes the narrow focus of Native American literature on issues such as spirituality and politics, whereas he attempts to portray Native Americans in their complexity, he refers to them as “everyday Indians” who are allowed to have vices and virtues. (Berglund xxvi) Nevertheless, there is no denying that “Thomas repeated stories constantly.” (15), even without an audience at times: “Thomas shared his stories with pine trees because people didn´t listen.” (28). Thomas can be described as an outsider and is subjected to bullying from Junior and Victor. (71) After initial mockery, this treatment changes drastically with Thomas´s suggestion to form a band. Thomas´s relationship to his father is complicated due to his father´s alcohol dependency (c.f. 2.6 Challenges at the Reservation) and the fact that his mother has already passed away. Before the half-orphan meets Chess, he has never pursued a romantic relationship with a woman. (“Thomas, you never dated nobody.” 81)
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Thomas´s female counterpart Chess Warm Waters, whose real name is never revealed, is also a storyteller: “He had just met the only Indian who told stories like his.” (67) She lives with her sister Checkers at the Flathead reservation in Montana and, following the family tradition of the Warm Water children, she is called by a nickname derived from a popular board game. Chess, arguably, “[lives] up to her nickname [and] planned all of her moves in advance.” (55) Chess´s complicated family background includes an alcoholic parent, a fate she shares with all the members of Coyote Springs. This upbringing strengthened the relationship with her older sister Checkers, who, like Chess, is deeply religious and a churchgoer, she also tries to convince Thomas to accompany her to church. (166) Chess´s older sister Checkers is characterized as a real beauty through her telling nickname “Little Miss Native America.” (55) She tends to be attracted to older men (55) and in Reservation Blues she develops a crush on Father Arnold. (“Checkers took her time because she wanted to have a few minutes alone with Father Arnold.” 163; ““Checkers probably has a crush on him by now.” Chess said. “On who?” Thomas asked. “On Father Arnold.”” 166)
Rebecca Tillett assesses that Sherman Alexie exploits the “Indian stereotypes created by Euro- America” in an ironic and subversive way (Tillett 4), which is, from my point of view, visible in Reservation Blues with regards to the character of Michael White Hawk, the Spokane Council Chairman´s nephew. Michael personifies the uneducated Native American who enjoys getting drunk and is portrayed as a high school drop-out in the shape of a bodybuilder. Moreover, he is an analphabet suffering the consequences of prenatal contact with alcohol. (38- 39)
The band´s two white groupies, Betty and Veronika, own a bookshop in Seattle and travel to the reservation to hear Coyote Springs sing. They follow the band like shadows. As the two only play a minor role in the development of the plot, they remain flat characters. Thomas argues that the girls believe that “Indians got all the answers” (158) which might be the rationale behind their attraction to Indian culture and Native men respectively. Veronika admits to Victor: “You´re the best. I mean you´re an Indian and a guitar player. How much better could you be?” (43) which reveals that she is at least partly interested in Victor due to his indigenous background. Also Betty, who has already been with five or six other Indian men (42), seems to be interested in Junior due to his ethnic heritage. Moreover, Betty and Veronika, who are described as wearing “too much Indian jewelry [such as] turquoise rings, silver feather earrings and beaded necklaces” (41) also embody how the U.S. American society still exploits Native
27
Americans and Native culture nowadays; the two girls end up getting the record deal that is denied to Coyote Springs. (295) In order to ensure that the two women are successful in the music business, the record label wants to transform them into Native Americans, thinking that there would be more demand for Betty and Veronika´s music if they had the element of Native influence. This phenomenon can also be referred to as “cultural colonialization.” The fact, that they give in to the demands and are ready to compromise their morals on the way to fame, characterises them as opportunistic. (272-273) It can be argued that Betty´s and Veronika´s function within the novel is to highlight the strength and persistence of Native American women. The two white women´s conduct can be interpreted as cowardly, as they want to leave the reservation as soon as they face the community´s rejection (184), which reveals their lack of ambition. Chess, confronts them about this attitude: “You want the good stuff of being Indian without all the bad stuff, enit? Well, a concussion is just as traditional as a sweatlodge.” (186) The female Native characters in the book appear strong and autonomous, especially in contrast with the characters of Betty and Veronika. From an early age, the Warm Water sisters only relied on each other and were independent from their parents. (““We mostly kept to ourselves,” Chess said. “We´d wake up before our parents and be out into the trees and hills. We´d play outside all day, eat berries and roots, and only come back home when it got too cold and dark.”” 66) Checker´s strength is also manifested in her physical abilities, she even slaps Victor. (122) Big Mom can be interpreted as having a strong feminist voice, urging other Native American women to stand up for themselves with the thought-provoking question “Why can´t Indian women be heroes?” (209) Another example of a strong Native woman that features in the book is Thomas´s mother. Even though she has already died when the story takes place, Thomas recounts her behavior after one of his dad´s drunk escapades. She quit drinking and pulled her life together in order to be a better role model for her son. Thomas´s mom made her husband leave and became the town driver to support herself and Thomas. Her behavior can be described as strong and courageous, especially when comparing it to Betty and Veronika´s lack of emotional strength. Moreover, these challenging life developments brought Thomas´s mother closer to the tribal traditions, highlighting that she found strength in her indigenous culture and her community, as she started “[taking] the elders to every powwow” and returned to the traditional “dancing, singing, and playing stickgame.” (118)
Victor first appears as a violent bully and his main victim is Thomas. (71) His violent nature is emphasized by the fact that he has his own name tattooed on his chest. (88) He mistreats people and animals, and does not seem to care about the pain that he causes. Additionally, Victor
28 frequently encourages Junior to drink alcohol: ““Well,” Victor said, “I´m feeling like a beer. What do you think, Junior? Let´s knock off early and head for the tavern.”” (20); “Whatever you say. Aren´t you thirsty?” (21) Due to the fact that Victor is unemployed, he has a lot of time on his hands and suffers from a constant lack of money. Junior asserts that “Victor wanted money so bad that he always spent it too quickly.” (18) Victor is characterized as being tough and often behaves rowdily, yet he is also still childlike at times, for instance, when Chess observes him buying a Pepsi he appears to be younger and softer when he “counted out his quarters for pop and hoped he had enough change for a Snickers bar.” (135) Throughout the novel, the reader gets to know Victor better, and gains insight into his family background. The reader learns that his father left the family to move to another state. (57) The sexual abuse Victor experienced on Catholic summer camp (148) encourages the reader to sympathize with him. There is certainly noticeable development in his character, specifically, joining the band seems to make him more content with himself, which positively affects his behavior towards others. When the band strolls around the market in Seattle, Victor befriends an old homeless Native American and helps him collect donations through playing music with him. (153) This selfless behavior is a true gesture of kindness, and it reveals that there is more to Victor than his unfortunate tendency to be cruel. Victor´s sidekick Junior is hardworking and has a job when the story opens. The fact that he briefly attended university shows that he is clever and ambitious and works to fulfil his dreams. (18) His friendship with Victor, however, makes him an accomplice in Victor´s bullying attacks on Thomas. On the other hand, even though Junior takes part in the violence against Thomas, he is more peaceful and soon loses interest in the bullying. (15) His warm-hearted nature is noticed by Chess who observes that Junior is “always saving Victor from something.” (243) With use of characters such as Junior and Victor, Sherman Alexie also addresses the strong connection tribal groups are said to have with their land as a part of Native American culture. (Schweninger 2) “Though they always pretended to be the toughest Indians men in the world, they suffered terrible bouts of homesickness as soon as they crossed the Spokane Indian Reservation border.” (61)
The character of Robert Johnson, who enters the Spokane Indian Reservation at the beginning of the book, “made a bad deal years ago [and] caught a sickness [he] can´t get rid of” (6) is based on a historic persona, the blues musician Robert Leroy Johnson (1911-1938). This addressed sickness is, according to Grimm, a reference to the myth that the musician had made a deal with the devil, referred to as “the Gentleman” in Reservation Blues (5), which enabled him to play music at such a virtuosic level. (Grimm 314) Robert Johnson is looking for Big
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Mom as he hopes to find salvation (5) and passes on his magical guitar to Thomas (9), which marks the starting point of Coyote Springs. Eventually, the character of Robert Johnson, whose health has improved daily (299), decides to stay with the Spokane Indians on the reservation declaring that he has found the place where he belongs. (303) This acceptance of a non-Native into the tribal community is also expressed through his new clothing, as Robert Johnson is wearing a “traditional Indian ribbon shirt, made of highly traditional silk and polyester” (303) and can be interpreted as a transcultural message and a crossover into a new culture. (Grimm 317)
Even though the agents of the record label Cavalry Records are only minor characters, they are worth considering in terms of the references their names establish in connection to historic wrongdoings against the indigenous population of the United States. The names Phil Sheridan and George Wright imply connections to historic U.S. Army Officers complicit in the genocide of Native American tribes. The historic counterparts of the executive managers, which are namely General Philip Sheridan (1831-1888) and U.S Army Officer George Wright (1803- 1865), will be addressed in the next section where the historic references in Reservation Blues are discussed. (c.f. 2.6 Challenges at the Reservation) The characters featuring in the book, however, will be characterised in this section. Phil Sheridan, one of the Executive Officers at Cavalry Records, is characterized as imaginative and manipulative, in order to ensure Betty and Veronika´s success he suggests passing them off as Native American: “We dress them up a little. Get them into the tanning booth. Darken them up a bit. Maybe a little plastic surgery on those cheekbones. Get them a little higher, you know? Dye their hair black. Then we´d have Indians. People want to hear Indians.” (269) He does not change his stance throughout the whole novel. This colleague George Wright, on the other hand, seems to feel guilty for dropping Coyote Springs after their failed attempt at the record studio and visits Coyote Springs in their hotel room to apologise for his behaviour. (244)
The tribal life in Wellpinit is strongly influenced by the character of Big Mom and there is a lot more to her than just being an old quirky woman living by herself on top of the Spokane mountain. (7) She is a very mystical character equipped with magical powers (27) and referred to as “powerful medicine.” (199) Thomas even goes as far as characterising her as a “bigger part of God.” (206) Big Mom mentored various musicians who shaped the music of the 20th century (201) and she also assists Coyote Springs in their musical development. Big Mom has
30 won the annual fry bread cooking contest for thirty-seven years in a row (47), which further highlights her uniqueness.
Apart from the groupies and the agents of the record label, the mentioned characters influence the communal spirit on the Spokane Indian Reservation strongly. The town of Wellpinit, portrayed in Reservation Blues, has roughly one thousand inhabitants (Grassian 1) and is depicted as a very close-knit community. News and gossip spread fast, as for instance, “the entire reservation knew about the black man five minutes after he showed up at the crossroads” (3), yet people care about each other. This personal interest and concern is best highlighted by the residents´ behavior when the Spokane Indians support Lester FallsApart after his dog passed away. (151) Lester returns this favor at Junior´s funeral and presents the remaining band members with three dogs. (277) The importance of the community for Native Americans is also visible when the locals treat the returning members of Coyote Springs with anger and resentment. The band is confused about the hostile environment they experience upon their return as they are “mostly greeted with hateful stares and silence” (186) and when Thomas confronts a lady in church about the community’s behavior, he finds out that the residents of Wellpinit are upset that they left their homeland and the community: “But everybody liked us before.” “Before you left the reservation. Before you left.” (179) The residents feel they were deserted. Eventually, Thomas and the Warm Water sisters receive financial support for their move outside the reservation, through Big Mom´s instigation. (303-304) The role that community plays in the lives of the residents of Wellpinit is very important, having said that, one needs to be willing to open up to others and admit one´s burden to receive support from others. Lester shares his grief with the community and is in return rewarded with assistance during his period of mourning, Victor and Junior, however, are very secretive about their worries. Therefore, their pain goes unnoticed. Junior´s inability to inform his friends of his secret, concerning his lost college sweetheart and the fact that he fathered a child that is former girlfriend aborted, ways him down considerably. Shortly before Junior´s suicide (247) his mind is preoccupied with thoughts and regrets about the past and he chooses to be alone with his troubling thoughts instead of sharing them in order to receive a shoulder to lean on. (252-253) Victor, sitting next to him, is oblivious to Junior´s worries and he simply mourns the loss of his guitar. Junior realizes that is best friend is upset and wants to comfort him through reaching across the seat (253), however, he remains passive and does not carry out his plan. The reader does not have insight into Junior´s rational for not consoling his friend even though he has good
31 intentions. This conflict between support through the community and isolation, which is often self-imposed, is a major theme in Reservation Blues.
2.6 Challenges on the Reservation
Even though the Spokane Indian Community serves as a pillar for the tribal members who receive support from their fellows, it is noteworthy that on-reservation life might also imply unparalleled demands. This section is an attempt to outline the issues referred to in Reservation Blues and supports Sherman Alexie´s claims with secondary sources in relation to the to the specific topics. In the novel, Chess comments on Native American identity in the following way: “Ain´t that the true test? […] You ain´t really Indian unless there was some point in your life that you didn´t want to be.” (98) Through Chess´s character, Sherman Alexie claims that despite the troublesome issues present at the reservation, which might have the power to overshadow the residents´ lives, the problems addressed in the following section are a fundamental part of the experience contemporary tribal nations and their members share and are thus, according to the character of Chess, part of what makes them Native American. To begin with, this chapter will focus on references to historic wrongdoings as well as the concepts of historical traumata and “acts of recovery.” (Jacobs 17) As these historic circumstances arguably shape the present-day experience of Native Americans residing in Wellpinit, the references to past events in Reservation Blues provide the basis for the described contemporary issues of on-reservation life in Wellpinit.
Firstly, I briefly want to touch upon the issue of historical traumata and its impact on the living generations. The American Psychiatric Association (1987) defined the concept of “trauma” as “an event that is outside the range of usual human experience and that would be markedly distressing to almost everyone.” (Hamblen and Norris 64) Experts in collective trauma refer to the experiences the Native population of North America has endured since 1492 as historical traumata, or “soul wounds”, which might explain the current problems Native communities suffer from. Issues such as alcohol and drug abuse, a lower socioeconomic status and higher mortality rates in tribal communities can, according to scholars be traced back to these “soul wounds.” (Duran et al. 341-345) The traumatic experiences the Native American population had to endure, range from the residential and boarding school experience, enforced assimilation, displacement, and relocation to losing the access to their Native tongues as well as traditional
32 customs. (Monchalin 140-141) These traumata are “multigenerational”, meaning that the consequences of the traumatic experience are affecting various generations, and are adding up over time. Characteristic symptoms that can be traced back to the notion of historical traumata include depression, a negative approach to life, suicidal ideas and the so-called “survivor’s child complex”, when individuals feel guilty due to the fact that unlike their ancestors they did not have to live through the traumatic experience. (Duran et al. 341-345) Literature expresses the theme of overcoming the history by “healing through reconciliation” (Lundquist 201-204) and the act of writing about their own reality or crating fiction can be regarded as an “act of recovery.” (Jacobs 17)
Sherman Alexie expresses the idea of pan-Indian identity and grief when Wright sees the historic suffering of the entire indigenous population of North America since the colonialization of U.S. American soil in the faces of Coyote Springs: “He saw their Indian faces. He saw the faces of millions of Indians, beaten, scarred by smallpox and frostbite, split open by bayonets and bullets.” (244) This concept of a collective Native American consciousness or memory is also expressed by the character of Thomas in relation to the Ghost Dance and the Wounded Knee Massacre:
“Thomas closed his eyes and told Chess this story: “We were both at Wounded Knee when the Ghost Dancers were slaughtered. We were slaughtered at Wounded Knee. I know there were whole different tribes there, no Spokanes or Flatheads, but we were still somehow there. There was a part of every Indian bleeding in the snow. All those soldiers killed us in the name of God, enit? They shouted `Jesus Christ´ as they ran swords through our bellies. Can you feel the pain still, late at night when you are trying to sleep, when you´re praying to a God whose name was used to justify the slaughter?”” (167)
According to Lisa Tatonetti, references to Wounded Knee feature quite frequently in Sherman Alexie´s texts. Other Native American writers, such as Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch and Louise Erdrich, also include the Wounded Knee Massacre as a metaphor in their writing. (Tatonetti 20) The traumatic incident took place in relation to the Ghost Dance, a Native movement that began in the 1880s and 1890s as a coping strategy for relocation, poverty, and loss of tribal heritage. The Wovoka Jack Wilson shared his nonviolent vision that Natives would reunite “upon a regenerated earth, free from death, disease and misery” and his followers were mostly Plain tribes. His philosophy reached the Sioux on the Standing Rock reservation in an altered version, where the tribal members under Sitting Bull shared the belief that the white settlers should be exterminated. As a reaction to the growing fear among the
33 white men, the Indian police wanted to arrest the tribal leader, however, Sitting Bull was unintentionally killed and some of his followers fled to find refuge in South Dakota, where Big Foot was one of the tribal elders. After finding out about Sitting Bull´s death, Big Foot relocated with his supporters to the Pine Ridge Reservation. When soldiers attempted to search for weapons, a Sioux shot a bullet, which resulted in an uncontrollable escalation, the Wounded Knee Massacre. The incident claimed the lives of three hundred Native Americans, among which were almost two hundred women and children. After the massacre, the enthusiasm for Jack Wilson´s idea dampened (Hopson 265-266), however, the Ghost Dance is still closely associated with the concept of religious sovereignty of indigenous nations (261) and regarded as a “metaphor for tribal resistance and spiritual revival.” (270) The slaughter of the innocent Sioux was the last large-scale military battle of the Indian Wars. (Wilson 284- 285)
Horses are a reoccurring image in Reservation Blues and can be seen a reference to the historic slaughter of the horses on Spokane Indian land. The slaughter of the horses is a historic trauma unique to the Spokane people and the brutal incident outlined in Reservation Blues by Big Mom:
“One hundred and thirty-four years before Robert Johnson walked onto the Spokane Reservation, the Indian horses screamed. At first, Big Mom thought the horses were singing a familiar song. […] The song sounded so pained and tortured that Big Mom could never have imagined it before the white man came, and never understood it later, even at the edge of the twenty-first century. […] All she heard were the gunshots, singular at first and then in rapid plural bursts that she could not count. […] There she saw the future and the past, the white soldiers in blue uniforms with black rifles and pistols. She saw the Indian horses shot and fallen like tattered sheets.” (9-10)
The killing of 800 horses on the battlefield at Four Lakes under U.S. Army Officer George Wright appears to still be a deep wound in the history of the Spokane Indian tribe. According to the legend, the slaying could be heard for two days and, according to the historian Donald L. Cutler, the motivation for the bloodshed was to terrorize the local indigenous population. (Sottile online) In Sherman Alexie´s novel, the character of George Wright visits his wife´s grave and grief-stricken assumes responsibility for the slaughter of the horses (270-271), which mixes fact and fiction to an even greater extent.
In addition to treaty making and treaty breaking, the Indian Wars, and massacres carried out on the indigenous population of the United States, Sherman Alexie also addresses other
34 wrongdoings on the Native population in his work. In an attempt to “kill the Indian to save the man” boarding schools for Catholic Indian children were established to rehabilitate Native American children and adolescents and educate them in the white ways. The most famous Christian missionary boarding school was Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, established in 1879 by Captain Richard Henry Pratt. (Dunbar-Ortitz 151) Strict, almost military- like, discipline was the framework for the school. (Tillett 7) Pratt believed that all significant differences between people could be traced back to the discrepancy of the environment they were born into and raised, rather than speaking of a racial inferiority of Native Americans. Nevertheless, he believed that Natives were culturally inferior, which lead, in his eyes, to assimilation being the only solution. (Wilson 311-312) In Reservation Blues, the boarding school history is addressed when Chess reveals her family background to Thomas. Her father was subjected to corporal punishment in an institution similar to Carlisle: “He went to Catholic boarding school when he was little. […] Those nuns taught him to play piano. Ain´t that funny? They´d teach him scales between beatings.” (63) Once the Native children and adolescents arrived at their respective boarding school, they were washed and their looks were drastically changed. Native American males take huge pride in their long braids, as for many tribal nations long hair signifies manhood. Thus, the cutting of their hair was deeply traumatic for many boys. (Wilson 312) The lyrics to the song “My God Has Dark Skin” refer to this practice with the line “My braids were cut off in the name of Jesus to make me look so white.” (131) In order to educate the indigenous offspring in the white ways, the school headmasters felt it was important for the Native American students to not be allowed to converse in their Native languages (Wilson 312), which is also addressed in Sherman Alexie´s novel: “My tongue was cut out in the name of Jesus so I would not speak what´s right” (131) and “I had my tongue cut out by these black robes.” (132) Through the character of Victor and his experiences with a pedophilic priest at Catholic Summer camp, the abusive history of boarding and residential schools is transformed into the present: “The priest smiled back, leaned over, and kissed Victor full and hard on the mouth.” (147); Victor “still felt the priest´s hands on his body after all those years.” (203)
At this point the historic traumata endured by Native Americans have been established. According to scholars in the field of historical and collective trauma, the current alcohol and drug abuse issues on Native American grounds, the lower socioeconomic status of on- reservation residents and the higher mortality rates in tribal communities can arguably be traced back to these past events. (Duran et al. 341-345) The reality of Native Americans is shaped by
35 circumstances and experiences which are partly unique to this group of people. The issues addressed in this section, namely societal and tribal expectations, the loss of tribal traditions and customs as well as alcoholism, may influence the way of contemporary life that Native Americans lead. Moreover, the members of the tribal nations might also be affected in terms of substandard housing, poverty, and unemployment, all of which are alluded to in Reservation Blues.
A prevailing aspect of the reality of Native Americans living in the 21st century, is the struggle with societal expectations. These expectations are formed through the consumption of books and TV series that have reduced Native American cultures to stereotypical images. The indigenous characters in Reservation Blues are periodically confronted with these expectations. Thomas, who is described as an outsider and subjected to bullying (14), is not at first glance identified as a member of the indigenous population by the Robert Johnson. Upon seeing Thomas, he exclaims: “Indians? I ain´t seen many Indians.” (4) Robert Johnson simply expected a more stereotypical image of a Native American. Likewise, the replies Coyote Springs receive from the record labels, they send their demo to, reveal stereotypical believes: “Indians? […] You mean like drums and stuff? That howling kind of singing?” (187) Priest Arnold, who was “genuinely shocked when the Indians in his congregation spoke English”, had expected buffalos and tipis on his first visit at the Spokane Indian reservation. (36) The cleric still in shock, recounts the root of this misconception: television, which can be regarded as Sherman Alexie´s criticism on how indigenous populations are still depicted wrongly in the media. In an interview with Williams Cole, the Spokane author claims that network news also reproduces stereotypical images through filtering and selecting what issues related to Native Americans they cover.
“When they do, they always cover the 97 Lakota Sioux living in a shack on Pine Ridge reservation. That story comes up about every two years, they do poor Lakotas or, you know, they do the wise grandfather segment. […] But it’s those issues, the idea of 21st century Indians as lawyers and doctors and engineers and architects – you know, I live in a white collar Indian world now. And you don’t see any representation of white collar Indians in any kind of media – journalism or movies or books or magazines. It’s just simply not a part of the discussion. Even Indian-created art and media is about the same images, the elders, the spiritual visions; it’s never really about the ordinary ways in which we live our lives.” (Cole online)
Thus, Sherman Alexie´s success can be regarded as a useful tool to make a wider audience aware of the normal course of life on the reservation, as well as the challenges of on-reservation life. His texts might aid in readjusting the image of Natives to a more realistic representation. 36
Moreover, Native Americans are not excluded from falling victim to stereotypical behavior. In Reservation Blues the characters of Victor and Junior follow their internalized assumption of how rock stars should behave. The exposure to pop culture made them believe that trashing a hotel room is a vital part of being a famous musician. Therefore, Junior and Victor dismantle their home in an attempt to copy rock stars. (41)
Another form of societal expectations is the anticipation about Native Americans, as enlightened spiritual guides, who are at peace with their surroundings. Betty argues that “white people want to be Indian. You have all the things we don´t have. You live at peace with the earth. You are so wise.” (168) This depiction of modern indigenous peoples appears to be harmless at first glance, however, it adds pressure on the tribal members and communities and urges them to fulfill a role that the dominant U.S. American society imposes on them, which is highly problematic. Through the inclusion of characters such as Betty and Veronika, who are referred to as “New Age Princesses” (41), Sherman Alexie critically comments on the recent trend of growing interest in indigenous cultures in which cultural outsiders appropriate Native ideas and cultural heritage. This development can also be referred to as cultural colonialism. (Grassian 9)
In addition to societal expectations, tribal expectations can also constitute a problem for children and adolescents growing up at the reservation, as they might be regarded as saviors for the town. Sherman Alexie describes the pressure on promising offspring on the reservation as follows:
“When an Indian shows the slightest hint of talent in any direction, the rest of the tribe starts expecting Jesus. Sometimes they´ll stop a reservation hero in the middle of the street, look into his eyes, and ask him to change a can of sardines into a river of salmon.” (97)
This exaggerated situation highlights that tribal members hope the success of an individual aids the whole community. It appears that when someone shows potential in a field, the whole town takes pride in them and supports them, however, the downside of this shared communal pride is that the expectations cannot be fulfilled due to their unfeasible nature. Thus, expectations that are too high can only lead to disappointment for the whole tribe and cause additional shame for the individual who might feel as a failure. Moreover, this passage is another link to the Spokane history as the Spokane Indians used to be fishermen and Salmon was one of their food sources till the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam. (Grassian 1) 37
As members of Native tribes consume popular culture as well, they are often confronted with wrongful representations about themselves and thus struggle to define what it means to be a Native American in present-day America. This might hold true especially for younger generations, who are exposed to and influenced by their surrounding Native culture with its traditions and tribal heritage, as well as the dominant white culture they experience through the consumption of media and visiting places beyond the reservation boarders. Sherman Alexie claims through the character of Thomas that “Indian men have started to believe their own publicity and run around acting like the Indians in movies.” (208) Therefore, one of Sherman Alexie´s reasons for becoming a Young Adult Fiction writer, was to be an accessible read for Indian children on the reservation, “whom he believes to be mainly influenced by white- dominated popular culture.” (Grassian 6) In contemporary society, Native Americans face the challenge to negotiate how society perceives a “real” Native American, with their tribal ancestry and traditions as well as the demanding circumstances of modern day life. This can result in “pretend[ing] to be some twentieth- century warrior, alternating between blind rage and feigned disinterest” (4), which is a characterization that certainly does not apply to the protagonist of Reservation Blues.
Within this process of finding one’s identity and negotiating between the dominant and the tribal culture, it can happen that traditions and customs get lost, which appears to be another problematic issue for Native Americans residing on reservation grounds. The following instance best depicts the loss of tribal traditions:
“Traditional Spokanes believe in rules of conduct that aren´t collected into any book and have been forgotten by most of the tribe. For thousands of years, the Spokanes feasted, danced, conducted conversations, and courted each other in certain ways. Most Indians don´t follow those rules anymore.” (4-5)
Once those trial traditions have been lost, either deliberately or through inner occurrences, accessing tribal knowledge can constitute a problem for the future generations. Thomas exclaims in the sweat lodge that he does not know any tribal chants or melodies, which makes him feel disengaged with his cultural heritage. This thought intensely irritates Thomas and he adds: “I don´t even know if I belong here.” (178) He expresses the sense of not belonging to his Native community due to not sharing the insight knowledge into the tribal costumes and traditions. However, the Director of Arizona State Museum and Professor of the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Arizona, Hartman Lomawaima, advises against the 38 approach of romanticizing the past. Lomawaima, who is a recognized member of the Hopi, argues that “within all Indian cultures – in their great diversity – there is both continuity and change, both evidence of a valued past and a vibrant present” (Lomawaima 290) which is important to keep in mind when discussing Native American communities. As language is an essential part of language, it is interesting to consider the percentage of Native Americans able to communicate in their tribal language. A study conducted with the aim to investigate the survival of Native American Languages in North America, confirmed the hypothesis that tribal members living on-reservation land are more connected to their tribal language than urban Indians. The finding was that 58.18% on-reservation residents speak an indigenous language as their mother tongue, in contrast to the number of tribal members living in the city, who claim a traditional Native American language as their mother tongue, which is considerably lower (21.82%). (Fishman 580)
Besides expectations, both expressed by the dominant society and the tribe, the danger of feeling excluded from one´s culture due to a loss of Native language and traditional customs, and alcohol, especially the excessive consumption of it, influence Native Americans residing on reservation grounds. It can be argued that Sherman Alexie´s excessive drinking during his early years at college (Grassian 2-3) has played into his work and his portrayal of the addiction. According to Laurence A. French, alcohol is the most serious health problem for Native Americans, which is a very important factor in 75 to 80 percent of all cases when Native Americans take their own life. (French 275) In Reservation Blues, alcohol is depicted as a destructive force that is frequently used as a coping mechanism, which, for instance, applies to Luke Warm Water, the father of Chess and Checkers. Chess characterizes her father as a caring and loving father and husband, whose alcohol consumption was not alarming: “My dad never drank much before Backgammon died.” (63) When their brother Backgammon passed away and their father was unable to provide help for his youngest son, he turned to alcohol to numb his pain and “he´d stay away for days at a time, drinking, drunk, passed out on the muddy streets in Arlee.” (66) Likewise, Victor also started drinking to cope with the difficult situation when his dad decided to move to Phoenix, and his bad habit escalated when his mother found a new partner who then moved in, replacing Victor´s father. The situation was quite different for Junior, as he had always intended to stay abstinent with regard to alcohol, due to the negative impression he got from observing his parents´ alcohol addiction. Victor, however, convinced him to drink when they graduated from high school (57) and as already established in Victor´s characterization (c.f. 2.5 The Residents of Wellpinit) he has managed to persuade him many
39 times since. This risky dynamic, when adolescents are encouraged to drink by peers, is a widespread group process that occurs throughout all social and ethnic groups. It is not unique to the on-reservation life, but shapes the experience youths growing up on tribal lands nonetheless. Lundquist assesses that Victor and Junior “reside” on the reservation, however, are “not at home” due to the “intergenerational dependence on alcohol.” (Lundquist 221)
Alcoholism is not only a disease effecting the person drawn to alcohol, it affects the whole family dynamic and often also reverses the roles within a family, when children are in charge for the wellbeing of their parent and nurse them back to sobriety. Wegsheider investigated this phenomenon and realized that this so-called codependency is a mutual relationship where the nonalcoholic partner might unintentionally even encourage the dependents alcoholism through their support and care. (Jung 262) Being aware that family members often contribute to their relative’s addiction, Thomas´s support for his alcoholic father, can be interpreted in a new light. It can be argued that his son´s help, even though provided with good intentions, does indeed have a triggering effect on Samuel. An instance, where this is described in the book, takes place when Coyote Springs return from their concert in Seattle and Thomas finds his father Samuel drunkenly passed out on the lawn:
“Thomas shook his father a little and said his name a few times. He had lost count of the number of times he´d saved his father, how many times he´d driven to some reservation tavern to pick up his dad, passed out in a back booth. Once a month, he bailed his father out of jail for drunk and disorderly behaviour. That had become his father´s Indian name: Drunk and Disorderly.” (95)
Even though Thomas has grown up with his dad´s drinking and has never experienced a sober father figure, he is aware of the fact that his father is sick and he struggles to accept this reality. His father´s behavior saddens Thomas. (100) Alcohol dependency has also reversed the roles in Junior´s family. The oldest offspring had to take care of his younger siblings when their parents spent their time at the reservation bar. The children had to wait in the car in front of the pub, and they were freezing. Junior took on the role of a parent and became the caregiver for this brothers and sisters while his parents were enjoying themselves drinking alcohol in the tavern. (110-111) Paternal alcoholism with its consequences, as experienced by Thomas, very likely affected Sherman Alexie in a similar way. He grew up acquiring similar experiences due to his father´s heavy drinking which lead Sherman Senior to leave his family for several days in a row (Grassian 1), therefore, these descriptions of Samuel´s alcoholism and Thomas´s care for his father can arguably be regarded as partly autobiographical.
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Furthermore, French highlights that that alcohol can be determined as a contributing factor for an overwhelming percentage of serious violent acts, such as rapes, abuse within the family, car accidents, murders and attempts to kill oneself. (French 276) Junior´s suicide agrees with this observation, he argues that he ended his life because he “didn´t want to be drunk no more.” (290) Violent behavior under the influence is described in Reservation Blues in terms of the recounted incident where a celebration held by Thomas´s parents had serious consequences for the intoxicated parties. The Builds-the-Fire´s furniture got destroyed and when Junior´s parents drove home drunk, they had a car accident and lost their lives.
“Dad got real drunk, kicked everybody and, and then took all the furniture out on the front lawn, and burned it.” “Same old things,” Thomas said. “People got drunk. People fought. People got pregnant in back rooms. A couple went to jail. One got his stomach pumped. Two died in a car wreck on the way home. And there was a partridge in a pear tree.” “Who died?” “Junior´s parents.” (118-119)
Alcoholism, as an illness, can also be interpreted as a “dis-ease” that results, according to the definition of the Native American author Ortiz, in a disengagement of the alcoholic with their relatives, their fellow tribal members as well as their own position within these frameworks. (Lundquist 220) This disengagement and wrongful conduct respectively becomes also apparent through the character of Luke Warm Water, who turned violent after drinking too much and abused and raped his wife: “If drunk, however, he forced himself on his wife.” (69) Even though it cannot be denied that alcohol is a problematic issue at the reservation, Sherman Alexie uses his texts also to argue that the problem with the stereotypical “drunk Indian” is the focus of the media. The Native Americans who are under the influence stand out and thus receive more attention than their sober tribal members.
“So many drunks on the reservation, so many. But most Indians never drink. Nobody notices the sober Indians. On television, the drunk Indians emote. In books, the drunk Indians philosophize.” (151)
Reservation Blues, can, among other books, be interpreted as a means to take away the emphasis of alcoholism by portraying the beauty as well as the downsides of contemporary realities of reservation life. Even though alcoholism is an issue at the reservation, those suffering from the illness are individuals who chose alcohol over their own life.
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Besides the consumption of alcoholic beverages, gambling is another pastime that can easily turn into an addiction. This problematic issue is not addressed in detail in Reservation Blues. However, when the Spokane Indian Reservation is described, the gambling machines are mentioned and appear to be very popular among the locals. The reader finds out that the residents of the reserve dream of winning the jackpot.
„One corner of the Trading Post was devoted to the gambling machines that had become mandatory on every reservation. The tribe had installed a few new slot machines earlier that day, and the Spokanes lined up to play. Dreams of jackpot.” (12)
Even though this fragment illustrated that gambling seems to be an issue on the reservation, it is nevertheless only a minor topic in Sherman Alexie´s novel and will thus be addressed in detail in chapter three which is devoted to Louise Erdrich´s novel The Bingo Palace. (c.f. 3.5 Gaming with Money, Feelings, Faith, and Coincidence)
Another challenge Native Americans and other non-Caucasian groups face in the United States is the white beauty standard they are exposed to through consumption of media. In Reservation Blues, the character of Checkers seems to have developed an inferiority complex since her early childhood. Even at a young age, she compared herself and her sister to white children and believed that her racial heritage denied her perfectibility, a trade she believes that white girls and women possess inherently: “Anyway, all those little white girls would be so perfect, so pretty, so white. White skin and white dresses. […] I just looked at that blond hair and blues eyes and knew I wanted to look like that. I wanted to be just like one of those white girls.” (140) Moreover, she argues that in all representations of Jesus he is portrayed as a Caucasian with blond hair, which enhances her longing for whiteness even more. (“I wanted to be as white as these little girls because Jesus was white and blond in all the pictures I ever saw of him.” 141) This portrayal of an important religious person further establishes whiteness as ideal.
In an interview, Sherman Alexie characterizes his writing as rather political (Cole online) which also becomes evident with regards to Reservation Blues where the Spokane author uncovers and highlights flaws in the system. The Spokane Indian criticizes the misdistribution of funds at the reservation, when he points out that money is spent on superfluous monuments when it is urgently needed elsewhere.
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“The whole event required the construction of another historical monument. The reservation had filled with those monuments years ago, but the Tribal Council still looked to build more, because they received government grants to do exactly that.” (5)
In contrast to the excess of memorials, the conditions of the houses at the reservations are problematic, some of them are not complete and the residents suffer from the consequences of living in substandard buildings. For instance, Thomas´s house “had never really been finished because the Bureau of Indian Affairs cut the building money halfway through construction. The water pipes froze every winter, and windows warped in the hot summer heat.” (7) The State of the Native Nations report documents Sherman Alexie´s claim of substandard living conditions prevailing at the reservation, highlighting that, statistically speaking, American Indians are more likely to be exposed to overcrowded housing. Moreover, it is argued that affordability plays a decisive role in the substandard housing on reservations, as financial shortage and complex rules concerning the ownership of reservation land, hinder the development of a fair and affordable housing market on tribal lands further. (Kalt et al. 249) Through the General Allocation Act passed in 1887 treaty-guaranteed tribal grounds where cut into small pieces and allocated to individual tribal members (Williams Robert 335) and the effects and implications of these practices are still noticeable nowadays in the complicated ownership status of land on Native American reservation and the resulting issues for the housing market. Kalt et al. draw on official data collected in the 2000 Census which revealed that
“on tribal lands, 14.7% of homes were overcrowded compared with 5.7% of national households. Almost 11% of reservation homes lack complete plumbing in contrast to only 1.3% of all homes in America. As a barometer of the quality of Native housing, the U.S. Government Accounting Office reports that, as of 2005, 11% of Indian homes lack modern kitchen facilities, compared to 1% for the general U.S. population. Nonetheless, Indian housing has improved over the last decade relative to U.S.-wide averages.” (250)
Furthermore, high unemployment rates constitute as part of the problem of reservation life, as it is proven to be almost impossible to break the vicious circle of poverty and unemployment. This bleak reality also applies to the characters in Reservation Blues on the Spokane Reservation. “A job was hard to come by on the reservation [and] even harder to keep.” (13) Junior, who used to be employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to drive the water truck and provide citizens who lived further away with water, lost his job due to the magical incident connected with a trickster. (45) It appears the only jobs available at the reservation are either owning one´s own store or working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Additionally, Samuel Builds-the-Fire, worked as a lumberjack for the BIA, before he lost the job, due to his 43 alcoholism (“If he could´ve held a basketball in his arms when he cut down trees for the BIA, maybe my father would´ve kept that job. If he could have drank his own sweat after a basketball game and got drunk off the effort, maybe he could´ve stayed away from the real booze.” 98) The Warm Water sisters are employed as seasonal staff for this government agency and work as firefighters, “traveling all over the country, and struggled to make the money last through winter.” (76) After Junior´s death Victor wants to apply for Junior´s former position as the local water truck driver, however, when he is turned down he seeks comfort in alcohol. “That little explosion of the beer can opening sounded exactly like a smaller, slower version of the explosion that Junior´s rifle made on the water tower.” (293) This last instance highlights that the coping mechanisms, Native Americans are likely to turn to, in order to numb their pain of being excluded from contributing to society through work, are often harmful. This comment can be regarded as a strong criticism of the system that does not provide enough opportunities for employment on tribal grounds.
Another issue influencing tribal members in the 21st century is the controversial matter of blood quantum. Blood quantum is a measure used by tribes as well as the U.S. government to establish whether someone is officially Native American or not. An individual can, therefore, not enroll in a tribe when insufficient blood quantum is proven. James Wilson highlights that already in the 1930s, the question of how high someone´s Native blood degree had to be in order to be considered a Native American, was the source of disagreement in hearings of the U.S. Senate. It is pivotal to note, however, that from a historic point of view, indigenous groups had a different angle on this issue as they emphasized the role of the custom where outsiders could be introduced into the tribal community through ritual. Even though an individual´s position within matrilineal communities depended on the mother´s standing, this was often neglected as a factor to regulate tribal membership. (Wilson 422-423) From Tillett´s point of view, this regulation that a certain degree of Native blood is paramount to qualify as Native American is “intrinsically racist”. The necessary minimum blood quantum in order to be a recognized member of a tribe range from one thirty-second up to five-eights, resulting in divided communities. (Tillett 139) Wilson highlights the connection between the boarding school era and the issue of blood quantum. The generations of Native children going through residential school were led to believe that whiteness is an ideal. The sad reality was, the higher their degree of Native blood, the worse they were treated in the institutions. As a response, full-blooded Native Americans argued that they were closer to their tribal traditions and customs and thus denounced their fellows with partly Native American ancestry as “not
44 real Indians.” (Wilson 423) Mixed blood children have to suffer the consequences of this perverse ranking and might often feel lost, struggling to find their identity, as they neither belong to the full blood Native population surrounding them, nor to the predominately Caucasian majority of the U.S. In Reservation Blues, this dilemma is embodied by Spokane Tribal Officer Wilson, who “was a white man who hated to live on the reservation […] [and] claimed a little bit of Indian blood.” (101) It is rumored, that he got his job as the Officer in charge of the Spokane Indian reservation due to his ethnic heritage, however, he has a bad relationship with the residents and they do not accept him as an authoritative figure. Samuel, Thomas´s father, insults Officer Wilson in a confrontation due to his mixed background, with the words “we´ll pretend you´re a real Indian”, which undoubtedly upsets him and triggers a fight. (102) The issue of blood quantum, with its implications, might possibly also affect Native Americans in their partner choice. The racial hierarchy, where full-blooded Native Americans are considered to be superior to other members with only part Native American ancestry, features in Sherman Alexie´s novel. This racial exclusivity is internalized to an extreme extent by the character of Chess, who argues that for the sake of “preservation” Natives should not mix with non-Natives. (81) In Chess´s opinion relationships or sexual encounters should be exclusive to one´s own race and she admits despising indigenous men courting white women and vice versa. (81) The issue of full-bloodedness also plays into Thomas´s and Chess´s relationship, when Chess admits that she is partly attracted to Thomas due to his status as a full-blood Indian: ““Well,” Thomas, a full- blood Spokane himself, said, “do you like me or my DNA?” “I like you and your DNA.”” (82) Checker´s shares Chess´s point of view and admits in a conversation with Father Arnold that she detests white women who have sexual encounters with Indian men and Native men who have sex with white women. (139) The lower social standing of tribal members who are not full-blooded is also apparent in Thomas´s observation that “half-breed kids at the reservation school suffered through worse beatings than Thomas ever did.” (82)
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3 Temptation and Seduction/ New Gods: The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich
In contrast to Reservation Blues, which was used to establish the reservation as a living space, The Bingo Palace adds another facet to contemporary on-reservation life, namely gambling. According to Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, certain forms of gambling are allowed at the reservation, whereas they are banned throughout the United States. This regulation adds the ambivalent aspect of divergent norms to modern reservation life, which will be further discussed at a later point. (c.f. 3.5 Gaming with Money, Feelings, Faith and Coincidence)
Louise Erdrich is considered a very influential contemporary Native American voice and paved the road for numerous predecessors, such as Sherman Alexie. (Gamber 451) She has gained international recognition with her novel Love Medicine and used to work in a literary partnership with her former husband Michael Dorris. (Chavkin ix) Louise Erdrich is a mixed blood Native American, part Chippewa and part German, and an enrolled member of the North Dakota Turtle Mountain Chippewas. The term Chippewa is the English version for the Native term Ojibwa, which is what the tribe calls itself in their Native tongue, and I will use both terms interchangeably. Louise Erdrich´s parents were both teachers and encouraged her from a young age onwards to write stories. (Beidler and Barton 1)
The Chippewa author reveals that she was inspired to write The Bingo Palace through her inability to recoup her losses at the blackjack tables. (Chavkin 238) The novel, which is the 4th part of a tetralogy, opens with Lipsha´s return to his reservation, which was motivated by his grandmother Lulu. (3) Upon seeing his dead mother June in a vision (53), he follows her advice and starts playing bingo (61) with the motivation to win the bingo van. Lipsha wants to impress Shawnee Ray, the girl he is in love with. Shawnee is in a turbulent relationship with Lipsha´s uncle Lyman, who is also the father of Shawnee´s son. Lipsha wins the van, and spends a night with Shawnee; it seems his life plan might work out. Lyman, who is involved in shady business deals, convinces Lipsha to invest in a casino project, where he loses all his money. Lipha´s complicated family background catches up to him; Lipsha´s fugitive father Gerry reaches out to his son. Lipsha helps his father, who is on the run, and together they steal a car and unintentionally also a baby. Shawnee leaves the reservation and goes to college to study arts.
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3.1 Lipsha´s Homeland
The novel is set on an unnamed reservation in North Dakota. The reservation is located close to the Canadian border, where Lipsha suggests taking Shawnee on their first date. (30) The area of the reservation diminished through treaties with the U.S government (39) and the original tribal land used to be six times bigger. (129) The view from the Senior Citizens residence is described as follows:
“The reservation spreads downhill, and I have a good view of the town, its gas station, its tree shaded bar, and the small box houses built by government administration. Some sag, gray and unpainted, and others seem alert, bright pink, lime, blue, bristling with stovepipes, antennas, little windmills, for it is popular these days to make lawn ornaments out of long poles and twirling plastic milk jugs cut in various surprising shapes.” (130-131)
This depiction highlights the diversity of lifestyles at the reservation, as well as the poverty present exemplified through the garden decoration made from garbage. The creative use of these leftover milk jugs, however, is also what makes the reservation unique and its appearance friendlier. The town is not necessarily described in a charming way, nevertheless, the beauty of untamed nature is described especially around Matchimanito Lake, where Lyman intends to build the casino. (133) In the center of the town is a “newly built tribal mall, a complex erected to keep cash revenues in local hands” (29) which can be considered the economic center of the town. Another venue of considerable importance for the economic profile of the reservation is the local gaming area belonging to Lyman.
The novel and the described events are for the most part confined to the reservation boarders. The suggested trip to Canada, Lipsha wants to undertake with Shawnee for their date, does not happen as they get stopped on the border check point. (32) Shawnee and Lipsha drive to Hoopdance, which is located “straight south” of the reservation, to spend the night in a motel. (67) Lyman attends the Indian Gaming Conference in Reno (88) and Shawnee participates in the All Red Road Powwow in Montana. (182) Lipsha eventually leaves the reservation again and drives to Fargo to meet his father Gerry. (238)
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3.2 Narrating in the Communal Voice and Stylistic Features
Throughout the novel, Louise Erdrich constantly changes between the first-person narration, recounted through the character of Lipsha, and the communal voice adding a judgmental, yet omnipresent and omniscient reference point. Gamber argues that the part-taking of the whole tribal community in this narrative situation makes the narration more accurate and is furthermore a tribal aspect in the work of the Ojibwa author. (Gamber 451)
The plot of The Bingo Palace develops through interwoven stories and, similar to Reservation Blues, the novel includes memories and visions. Rebecca Tillett describes The Bingo Palace as a “multiperspectival” and “multivocal narration” following the Native American storytelling tradition explaining that through the application of various narrators an
“extra-textual dialogue with the reader [is created], where the reader is required to engage with the text by actively piecing together the narrative fragments into a coherent whole. In this context, the reader also becomes a negotiator of cultures.” (73)
The novel is a mixture between first-person narration of Lipsha and a collective voice mirroring a tribal community. Storytelling is, in the indigenous oral tradition, a communal act (Teuton 324), and thus the narrative situation in The Bingo Palace, with more than one narrator, can be regarded as a bridge to the oral literature in which contemporary Native American literature is rooted. (cf. 1. Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature) Louise Erdrich´s writing style arguably reflects the Ojibwa tradition; through the inclusion of voices and characters as storytellers, she assigns her readers the role of listeners. (Stookey 13)
In contrast to Sherman Alexie´s use of humor in his poems, novels, and films alike, Louise Erdrich applies this literary tool to cope with and actively fight against hopelessness experienced by her characters. Through humor she creates a society where the characters´ interpersonal relations with the tribal community are essential and highlights the characters´ autonomy. (Roush 206) At times, Louise Erdrich´s use of humor is subtle; however, it can also be obvious such as in the following instance: ““How, how, how,” Lipsha said. “I feel like a Hollywood Sioux.”” (31), where the author comments on the stereotypical depiction of the indigenous population in mainstream media and culture.
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Another salient feature of The Bingo Palace in terms of style and linguistics respectively, is besides Louise Erdrich´s application of humor, also her incorporation of the Ojibwa language in her text. The author includes Objibwemowin rarely, however, the few instances allow the reader short glimpses into the Native language of the Ojibwa tribe. In the novel, the Ojibwa words are also written in cursive, making it easier for the reader to spot them at first glance. Beidler and Barton argue that Erdrich´s own growing knowledge of her tribe´s Native language, can be considered as a main reason why she included the language only in her later work (Beidler and Barton 371) and her growing success as a writer allowed her the use of this linguistic measure. (373) Arguably she wants “to lend an air of native realism to her writing and educate her readers to the fact that Objibwemowin is a living language still.” (372) Through the character of Lipsha, however, Louise Erdrich also implies the issue of the loss of traditional languages as a pan-tribal phenomenon. In The Bingo Palace, Lipsha´s ability to understand or converse in Objibwemowin is only rudimental, which makes it difficult for him to comprehend his father´s instructions. Lipsha explains: “I don´t know our traditional language all that well. Now the lack catches up with me. To my horror, I´m not sure what my father revealed to me on the phone.” (233) Furthermore, in a conversation with Fleur, Lipsha struggles to express himself: “She booms this out, using the old Chippewa language that I can barely understand or much less answer.” (131) Despite his basic knowledge of Objibwemowin, Lipsha uses the language to reminisce and think about Shawnee, referring to her as “n´gwunajiwi, my love.” (104) Louise Erdrich offers the English equivalent in the same sentence, which makes it a lot more comprehendible for the reader. The same applies to “Geget na? Is that right?” (131), a question Fleur asks Lipsha and the Objibwemowin term is translated again. The reader also learns an Objibwemowin greeting, which Lipsha uses to address Fleur, ““Booshoo.” I offer a hello.” (131) The fact that Police Officer Pukwan also uses the term to greet Tammy (174), allows the conclusion that “booshoo” can be used to address elderly people in a respectful way, as well as one´s peers. The usage of “Peendigaen” (28) is similar to the usage of the English phrase “come in”, namely inviting someone to enter one´s house or a room. What some of these examples have in common, is that they are used in conversations between relatives or people who have a personal relationship with each other, which also applies to the next instance, when Lipsha addresses Zelda; ““N´missae” I say now, real slow, calling her my oldest sister.” (50) Another Objibwemowin word in The Bingo Palace is “windigo”, which appears at three different points in the novel. (“I think of the other Pillager named Moses whose windigo love howl still rings across the lake from his island of stone, where he died of desire.” 155; “All day he stared at the crack beside the door and thought windigo, windigo, because he had a flu, a
49 fever that made the cell bloom and collapse, and he remembered the stories of Old Man Nanapush.” 224; “The child she lost whimpered, rocked safe by the wind that swirled through and scoured clean the cave where Moses Pillager had slept with his child and his one love between him and the windigo.” 273) All of these examples are rather negative; they connote coldness and often imply loss. The glossary of Objibwemowin defines “windigo” as “starvation winter beast” and as “a giant monster of Ojibwa teachings, often made out ice and associated with the starvation and danger in deep winter.” (Beidler and Barton 395) Louise Erdrich also uses Objibwemowin terms to refer to wildlife and traditions: “The wind picks up, the dark is pure and intense, and I hear the terrible rustles of surrounding animals, even the monster hoot of Ko ko ko, the, owl, sounding in my ears.” (196) and “That person was joined by other voices – one deep as a frog´s bark, another hollow, an owl´s request, a woman with a hawk´s keer, an old-style victory thrill, high and shattering.” (203)
On a content level, Louise Erdrich´s novel implements a key characteristic of indigenous literature unique to North America and Canada. It features a “homing in” plot outlined by Bevis. (cf. 1. Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature) Bevis´s analysis of literature produced by Native American writers also revealed that the decision to return to the reservation grounds can often be traced back to the actions of a tribal elder. These tribal elders who are responsible for the return are typically a parent or grandparent (Bevis 585), which also applies to The Bingo Palace, where Lipisha returns to the reservation after receiving a photocopy of his father´s wanted poster sent by his grandmother Lulu. The communal voice comments that this action can be considered a “warning” or, “[perhaps] it was a summons home.” (3)
3.3 Clash of Cultures – The Tribal Belief System and Catholicism
With The Bingo Palace Louise Erdrich depicts a community where two different forms of religion coexist, namely tribal mythology and tradition, and religion in the Catholic sense, a theme that can be traced back to the author´s upbringing. Louise Erdrich received a Catholic upbringing, however, was also exposed to the influences of the tribal customs and the Ojibwa belief system. (Stookey 9) The Chippewa community depicted in the novel, does not seem to strictly see them as two different entities, which can be best observed by the character of Lipisha, who seeks comfort in both. It can be argued that one main motivation for individuals to turn to religion, or philosophy for that matter, is a challenging development in their lives,
50 making them doubt their attitudes towards life and encouraging them to rely on a higher power for comfort. The coexistence between the two belief systems, harbors potential for conflict and thus this issue will be addressed at a later point. (c.f. 3.5 Gaming with Money, Feelings, Faith and Coincidence) The expression and customs of both religions traditions, however, will be addressed in this section as they can be regarded as representations of culture.
Seeing that the tribal Ojibwa religion was celebrated and at the reservation grounds even before the European settlers and missionaries arrived in North America, I will first focus on the traditional tribal expressions and objects of religious importance. The traditional tribal customs mentioned in the novel range from powwows to the sweat lodge, and also objects typically associated with peoples indigenous to the North American continent, such as a pipe and a dream catcher, are integrated. There are various powwows mentioned in The Bingo Palace, for instance Shawnee catches Lipsha´s attention at a powwow. (9) Also Zelda´s daughter Albertine is observed “dancing at the powwow, long braid down her back and shawl a blue swirl” by the communal narrator. (6) Lyman reminisces about his dead brother Michael, who used to be an amazing powwow dancer (162), and Shawnee wants to win at the memorial powwow, as she needs the cash prize to build a future for herself and her son. At this powwow Shwanee wants to dance in a jungle dress, which was “original to Chippewas, given to a Mille Lacs man by women who appeared to him in a dream moving to their own music.” (182) Powwows are traditional dances, where members belonging to different tribes meet and dance together in their respective outfits. They are the expression of a dynamic ritual, which can be interpreted as “a source for renewal, joy, strength, and pride.” (Ellis and Lassiter vii) Other scholars, however, argue that through the pan-tribal custom of powwows, the tribes lose their distinct cultures. (ix) Thus, the practice of powwow dancing, can be interpreted as a hybrid being influenced by various tribes and underlying constant change.
Another tradition of utmost importance in the Native American culture, which features in the novel, is the sweat lodge ritual, which often facilitates visions. In The Bingo Palace, Lipsha hopes for a “real vision” through the sweat lodge experience, and his mentor on this spiritual quest Xavier explains “that the sweat lodge is female, like a womb, like our mother we have to crawl in the earth to re-enter.” (193) The ritual of the sweat lodge is described as a possible way to overcome alcoholism: “Mary Fred started going to the sweat lodge with Uncle Xavier. He´s been studying with an old man up north. He knows a lot about old-time medicine and he´s helping them out, maybe curing them.” (120) Sweat lodges are “major purification rites” carried
51 out among various Native American tribes. A sweat lodge has a dome-like shape built from saplings, blankets and canvas. Water is poured on hot stones and the developing hot steam is believed to improve the participant´s physical health, as well as open their minds for spiritual enlightenment. It is common to accompany the sweat lodge experience with traditional songs, chants and prayers. (Leahy and Wilson 243) In The Bingo Palace, Lipsha eventually has a vision as part of the sweat lodge ritual. He believes that a skunk talks with him and warns him to refrain from the casino project with the words “this ain´t real estate.” (200) Visions play a vital role for the development of The Bingo Palace. Lipsha, hopes to receive a vision during the sweat lodge ritual, and hopes to impress Shawnee by becoming more traditional, as for her the traditional Ojibwa practices and customs are of high importance. (157) In retrospect, Lipsha realizes that visions indeed guided his life. During his moment of self-realization, he acknowledges the importance of the vision he had in the bingo hall where his mother gave him life advice and encouraged him to play bingo. Moreover, he realizes that he has had visions of himself in nature, surrounded by dandelions in the grass. (160) Vision quests, in general, are one of the traditional ways through which Native Americans receive guidance in their lives. Indigenous individuals rely on vision to find solutions to concrete problems. Usually, these vision quests are accompanied by an experienced spiritual guide, who acts as a mentor. Often, the vision quest is combined with fasting, which is also how Lipsha´s vision quest after the sweat lodge takes place. Generally speaking, peace and harmony are the aims of the vision quests and often a visionary experience also entails contact with an animal (Evans 658), which also holds true for Lipsha´s experience with the skunk.
As established at an earlier point of this thesis, creation stories play a vital part in Native American cultures. (cf. 1. Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature) Louise Erdrich includes an allusion to these myths in the novel, when Lipsha has a vision after his sweat lodge experience:
“In my mind´s eye I see us Chippewas jumping back into the big shell that spawned us, the Mandan sliding down their gourd vine, Navajos climbing underground and covering themselves up, the Earthmakers accepting Winnebagos back into primal clay, the Senecas hoisting themselves into the sky, the Hopis following their reed to the Underworld.” (197)
This element of intertextuality establishes a link between these creation stories that were passed on orally and the contemporary canon of Native American literature. The Winnebago, for instance, believe that Earth Maker created the ocean with his tears, however, he did not like the
52 sound the waves produced, and thus, created the trees. Despite his efforts, the trees did not quiet the waves. Through the Earth Maker´s sole wish, the sun magically appeared and the Earth Maker put four people from the “above place” on the earth. This creation myth still influences the Winnebago tribe in their cultural expression to this day. (Pijoan 123-129)
The Bingo Palace also features a trickster figure. When Lipsha recounts his drowning experience early in his childhood, he remembers that he was saved by “something”. He describes this figure as “darkened and drenched”. With time Lipsha remembers more about the incident when his mother wanted to drown him and describes the mystic figure the following way:
“It presses its mouth on mine and holds me with its fins and horns and rock me with its long and shining plant arms. Its face is lion-jawed, a thing of beach foam resembling the jack of clubs. Its face has the shock of the unburied goodness, the saving tones. Its face is the cloud fate that will some day surround me when I am ready to die. What it is I don´t know, I can´t tell. I never will. But I do know I am rocked and saved and cradled.” (218)
The description of this figure certainly fits the characteristics of a trickster character, an essential characteristic of Native American creation stories and stories in general. (cf. 1. Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature) In this particular example, the trickster was certainly a savior for Lipsha, protecting him from an otherwise certain death. Moreover, the skunk that Lipsha sees after the sweat lodge could also be interpreted as a trickster. A trickster figure does not have a certain form (Radin xxiv), therefore, it could very well be possible that it changes from the lion-like creature that saved Lipsha as a baby, to later take on the form of a skunk. The skunk appears to Lipsha a second time when he returns home after the sweat lodge experience and Lipsha is deeply frustrated with this experience:
“There is a voice all right, but it is coming out of that damn skunk. That creature is a nuisance! Even here, in my room, I am not safe from that animal. It putters me over, slick and determined and it jumps back onto my chest. I see it though the dark. This ain´t real estate, it nags at me.” (218)
In addition, the belief in dark magic, which Fleur supposedly possesses, as well as Lipsha´s hope to receive love medicine from the Pillager woman refers back to the tribal belief system. (125)
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Nector´s pipe could be regarded as representation of tribal culture and the object is of grave historical importance for the Chippewa community portrayed in Louise Erdrich´s novel. The pipe given to Lipsha by his grandmother Marie Kashpaw (28), can be traced back to Lipsha´s ancestors. According to myths, the pipe was smoked when the treaty, concerning the land, was signed. Lipsha argues that “it is a kind of public relations pipe, yet with historical weight. Personal too.” (39). The pipe is an iconic symbol of Native American culture. The peace pipe, or calumet, as the French called it, is a vital element of Native American ceremonies and warfare, as well as peace conferences. Usually, the pipe is decorated with feathers or fur and is believed to possess spiritual powers. (Leahy and Wilson 71) In addition to the pipe other artifacts of tribal culture featuring in The Bingo Palace are the drum and the dream catchers in Shawnee´s room. Drums are used in traditional ceremonies and the one in Shawnee´s room is “hanging from a strap on the wall next to a leather-wrapped beater, the handle decorated with orange and blue cut-glass beads.” (106) In order to protect her son from nightmares, Shawnee put three dream catchers in the window. (106) Dreams play a vital role in the Native American tradition and some tribes share the belief that dreams have the ability to “influence the dreamer´s conscious soul and personality.” This is certainly also true for the Ojibwa tribe, which according to the majority of scholars in the field, invented dream catchers to prevent themselves and their loved ones from experiencing nightmares. According to an Ojibwa myth, a grandmother saved a spider by preventing her grandson from killing it. To express its sincere gratitude, the spider made a web for the elderly woman, intending that she places it above her bed so it would protect her from bad thoughts in her sleeping hours. Traditionally, dream catchers are decorated with feathers and beads. It is a shared belief that good dreams know how to get through the web, whilst the bad ones get trapped in the dream catcher. The New Age movement and growing interest in the Native American culture and tradition has led to a commercialization of the sacred object by Natives and non-Natives alike. (Williams Victoria 119-121) Historical evidence suggests, that nets and spider webs have a long-standing tradition as metaphorical objects of protection. The oldest relics can be traced back to A.D. 100 and were found in Peru; therefore, it can be argued that protection through a spider-web shaped object is a belief held by various cultures. (Oberholtzer 145-146) Besides Nector´s pipe and the dream catcher, also traditional clothing represents tribal culture in The Bingo Palace. At the very end of the novel, Lulu is questioned by the police about the whereabouts of her fugitive son Gerry. The fact that this elderly woman is wearing her traditional outfit for this occasion, is very telling with regards to her believes and values. The narrating communal voice comments that Lulu appeared through her choice of clothing as “ceremonial and bold, as if she was ready to be honored” (262), which
54 makes the reader aware that her tribal customs are a refuge for her. This is also apparent in her resistance against the police.
In contrast to the Native traditional practices and customs, there are also numerous allusions to the Catholic belief system and culture. The intertextual references to the bible are at times explicit and in other instances only implied. Catholicism, as the religion that was enforced early in the settlement of the new continent by missionaries, draws heavily on the so-called “word of God” recorded in the Bible. Lipsha, who wants to take a souvenir from the motel in which he spent the night with Shawnee, takes a bible from the bedside table to have something to remind him of their encounter. (72) The bible and references to bible stories are a recurring theme throughout the novel. Lipsha, for instance, describes the sensation one experiences when entering his place, to being “swallowed, like God´s servant who the fish gulped down” (41), which is an allusion to the biblical story “Jonah and the Whale”, in which the stubborn Jonah went overboard during a storm at sea and survived three days inside a whale as god´s test of his faith. God answered Jonah´s prayers for salvation and he was rescued. The fact, that Lipsha compares his flat to living inside a giant fish, could be interpreted as him seeing his position at the bingo hall as only temporary and that his return to the reservation might only be a transitional solution too. His time at the reservation can be read as god´s test for Lipsha. In a conversation with Lyman, Lipsha also mentions “the story about the mess of porridge” where “one brother gives his birthright to the other for some breakfast.” (87) Although Lipsha got the details mixed up and reinterpreted this biblical story, he means to refer to the story of Jacob and Esau, recorded in Genesis 25:19-34. The fact, that he mentions the story in a conversation with Lyman, is very telling, as their relationship is, comparable to the biblical brothers´, tense at times. (c.f 3.4 Characters, Relationships, and the Portrayed Community on the Reservation in North Dakota) Lipsha turns to the bible for advice of how he should invest his money, and the answer he finds in the “Good Book” is to “divide the inheritance” (95), which leads him to place his money and trust in Lyman´s hands by investing in his casino project. Also, when he is depressed, Lipsha seeks comfort in the bible and realizes that “in the beginning pages there is a section for the desperate” where he finds an index for “big problems” and the corresponding biblical references to these issues. (153) Even after Shawnee leaves the reservation to pursue a university degree, Lipsha still consults the bible and is intrigued by the story of Elijah saving a child, recounted in Samuel. He pictures himself as Elijah, saving Redford, Shawnee´s son, and in his fantasy, Shawnee washes his feet with her hair to express her gratitude. (230) The Credo plays a vital part in the Roman-Catholic tradition and believers express their shared faith
55 through the communal recital at mass. Lipsha adjusts this credo to his own background and daily experiences of “real reservation life.” In his credo he comments on alcoholism, music, and his feelings for Shawnee.
“I believe in the wandering son, the missing father, and the naked spirit of the Holy Ghost. I believe in the crush of night, the ragged holes in the feet of the plaster Jesus, through which you see the wires cross. I believe in the single malt whiskey if you´re rich, the bottle of white port if you´re broke. I believe in the peace of worms. I believe in the extension ladder and the angel with the torn mouth at the bottom, waiting to wrestle. I believe in the one on one, in the hands and voice of Jimi Hendrix, and that I will always love Shawnee Ray.” (185)
During Lipsha´s courtship for Shawnee’s affection, he also turns to Fleur for help. He is anxious because of the rumors connecting his great grandmother to dark magic, and thus, he uses the holy water in the church and protects himself from her and her power through the Catholic ritual of using is to make a cross on his forehead. (128) The Catholic belief is not frequently expressed through objects in The Bingo Palace. Besides the bible, that Lipsha stole from the motel, the only mention of an object related to the Catholic faith is the “three-dimensional picture of Jesus” located in the house of Shawnee’s sisters. (176) It is a well-known tendency of humans to turn to religion during times of distress, for instance, when one faces an illness or is close to death. The same applies to Zelda, who feels her heart drumming which makes her exclaim: “mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” (245) This Latin phrase, meaning “through my fault”, is in the Catholic religion, an acknowledgement of one´s sins and misdeeds and part of the confessional prayer of sinfulness.
3.4 Characters, Relationships, and the Community on the Reservation in North Dakota
Similar to Alexie Sherman, who incorporated characters he had already used in previous works, Louise Erdrich manages to bring a fictional community to life in her works. This again, invites comparison with William Faulkner and the indigenous author enjoys reading William Faulkner´s texts. (Chavkin xvii) A common feature of Louise Erdrich´s novels are her characters of “missionized Catholics” who take part in both the tribal religion as well as following the Catholic rituals. (Stookey 9) The Chippewa author creates a distinct Ojibwa world in her tetralogy of The Beet Queen (1986), Tracks (1988) and The Bingo Palace (1994). The novels of this series revolve around the lives of four inter-related Native American families: the Lamartines, the Kashpaws, the Morriseys and the Pillagers. (Tillett 70) 56
The protagonist and partial narrator of The Bingo Palace is Lipsha Morissey, who is, at the opening of the novel, “between places” and “between jobs.” (39) Despite being unemployed and homeless, he stays hopeful. His positive outlook on life, as well as his desperate situation is also visible when he makes the reader aware of a special habit: “Passing public phones, he usually slipped his hand into the dark apertures of their coin boxes in the hope to find a stray quarter.” (30) Through his Pillager heritage, Lipsha has a healing touch, which he applies to free his clients from pain and cure sore joints and veins. (64) When he starts playing bingo excessively, he realizes that his touch fails him. (73) Despite his difficult family background with a mother who gave him up (49-50), he had potential in the community´s eyes: “For a while it looked like he´d amount to something. He stuck with high school, scored high in the state of North Dakota in the college tests.” (7) Even though he tried hard, he did not have success in the business world. (8) The voracious reader (17), describes himself as romantic (69) and his main goal throughout the novel is convincing Shawnee Ray that he is worthy of her love. He often appears to be full of self-doubt and does not trust his own abilities, he seems to believe that “[Shawnee] is waiting to see how [he]´ll bow it, lose [his] money, ditch her, end up back where [he] belong[s].“ (105) The only instance when Lipsha is characterized as immature and insincere in his attempts to court Shawnee, is when he draws on the metaphor that love or life respectively is a game and argues that he has achieved a lead position through spending the night with Shawnee: “He is my rival, he is my enemy, and yet I have beat him already by sleeping with Shawnee Ray.” (99) Lipsha is a prime example of the aforementioned use of “missionized Christians” as a characteristic in Louise Erdrich´s writing and his internal conflict developing out of the exposure to two religions will be addressed in the next subchapter. (c.f. 3.5 Gaming with Money, Feelings, Faith, and Coincidence)
Shawnee Ray is idolized by Lipsha when he assesses that “she is the best of our past, our present, our hope for a future.” (13) Her name connotates sunshine and bliss through its linguistic closeness to the collocation “ray of sun” and as the earth revolves around the sun, Lipisha´s dreams revolve around Shawnee. Shawnee leads a more traditional lifestyle and tribal traditions and customs play an important role for her. She “talks to spirits in the sweat lodge in such a sweet way, in such an old-time way, respectful, that they cannot help but answer.” (6) The ambitious clothes designer produces “fashion with a Chippewa flair” (73), her driving force being her desire to attend college. (152) Even though Zelda took her in and wants to care for her and her son, Shawnee wants to remain independent and make her own decisions. The
57 downside of this independence is loneliness as “Shawnee had only herself to depend on.” (117) The beautiful Miss Little Shell has a son, Redford, with Lipsha´s uncle Lyman and “[Lyman] and Shawnee are long-term engaged.” (15) The on-off relationship between Lyman and Shawnee makes him and his nephew Lipsha rivals. Furthermore, their family background is difficult and interwoven; Lyman´s father is Lipsha´s stepfather and Lyman´s mom is Lipsha´s grandmother. Gerry Nanabush, Lipsha´s father, is Lyman´s half-brother. (16) Lyman Lamartine is characterized as the “reservation´s biggest cheese” and “tribal go-getter” (15), highlighting his important position within the tribal community. In contrast to this very positive depiction, which emphasizes his success, the man with the “dentist´s grin” (16) used to be a womanizer (123) and additionally gambling is one of his vices. (88) He is a “dark-minded schemer, a bitter and yet shaman-pleasant entrepreneur” (5) who swindles the U.S. government: “He skipped money from behind the ears of Uncle Sam.” (5) Therefore, he can also be regarded as a personification of a corrupt Native American who harms his own tribe by his lawless action of embezzlement when he runs out of money while gaming; “he cashed the loan from the Bureau of Indian Affairs that had just come in to finance the tribal gambling project.” (93) Eventually his misdeeds catch up to him and the Bureau fires him. (198) For the most part of the novel, Lyman seems to keep his bad habits well hidden from the community and Shawnee at times believes he might be her “Mr. Right.” (116) A quality that is an integral part to Lyman´s character is his patience and persistence; his “secret in life was that he had never, not ever, not in any part of himself, ever given up.” (116) Lipisha argues that his uncle “is an island of have in a sea of have-nots” (16) highlighting the privileged position of the Bingo Chef, who appears to be very well-respected in his community.
Besides Lyman, Lulu Larmartine, Lipsha´s grandmother, also plays a vital part in the community as the communal narrative voice assesses that she “took on the day´s business of running the tribe.” (1) The “narrow- eyed woman with curled hair” (62) acts as an advocate for the sovereignty of Native Americans and her political interest also focuses on trying to “reclaim the original reservation.” (129) The coffee lover (1) is very smart and Lipsha argues that “she is one of those rare Chippewas who actually profit by bingo.” (61) She is very set in her ways, disciplined and frugal (61). Lulu cares deeply for Lipsha and makes sure he receives government support (102), however, she also wants him to find his own path and thus tries to encourage him to find a job (““Lipsha Morrissey, you got to go for a vocation,” says Grandma Lulu, during break.” 62). This fondness of Lipsha sets Lulu apart from Zelda Kashpaw, who roots for Lyman and Shawnee. Zelda wants to interfere in peoples´ personal lives and she often
58 acts as a match-maker. This could be regarded as her motivation to take the young mother and her child in. Shawnee eventually realizes that Zelda has her own agenda and describes her as a “man-woman.” Shawnee argues that Zelda tries to exercise her power over her. (117) When Zelda, as a young girl, is courted by Xavier Toose, she turns him down, because she hopes to move to the city and marry a white man, however, this move makes her lose her “true love” and makes her cold-hearted. (46-48) The influential Native American woman has insight into all family histories of the town residents; she “has the record and whereabouts of everyone´s ancestors and secret relatives handy to herself.” (127) She is characterized as highly manipulative by Lipsha and it appears as if she can convince her fellow tribal members to do things following her own agenda:
“Her talents run to getting people to do thing they don´t want to do for other people they don’t like. Zelda, is the author of grit-jawed charity on the reservation. The instigator of good works that always get chalked up to her credit.” (14)
The Bingo Palace also features a mystical elderly woman, Fleur Pillager, Lipsha´s great grandmother. In the novel, she is characterized as a “half-spirit” (6) and her appearance is full of contradiction, which can be interpreted as a symbol of nonconformity and a refusal of letting others reduce her to a stereotype. She combines men´s working shoes (“old-fashioned men´s- type boots” 127) with a flowery girlish dress (127) and she is described as very old. In fact, she is “so old no one remembers how old.” (126) Rumors also connect the elderly woman to magical instances:
“They say that strange things happen when the old lady is around. A dog falls over dead and all of its hair drops out. Gossiping mouths twist to one side and stick that way. Cold wind blows out of nowhere, in place there isn´t even a fan system. Yellow jackets build a nest in a loaf of baking bread. And then those drownings: three times she was cast in the lake, and men were taken by the sprits each instance when she came to life, as if she put their name on the list to the death road, replacing hers. These things happened, frightful incidences, but also there is good. […] People forget the good, because the bad has more punch. The old lady cures fevers, splint bones, has brought half the old- timers in the Senior´s Lounge into this world.” (126)
As mentioned in the excerpt above, Fleur also has healing powers and contributes with her magic to the wellbeing and health of the residents in the tribal community. The community, however, cannot think of a valid reason for her old age, which is why they accuse her of dark magic.
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The most important characters featuring in The Bingo Palace are round characters; their vices and virtues are highlighted, an aspect which brings them to life in a more realistic way. There are no clear-cut good or bad characters; each character has their own downfalls. Lyman, as a successful business man eventually gets fired. Despite the fact that the community assessed Lipsha´s high potential, he seems to be unable to decide what he wants to do with his life. Also, Shawnee is not the perfect sweet and caring person that Lipsha desperately wants to see in her, it can be argued that she leads on both Lyman and Lipsha as she seems to encourage both and eventually leaves the reservation to pursue higher education. Alcohol dependency can also be interpreted as a personal vice and alcoholism only plays a minor role in The Bingo Palace. Except for one drunken incident on Lipsha´s part on a party (77), alcohol dependency plays a role only in the life of Tammy, Shawnee Ray´s sister. The minor character is described as seriously physically and mentally deteriorated due to long-term alcohol abuse. (175)
Similar to the community of Wellpinit that Alexie portrayed in Reservation Blues, Louise Erdrich depicts a gossiping community in her novel. The narrative voice takes on a very chatty tone at times, which makes the reader draw conclusions about the depicted tribal community (“We know her routine – many of us even share it.” 1; “We relied on Day Twin Horse to tell us how Lulu entered the post office beneath the flags of the United States, the Great Seal of North Dakota.” 2). Upon Lipsha´s return, the community first behaves very distant and it appears that the narrative communal voice rejects Lipsha and his efforts to take part in the tribal life. The community is not eager to accept its returning member as “there was no place the boy could fit.” (9) Over the course of the novel, the community becomes more accepting of Lipsha and he appreciates the support he received especially from his grandmother Lulu and Albertine. (102) The tribal community depicted in The Bingo Palace, also has a restraining function, trying to keep its members integrated in their community, rather than encouraging them to break out of the norm. This conclusion can be drawn from an anecdote Lyman recounts:
“You ever hear about the crayfish pots, Lipsha? Listen. There´s these three fishermen. An Irishman, a Frenchman, and an Indian. They´re picking crayfish from a streambed one day, and they each have a bucket. They´ll are picking at the same rate, the same number of these crayfish. The Irishman fills his, but he turns his back and his crayfish all get out. The Frenchman fills his, but he turns his back and his crayfish get out too. But when the Indian turns around, though, his bucket´s still full. The others can´t believe it, they ask how come. The Indian says it´s simple. He picked out all Indian crayfish – the minute one of them tries to climb out the others pull him back.” (102)
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This humorous tale emphasizes the Native American value of conformity and community, which is, in contrast to the Western set of values, regarded as more important than individualism. However, the outline of the joke, comparing different nationalities or ethnicities in a humorous way in order to make a statement, is also a very common strategy of jokes that is shared in Western cultures.
3.5 Gaming with Money, Feelings, Faith, and Coincidence
When asked in an interview about the topics of The Bingo Palace, Louise Erdrich replied that her novel is about “anxiety, money, chance, obsessed love, age, small grieves, failed friendships, self- denial [and] repressed sexual adore.” (Chavkin 234) I agree that love, unrequited or returned too late, is certainly a recurring theme throughout the novel. If I were to answer this question, however, I would argue that additional key themes of the novel, that prove to be challenges of reservation life, are gaming, the conflict between traditional religious practices and the enforced religion, as well as the issue of tribal sovereignty and federal authority on the reservation grounds.
The Bingo Palace evaluates the allure and dangers of gambling, as well as its link to Native American traditions. (Tillett 71) Through the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988), tribes have the “exclusive right to regulate gaming”, provided that it is not forbidden on a federal or state level. (Vinzenor 212) Despite the right to gamble, the tribes operating casinos or other gaming enterprises, have to accept severe interference at a federal and state level restricting their sovereignty rights in exchange for their business. (Mezey 722) In the 1980s various tribal nations decided to rely on the operation of casinos to increase the financial means of the reservation and to break the vicious circle of poverty. Statistics reveal roughly half of the 564 federally recognized tribes are involved in the gambling business and that casinos on tribal lands generate a yearly cash flow of $26 billion. (Dunbar-Ortiz 210) There are three distinct “classes of gaming”. The first group constitutes of traditional games that tribes have played for centuries. The Class II Gaming includes bingo, lotto and pull tabs. The last class unites the typical forms of gaming that can be found in casinos, such as roulette, blackjack, and poker, as well as slot machines and lotteries. (Vinzenor 212) The U.S. government interferes in the tribal decision of how the profits made out of Class II and Class III gaming can be spent. It is only
61 permitted to allocate the revenues to the public wellbeing of the tribe, invest the funds in charity organizations or the local government. (Mezey 722)
Comparable to any economic enterprise, gaming venues can also be exploited for personal advancement on the back of the tribal community. It is documented that some casino managers, both Native American and non-Native, were in some instances engaged in embezzlement. (Thompson 47) This crime is also committed by Lyman in The Bingo Palace, who harms his fellow tribal members through his actions. In The Bingo Palace, the local gaming venue has a positive effect on the whole community as it is “contributing to the overall economic profile of our reservation.” (103) In a conversation with Lipsha, Lyman defines gambling as “a mixed bag of trouble” meaning that gambling is not an honest way to earn money, however, both men agree that it appears to be the “easiest” available method to make a lot of money within a short amount of time. (103) Whether or not operating gaming enterprises and casinos are worth the trouble of surrendering part of their sovereignty rights, the question of profitability depends, according to Mezey, on a set of criteria, namely the “size of the regional market for gaming, the propensity of that market to gamble, and the extent of local competition.” (Mezey 723) Gaming is a popular past time on the reservation and playing bingo provides a chance for Lipisha to escape reality; it allows him to dream about winning the jackpot and thus also win Shawnee´s affection. Winning the Jackpot would entail the possibility of new life through the ownership of the bingo van. (96) The car would give Lipsha a sense of freedom and independence through allowing him to travel greater distances as well as providing him with a home, because he could also potentially sleep in the car.
The salient theme of gambling is already implied through the title. Gambling is a transgression of norms, as through the previously mentioned Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, Indian tribes have a “precarious monopoly” on certain forms of gaming provided that they are not forbidden on a state-level and that the state´s residents would not be permitted full access to these types of gaming otherwise. (Mezey 718) However, the fact that certain forms of gaming are allowed within the reservation boarders that are prohibited within the wider U.S. territory is highly problematic as this circumstance might imply that the reservation grounds are a lawless region. When this belief is taken a step further, it has real-world manifestations; these manifestations include a problem concerning public safety on Native American territory according to the State of the Native Nations Report conducted in 2008. It is a fact that Native American communities cannot persecute non-Natives despite the fact that they committed a
62 crime on tribal land. In addition, the states have no jurisdiction over a crime, when the victim is Native American. This void in law enforcement, when a non-Native commits a crime on a Native American reservation harming a Native American, is very problematic. (Kalt et al. 265)
Gambling can also have an addictive effect; not only can individuals become easily addicted to substances, actions can also have a compulsive effect on humans. In The Bingo Palace, Lyman is addicted to gaming. This becomes apparent when the Bingo Chef visits the Indian Gaming Conference. (88) He seems to be unable to stop, and plays Blackjack for five hours straight after which it seems that he beats the odds by winning seven hundred dollars. (91) Then he moves on to the slot machines to try his luck and Lyman experiences strong emotions while playing; he feels “a sudden jittery anxiety” and “his senses dulled. His mouth went numb, he could not taste, couldn´t hear above casino clatter, couldn´t feel his own hands spooning the peanut butter sauce between his lips.” (92) The extended duration in which he engages in gaming, already indicates a severe problem. Lyman ends the night with a big loss; “his luck had turned unpredictable.” In addition to maxing out his credit card at the ATM, he cashed the check of the Bureau of Indian Affairs that was supposed to be spent on community development and he even brings Nector´s pipe to a pawnshop. (93) Slot machines contribute to Lyman´s downfall, it appears like Lyman has already automatized the action of feeding it with money, he cannot stop and keeps pushing coins through the slot so his hands feel raw and “stiff as wax.” (147) Being a gaming addict is part of his identity and likewise it also appears to help him find himself; “as quarter after quarter fed off his fingers, he began to receive a hint of himself, an ID picture composed of his economic tribulations and triumphs, a personal glimpse from the outside.” (148)
Gaming in the 20th and 21st century can be regarded as “mass-entertainment” and as “the next stage of postmodern consumption.” (Mezey 712) Gambling in the wider sense can be interpreted as a new god, as the fulfilment of dreams and goals projected onto the favor of the bingo gods. Especially Lulu´s routine of playing the bingo appears to be a form of ritual, which allows the interpretation that gaming can be regarded as a new religious movement. This reading is in accordance with Vinzenor´s assessment that gaming on tribal land facilitates the bereavement of tribal culture and values. (213) These lost values are in this line of thought replaced with gambling and the hope for a better life through winning the jackpot. Lipsha takes
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Lulu with her bingo routine as a role model and his grandmother´s recipe for success of “one of those rare Chippewas who actually profit by bingo” (61) is the following:
“Concentration. Before the numbers even start, she sits down in her lucky place, a chair that nobody else dares take, fourth row and fourth to the right by the eastern wall. She composes her face to calm, snaps her purse shut. She shakes her daubers upside down so that the foam- rubber tips are thoroughly inked. She looks at the time on her watch. The coke, she takes a drink of that, but no more than a sip. […] Her eye-glasses, blue plastic hanging from her neck by two chains. She raises the ovals to her eyes as the caller takes the stand. She holds her daubers poised while he plucks the ball from the chute. He reads it out. B-7. Then she is absorbed, scanning, dabbing, into the game. “ (61-61)
On a cultural level gaming can be regarded as a means for a tribe to reinvent themselves; in Mezey´s line of argumentation gaming and materialism establish culture. (Mezey 724) Gaming can be regarded as a measure responsible for the survival of the Pequot tribe for instance, as the local gaming enterprise saved the tribe from extinction and can be regarded as the reason for the reinvention for the tribe. The casino run by the Pequots is the single most profitable gaming venue on Native American grounds. The living standard of the on-reservation residents was greatly improved through the revenue created by the gaming industry. Moreover, the increased cash flow on the reservation was also used to investigate their cultural traditions and identity, the tribe hired an archaeologist and made a very generous donation to the Smithsonian museum for an American Indian building. (Mezey 725)
The novel can also be interpreted as a story of how loving someone is similar to gaming, as Louise Erdrich outlines in an interview that “in The Bingo Palace the characters aren´t just gambling with money, they´re taking chances on love. And of course, love is a huge risk, a huge risk.” (Farry 12) As a young girl, Zelda turned down Xavier, “the only men she ever really loved”, hoping to find a white man who could provide her with more opportunities and a better life outside the reservation. (46) This hope did not get fulfilled, and Zelda is disappointed how her life turned out, she assesses “Love wrecks things, love is a burning letter in the sky, a nuisance.” (48) Thinking that she might die, she admits her true feelings for Xavier and realizes that “in in her life, she was sorrier for the things she had not done than for the things that she had.” (242) Zelda drives to Xavier´s place to eventually act upon her feelings and takes Nector´s pipe with her. The peace pipe can be interpreted as a sign that she wants to make peace with Xavier and her past. The sacred object, however, remains in the car (246) and the reader does not find out what happens between Zelda and Xavier, which is a very Hemingway-like ending of their love story. The reservation is also the location where Lipsha falls in love with Shawnee. 64
Despite the fact that the two lovers spend a night in a motel together, Shawnee is torn between the responsibility to care for her son on the one hand, and on the other hand following her heart and allowing herself to be happy with Lipsha. In his struggle to win Shawnee over, Lipsha assesses that “love is hard, loneliness is a sure bet” (97) which in another instance where Louise Erdrich incorporates the metaphor “love or life is a game.” As Shawnee´s dream has always been attending university, Lipsha reaches the conclusion that he will sacrifice his feelings for Shawnee and let her go, assessing that “[his] love will be larger than [himself].” (229) However, when Shawnee hears about Lipsha´s unintentional kidnapping of a young child while stealing a car to help his father, she has to admit to herself that she does indeed deeply care about him and it seems that she reconsiders declining Lipsha´s marriage proposal. She considers buying two rings and feels that “Lipsha´s absence was a constant ache.” (268) Therefore, one could argue that the timing was just not right for Lipsha and Shawnee as it seems to be almost impossible that their relationship works out. Both couples, Zelda and Xavier, as well as Shawnee and Lipsha, attempt to gamble with their feelings and the emotions of their lovers´. Considering the proverb “better late than never” there might be a happy end for Zelda and Xavier. For the younger couple, though, the dice have not fallen yet.
In addition to the two key problems in this piece of work; gambling as an illness and love troubles, the coexistence between two different religious belief systems at the reservation and the resulting potential for conflict is also a vital theme in Louise Erdrich´s novel. The origin of this problematic issue can be traced back to the early colonialization of the North American continent when missionizing the local population was one of the priorities for the missionaries traveling to the New World. In The Bingo Palace, feature both traditionally tribal practices as well as Catholic ways to reach spiritual enlightenment, which was already addressed previously. (c.f. 3.3 Clash of Cultures – The Tribal Belief System and Catholicism) Lipsha embodies being torn between two radically different belief systems. Due to his upbringing at the reservation, he is aware of the traditional Chippewa practices. He seeks comfort in these customs that were passed down from previous generations within the tribe and he assesses that his interest in the Chippewa religion is “natural.” The main reason for this enthusiasm for the tribal belief system is, however, the hope of winning Shawnee Ray´s interest and affection through turning traditional. (158) Lipsha struggles with the traditional rituals and becomes impatient and frustrated with the Chippewa practices and customs. (196)
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This frustration encourages Lipsha´s engagement with the Catholic religion, which also plays a vital part in his spiritual quest. He holds on to the bible he took from the motel where he spent the night with Shawnee. According to Lipsha´s own assessment of the situation, he returns to the Holy Book when he feels “downcast.” (153) The problem with this approach that Lipsha adopts in terms of religion, however, is the Catholic religion is monotheistic, meaning that there can only be one god and no other spirits or godlike embodiments can exist. This conflict that Lipsha faces, reflects the reality of Native Americans in the wider sense, as the existence of two belief systems at the reservation is omnipresent throughout the tribal lands in the United States of America and Canada. Even though Lipsha turns to the bible to seek comfort and answers, he views some of the Catholic practices critically. He criticizes the act of communion where wine is consumed as the metaphorical blood of Christ, and the alter bread that is consumed by believers as the flesh of Christ. (157) Lipsha does not seem to have enough insight into the Catholic tradition realizing that these acts are regarded as metaphorical processes and not literally the blood and flesh of Jesus Christ. The Native American protagonist of Louise Erdrich´s novel also opposes confession. His argumentation is the following: “I say it´s cheap. You kneel down in that box and say what you done. And then, basically, you get off scot-free, only cranking out a few Hail Marys or some Our Fathers.” (157) This reluctance to accept confession as a legitimate way of freeing oneself from sin might stem from the long and bloody history of wrongdoings committed on the indigenous population of North America. If Lipsha were to agree with the act of confession and thus share the Catholic belief that one can acquit oneself from sins that easily, the young man would also have to regard this method as a legitimate way for the European invaders and their descendants to free themselves of the sins of colonialization, forced assimilation, and theft of tribal lands.
An issue that is only briefly touched upon in The Bingo Palace, is the topic of tribal sovereignty. The right of tribal sovereignty is one of the pillars of the relationship between Native American tribes and the government of the United States. Within the novel, the issue of tribal sovereignty is mentioned when the narrating communal voice comments on the authority issues when Lulu is taken in handcuffs by the federal police on tribal grounds: “Jurisdiction issues? Sure, plenty of them right there to worry over.” (264) As previously mentioned, tribal sovereignty allows the Native American tribes to pass and enforce laws on their tribal grounds (c.f Introduction), however, this tribal sovereignty has been drastically limited through certain acts, such as the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. Through allowing
66 federal interference in the tribes´ gambling operations, the Native American nations lose part of their power over their own land and people. (Vizenor 214) Mezey also links sovereignty to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and, consequently, gaming. Many Native Americans holding traditional views with regards to their cultural identity argue that federal and state legislation aiming at further control of gaming enterprises, facilitates the process of diminishing tribal sovereignty. (Mezey 728) They regard the IGRA as a further ethnocide where their traditional values fall victim to materialistic ambitions, and refer to the process as a “poisoning of the spirit, an erosion of cultural integrity.” (Mezey 729)
In terms of gaming, it is often coincidence that plays an essential role in determining whether someone leaves the casino as a winner or completely broke. This coincidence and the element of luck are reoccurring themes throughout the novel. It is also coincidence that saves Lyman from spending his winnings in the casino at the Indian Gaming Conference. An elderly man accidently bumps into Lyman, which interrupts him in the rush of his addiction and makes him cash the chips. (92) Lipsha also considers Zelda´s interference as pure luck, stating that when he got his “luck fixed” he felt her presence in the room. (43) Various titles of the chapters throughout The Bingo Palace feature the term “luck”. Lipsha comments on luck in the following way:
“Fateful coincidence. Things happen you cannot can´t deny. Good advice speaks from graves and love hints from the hearts of trees. Bags of light float through open windows on a summer night. Horses count with the knock of their hooves. Children are born who can add up unbelievable numbers. These things are possible.” (238)
This very picturesque comment emphasizes Lipsha´s traditional belief in the value of luck as well as his optimistic approach to life. The young Native American still hopes for a better future for himself and his tribe.
Another challenge of contemporary Native Americans that is touched upon in The Bingo Palace is the difficulty of fulfilling one´s dream of higher education. The aspiration to obtain a college degree in arts is the motivation for Shawnee´s move from the reservation grounds. (152) In general, it can be argued that the access to education for Native American children and adolescents living on reservation grounds is more restricted in comparison to the average U.S. American standard. (Kalt et al. 197) Data from the 2000 U.S. census revealed that single-race Native Americans have on average 1.23 less years of schooling than white U.S. Americans. (Huyser et al. 556) A study conducted by the university of Ohio revealed that in 2002 only 0.7 67 percent of degrees (associate degrees, bachelor degrees as well as advanced degrees) were obtained by students with Native American heritage. Numerous studies, focused on the factors determining the success of Native American students at university, reveal that their high school education and the involvement and support of their respective faculty as well as family support and strong ties to their Native community are decisive factors for a student´s success in tertiary education. Especially part taking in the tribal life in the home community and attendance at traditional ceremonies prove to be essential to a student´s persistence in higher education. (Guillory and Wolverton 59)
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4 Individual Dreams and the Female Perspective Addressed in The Rez Sisters by Tomson Highway
Born on a reservation in Northern Monitoba, Tomson Highway experienced on-reservation life first hand and grew up in the tribal community speaking Cree. Being exposed to the traumatic boarding school experience, he learnt English. (Filewood 363) He has gained international recognition and can be regarded as “probably the most widely known, reviewed and acclaimed indigenous playwright in North America today.” (Däwes Theatre 241) The American-Canadian author, whose relatives are well-known for winning the legendary World Dog Derby (VI), reveals in the preface to the play that he wants to portray the reservation and on-reservation life as “cool” and aims at showing what a “funky folk” the indigenous population of Canada is. (IX)
In my opinion, it was essential to include the analysis of a play in this thesis due to the historical and cultural value of performative traditions in the Native American culture. Scholars of Native American literature and culture agree that performances have a longstanding tradition as modes of Native American cultural expression. Known examples for these Native American performances range from mystery plays typical for the Kwakiutl tribe, to ceremonial performances and the so-called clown dance which is a traditional custom unique to the Hopi. (Däwes “Legacy” 423) The legacy of Native American performances being the backdrop for contemporary Native American plays will be addressed further on in the subchapter focusing on the dramatic mode of the play. (c.f 4.2 Dramatic Mode and Native Languages)
Despite a rough few first days where hardly anyone came to the theatre to watch The Rez Sisters by the rather unknown Tomson Highway at the time, on the night of the final performance crowds had to be turned away at the door as a review of the play attracted the masses. (Preston 135) Tomson Highway won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play with The Rez Sisters. In contrast to the two narratives analyzed before, Tomson Highway´s depiction of contemporary Native American realities focuses solely on the female perspective. The play revolves around the realties and dreams of a group of Native American women living on the Wasaychigan Hill Indian Reserve at Manitoulin Island, Ontario. Bloodlines, mutual friendship, and their shared experience of being Native women in a contemporary society unites them. They find out about THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD and begin to day-dream how they would spend the potential win. In order to get to Toronto to participate in the event, the women start fundraising with odd jobs; they babysit and do bottle drives, work as window
69 cleaners and do the laundry for their neighbors. They also organize a garage sale and a bake sale to be able to finance their trip. (71-73) Despite the challenge of a flat tire on the road (88), they eventually arrive in Toronto and are excited for the event. (100) However, the night does not unfold as the women had anticipated; Marie-Adele dies (103) and Philomena is the only winner at the bingo; she receives 600$ prize money. (107)
4.1 “Plain, Dusty, Boring Old Wasaychiagan Hill”
The Rez Sisters is set on the Wasaychiagan Hill Indian Reserve, Manitoulin Island in Ontario. The Ojibwa term “Wasaychiagan” means “window” in English (XIII), and Highway´s choice of naming his fictional reservation can be understood in the way that he regards the reservation as a metaphorical window where the residents can only take a glimpse into the outside world while staying connected to their tribal lands and not leaving their on-reservation life behind. A second interpretation is that Tomson Highway´s fictional reserve acts as a window for cultural outsiders; through the play non-Natives gain knowledge about the possible experiences of contemporary Native American women. The latter reading also corresponds with Tomson Highways educational purpose of writing about on-reservation life. (IX)
Pelajia, one of the characters, feels trapped at the reservation and laments about “plain, dusty, boring old Wasaychiagan Hill.” (2) Pelajia´s sister Philomena responds with reminding her about the concept of Native American connectedness with their tribal lands, pointing out that “This place is too much inside your blood. You can´t get rid of it. And it can´t get rid of you.” (4) From her perspective, a vital part of being a member of the Native American tribe, is living on the reservation as a place where one is closer to the respective tribal customs, traditions, and forefathers. Emily views the Wasaychiagan Hill Indian Reserve as the place closest to heaven imaginable to her (87), which is a very positive attitude to the place where she grew up.
The reservation does not have paved roads (7), a fact that partly explains Pelajia´s comment and the title of this subchapter. Through driving on gravel roads, dust is swirled up on the streets. The woman oversimplifies the problems in the community and traces them back to the lack of paved roads:
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“I know how to handle that tired old chief. He and I have been arguing about paved roads for years now, I´ll tell him we´ll build paved roads all over the reserve with our prize money. I´ll tell him the people will stop drinking themselves to death because they´ll have paved roads to walk on. I´ll tell him there´ll be more hobs because the people will have paved roads to drive to work on. I´ll tell him the people will stop fighting and screwing around and Nanabush will come back to us because he´ll have paved roads to dance on.” (59)
Throughout the play, the reader or the audience gets more information about the bigger town Espanola which is about hundred miles away and the only opportunity for employment for the Wasaychiagian population. (7) Espanola seems to also provide its residents with a better infrastructure and more shops; Philomena´s record player cannot be fixed on the Wasaychiagan Hill Indian Reserve and therefore is sent to Espanola to be repaired. (11) Also, the local bingo is said to be better and bigger in Espanola. (13)
The complete first act is set on the Native American reserve and act two opens in the basement of Pelajia´s house where the women are planning their journey to Toronto. After the short excursion to Canada´s capital, which is about a six-hour drive away (63), the remaining women return to the reservation.
4.2 Dramatic Mode and Native Languages
In contrast to the first two texts analyzed in this thesis, The Rez Sisters is a play and not a novel. According to Vera and Ansgar Nünning, dramatic texts differ considerably from other genres in terms of the communicative situation in mind when they are written. They are written to be performed rather then read individually in silence. (Nünning and Nünning 76) Tomson Highway argues that the stage is the best means to convert the Native American tradition of oral storytelling into a postmodern performance. (Chang 132)
Historically, it can be noted that Native Americans performed in theatric pieces even before the first Europeans reached North America. These dramas were to a largely part religious and applied a big variety of masks, stage props and lightning. The passing of the federal Indian Acts at the end of the 19th century brought about a prohibition of these traditional forms of cultural expression and only with its revision in 1951 were those performances permitted again. According to Tomson Highway, this milestone “marked the beginning of a renaissance.” (Preston 136) The member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and Native American author 71 and playwright LeAnne Howe, defines Native American theatre as being written by someone with Native American background as well as being performed by actors with indigenous heritage. She argues Native American theatre “comes from a native voice and perspective.” The purposes of these performances of Native American realties and culture range from entertainment to celebrating historic as well as contemporary tribal groups. Furthermore, they facilitate an enrichment and construct an individual as well as communal identity within the Native American communities. The audience of Native American plays also include non- Natives who might gain new insights into the Native American tradition while enjoying the performances. (Däwes “Legacy” 424) Native North American drama only began to receive scholarly attention at the beginning of the 21st century and is very diverse in its shapes, such as social drama and performances in burlesque styles as well as tragedy and comedy. (Däwes “Legacy” 425-426) The Native American playwright Drew Hayden Taylor considers Native American drama as
“just a logical extension of storytelling. To look back at the roots and origins of traditional storytelling – not just Native storytelling but storytelling in general – it´s about taking your audience on a journey through the use of your voice, your body and the spoken word. And going from that onto the stage is just the next logical progression.” (140)
For the very first audience Tomson Highway sent on a journey with The Rez Sisters in 1989, he was unable to find Native American actors willing to play a role in the debut performance. This instance lead to the question of cultural authenticity that the playwright explored in his essay “Should Only Native Actors Have the Right to Play Native Roles?” Tomson Highway´s answer is a clear negation of the question. He promotes the value of intercultural understanding and rejects the emphasis on ethnic boundaries as hindrances to the development of shared respect and consideration between culturally diverse groups. (Däwes Theatre 254)
In the Native American tradition time is organized in a cyclical manner, in contrast to the Western approach to organize time in a linear way. (cf. 1. Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature) Tomson Highway included this cyclical notion of time in The Rez Sisters; the play begins and ends with Pelajia sitting by herself on the roof of her house trying to fix the roof through placing shingles. (1; 118) In contrast to the rather negative and pessimistic worldview of Western postmodernist plays, The Rez Sisters can be described as conveying the “life-affirming” and optimistic worldview of Native Americans. (Chang 133)
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It can be argued that Tomson Highway also employs typical Western elements of playwriting in his work and Chang mentions the application of “magical realism” and a surreal spatial concept, as prime examples for this claim. (Chang 133)
In general, it can be noted that the incorporation of their respective Native American mother tongue in texts by Native American authors has not received much scholarly attention. (Beidler and Barton 372) The Native American scholar Christy Stanlake defines “the merging of English and Indigenous languages” as a key characteristic of Native North American drama. (Däwes “Legacy” 427) Even the use of only brief instances of indigenous phrases, adds a level of Native identity and representation to the text. The Native American scholars Helen Gilbert and Joanne Tompkins argue that this inclusion of Native languages “can generate as much political resistance as rewriting of history.” (Däwes Theatre 275) The Rez Sisters contains various Cree and Ojibwa terms. Both Native languages belong to the same linguistic family. (XI) From my point of view there are two distinct motivations when the characters speak Cree and Ojibway in The Rez Sisters. Instances such as Pelajia´s “Aw-ni-gi-naw-ee-dick”, meaning “Oh, go on.”, (5) or Veronique´s attempt to quiet Zhaboonigan down by saying: “Shkanah, Zhaboonigan, sna- ma-bah.” (“Shush, Zhaboonigan, don´t say that.” 30) can be regarded as brief intersections into the conversational flow. However, the characters in the play also retreat to Cree when they are expressing emotional statements, for instance when Marie-Adele recounts her husband´s Cree declaration of love, “Adele, ki-sa-gee-ee-tin oo-ma,” or when the woman admits her fear of dying (“Pelajia, een-pay-seek-see-yan.” 96). Marie-Adele´s last word are a disorganized mix of incoherent English and Cree terms (104) which emphasizes her confused state of mind shortly before passing away. The women sing an Ojibway funeral song for Marie-Adele (105), which can be read as a return to their tribal traditions during the time of grief and emotional distress expressed through the use of their Native language. This incorporation of Native languages in the play that is written and performed in English, sends, according to Sheila Rabbillard, a message to “member[s] of the dominant culture, thus reminded that [they are] not simply the Universal audience.” (Däwes Theatre 251) Tomson Highway argues that his merging of traditional languages and English can be explained due to his family background and his writing strategy. Many of his relatives do not speak English, thus when he pictures his fictional community, he has them in mind. The playwright further explains that parts of his first drafts are frequently written in Cree and at a later point he then translates his texts into English. This act of translation leaves traces in his work, for instance, the rhythm of his dialogues allows the informed reader to draw connections to Highway´s mother tongue. (Chang 133) This rhythmic
73 scheme, for instance, features in Philomena´s description of her dream toilet, “big and wide and very white.” (5)
A stylistic feature of Highway´s play is his reoccurring avoidance of punctuation; the Native American author at times tends to use conjunctions, and thus forms run-on sentences. (Chang 133) An example for this technique is, for instance, Annie´s utterance that makes her appear full of energy and excitement:
“I´m going to Marie-Adele´s house and then we´ll walk to the store together to pick up the parcel – I´m sure there´ll be a letter in it, and Marie- Adele is expecting mail, too – and we´ll see if Emily Dictionary is working today and we´ll ask her if Fire Minklater has her new car yet so we can go to Espanola for that big pot.” (16)
Despite the dire living conditions and challenges the characters face in the play, the tone of the literary piece can be described as uplifting and humorous. The form of humor Tomson Highway applies in The Rez Sisters is rather dark. His characters have to cope with difficult challenges in their lives (c.f. 4.5 Challenges Denying the Characters Happiness) and humor can be regarded as a coping strategy. The previously mentioned Native American strategy of mocking and making fun of fellow tribal members as a means to re-integrate them into the community (cf. 1. Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature) also features in The Rez Sisters. When Annie for instance laments about Native American men and idolizes their white counterparts, her sister Emily teases her by calling her “Apple Indian Annie. Red on the outside. White on the inside.” (86) Through this harmless badgering, Emily puts her sister in her place as well as lightens up the situation by shifting the focus away from Annie´s complaints.
4.3 Nanabush – The Trickster
As established at an earlier point (cf. 1. Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature), trickster figures play a vital part in the Native American oral tradition and thus also in contemporary literature. This section focuses on the importance of the trickster in Tomson Highway´s play. The Rez Sisters features the trickster Nanabush, who is also referred to as Weesagechak in the Cree mythology. (Chang 135) Within the play, the trickster figure Nanabush takes on various characters, namely the character of two animals, a seagull (18; 118) and a nighthawk (92; 103). Additionally, the trickster figure also takes on a human embodiment when he features as the Bingo Master (100). It is very interesting to note here, that in contrast 74 to the characters in the play who are all female (c.f 4.4 The Focus on Female Characters), Nanabush manifests himself in male forms. In Tomson Highway´s correspondent play focusing on the male perspective of on-reservation life, Nanabush is depicted as being female. (Preston 143) This male as well as female embodiment of the trickster is a key characteristic of the figure in Native American mythology. (cf. 1. Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature) He plays a “realistic” role within the play, adding a “level of experience beyond the empirical” to the depiction of the lives of the seven women at the Wasaychiagan Hill Indian Reserve. (Chang 135)
Not all characters in the play are aware of the presence of the trickster figure. A salient aspect in this context is the fact that Marie-Adele who acknowledges Nanabush, is also the character who uses the most Cree and Ojibway phrases. This can be regarded as a “connection between the mythological world and the historical one.” (Chang 134) With regards to The Rez Sisters, the stage directions indicate that only Marie-Adele and Zhaboonigan realize that there is more to the bird and Bingo Master respectively, and can “recognize him for who he is” (18), a trickster. Marie-Adele uses the Cree language to address Nanabush in disguise of a seagull and he even answers her, inviting the Native American woman to join him. (19) Additionally, Zhaboonigan addresses the disguised trickster and tells him about the traumatic rape she endured in her childhood. (47)
Critics have noted that it is essential to distinguish between the trickster as a key feature of Native American myths and Nanabush as the member of Highway´s cast in The Rez Sisters. (Däwes Theatre 250) The trickster is also listed as one of the characters of the play in the preface of the drama. (XIII) Within the play, Nanabush acts as a “transformative agent” responsible for the further development of the plot. (Chang 136) The trickster observes and follows the sisters as indicated by the stage directions. (18; 60) An instance in The Rez Sisters when the trickster figure facilitates the development of the play is when he dances with Marie-Adele as the Bingo Master at THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD and transforms “with sudden bird-like movements into the nighthawk, Nanabush in dark feathers.” (103) He accompanies Marie- Adele “into the spirit world” when the time for her eternal rest has come. (104) In this instance, the trickster takes on the role of an agent of death. The stage directions reveal that Nanabush disguised as a seagull is playing tricks on the women and mimicking them. (35) This reveals the aforementioned function of the trickster figure as a humorous troublemaker. (cf. 1. Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature). Tomson Highway´s brother Rene
75 who took on the role of the trickster in the original production describes Nanabush as “brilliant and godlike yet like the stupidest person on earth.” (Preston 142)
According to some Native Americans, the trickster figure has left the earth when European colonizers set foot on the North American continent. In contrast, in the Cree interpretation Nanabush is regarded to still be among the U.S. American population. Without the trickster´s existence “the core of Indian culture would be gone forever.” (XII) The play ends with the stage direction that Nanabush, once again disguised as a seagull, returns to the reserve and observes Pelajia hammering on her roof. “He dances to the beat of the hammer, merrily and triumphantly.” (118) This last line highlights this Cree belief that the trickster figure is still existing and present in the modern day and age. Chang argues that the aim of the inclusion of the trickster figure is to highlight the significance of the trickster even in today´s world “as a metonym for suppressed spirituality, in the material lives of Native people.” (Chang 136)
Similar to the novels discussed in this thesis, Tomson Highway refers to Catholic religion in The Rez Sisters as a strong contrast to the inclusion of the traditional Native American trickster figure. In his play, Veronique brought a crucifix as a good luck charm to the bingo in Toronto and the stage directions at that point are an allusion to Catholic religion as they describe the scene as “lit so that it looks like “The Last Supper.”” (102) The simile is actually very significant; the biblical last supper was Jesus´s last evening with his friends and believers and the bingo in Toronto is the last time Marie-Adele is among her fellow rez sisters before she dies.
4.4 The Focus on Female Characters and Their Dreams
An aspect that stands out first and foremost, is Tomson Highway´s focus on the female perspective in The Rez Sisters. This section will take a closer look at the resulting implications for the play and the historic importance of Native American women in their community. As the title already suggests, all characters within the play are female. It is also very interesting to note that there is a corresponding play to The Rez Sisters, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, which focuses on the world of seven Native American men. (Chang 129) Despite the fact that no man directly features in The Rez Sisters, the women´s attitude towards Native American men is rather negative, which is exemplified by Annie´s remark that white men treat their wives
76 better: “They´re nicer to their women. Not like Indian guys. Screw you, drink all your money, and leave you flat on your ass.” (86)
The seven women in the center of the action of The Rez Sisters include Pelajia Patchnose and her sister Philomena Moosetail, their half-sisters Marie-Adele Starblanket, Annie Cook and Emily Dictionary. Moreover, their sister-in-law Veronique St. Pierre and her adopted daughter Zhaboonigan Peterson are also important characters in the play. Their past experiences and everyday lives on the reservation as well as their hopes for their futures are a vital part of the play. In the words of the Native playwright Drew Taylor this focus of The Rez Sisters played a decisive role in raising the awareness of non-Natives that “Indian people are living, breathing, eating cornflakes, brushing their teeth. I mean living.” (Preston 144)
The play opens with Pelajia´s remark that she wants to leave the reservation grounds and go to Toronto. (2) Moreover, she also wishes for paved roads on the reservation grounds (8), which is somewhat contradicting her dream of leaving the reservation. Eventually, the Native American woman remarks that her desire to go to Toronto might only stem from the fact that life at the reservation stays the same. Her frequently expressed lamentation about the unpaved roads (7) and her desire to become the next chief (113) expresses Pelajia´s deep and heartfelt concern for the Wasaychigan Hill Indian Reserve and its residents. Having settled back into her regular routine after her trip to Toronto, she realized that leaving the reservation might not be such a good idea after all. Pelajia admits that her idea of living with her son in Toronto might have flaws as she realizes that her habit of playing the bingo might lead to disagreements between them. (117)
Pelajia´s sister Philomena initially reveals a materialistic dream, she talks about buying a toilet. (5) On the way to Toronto she recalls the traumatic experience of giving up her child for adoption 28 years ago. She intends to hire a lawyer with the bingo money to find her lost child, the result of an affair with a married man who left her when his wife found out about his infidelity. Philomena also lived for a brief period of time outside the reservation, but returned to the reservation due to her mother´s illness. (81) Her return, brought about through her relative´s sickness, can also be interpreted as an example of the aforementioned “homing in” plot typical to Native American contemporary fiction. (cf. 1. Contextualizing Contemporary Native American Literature)
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In contrast to Philomena, who gave up her child for adoption, the character of Marie-Adele is the mother of fourteen children. (21) She is suffering from cancer (30) and expresses her dream to buy an island in the North Channel, where she would live with her husband Eugene and their twelve sons and two daughters. (36) Throughout the play, her health deteriorates and Marie- Adele worries about what will happen when she dies. (78) She also reveals that her marriage suffers under the stress brought about by her illness (96), which makes her remember that twenty years ago her sister Annie had feelings for Marie-Adele´s husband Eugene. However, Marie-Adele´s worries seem to be baseless as Annie has an affair with the Jewish country musician Fritz the Katz. (86) Annie, whose lucky number at bingo is B 14, plans to spend her bingo money on Patsy Cline records and a big record player. (35) Listing to music appears to be her escape route. Moreover, the Native American woman also talks about her dream to leave the reserve and move to Sudbury where her daughter Ellen lives with her French husband Raymond. (58)
Most of the characters in The Rez Sisters are characterized as rather soft and feminine, Emily Dictionary, however, appears to have more edges than the others and is described as a “tough lady.” (37) Her half-sister argues that “[she] strut[s] around like [she] own[s] the place.” (43) Emily is involved with the local womanizer and married man Big Joey. (29) As the play moves along, she argues that the reason for her departure to San Francisco was the domestic violence she was exposed to for ten years by her former husband Henry Dadzinanare and reveals that she had learned to fight back. (50) Her return to the reservation was facilitated through a friend´s fatal bike accident that she observed first-hand. (97) Emily refers to this woman as her “lover” and assesses that “[she] loved her like no man´s ever loved a woman.” (97) The relationship to this special friend characterizes Emily as a bisexual and this sexual orientation also sets Emily apart from the other characters who are described as being heterosexual. She imagines inviting her fellow rez sisters to San Francisco with the money from her potential bingo win. (55) Throughout the play, Emily´s utterances are frequently vulgar, for instance, when she talks about the size of her lover´s phallus (85) or asks Annie if “[she] ever 69 with Fritz?” (86) Despite not winning at the bingo, Emily´s life drastically changes towards the end of the play; she reveals to Zhaboonigan that she is carrying Big Joey´s baby. (110)
Veronique St. Pierre dreams about investing her potential bingo profit in a stove. (26) The women seem to get increasingly invested in their phantasies, Veronique, for instance, moves from simply wishing for a better stove, to wanting a stove with “three different compartments
78 in the oven alone.” She talks about cooking for the poor and neglected on the reservation. Moreover, Veronique day-dreams about traveling to the French capital and publishing a cookbook. (36-37) After Marie-Adele´s death Veronique takes on her position in the Starblanket family; she cooks for Eugene and Marie-Adele´s fourteen kids. The stage directions reveal that she is “glowing with happiness” and is enthusiastic about the stove and oven in the Starblaket household. (110-111) Even though she did not win the bingo, it can be argued that her dream of a functioning and more modern stove gets fulfilled. Veronique is eager to take on the role of a caregiver, which is revealed by her behavior towards the Starblanket children and her adoption of Zhaboonigan. Veronique´s adopted daughter Zhaboonigan appears to be mentally handicapped, despite being in her mid-twenties, she is unable to tie Marie-Adele´s shoe laces and she cannot adequately express her thoughts and feelings. (24) She is also unaware of social conventions and bluntly asks Annie about her illness in front of the other women. (30) “Zhaboonigan” means according to her “needle”, a name that was given to her by the community. (48) The young woman has a horrific background story; she was raped by two white boys on her way to the store and they left her lying outside after they were done with her. (47-48)
Marie-Adele´s cancer and her resulting death deny her the chance to fulfill her dream of living on an island. However, her passing away, partly makes Veronique´s dream of cooking on a better stove true, as she uses her rez sister´s cooking equipment. It is also noteworthy that some of the other women´s dreams dissolve into thin air due to a change of heart. Pelajia realizes that she does not want to leave for Toronto and prefers the on-reservation lifestyle (117), and also Emily who expressed her vision of taking her friends to San Francisco has a change of heart after revealing the story of her friend´s fatal accident, “I never wanna go back to San Francisco. No way, man.” (97) Annie adapts her wish for Patsy Cline records and rather enjoys her own musical talent performing at bars and pubs. (112)
The play has a narrow focus as the seven women are the only characters featuring in the play and the only community members the reader gets to know on a deeper level than just hear-say. Andrew Wiget describes the community in The Rez Sisters as “resilient.” (Wiget 363) Despite the communal as well as individual challenges, such as poverty, illness, alcoholism, and lack of perspectives, the residents stay hopeful and believe that the THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD is a way to escape their realities. The hope to win the bingo in Toronto makes the group leave the reservation grounds and facilitates their sharing of dreams and hopes, personal
79 stories as well as fears. This quality time “[weaves] their lives into a mobile community of sharing stories.” (Däwes Theatre 242) At times the arguments between the women turn physical and the stage directions at one point refer to the action as a “full-scale riot” (44) and when the argument escalates further Marie-Adele tries to choke Veronique. (47) Even though the women tend to apply their sharp tongues in their conversations with each other (40; 44-45) they nevertheless deeply care about each other and support their fellow sisters. It can be noted that the portrayed community functions as a safety net for Marie-Adele´s children; Veronique steps up and provides for the Starblanket children after her mother passed away. (110-111). Although it can be argued that Veronique has her own agenda for doing so and is not only motivated in her actions by selfless behavior, she helps out and cooks for the half-orphans. The six women sing an Ojibway funeral song for the deceased at Marie-Adele´s burial (105) which emphasis the communal solidarity. Pelajia´s speech in honor of their dead rez sister also highlight the communal spirit when she life-affirmingly argues that “we gotta make the most if it will we´re here.” Pelajia adds, “I sure as hell am giving it one good try. For you. For me. For all of us.” (105) This focus on the community rather than the individuals which is expressed in the play, is a key characteristic of Native American drama (Däwes “Legacy” 426), as well as the Native culture in general. This communal value of Native American culture portrayed in the play, is also noticeable in Tomson Highway´s decision to not elevate one of the characters to be the central character of The Rez Sisters. All seven women are granted an individual identity and story; they are equally relevant to the development of the play. (Taylor 149)
4.5 Obstacles Denying the Characters Happiness
Throughout the play, Tomson Highway includes allusions to issues of on-reservation life that have already been discussed at an earlier point such as alcoholism. (c.f. 2.6 Challenges at the Reservation) In The Rez Sisters, the issue of excessive drinking is alluded to in several instances, for example, when Pelajia recounts that her lawn was destroyed as the result of a drunken fight of local men. (5) Tomson Highway also alludes to the issue of Native American alcohol dependency through the character of Veronique, who complains about her husband Pierre spending all their money on alcohol. (26)
In addition, poverty is a recurring theme throughout the play and an issue that has been mentioned in the two novels. Pelajia laments about her “two-bedroom welfare house” (2)
80 which highlights her lack of financial means. Throughout the play the character spends a lot of time on her roof, trying to fix it (1; 118) which allows the conclusion that Pelajia´s home is out of shape. Another instance, where the women´s dire financial situation becomes obvious, is when Emily refers to her friends as “goddamn welfare cases.” (56) The trip to Toronto almost seems impossible due to a lack of money (70), however, the women work hard to fundraise and make the trip happen.
Throughout the play Pelajia continues to paint a negative picture of the living conditions on the reservation, highlighting the limited opportunities for employment and high unemployment rates resulting in a vacuum with a lack of perspectives. According to her, there is “nothing to do but drink and screw each other´s wives and husbands and forget our Nanabush.” (6) In this instance, Pelajia also comments on the loss of tribal traditions and culture. Throughout the play there is no reference to tribal traditions or customs which can also be understood as confirming Pelajia´s worry that Nanabush is forgotten. However, the fact that Nanabush is omnipresent throughout the play, highlights the presence of Native American culture and its significance for the Wasaychigan residents, even when it is unbeknown to them.
Playing the bingo seems to be the means to fulfill the women´s deepest wishes and the past- time is a leitmotif of the play facilitating the development of the plot. The Native American women want to attend and win THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD in Toronto. (27) Through gossiping the sisters found out about the event and a letter from Annie´s daughter Ellen confirmed the jackpot of $500,000. (54) Bingo is regarded as Class II Gaming (c.f 3.5 Gaming with Money, Feelings, Faith and Coincidence) and its significance within the play can be described as two-fold. Firstly, it can be regarded as the modern substitute for Native American traditional rituals. In addition, bingo is also seen as a pathway out of poverty. (Krasner 399)
Throughout the play, Pelajia laments about the unpaved roads and argues that if she were the chief she would change the situation. However, her sister Philomena puts her in her place by pointing out that she will never be the tribal governor due to her gender. (114) This utterance reveals an unequal gender system prevailing at the Wasaychiagan Hill Indian Reserve. In contrast to these perceived discriminatory circumstances in Tomson Highway´s fictional reserve, Native American women can indeed be the primary leaders of their respective tribes,
81 for instance the Colville, Yavapai, Seminole, Puyallup and Menominee have a woman as their tribal leader. (Green 265) The field of Native American studies investigating the historic as well as present realities of female experiences is not very advanced yet; the focus on the female perspective has long been neglected due to the fact that the first anthropologist investigated the tribal communities from their own male-centered point of view. (Medicine 685) From a historic point of view, women also took on roles as healers and tribal leaders. (Green 264) The female members of the tribal community were also a decisive factor in the successful fur trade in the early years of the encounter with the Euro-Americans; they worked on the furs and acted as translators with the French and British settlers. (Shoemaker 11) However, considering some tribes prohibited the contact of women with cultural outsiders, and the fact that the traditional female sphere of work also included tasks that were from a Western point of view male duties, such as farming and trading, the Europeans were reaffirmed in their assessment of Native Americans as “un-civilized” as they “exploited” their women. (Medicine 685) The other extreme on the spectrum of the depiction of Native American women throughout the ages, are the nostalgic and historically incorrect representations of “Indian princesses”, such as Pocahontas, as being free from restrictive Western gender expectations. (Medicine 686) Anyhow, the vital role Native American women played in connecting the tribal communities with the European explorers, settlers and fur traders cannot be underestimated. Through marital and sexual relationships, which were clearly not always voluntary, they two groups were bound together. However, the women might have felt more and more torn between their tribal affiliations and interests as well as the European agenda. (Medicine 686, Shoemaker 11) The Laguna Pueblo Paula Gunn Allen argues that the status of women within their tribal communities has declined greatly since the first contact with the European settlers. From her point of view this lower standing in the hierarchy is also confirmed through the severe rapes and violence experienced by Native American women. (Däwes Theater 167) These instances of brutality are also alluded to in The Rez Sisters and will be addressed in this section at a later point. In general, it can be noted, that the experiences of Native American women are not well-researched. (Medicine 685) Through the cultural developments in the wider U.S. American society in the 1960s, such as the civil rights and feminist movement, Native American women also started to feel empowered and started pointing out discriminatory practices unique to their gender. In contrast to Native American men, women lost their status as tribal members if they were to marry someone who was a non-Native. (Green 256)
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As already previously addressed by Paula Gunn Allen, Native American women are exposed to violence in physical as well as sexualized forms. Domestic violence is a salient issue throughout Tomson Highway´s play The Rez Sisters. Beatings from her husband made Emily leave the reservation in the past, however, she has made an unfortunate choice again. Her new lover Big Joey also physically assaults her; “he´d beat [her] purple.” (50) In the United States an intertribal task force focusing on domestic violence and violence against women has been founded and the organization promotes a change in the federal law to better protect Native American women from abusive behaviors. (Kalt et. al. 42) Statistics reveal that Native American women are due to social inequalities between the wider population and the Native American minority and a higher rate of alcohol abuse more prone to being exposed to domestic violence and sexual assaults. Despite the fact that roughly about 20% of the Alaskan population have a Native American background, half of the sexual assaults statewide were targeting Native American women and they are also the victims of over a third of the domestic violence reports on a state level. (Kalt et. al 322) In addition to domestic violence, Paula Gunn Allen also referred to rapes as an indication of the diminished social standing of Native American women since contact with the colonizers. In The Rez Sisters, the traumatic rape Zhaboonigan experienced as a young child on the reservation highlights the issue that sexual violence is part of the Native American experience. Rape is a common theme in the Native American plays written and produced during the renaissance of Native drama. Drew Hayden Taylor outlines the scholarly theories explaining this trend:
“One is that it represents the horrific amount of sexual abuse that exists in Native communities because of the residential school system, because of alcoholism, because of the breakdown of the extended family, because of adoption. And the sexual abuse becomes cyclical: the abused becomes the abuser. There is also the metaphoric rape of Native culture; in many communities that were matrilineal or matriarchal, you´ve got this other primarily patriarchal culture coming in, forcing its way in […].” (151)
This reading of rape as a figure of speech for the degradation of traditional matriarchal and matrilineal Native American societies, can, according to Green, be supported from a historic point of view as the tribes were overwhelmed with the different gender roles they were exposed to through contact with Euro-Americans. (Green 150) In The Rez Sisters the character of Zhaboonigan gets raped and molested with a screwdriver by “white boys”, an experience she discloses to Nanabush. (47) The fact that her tormentors are Caucasian supports Taylor´s interpretation of rape as a cultural representation of the colonial victimization of the Native population of North America by the European settlers.
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Conclusion
Native American culture has a long and rich history, the traditional practices being of high significance for the descendants of the first people on the North American continent. Traces of these customs as well as evidence of the development of Native American literature rooted in oral storytelling are prominent throughout the contemporary literary expression of indigenous authors. My aim with this thesis was to investigate the depiction of reservation life in contemporary Native American literature and to also take a closer look at the on-reservation residents, their lives, and the circumstances determining the quality of their lives.
Having completed an analysis of the three depictions of the Native American experiences in Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie, The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich and Tomson Highway´s play The Rez Sisters, certain trends concerning the thematic level of the texts are noticeable. This conclusion of the thesis will address these trends and will cover similarities concerning the content such as the “homing in” plot as well as investigating the characters´ individual motivations for leaving or staying and returning to the reservation grounds. Furthermore, the depicted instances of turning to traditional Native American customs and the hybridity of traditional Native American cultural representations and Catholic imagery will be briefly summarized for the reader. The use of Native languages in the chosen pieces of literature will be commented on and despite the fact that only The Rez Sisters solely focuses on the female perspective of on-reservation life, strong independent female characters feature in all three instances of contemporary Native American literature.
The theme of leaving the reservation features in all three examples of contemporary Native American literature. In Reservation Blues, Thomas, Chess and Checkers leave the Spokane Indian Reservation eventually to try to find fulfillment in the outside world. The character of Shawnee in The Bingo Palace wants to pursue a university degree, and due to the fact that there are no institutions of higher education on her tribal homeland, she has to leave her community behind to follow her dreams. Also, the women in The Rez Sisters express their wish to leave the reservation behind and build a new life somewhere else, however, they stay on the reservation which emphasizes the strong connection of Native Americans with their tribal homelands. This trend of leaving the reservation is a stark contrast to the “homing in” plot typical for Native American literature. The Bingo Palace opens with this typical feature of indigenous literature, when Lipsha receives the photocopy of his father´s mugshot sent by Lulu. In The Rez Sisters
84 the women are motivated by various reasons to return home. Philomena´s return follows the typical schema of the “homing in” plot where a relative is responsible for the individual´s decision to come home. Her mother´s illness can be considered as the crucial point of Philomena´s decision to return. This does not apply for Emily, her friend´s accident makes her seek comfort in her hometown.
A theme that is similar to the “homing in” plot and which can be regarded as an extension thereof is the return to the traditional Native American ways of life. In Reservation Blues this movement is best exemplified by Thomas´s mother. Due to her husband´s escalating alcohol abuse she takes control of her life again and turns to traditional practices. This return to one´s traditional roots can also be observed in Louise Erdrich´s novel when Lispha develops an interest in traditional rituals, especially the sweat lodge custom, as a means to impress Shawnee Ray. The main character in The Bingo Palace furthermore hopes to receive guidance through the ancient rituals when he feels lost. In the funeral scene in Tomson Highway´s The Rez Sisters the women turn to their Native American traditions and sing an Ojibway funeral song for Marie- Adele.
A similarity of Reservation Blues, The Bingo Palace and The Rez Sisters is the incorporation of strong independent female characters in the storyline. In Reservation Blues the Warm Water Sisters, Chess and Checkers, can be considered prime examples of modern independent Native American women. The behavior of Thomas´s mother also strongly suggests that she is emotionally strong and self-reliant. In the second piece of Native American literature analyzed in this thesis, the young mother Shawnee courageously decides to leave the reservation and her support network in order to attend university whilst being a single-parent. Also, the characters of Zelda and Lulu are personifications of this intelligent and determined Native American woman who does not depend on men. Apart from Zhaboonigan and Marie-Adele, most characters in The Rez Sisters are hopeful and radiate strength despite their background stories and draining experiences. Therefore Pelajia, Philomena, Emily and Veronique can also be considered as strong and independent.
When comparing the three examples of Native American literature, the significance of the character of an elderly woman becomes evident. In Reservation Blues this elderly woman is Big Mom who supports Coyote Springs in their musical development and nurses Robert Johnson back to physical as well as mental health. The infamous Fleur in The Bingo Palace can
85 be considered as Big Mom´s corresponding representation. Stories about both women revolve about magical incidences and the women are of high importance for their respective communities.
Another salient aspect with regards to the depicted social structures throughout the two novels and the play is the strong sense of community expressed in these Native American texts. The focus on the community rather than the individual is in accordance to Native American culture where the community is of higher importance than the value of individuality. In Reservation Blues the community acts as a supportive safety net provided that the characters disclose their worries to their fellow tribal members and let others into their lives. In Sherman Alexie´s novel the regulatory function of the community is highlighted and tribal members who leave the reservation are frowned upon. The last characteristic of Wellpinit´s community also applies to the communal structure depicted in Louise Erdrich´s The Bingo Palace where the communal narrating voice at first is very unhappy with Lipsha´s return to his homeland on the reservation in North Dakota. The group of female characters featuring in The Rez Sisters have a strong unity, through blood ties, friendship, and mutual care, which highlights the focus of Native community further.
A characteristic of Native American literature that features in The Bingo Palace and The Rez Sisters is the incorporation of traditional languages in the texts. The significance of the incorporation of tribal languages in text of Native American authors written in English needs to be explored further as the area has not yet received a lot of scholarly attention. However, with regards to Louise Erdrich´s The Bingo Palace and the use of Objibwemowin, her tribe´s traditional language, also shows the authors development and her own growing insight into a language she had to learn consciously at a later point in her life. Tomson Highway in contrast, acquired Cree and Ojibway whilst growing up and his exposure to the Native language is noticeable with regards to the rhyming patterns he incorporates, even when he uses English words.
Reservation Blues and The Bingo Palace feature strong moments of hybridity of traditional Native American imagery and culture on the one hand, and the Catholic tradition on the other hand. Sherman Alexie includes implicit references to biblical stories and numerous allusions to popular culture in order to establish mass entertainment as a modern interpretation of rituals. Lipsha, the protagonist in The Bingo Palace, is caught in the middle of two belief systems and
86 thus embodies this hybridity best. He grew acquiring the Ojibwa traditions, however, in times of distress he turns to the bible.
To sum up, contemporary Native American literature reveals and addresses socio-economic drawbacks of on-reservation life, such as poverty and high rates of alcoholism and unemployment. However, it is also a celebration of traditional lifestyles and the text´s educational value should not be underestimated. Texts produced by authors with Native American ancestry about the experiences of indigenous nations native to the United States and Canada can be regarded as windows for cultural outsiders in a complex culture with long- standing traditions and customs. Through explicit as well as implicit references, the reader gains insight into the history of Native American cultures and how the colonialization of the New World effected the indigenous nations. These conclusions can be drawn even though the limitation of this thesis is the small number of books analyzed. With only three pieces of contemporary Native American literature a comprehensive and universal analysis of the reservation as living space cannot be provided. Moreover, the motivation for Native American authors to blend Native languages and English in their texts as well as the implications for the reader needs to be examined further.
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