House Made of Dawn, Prologue

Ringvorlesung Amerikanistik Native American Literature Sommersemester 2007 Dr. Günter Beck “The indian is a simulation, the absence of natives; the indian transposes the real, and the simulation of the real has no referent, memory, or native stories. The postindian must waver over the aesthetic ruins of Indian simulations.” (Gerald Vizenor, Fugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence, 1998) Eckdaten Indianischer Geschichte N(avarre) Scott Momaday (Kiowa/Cherokee), House Made of Dawn (1968) siehe hierzu u.a.: Nies, Judith. Native American History: A Chronology of a Culture’s geb. 1934 Lawton, OK; aufgewachsen Navajo Reservation, NM, Jemez Pueblo, AZ Vast Achievements and Their Links to World Events. New York: Ballantine, 1996. Englisch-Studium in Stanford; heute Professor für engl. Lit. an U of Arizona Native American Literature in English „I would say that much of my writing has been concerned with the question of man’s 1772 Samson Occom (Mohegan), A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul relationship to the earth, for one thing. Another theme that has interested me is man’s Bis ca. 1900 v.a. Predigt-u. Protestliteratur, Stammesgeschichten, Reiseberichte, Auto- relationship to himself, to his past and heritage. When I was growing up on the reser- biographien vations of the Southwest, I saw people who were deeply involved in their traditional 1854 John Rollin Ridge (Cherokee) Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta [Roman] life, in the memories of their blood. They had, as far as I could see, a certain strength 1927 Mourning Dove (Okanogan), Cogewea [Roman] and beauty that I find missing in the modern world at large. I like to celebrate that 1932 John Neihardt und Black Elk (Sioux) Black Elk Speaks [as-told-to-Biographie] involvement in my writing.” (Interview mit Joseph Bruchac, Survival This Way, 1987) 1932 Rollie Lynn Riggs (Cherokee) The Cherokee Night [Drama] House Made of Dawn: Pulitzer-Preis – Titel aus dem Navajo Night Chant 1936 D’Arcy McNickle (Métis Cree/Salish) The Surrounded [Roman] Zyklische Struktur aus traditionellen Formen und modernistischen Bewusstseinsdar- ab 1968 “Native American Renaissance” (K. Lincoln) stellungen: zahlreiche Perspektivwechsel, Zeitsprünge, Rückblenden, eingelagerte Kennzeichen moderner indigener Literatur: Erzählungen, Prosagedichte, Tagebucheinträge, Gebete, Mythen Rückbesinnung auf eigene Traditionen (z.B. Trickster, Rituale, storytelling) statt Objektivitäts- und Faktizitätsanspruch: Akzentuierung achronologischer, Hanay Geiogamah (Kiowa/Delaware), Body Indian (1972) und 49 (1975) akausaler und nicht-sequenzieller Vorgänge geb. 1945 Lawton, OK; Studium Journalismus U of Oklahoma; 1972 Gründung Ablehnung stereotyper Wahrnehmungen American Indian Theater Ensemble in New York; 1987 Gründung American Indian direkt und bewusst gegen amerikan. Mythos vom kontinuierlichen Neubeginn Dance Theater; Professor UCLA American Indian Studies Center statt „Deterritorialisierung“ (G. Deleuze): „Reterritorialisierung“ und „homing plot“ “Of course we’ve lived through a tragedy, there’s no doubt about that, but the capacity (W. Bevis) to renew oneself, and to heal oneself, and to take care of oneself is always there, holistisches Gegenmodell als healing: posttraumatisch-therapeutische Iden- always has been there.” (Interview mit Kenneth Lincoln, 1989) titätsarbeit Body Indian: Titel ist ironische Metapher; zyklischer Aufbau; realistisches “Ultimately, whereas postmodernism celebrates the fragmentation and chaos of ex- Sozialdrama; Thema: Verlust der Gemeinschaft perience, literature by Native American authors tends to seek transcendence of such 49: Titel bezieht sich auf sog. 49ers (von Jugendlichen im Anschluss an Powwows ephemerality and the recovery of ‘eternal and immutable’ elements represented by a gefeierte Party); „musical play“; zyklischer Aufbau; Thema: Revitalisierung durch spiritual tradition that escapes historical fixation, that places humanity within a care- erstarkende Hinwendung zu traditionellen Wurzeln fully cyclically ordered cosmos and gives humankind irreducible responsibility for the Luci Tapahonso (Diné), „In 1964“ (1993) maintenance of the delicate equilibrium.” (Louis Owens, Other Destinies: Under- geb. 1953 Shiprock, NM; studierte Journalismus und Englisch U of New Mexico standing the American Indian Novel, 1992) unter Leslie M. Silko; heute: Professorin American Indian Studies Dep. U of Arizona wichtige Vertreter der Native Literature in den USA: Sherman Alexie, Paula G. „I know that I cannot divide myself or separate myself from that place - my home, my Allen, Peter Blue Cloud, Joseph Bruchac, Vine Deloria, Jr., Louis Erdrich, Linda land, and my people. And that realization is my security and my mainstay in life away Hogan, Joy Harjo, LeAnne Howe, Simon Ortiz, Louis Owens, Spiderwoman Theater, from here.” (Vorwort zu ihrem Gedichtband One More Shiprock Night, 1981) Greg Sarris, Leslie Marmon Silko, Gerald Vizenor, James Welch autobiogr. Dichtung auf Navajo und Englisch bzw. Mischformen („then he sees the coffee can./Oh, that’s the coffee with/the man in the dress, like a church man./ah-h, that’s the one that does it for me./very good coffee./I sit down again and he tells me/some coffee has no kick but/this one is the one./It does it good for me.” aus: “Hills Brothers Coffee”) “In 1864”: Mischung aus mündlichen Erzählformen und Lyrik; Identitätsstiftung über Auseinandersetzung mit Geschichte im Akt des „storytelling“ N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn (1968) Hanay Geiogamah, Body Indian (1972) Luci Tapahonso, “In 1864” (from: Prologue) Dypaloh. There was a house made of HOWARD: (to James) Sonny, I want you to take us to In 1864, 8354 Navajos were forced to walk from Dinetah to dawn. It was made of pollen and of rain, and the land was white man bootleggers on Washington Street. He’ll give Bosque Redondo in southern New Mexico, a distance of three very old and everlasting. There were many colors on the us what we need for this (indicating artificial leg). He’ll hundred miles. They were held for four years until the U.S. hills, and the plain was bright with different-colored clays let Bobby have it back when Bobby can get it out. […] government declared the assimilation attempt a failure. More than 2,500 died of smallpox and other illnesses, depression, and sands. Red and blue and spotted horses grazed in the Howard and Thompson prepare to leave […] the leg severe weather conditions, and starvation. The survivors returned plain, and there was a dark wilderness on the mountains wrapped in a dingy blanket. Drum and rattles now begin to Dinetah in June 1868. beyond. The land was still and strong. It was beautiful all a gradual rise to the end of the scene. […] The track While the younger daughter slept, she dreamt of around. […] visuals appear in sharp contrast over Bobby’s stretched- mountains,/the wide blue sky above, and friends (from: The Longhair) Abel and the white man […] spoke out body. Some time passes […] before the train whistle laughing./We talked as the day wore on. The stories and low to each other, carefully, as if the meaning of what they is heard. The sound grows louder and awakens Bobby. highway beneath/became a steady hum. The center lines said was strange and infallible. Now and then the white He feels around on his body and discovers that his were a blurred guide./As we neared the turn to Fort Sumner man laughed, and each time it carried too high on the scale artificial leg has been removed. He pulls himself up, I remember this story […] and ended in a strange, inhuman cry - as of pain. It was an speaks increasingly louder so as to be heard over the The place contained the pain and cries of his relatives,/the old woman’s laugh, thin and week as water. It issued only train sounds. […]. There is a sardonic smile fixed on his confused and battered spirits of his own existence./After we from the tongue and teeth of the great evil mouth, and it face. BOBBY: Welll, h-ell-o, Bobby Lee. How are you, stopped for a Coke and chips, the storytelling resumed:/My fell away from the blue lips and there was nothing left of hites? Lo-ng time no … seee. He reaches for his aunt always started the story saying, “You are here/because it. […] Abel waited. The white man raised his arms, as if crutches, has trouble securing them. Sitting upright on of what happened to your great-grandmother long ago.” […] to embrace him, and came forward. But Abel had already the edge of the bed, he looks straight ahead at a flashing All that was certain was that we/were leaving Dinetah, our taken hold of the knife, and he drew it. He leaned inside train light, an entirely different mood about him now as home./As the days went by, we grew more tired, and the white man’s arms and drove the blade up under the horror overtakes him. I can hear .. a … train … that … soon,/the journey was difficult for all of us, even the bones of the breast and across. The white man’s hands lay train … my leg … that train’s gonna hit … my ... ley-g! military./And it was they who thought all this up. […] Two on Abel […]. The white immensity of flesh lay over and women were near the time of the births of their babies,/and Hanay Geiogamah, 49 (1975) smothered him. He withdrew the knife and thrust again, they had a hard time keeping up with the rest./Some army WEAVING WOMAN: I have had this design since my lower, deep into the groin. The whole strength of his arm men pulled them behind a huge rock, and we screamed out mother gave it to me many years ago. She took the and back lay into the slant of the blade across the bowels, loud/when we heard the gunshots. The women didn’t make pattern from the red ants as they make their way. She and the flesh split open and the steaming gore fell out a sound. […] wove some of her own hair into the design so that part of upon his hand. The white hands still lay upon him as if in The car hums steadily, and my daughter is crying her could be with the blanket as long as the blanket lives. benediction, and the awful gaze of the head, still fixed softly./Tears stream down her face. She cannot speak, Then […] It will be yours, and theirs, and ours, if you make it upon something beyond and behind him. […] Abel threw I tell her that/it was at Bosque Redondo the people learned so beautiful that nobody else can duplicate its beauty. down the knife and the rain fell upon it and made it clean. to use flour and now/fry bread is considered to be the The tribe will be honoured for the beauty you create. When he looked up, the white man still was standing “traditional” Navajo bread./It was there that we acquired a SECOND GIRL: But … our way .. is … is … changing. there, still intent upon some vision in the near distance deep appreciation for strong coffee./The women began to How will we make our designs live in the blankets if we waiting. He seemed just then to wither and grow old. In make long, tiered calico skirts/and fine velvet shirts for the have no … sheep to give us wool for the loom? the instant before he fell, his great white body grew erect men. They decorated their dark velvet/blouses with silver WEAVING WOMAN: A design can live and grow for and seemed to cast off its age and weight; it grew supple dimes, nickels, and quarters./They had no use for money many years before it is placed on the loom. You can and sank slowly to the ground, as if the bones were then./It is always something to see – silver flashing in the always see it ... when you close your eyes. dissolving within. sun/against dark velvet and black, black hair.

Literatur: Beck, Günter. Defending Dreamer’s Rock: Geschichte, Geschichtsbewusstsein und Geschichtskultur im Native Drama der USA und Kanadas. Trier: WVT, 2007. Fleck, Richard F., Hg. Critical Perspectives on Native American Fiction. Washington: Three Continents Press, 1993. Geiogamah, Hanay und Jaye T. Darby, Hgg. American Indian Theater in Performance: A Reader. Los Angeles: UCLA American Indian Studies Center, 2000. Horne, Dee. Contemporary American Indian Writing: Unsettling Literature. New York: Peter Lang, 1999. Porter, Joy, Hg. The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. Ruoff, A. LaVonne Brown. American Indian Literatures: An Introduction, Bibliographic Review, and Selected Bibliography. New York: MLA, 1990.