Indian: a Consideration of Children's Books by Native North Americans, 19004940 Ph

NOTE TO USERS The original manuscript received by UMI contains pages with broken and indistinct print. Pages were microfilmed as received. This reproduction is the best copy available A Consideration of ChildrenfsBooks bv Native North Americans, 1900-194û Deirdre Marisa Kwiatek A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto O Copyright by Deirdre Marisa Kwiatek 1998 National library Bibliothèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliogwphic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 OttawaON K1AON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to ~ibliothequenationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or seil reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfonn, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Playing Indian: A Consideration of Children's Books by Native North Americans, 19004940 Ph. D. Thesis Deirdre Marisa Kwiatek Department of English, University of Toronto This thesis explores a previously overlooked segment of Native North Amencan literature: children's books by Native North Americans which were published between 1900 and 1940. In chapter one 1 examine the book market of the Iate nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the boom in children's books during this period, and the role that Indians played in popular and children's literature. 1 also examine a set of constructs whidi pre4ate the period directly examineci here, but which, 1 suggest, contributeci, for a variety of reasons, to the large number of Indian books made available to chiid readers: the indian as Md, and the Mdas Indian. Chapter two examines two books, Mouniing Dove's Cm=(1933), and E-Yeh- Shure's 1,4m a Pueblo Indian GirI [1939), in order to demonstrate the problematic influence of the children's book market on Native writing durhg this period. The final two chapters examine those books which were almost certainly intendeci for diildren by theu authors. The third chapter, aside from a brief examination of the texts based in part on Western models of literature, focuses on collections of traditional stories by Sitkala-Sa, Charles Eastman, Arthur Parker, and Luther Standing Bear. By writirig Mdren's books, these authors could make the foundational stories of their cultures available to a wide audience which needed to know then Drawing on Indigenous traditions of sto'yteIling, and particuldy stoiyteiling for diildren, these authors created books which teach, in the most conase yet profound ways, non-Native diildren about Native ways. The fourth chapter considers the personal stories written by Charles Eastman, Luther Standing Bear and FdsLa Rexhe. Working from traditions in which personal narratives were respected as authoritative accounts of experience, these autobiographers teii the truth about Native Meand üfe ways to an audience of readers inundated wi th fictional accounts of indian life. Acknowledgements 1 would like to thank My "acadernic support team" : Ted Chamberlin, Barrie Hayne, and JoAnna Dutka - Your interest, wisdom, patience and guidance got me over many intelfedual mountains and thcough the "Slough of Despond." Whenever 1 was stuck, eadi of you seemed to know just what IO ask or Say to get me moving once agaih And you always smiled while asking or saying it. And rny "family support team" : Mom and Dad, Adrienne and Brandon- Your enduring faith in my abilities and late-night words of reassurance nurtured me and reminded me why 1 undertook this challenge in the first place. Sacha -- From many trips to the librq, bedtime stories, and impromptu stories told while walking home from daycare, you have taught me what it tmly means to cany a story with as much care as a sleeping child. And, of course, Geoff -- For surviving the aforementioned "Slough of Despond," and maintaining love and humor throughout. Whew. Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................... ............................ I Chapter One: Indians, Children and Books ................................................. 9 Chapter Two: Mistaken Identities .............................................................. 50 Chapter Three: Traditional Narratives ................... .... .......................... 83 Cha p ter Four: Personal Narratives .......................................................... 128 Conclusion .................................. ........ .............................. 170 Works Consulted ........................... .. .............................................................. 175 Introduction "By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big Sea-Water ..." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The So~gof Hiawatha This thnis adually evolved out of a set of observations. First, the search for books about Indians, especially books written before 1940, leads the dous reader to hvo sections of the library-the shelves of anthropological pubiications, and the diildren's mm. In a review of early twentieth-century material about Native American cultures and peoples, one finds that the most accessible books (that is, those not awash in ethnographie terminology and footnotes) and available books (that is, those catalogueci on shelves, not buried in scholarly joumals) were directed to a juvenile audience. A. L. Kroeber lamented in 1922 that ody "forbidding monographs and the legends of Fenirnore Cooper" were available to readers interesteci in Native cultures (Parsons 16). This publication bias led folkiorist Tristram Coffin to pubüsh a colledion of Native taies explicitly intended 'hot for xholars and not for children" but for the "adult readerl*(ix), emphasïzing the tact that, until his own volume appeared in 1961, tradiüonal stories of Native Arnencans were prm.UIIed to have a speafic, and limiteci appeal: either as academic information, or children's fare. H. David Brumble, noted contemporary xholar of Native Arnerican autobiographies, also remarked on Ulis ''Indians as kid's stuff' trend when he cornmenteci that "much of what was published about Indians during the first three decades of this century was intended for diilciren" (Autobio~rao hies 162). Second, a surprising number of early writings by Native Arnencans were origindy published as juvenile literature. Books that are now being repxinted by university presses, prenimably for a sdiolarly, or at least an adult audience, were, when they first appeared in the early twentieth century, dearly direded toward a different readeship: children. Further, individuais now regardeci as sigmficant "early" authors in Native American liteary history- Charles Alexander Eastman, Zitkaia-Sa, Moumùig Dove, Luther Standing Bear, and E. Pauiine Johnson-ail wrote books which were published for chilcirem In the main, these children's books have ben overlooked by scholars of Native American literature and chiidren's literature. Aithough these authors are considered sorne of the most significant Native writers prior to the "Native Arnerican Renaissance" of the 1960s and 70s, historians of Native American literature have largely disregarded their children's books (and children's books in generd) as an important body of texts. A- LaVonne Brown Ruoff s American lndian Literatures: An Introduction. Bibli-c Review. and Selected pibliogra~hy(1990) presents a bibliography of American Indian authors whidi uidudes most of the volumes 1 am concerned with here, but does not mention their status as children's books; further, her List does not indude contemporary children's books, which suggests to the unknowing reader that she has limited her compilation to adult texts. Authon like Charles Eastman, Etkala-Sa and Mourning Dove are regularly mentioned in surveys of Native American literary history, but in mat studies the fab that many of the books they wrote were diildrenrsbooks is only occasiondy or reluctarttly acknowledged. Two important exceptions to this arc Alanna Kathleen Brown's studies of Mouming Dove, particularly "boking Through the Glas Darkly: The Editoriaiized Mourning Dove" (1993), and H. David Brumble's chapter on Charles Aiexander Eastman in mmv(1988), both of which raise nurnerous questions about Native North Americans and children's iiteature and encouraged my research in this field. Those who have considered the Indian as a subject of chîldren's iiterature have primanly concerned themselves with the images presented within texts. A number of aitical studies have approached this topic quantitatively (what images are presented, and how often they occur), as well as quaiitatively (dose analysis of the images). Particularly relevant to this thesis is Brenda Berkman's 1976 study 'The Vanishing Race: Conflicting Images of the Arnerican Indian in Children's Literature, 1880-1930,'' a qualitative examination of the "good and "bad" Indians depicted by some of the most important nomNative

Load more