NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE
( An Anthology
Lawana Trout Oklahoma City University
~ NTC Publishing Group ~ n dil'isirJt/ of NTC/CO,,'TEMJ'ORARY PUBLISHING GROUI' NI C Lincolnwood, Illinois USA CONTENTS This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents, Pearla M. and Lewis R. Hooper (1909-1998).
Lawana Trout
Preface xv Historical Overview xvii
1 Sponsoring Editor: Marisa L. L'Heureux Product Manager: Judy Rudnick Art Director: Ophelia Chambliss Reading Poems in Public Production Manager: Margo Gaia Maurice Kenny ...... 4 Cover art: Inee Yang Slaughter Indians Today, the Ridea an the Unreal page.Acknowledgments begin on page 769, which is to be considered an extension of this copyright Vine Deloria, Jr...... 7
ISBN: 0-8442-5985_3 (student text) For Indians, No Thanksgiving ISBN: 0-8442-5986_1 (instructor's edition) Michael Dorris...... 16
Published by NTe/Contemporary PUblishing Group, Inc., 13/16 4255 West Touhy Avenue, linCOlnwood (Chicago), Illinois 60646-1975 U.S.A. Sherman Alexie . 20 C 1999 NTC/Contemporary PUblishing Group All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, The Truth Is stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, Linda Hogan ••••...... •••• ...... 23 electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher. The Two Lives Manufactured in the United States of America. Linda Hogan . ..26
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Data Dear John Wayne Native American literature: an anthology I [compiled by] Lawana Trout. Louise Erdrich . .42 p. em. Includes index. I Am Not a Mascot ISBN 0-8442.5985_3 Philip]. Deloria ...... 45 I. American literature_l.ndian authors. 2. Indians of North America-literary COllections. 3. American literature-Indian Sure You Can Ask Me a Personal Question ..... autbor~problems. exercises, etc. 4. Indians of North America_ Diane Burns ...... 49 Problems. exercises, etc. l. Trout, Lawana. PSl08.l5N368 1998 810.8' 0897---oc21 Plea to Those Who Matter 52 James Welch . 98-38987 890 vi, 0987654321 CIP My Indian Name and Name.~i~e~~ay.... 54 Phil George ..
v I MAURICE KENNY INDIANS TODAY, THE REAL AND U:-JREAL I
2. ~ollect information about a Native American leader, artist, or writer rom newspapers, Journals, books, and Internet sites. Write two para- graphs In which you describe your subject using factual details 3. Write a poem or story about a time when someone did not listen to your Important message. Where were you: Wh was was your message? Why did they fail·t ad your audience? What say to them today? 0 un erstand? What would you INDIANS TODAY, THE REAL AND UNREAL
Vine Deloria, Jr.
Vine Deloria, [r., is a forceful, moral voice for Indian rights. As a theologian, attorney, and pol itical scientist, he attacks stereotypes, defends land claims, and proposes Indian policy. A prolific author of more than ten books and eighty articles, Deloria has written on all aspects of contemporary American Indian affairs. In Custer Died for Your Sins (1969), from which the following excerpt is taken, he indicts federal policies and proposes actions for twentieth-century Indians. He continues these topics in We Talk, You Listen (1970), Cod Is Red (1973), and American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century (1985). In Red Earth, White Lies (1995), Deloria challenges scientific theories that ignore wisdom preserved in oral histories and sacred traditions. Born in 1933 in Martin, South Dakota, to a distin- guished Sioux family on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Deloria is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
Indians are like the weather. Everyone knows all about the weather, but none can change it. When storms are predicted, the sun shines. When pic- nic weather is announced, the rain begins. Likewise, if you count on the unpredictability of Indian people, you will never be sorry. One of the finest things about being an Indian is that people are always interested in you and your "plight." Other groups have difficulties, predica- ments, quandaries, problems, or troubles. Traditionally we Indians have had a "plight." Our foremost plight is our transparency. People can tell just by looking at us what we want, what should be done to help us, how we feel, and what a "real" Indian is really like. Indian life, as it relates to the real world, is a continuous attempt not to disappoint people who know us. Unfulfilled expectations cause grief and we have already had our share. Because people can see right through us, it becomes impossible to tell truth from fiction or fact from mythology. Experts paint us as they would VINE DELOIUA, JR. I INDLANS TODAY, THE REAL AND UNREAL II
like us to be. Often we paint ourselves as we wish we were or as we might covered that evidently most tribes were entirely female for the first three have been. hundred years of white occupation. No one, it seemed, wanted to claim a s The more we try to be ourselves the more we are forced to defend what male Indian as a forebear. we have never been. The American public feels most comfortable with the " It doesn't take much insight into racial attitudes to understand the real mythical Indians of stereotype-land who were always THERE. These meaning of the Indian-grandmother complex that plagues certain whites. A Indians are fierce, they wear feathers and grunt. Most of us don't fit this ide- male ancestor has too much of the aura of the savage warrior, the unknown alized figure since we grunt only when overeating v hi h . Id T be an Indi . , v C 1$ se om. primitive, the instinctive animal, to make him a respectable member of the 6 0 e an ,11la~ in modern American society is in a very real sense to be family tree. But a young Indian princess' Ah, there was royalty for the tak- unreal and ahistorical. In this book we will discuss th th id liti th ceo er Sl e-the unre- ing. Somehow the white was linked with a noble house of gentility and cul- ales at race us as Indian people. It is this unreal c li h h b wellin insid lee ng t at as een ture if his grandmother was an Indian princess who ran away with an intre- g up mSI e us and threatens to make this de d th ... history for Indian peopl I ca e e most decisive III pid pioneer. And royalty has always been an unconscious but all-consuming e. n so many ways Indi I themselves in an effort to red fi ' . an peop e are re-examining goal of the European immigrant. Tribes are reordering their pri~r~ee: t~ew social ~tructure for their people. " The early colonists, accustomed to life under benevolent despots, projected cies between their goals and the goal hia~couhntor the obvious discrepan- their understanding of the European political structure onto the Indian tribe I di s w tes ave defined fo tI n an reactions are sudden and s " 0 r iern. in trying to explain its political and social structure. European royal houses singing "My Country 'Tis ofTh ,,~nsmg. ne day at a conference we were were closed to ex-convicts and indentured servants, so the colonists made all ee an we came across the part that goes: Indian maidens princesses, then proceeded to climb a social ladder of their
Land where our fathers died own creation. Within the next generation, if the trend continues, a large por- Land of the Pilgrims' pride. tion of the American population will eventually be related to Powhatan. ts While a real Indian grandmother is probably the nicest thing that could Some of us broke out laughing when we r . happen to a child, why is a remote Indian princess grandmother so neces- edly died trying to keep those P'I' eatized that our fathers undoubt- sary for many whites? Is it because they are afraid of being classed as for- of C thers a! I gnms from steali I our ra rers died because the P'I' ki ng our and. In fact many eigners? Do they need some blood tie with the frontier and its dangers in m I ki I' 1 gnms lied the' , uc 1 ns up with those Pilgrims re m as witches. We didn't feel order to experience what it means to be an American? Or is it an attempt to We often hear "give it back 'th gardless of who they did in. avoid facing the guilt they bear for the treatment of the Indian? It's a terrible thing for a peoplet~o r~~~dlans" when a gadget fails to work. " The phenomenon seems to be universal. Only among the Jewish com- working gadgets for their exclusive e that society has set aside all non- munity, which has a long tribal-religious tradition of its own, does the mys- Dunng th use. o my ree years as Exec . r . terious Indian grandmother, the primeval princess, fail to dominate the fam- Amencan Indians it was a rare d:tI~ e Director of the National Con ress of ily tree. Otherwise, there's not much to be gained by claiming Indian blood e " and~~oudklY proclaim that he or s~e ~:sn sfoImdwhite didn't visit m~ office or publicly identifying as an Indian. The white believes that there is a great ero ee was the most 0 11 Ian descent danger the lazy Indian will eventually corrupt God's hard-working people. placed the Cher k popular tribe of their hoi . Sioux, and Chipo ces anywhere from Maine to Was~.01ce and many people He is still suspicious that the Indian way of life is dreadfully wrong. There about pewa were next in po I . mgton State. Mohawk is, in fact, something an-American about Indians for most whites. Massac~~s;t:s :~~i~1 d tri be from p~~~; ~~~:,s:olnally I would be told " I ran across a classic statement of this attitude one day in a history book " At times I became a . sp~wned the white standin; ~a~la, Virginia, or which was published shortly after the turn of the century. Often have I won- people had a eli glute efenSlve aboUl b . e ore me. dered how many Senators, Congressmen, and clergymen of tile day accepted eventuaUy I cape gree that was So much m emg a Sioux when these white the attinldes of tI,at book as a basic fact of life in Anlerica. In no uncertain · me to underst d h ore respectabl h d Id not resent the I an t eir need to id' e t an mine. But terms did the book praise God that the Indian had not yet been able to cor- ancestry and wou~· ad\~OU~dconfirm their wildees~~7 as partially Indian and rnpt North America as he had South America: able to accept the I a ew tales of my ow h ones about their Indian Whites claimin;'~~,~es s~~eday and leave l~ al~~mg that they would be It was perhaps fortunate tor the future of America that the Indians about Indians. All but 0an ood generally tend to r:' of the North rejected civilization. Had they accepted it the whites It On their grandmother~e p~rson I met who c1aime~11o~ce mythical beliefs and Indians might have intermarried to some extent as they did s 51 e. I once did '. n Ian blood claim d in Mexico. That would have given us a population made up in a a projection backw d e ar and dis- measure of shiftless half-breeds. III V1NE DELORIA, JR INDiANS TODAY, THE REAL AND UNREAL II
I never dared to show this passage to my white friends who had claimed and Indian War by the English,' confirmed the suspicion that Indians were Indian blood, but I often wondered why they were so energetic if they did wild animals to be hunted and skinned. Bounties were set and an Indian have some ofthe bad seed in them. scalp became more valuable than beaver, otter, marten, and other animal pelts. .. Those whites who dare not claim Indian blood have an asset of their " American blacks had become recognized as a species of human being by own. They understand Indians. amendments to the Constitution shortly after the Civil War. Prior to eman- 19 Understanding Indians is not an esoteric art All it takes i . th h cipation they had been counted as three-fifths of a person in determining Arizona 0 N M· . es ISa tnp roug . r. ew eXICO, watching a documentary on TV havi kn population for representation in tlhe House of Representatives. Early civil III the service, or having read a popular book on them. ,avmg own om rights bills nebulously state that other people shall have the same rights as 20 There appears to be some secret osmosi b I' "white people," indicating there were "other people." But civil rights bills they can magically and instantaneousl COl s a out ndian people by which passed during and after the Civil War systematically excluded Indian people. about themselves to these inte dY hnmullicate complete knowledge . reste w Ites Rarely I hvsi al For a long time an Indian was not presumed capable of initiating an action required. Anyone and everyone h kn . . IS P Y51C contact . di w 0 ows an Indian 0 h .. d in a court of law, of owning property, or of giving testimony against whites tmme ately and thoroughly und d r w 0 IS mtereste , y . erstan s them in court. Nor could an Indian vote or leave his reservation. Indians were 21 ou can verify this great truth at . America's captive people without any defined rights whatsoever. and you will find a person wh your next party. Mention Indians 0 saw some in a '. n Then one day the white man discovered that the Indian tribes still owned w h0 attended the Gallup . gas station III Utah or · d ceremomal celebrar: ' some 135 million acres ofland. To his horror he learned that much of it was hIre one to cut logs in Ore ion, or whose U nele Jim co gon, or whose ch h h d . very valuable. Some was good grazing land, some was farm land, some min- me to speak last Sunday on th li h urc a a missionary the church. e pig t of Indians and the mission of ing land, and some covered with timber. za Animals could be herded together on a piece of land, but they could not There is no subject on earth s ·1 Indian. Each summer k 0