nDANCE YOUR STYLE!" : Towards Understanding Some of the Cultural Significances of Pow Wow References in First Nations' Literatures A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon By Denise Suzanne McConney © Copyright Denise S. McConney, April 2006. All rights reserved. Dedication: This work is dedicated to my daughter, Wynonah, in appreciation for all the joy, struggles, good work, sacrifices, suffering, and love that she shared with me during this long process. May you always dance your styles! Left to Right: Henry Beaudry; Wynonah McConney and Edwin Tootoosis, ITEP Graduation Spring 2001. Acknowledgements To Ron Marken: for loyally and steadfastly supervising this work through all the turmoil in our personal and academic lives and for continuing to believe in me when I lost belief in myself. To Ray Stephanson: Last but by no means least of the English Grad Chairs during my program. I am very grateful to you for seeing me through these last tough miles. Thanks as well to previous Chairs along the way: Doug Thorpe, Ron Cooley (X 2), Kathleen James-Cavan and Anthony Harding. To members of my Dissertation Examining Committee: for your multiple vigorous and academically rigorous readings and debates of this work: Keith Carlson, Kristina Fagan, Kathleen James-Cavan, Patricia Monture, and Craig Womack. To Darlene Okemaysim: Native Studies administrator and Iskwewak - Fire Keeping Woman Extraordinaire. Your efforts and assistance in enabling to me keep working were and are beyond what any Moonias should ever expect. To all my ITEP (Indian Teacher Education Program) students: You are an incredible group of often-brilliant intellectual challenges and awesome examples that encourage and never cease to amaze me. Thank you for consistently granting me the opportunity to work with you. I also include a very special thanks to Orest Murawsky for continuing to hire me to teach ITEP students. Your support has been invaluable. To my Mother and in memory of my Father: who always said I should be doing academic work and whose financial support was often life saving. To pow wow people past, present and future: to all of you who have carried or picked up these principles and traditions despite all that was weighed against you, my thanks for ensuring these were available to our children. You also have my gratitude and deepest appreciation for allowing me to dance with you in these circles. To Liza Mosher and Edna Manitowabing: for showing me the path and consistently supporting me on it. Also to Roberta Oshkabewisins, wherever you are, thanks and gratitude always for your encouragement. To SSHRC, the English Department, and the College of Graduate Studies of the University of Saskatchewan: for very important financial support. The English Department also deserves special thanks for agreeing to support me in creating and declaring the "new" Field Specialization in Native Literatures. Thanks as well to Janice Acoose for changing her Field declaration and graciously working with me on the first Native Literatures Field Exam Reading List or the Literatures of the Indigenous Peoples of the Northern Portion of Turtle Island List - as we eventually, carefully, and very wordily called itt Your personal and professional moral support has been and continues to be invaluable. To Evelyn and Janice ManyGreyHorses: for enabling me to bring my girl home - another thank you beyond words. (P.S. Mekaisto was rightl) To those who have passed through my Native Studies life and gone on to bigger and better things, Sheldon Cardinal, Kiera Ladner and Beverly Jacobs especially, thank you too for your friendship and support. To George Pollard, for all the many forms of support you have given me over many decades. As always in such acknowledgements, to all of the above mentioned people and likely more than a few who I have accidentally left off this list, whose generous support and encouragement made this work possible, thank you. Abstract "Dance Your Style": Towards Understanding Some of the Cultural Significances of Pow Wow References in First Nations' Literatures References to pow wows, pow wow dancers, and pow wow songs abound in First Nations' literatures. This dissertation proposes attending, observing and listening at pow wows - an aural principal and strategy - in order to learn from First Nations' people what these references may mean. Pow wows are a widespread First Nations' cultural activity, with ceremonial aspects, and one that is open to all. Pow wows therefore provide an ethically appropriate way for literary critics to come to some understandings of these references and settings in First Nations' literatures. It is also possible to learn about traditional values and principles that have significance beyond pow wow. The histories of and the histories in pow wow are both important in this study. This framework is used to explicate Susan Power's The Grass Dancer, Drew Hayden Taylor's Education is Our Right, Tomson Highway's Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, Joy Harjo's "Strange Fruit," Beth Cuthand's "Post-Oka Kinda Woman," Louise Halfe's "Ghost Dance, II Patricia Monture-Angus' .. ohkwa:ri ta:re tenhanonniahkwe and Annharte's "Saskatchewan Indians Were Dancing. II CONTENTS Dedication Acknowledgements Abstract 1. Introduction (1 ) 2. Literary Criticism: Cultural Frameworks and Community Relationships (32) 3. Contemporary Pow Wow: Basics, Origins, Theories and Issues (56) 4. Four Starts and Continuity: The Grass Dancer - Novel (103) 5. Dramatic Representations of a Lone Pow wow Dancer: Education is Our Right and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing - Drama (186) 6. Inciting Responsibility: The Dancing Voices of First Nations' Women in Poetry (238) 7. Safe Journeys Home: Some Conclusions (282) 8. Bibliography (295) 1 Introduction Pow wow has all the things that we need to be strong spiritually. We have the songs; we have the drums, the dancers. We have the warriors, we have the women, the children...The feeling is that you're part of the Indian circle, right across North America...lt's a great thing to be part of, it's solidarity...It makes you proud. (Unidentified young Indian man, as he is getting to ready to pow wow dance in Indian Times 2) "Dance your style!" is the call that pow wow Emcees make, during Grand Entry or intertribals, to encourage dancers put forth their best efforts. "Your style" calls the dancers to demonstrate their individual skills within their collective dance category. "Dance Your Style", the dissertation, discusses what literary scholars could learn about First Nations' peoples and cultures if we too attended and attended to pow wow, particularly those in First Nations communities. Pow wows could be important for literary scholars as pow wows are frequent settings in First Nations' literatures. Many characters and voices are represented as dancers or singers. Overall, allusions and references to pow wows abound in the literary texts. 2 Yet, while there is some scholarship in other branches of Native studies1, no literary criticism to date has substantively taken up these references, either through scholarship about pow wow or through direct observation. My proposal about attending pow wows is to address three matters. One is that such experiences and understanding will allow literary scholarship to explicate an important aspect of First Nations' culture and the literature. A second matter is that literary scholars can learn, not just from other scholars, but from First Nations' people, some of what pow wow means. Third is that while much of what pow wow is about is relationships, literary scholars attending and attending to pow wows can also address calls by First Nations' intellectuals, writers and scholars to form connections and relationships with First Nations' people and communities. "Dance Your Style" - the pow wow quotation that entitles this work - proposes that literary scholars learn what this call means through direct experiences of pow wow - public events where First Nations' peoples celebrate who they are - and that what is learned there would be valuable for understanding the frequent references to pow wow within First 1 • I will be using the lower case's' when I mean the studies of Native people that may occur in a wide variety of disciplines and the upper case S, when I mean the specific discipline of Native Studies. 3 Nations' literary texts as well as addressing important concerns with research as raised by First Nations' scholars and community people. My purpose in this dissertation is to engage in close readings of particular and exemplar First Nations' literary texts. I read these texts in conjunction with my own experiences and observations at pow wows; as well with the scholarly and intellectual discourses about pow wow and about literary studies of First Nations' texts. The particular interpretative method being proposed and demonstrated herein is also my attempt to respond to concerns about research and scholarship, particularly those calls within literary studies to understand First Nations' literatures within frameworks that are grounded in and therefore emerge from their own understandings and concerns and the suggestions that scholars engaged in academic work about Native peoples initiate and maintain relationships with those peoples and their communities. One further interest and concern underlies this work, and that is my own on-going interest in and reflective approach to pedagogy, particularly in terms of teaching First Nations' literatures with First Nations' students. In terms of the scholarship about scholarship, there are long­ standing and multiple calls, by First Nations' and other Indigenous scholars (Indigenous meaning worldwide) to set aside the strategy of 4 temporarily utilizing Native informants in favour of, not just initiating connections with Native peoples and their communities while undertaking a particular piece of research but rather to develop and maintain relationships with Native peoples and the communities.