Université de Montréal Inventing Interventions: Strategies of Reappropriation in Native American and First Nations Literatures par Sarah Henzi Département d’études anglaises Faculté des arts et des sciences Thèse présentée à la Faculté des arts et des sciences en vue de l’obtention du grade de Doctorat en Études anglaises Octobre 2011 © Sarah Henzi, 2011 Université de Montréal Faculté des arts et des sciences Cette thèse intitulée : Inventing Interventions: Strategies of Reappropriation in Native American and First Nations Literatures Présentée par : Sarah Henzi a été évaluée par un jury composé des personnes suivantes : Prof. Robert Schwartzwald, Président-rapporteur Prof. Lianne Moyes, Directrice de recherche Prof. Heike Härting, Membre du jury Dr. Warren Cariou, Examinateur externe Prof. Simon Harel, Représentant du doyen de la Faculté des arts et sciences i RÉSUMÉ Ma thèse de doctorat, intitulée Inventing Interventions: Strategies of Reappropriation in Native and First Nations Literatures traite du sujet de la réappropriation de la langue anglaise et de la langue française dans les littératures autochtones du Canada et des États- Unis, en tant que stratégie d’intervention de re-narration et de récupération. De fait, mon projet fait abstraction, autant que possible, des frontières nationales et linguistiques, vu que celles-ci sont essentiellement des constructions culturelles et coloniales. Ainsi, l’acte de réappropriation de la langue coloniale implique non seulement la maitrise de base de cette dernière à des fins de communication, cela devient un moyen envers une fin : au lieu d’être possédés par la langue, les auteurs sur lesquels je me penche ici possèdent à présent cette dernière, et n’y sont plus soumis. Les tensions qui résultent d’un tel processus sont le produit d’une transition violente imposée et expérimentale d’une réalité culturelle à une autre, qui, pour plusieurs, n’a pas réussie et s’est, au contraire, effritée sur elle-même. Je soutiens donc que les auteurs autochtones ont créé un moyen à travers l’expression artistique et politique de répondre (dans le sens de « write back ») à l’oppression et l’injustice. À travers l’analyse d’œuvres contemporaines écrites en anglais ou en français, que ce soit de la fiction, de l’autobiographie, de la poésie, du théâtre, de l’histoire ou du politique, ma recherche se structure autour de quatre concepts spécifiques : la langue, la résistance, la mémoire, et le lieu. J’examine comment ces concepts sont mis en voix, et comment ils sont interdépendants et s’affectent à l’intérieur du discours particulier issu des ii littératures autochtones et des différentes stratégies d’intervention (telles la redéfinition ou l’invention) et du mélange de différentes formules littéraires. Mots-clés : Peuples autochtones de l’Amérique du Nord, Études autochtones, études littéraires, critique littéraire, colonisation, résistance, réappropriation, politiques gouvernementales, souveraineté, mémoire collective. iii ABSTRACT My doctoral thesis, entitled Inventing Interventions: Strategies of Reappropriation in Native and First Nations Literatures, explores the reappropriation of the English and French languages, as a strategy for retelling and reclaiming hi/stories of the Aboriginal people of Canada and the United States. In effect, my project disregards national and linguistic borders since these are, in essence, cultural and colonial constructs. To reappropriate the colonial language, then, entails not only its mastery as a means for basic communication, but claims it as a means to an end: instead of being owned by and subject to the language, it is now these authors who own the language. The resulting tensions of this process are the product of the imposed and tentative violent transition from one cultural realm to another, which, for many, never succeeded to its fullest, but rather crumbled back upon itself: for First Nations and Native American authors, I argue, creating means through art and politics to “write back” against oppression and injustice. My thesis, an examination of contemporary fictional, autobiographical, historical and political, prosaic and poetic works written in French and English, is structured along the analysis of specific keywords – language, resistance, memory and place. I explore how these concepts are voiced, and how they are not only inter-related but affect each other within the particular discursive framework of Indigenous writing, set in motion by different strategies of intervention (redefinition, invention) and the mixing of different literary devices. iv Keywords: Indigenous Peoples of North America, Native/Aboriginal Studies, Literary Studies, Literary Criticism, Colonization, Resistance, Reappropriation, Governmental policies, Sovereignty, Collective Memory. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Résumé………………………………………………………………………………. i Abstract………………………………………………………………………………. iii List of Illustrations…………………………………………………………………… vi Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………….. vii Introduction: Defining a Language and (Un)Settling Boundaries…………………. 1 Chapter 1: Language: The Voicing of Silence, Stories and Survivance…………. 45 Chapter 2: Resistance: From Governmental Wards to Reclaiming Warriors……. 117 Chapter 3: Memory: How to Live With Ghosts…………………………………. 175 Chapter 4: Place: Indigenous Poaching and Acts of Citizenship…………………238 Conclusion: This is Only a Beginning…………………………………………….. 284 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………. 294 Annexes: Further Readings…………………………………………………….. i vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Photograph: “Vocation?”………………………………………………………… viii 2. Statue: “End of the Trail,” by James E. Fraser, 1918………………………. 10 3. Photograph: “The Vanishing Race,” Navaho, by Edward Curtis, 1904…………. 49 4. Photograph: “Highway of Tears,” by Sarah Henzi, 2008……………………….. 138 5. Photograph: “The Oka Crisis,” by Shaney Komulainen, 1990……………...…… 164 6. Photograph: “Canada, Land of the Homeless,” artist unknown, 2007……………. 200 7. Photograph: “This is Indian Land,” artist unknown, date unknown……………… 262 8. Map: Akwesasne Reserve/Reservation, Akwesasne.ca…………………... 263 9. Film image: “You Are On Indian Land,” Mort Ransen, 1969, NFB.ca………… 266 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A Ph.D. is not an easy task to undertake. It takes a lot – a lot to give, to seek, to question; a lot of time, patience, financial duress, financial support; it takes a lot of hope, a lot of will; a lot of oneself, and a lot of others. I would like to thank, first and foremost, my supervisor, Professor Lianne Moyes, without whom this thesis might not have seen the light of day; for her support, her motivation, her belief in my project; for her stories about walks in the park with the dog, camping trips with the kids, academic turmoils and budget crunches; for making me believe when I no longer could and wanted to quit. To her I owe the certainty that one can successfully be several things at once. I would like to thank all those who shared with me their research, their thoughts, their questions, their support: Professors Heike Härting and Robert Schwartzwald, and Gail Scott, of the Département d’études anglaises, Université de Montréal, for their unconditional support, interest, and belief in my work; Professors Renate Eigenbrod, Deena Rymhs and Audra Simpson, for their support, and for sharing with me unpublished research; Professor Daniel Heath Justice, who has been supportive of my Post-Doctoral Research project; Isabelle St-Amand, Claudine Cyr and the GIRA-INRS organization; viii Maurizio Gatti, for his support, and having laid out the field in Québec for First Nations literary studies; Armand Garnet Ruffo, Audra Simpson and Smaro Kamboureli for letters of reference for both doctoral and postdoctoral research grants; My friends, family, and loved ones; to all of those who accompanied me through the tediousness of the Ph.D. undertaking, and did not lose faith, neither in me nor in their own projects or battles – My Family; Salome; Olga; Amélie; Eli; Isabelle; Sean; Kelly; Paul; Serge, and Fred (for the Postcolonial and End of the Trail); And last, but by far never the least, my mother, Mary, who supported me, believed in me, and made all of this possible. All my relations. INTRODUCTION DEFINING A LANGUAGE AND (UN)SETTLING BOUNDARIES 2 Part One – Background, Methodology, Contribution This dissertation stems from over 10 years of active research and swelled out of my Mémoire de Licence, which I wrote and defended in 2003 at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. In that project, there was hardly any reference made to First Nations literature produced in Canada, and none whatsoever to that written in French in Québec, simply for lack of material available on that side of the Big Blue Pond. The incorporation of these two literary fields into my already large corpus made this project swell to the point of being painful; there was (is) simply no end to what could be integrated, what needed to be interpellated, what screamed to be included. But, as I was made aware early on, it is not my place to write a literary history of Native/First Nations literature – hence the major amendment to the first version of my chapter outline, the first section of which was to be entitled “Politics and History: Renaissance and Affirmation,” an explanatory survey, in essence, of Native/First Nations writings and the political occurrences which enabled the field to develop into how we know it today.1 While I maintain the importance of “making visible” certain political turning-points, and that, as Len Findlay and Peter Kulchisky, amongst others,