Native American Literature

I

Introduction

Native American Literature, the literature of people of Native American descent. The dominant focus of Native American literature is on issues related to Native American culture, history, religion, and experiences.

Although native peoples live in every country in North America and South America, the term Native American literature, or alternately, American Indian literature, usually refers to works written by the indigenous people of the United States and Canada. In Canada, this literature is also called First Nations literature. Because more than 1,100 nations, or tribes, of Native Americans live in the United States and Canada, Native American literature encompasses many different social, cultural, historical, and spiritual perspectives.

Native American literature originates in the oral traditions of native peoples—the spoken words used to pass on information from generation to generation. Today, the oral tradition remains important to Native American life and literature, and ceremonies and religious rituals are often known solely through the spoken word. At the same time, written works offer the advantage of publishing ideas, stories, and thoughts to a wide audience. Native American literature has been published since the 1700s and has grown steadily since the 1960s.

For information on indigenous literature of Central America and South America, see Latin American Literature. For information on indigenous literature of the Caribbean region, see Caribbean Literature.

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II

Oral Traditions

Oral traditions are an important part of Native American culture. Traditional Native American beliefs hold that thought and speech are tied to each another. Thoughts have creative power, and the spoken word, as the physical expression of thought, is sacred. Good thoughts and good words express positive energy, while bad thoughts and bad words express negative energy.

In addition to using writing systems, Native Americans in earlier times passed down tribal knowledge in spoken forms such as speeches, songs, stories, ceremonies, chants, and rituals. The first Native American works written in European languages were transcribed speeches and treaties with European colonists. These speeches and treaties date to the 1600s and 1700s. Today, Native American oral literature encompasses many literary forms, and of these forms, songs and stories are among the most important.

Songs are composed by individuals, groups, and supernatural sources. Traditional beliefs hold that songs can create harmony. Each tribe has its own songs, as well as songs that are shared among tribes, and songs can be categorized according to their use, such as for religious ceremonies or for social events. Drums and flutes are two of the most popular musical instruments. Songs are most often accompanied by dance.

Stories play a crucial role in defining what it means to be a member of a given tribe and how a person relates to the tribe’s past, present, and future. Although the details of stories found in different tribes may differ, the tales often have similar themes. One common theme is the creation of the world. Another is the theme of a people’s origins and migrations. In addition, most tribes have numerous stories about individual figures such as tricksters (figures who teach lessons through making mistakes) and mythical heroes. For example, the Ojibwa people tell stories about Nanabozho, their trickster figure. Likewise, Cherokee people are familiar with Kanati, the Perfect Hunter, and his wife Selu, or Corn.

Oral literature remained important in Native American life through the 20th century and will continue to be important in the 21st century. One of the most influential works of modern oral literature was the narrated autobiography of Black Elk (a Lakota). The book Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux (1932) was transcribed and edited by American poet John G. Neihardt. In addition, many modern written works show the influence of oral literature. The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969) by N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) and Storyteller (1981) by Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna) express the importance of the spoken word as it has been passed from generation to generation.

III

Written Literature

Before Native Americans came into contact with Europeans, many tribes supplemented the spoken word with pictographs (symbols or pictures that represent words or ideas). Native Americans used pictographs to record important events and rituals. After Europeans began arriving in great numbers in the 1600s, many tribes used European writing systems to communicate with the colonizers. After seeing the usefulness of written language, a Cherokee named Sequoyah developed a written form of the Cherokee language. Sequoyah was the first individual to design a written language without using other languages as sources.

Extensive Native American writing began in the 18th century as an act of necessity, as Native Americans tried to save their nations, themselves, and their cultures from destruction by whites. Many of the early European colonizers of North America did not recognize Native Americans as human beings with their own cultures and histories, and much bloodshed resulted as Native Americans were displaced from their land. By writing about their experiences, Native American writers hoped to educate non-Native Americans about Native American cultures and beliefs, and about their rights as sovereign human beings. They believed that their written work (autobiographies, tribal histories, travel accounts, sermons, and protest literature) would help foster understanding between Native Americans and non-Native Americans.

While there was an extensive amount of Native American writing published in the 1800s, Native American literature did not receive much popular recognition until the second half of the 1900s. In 1968 N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) published the novel House Made of Dawn, which won the Pulitzer Prize. The acclaim Momaday received helped Native American literature attain wide public attention. Since the late 1960s hundreds of works by and about Native Americans have been published, and the period from the late 1960s to the present has been referred to as the Native American Literary Renaissance.

Many modern writers are motivated by a need to educate non-Native Americans about Native American people. They also write specifically for Native American audiences, celebrating their nations and the ability of their peoples to survive hundreds of years of colonization, prejudice, and assaults on their culture.

A

1700s and 1800s

Some of the earliest written works by Native Americans were religious sermons and protest works. Many Native Americans converted to Christianity as a result of contact with non-Native communities, and they argued against the poor treatment of their fellow Native Americans by showing how this treatment contradicted Christian values. For example, Samson Occom (Mohegan) and William Apess (Pequot) protested discrimination against Native Americans. Occom’s Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian (1772) discusses the damage that the introduction of alcohol had brought to native peoples, while Apess’s Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts, Relative to the Marshpee Tribe (1835) helped the Marshpee fight legal injustices that other tribes were also facing.

Many Native American writers of the 19th century wrote histories of their tribes. One tribal historian was David Cusick (Tuscarora), whose Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations (1827) was the first published tribal history. Tribal histories explained the deep ties that tribes had to their ancestral homelands. Beginning in the 18th century, these ties took on special meaning because the United States government began removing Native Americans from their traditional lands. These removals forced Native Americans to uproot their families and travel hundreds of miles to unfamiliar lands. Along with losing their possessions and their homelands, Native Americans suffered great casualties during these forced removals. Among the worst removals was the Trail of Tears of 1838 and 1839, when thousands of Cherokee were forced to journey from their homeland in the Southeast out to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Of the 18,000 Cherokee who traveled the Trail of Tears, about 4,000 died of starvation, exposure, disease, and despair.

One of the best-known early tribal historians was George Copway (Ojibwa), whose Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation (1850) emphasizes the importance of tribal oral history and explains the migrations, myths, religions, government, language, hunting, and games of his nation. Other Native Americans who wrote about their cultures and nations include Peter Dooyentate Clarke (Wyandot), with his Origin and Traditional History of the Wyandotts, and Sketches of Other Indian Tribes of North America (1870); Chief Elias Johnson (Tuscarora), with his Legends, Traditions and Laws, of the Iroquois (1881); and Chief Andrew J. Blackbird (Ottawa), with his History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan (1887).

The establishment of several Native American newspapers in the 19th century made an important contribution to Native American writing. Among these newspapers were the Cherokee Phoenix, first published in 1828, and the Cherokee Advocate, which began publication in 1844 after the Cherokee Nation was removed to Indian Territory. Other notable newspapers included Copway’s American Indian, the White Earth Progress, the White Earth Tomahawk, and Wassaja.

Among the prominent 19th-century Native American writers of fiction were John Rollin Ridge (Cherokee), who wrote at mid-century, and Emily Pauline Johnson (Mohawk), whose career lasted into the early 20th century. Ridge’s Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta (1854), the first novel published by a Native American, chronicles the adventures of a Mexican bandit during the California gold rush of 1849. In his depiction of American racial injustice, Ridge not only describes the fate of Mexicans but also of his fellow Native Americans.

Johnson was a Canadian Mohawk who spent a great deal of her time touring Canada, England, and the United States as an advocate for Native American people. Well known as a poet and as a performer of her poetry, she also wrote short stories for popular publications such as Mother’s Magazine and Boy’s World, which had large circulations. Johnson’s books of poetry include The White Wampum (1895), Canadian Born (1903), and Flint and Feather (1912). Her short stories are collected in Moccasin Maker (1913) and The Shagganappi (1913). Sarah Winnemucca (Paiute) was also a prominent lecturer, writer, and Native American advocate. Her Life Among the Paiutes, Their Wrongs and Claims (1883) was the first Native American autobiography written by a woman.