Debbie Reese's Notes on Larry Watson's MONTANA 1948

Note from Debbie: This is a page of notes I'm taking as I read Larry Watson's Montana 1948. Originally published in 1993, it is taught in high school classrooms. In the last couple of years, I've had a few inquiries about it. It received starred reviews and though it does not look to me like it was put forth as a book for teens, it appeared on year-end lists of best books for young adults/teens. I have excerpts below but not page numbers because I'm reading an electronic copy of the book. And please note: there are graphic excerpts about rape, in my notes. 

Debbie's Notes:

Chapter 1

The setting includes the "Fort Warren Indian Reservation" which is not a real place. It is described as "the rockiest, sandiest, least arable parcel of land in the region." And, "its roads were unpaved, and many of its shacks looked as though they would barely hold back a breeze." The town, Bentrock, is also fictional. 

The story is told from the point of view of David (Davy). In it, he is 12. His mother, Gail, works out of their home. His father, Wesley Hayden, is the sheriff. Wesley's brother, Frank, is a doctor. Their father was the town sheriff before Wesley accepted the job.

On page 12, Davy tells us that they have a housekeeper who lives with them during the week. Her name is Marie Little Soldier, a Hunkpapa Sioux who is from the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Marie's mother married a Canadian who owned a bar called Frenchy's in Bentrock. There is a rumor that Frenchy 

"kept locked in his storeroom a fat old toothless Indian woman whom anyone could have sex with for two dollars." 

Some think it is Marie's mother, but Davy knows that isn't true because Marie's mother is a thin, shy woman. Marie was nearly six feet tall and had a "fleshy amplitude" that made her seem soft and strong, "as if all that body could be ready, at a moment's notice, for sex or work." She had "a wide, pretty face and cheekbones so high, full, and glossy I often wondered if they were naturally like that or if they were puffy and swollen. 

Marie has a boyfriend named Ronnie Tall Bear. Davy adores both of them. 

One time, Davy saw Marie naked when she stepped out of the shower. They were both embarrassed. He saw (location 290): 

Dark nipples that shocked me in the way they stood out like fingertips. A black triangle of public hair below a thick waist and gently rounded belly. 

Marie gets sick. Gail puts blankets on her to sweat out the sickness like Sioux people do (location 290): 

To this day many Sioux practice a kind of purification ritual in which they enclose themselves in a small tent or lodge and with the help of heated stones and water steam themselves until sweat streams from them.

Marie doesn't want Davy's mother to call Dr. Hayden. She prefers Dr. Snow. When she gets worse, Wesley reaches for the phone and Davy tells him again that Marie doesn't want a doctor. Wesley tells him it is Indian superstition. Davy's father (location 354):

... did not like Indians. No, that's not exactly accurate, because it implies that my father disliked Indians, which isn't so. He simply held them in low regard. He was not a hate-filled bit--he probably thought he was free of prejudice!--and he could treat Indians with generosity, kindness, and respect (as he could treat every human being). Nevertheless, he believed Indians, with only a few exceptions, were ignorant, lazy, superstitious, and irresponsible. I first learned of his racism when I was seven or either. An aunt gave me a pair of moccasins for my birthday, and my father forbade me to wear them. When I made a fuss and my mother sided with me, my father said "He wears those and soon he'll be as flat-footed and lazy as an Indian."

His father asks Davy, sarcastically, if Marie needs a medicine man, then calls his brother. Davy listens to the phone call. 

"She didn't say why. My guess is she's never been to anyone but the tribal medicine man." 

He laughs, and hangs up the phone. He says: 

"Frank said maybe he'd do a little dance around the bed. And if that doesn't work he'll try beating some drums." 

Frank arrives and goes into Marie's bedroom. She calls for Davy's mother. Gail goes into Marie's room, too, but Davy can still hear Marie saying no. When Frank comes out, Davy's dad asks what is wrong with her, and Frank says: 

"Like you said on the phone. They're used to being treated by the medicine man. Or some old squaw. But a doctor comes around and they think he's the evil spirit or something." 

Davy's father says: 

"They're not going to make it into the twentieth century until they give up their superstitions and old ways." 

They talk about Marie's care, that she might have pneumonia. Gail says Marie will stay with them. She seems irritated at Frank. He leaves, and she asks Davy to go inside because she needs to talk with Wesley. Davy sneaks around the house to listen and hears (location 527):

The reason, Wesley, the reason Marie didn't want to be examined by Frank is that he--he has... is that your brother has molested Indian girls." Wesley starts to leave but she insists he stay and listen. she tells him "He's been doing it for years, Wes. When the examines an Indian he... he does things he shouldn't. He takes liberties. Indecent liberties." 

She goes on (location 561):

Your brother makes his patients--some of his patients---undress completely and get into indecent positions. He makes them jump up and down while he watches. He fondles their breasts. He--no, don't you turn away. Don't! You asked and I'm going to tell you. All o it. He puts things into these girls. Inside them, there. His instruments. His fingers. He has... your brother I believe has inserted his, his penis into some of these girls. Wesley, your brother is raping these women. These girls. These Indian girls. He offers his services to the reservation, to the BIA school. To the high school for athletic physicals. Then when he gets these girls where he wants them he... Oh! I don't even want to say it again. He does what he wants to do." 

Wesley decides to talk to his deputy, Len, and his wife, Daisy, in a way to see if either of them has heard what Marie shared. Daisy says (location 631): "The word is he doesn't do everything on the up-and-up." and she adds who he does things to by saying "Just the squaws, though." 

When they leave, Davy hears his parents talking. His mother says that people in town know about Frank. Davy realizes that both he and his mother see their husband/Davy's dad as a brother to a pervert. Looking at him, Davy doesn't want to see the ways his uncle Frank's features and his dad's are similar. Wesley says he doesn't want this talk spread over town because there's no proof, and that it will be upsetting to their father (he was sheriff, too), who heroizes Frank. 

Chapter 2

Wesley decides to investigate. He talks to Ollie Young Bear, a Native vet who he holds in high regard as an example of what someone can be if they choose to work hard, if he knows anything about Frank's abuse of Native women. Then Wesley, Gail, and Davy go to visit Julian. Frank is already there, at Julian's ranch house. Julian is waiting on the porch. Davy listens to the two men talk. Julian says Wesley and Gail only had one child, and that they should have had more. They talk about Frank and Gloria (his wife) not having children but that Julian only wants white children. Wesley asks him what that means, and (location 924):

Grandfather laughed a deep, breathy cuh-cuh-cuh that sounded like half cough and half laugh. "Come on, Wesley. Come on, boy. You know Frank's always been partial to red meat. He couldn't have been any older than Davy when Bud caught him down in the stable with that little Indian girl. Bud said to me, 'Mr. Hayden, you better have a talk with that boy. He had that little squaw down on her hands and knees. He's been learning' from watching the dogs and the horses and the bulls.' I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some young ones out on the reservation who look a lot like your brother." 

A couple of days later, Marie dies. 

****

I am pausing my reading to look for reviews and articles about the book. So far, I see that Frank poisoned Marie to protect himself from the accusations. Based on what I've read of the book, it is one that will eventually have a Not Recommended label. In the excerpts I provided above, we see horrific things being said about Native people. Some are said by characters we are not meant to like, but some are stated as fact (Daisy using "squaw" rather than "women"). It is one of those books, I think, where the author intends readers to see anti-Indigenous attitudes. The author does not, I think, imagine that any of his readers might actually be Native. He may not have anticipated how his writing would impact Native readers--or the dynamics in a classroom of Native and non-Native readers. I may have more to say, later, if I come back to read more of the book and share notes and eventually (perhaps), a review. 

For now, I will say that I do not recommend Montana 1948 for any classroom of young people. 

Debbie--have you seen BUFFALO DANCE: A BLACKFOOT LEGEND by Nancy Van Laan?

In today's mail is a question from a librarian. She's got a copy of Nancy Van Laan's Buffalo Dance: A Blackfoot Legend in her library and wonders if she should weed it.

I'm sharing how I go about evaluating a book.

First: is the author Native? In this case, no. Nancy Van Laan is not Native. When the book is one that looks like it might be a creation story, my impulse is to say that the book probably should be removed from the shelves, especially if it has "legend" in the title and if it is categorized as "folklore." Here's a screen cap of the entry in WorldCat (red circles are mine):

For decades, non-Native people have "retold" Native stories and called them myths, or legends, or folktales. Those books are usually shelved or categorized as "folklore" alongside Little Red Riding Hood. That's an example of institutional racism. Bible stories from the Christian bible aren't called folklore, right? So--that's one problem. Another is the integrity of the story itself. When an actual creation story is told by an outsider, chances are pretty high that there are errors in the telling, especially if their sources are outsiders, too. That likelihood means I wouldn't want Van Laan's book to be categorized as if its contents had the same integrity as this story, told by a Blackfoot writer.

Second: what is the publication year? In this case, 1993. That's old, especially when you think about how much the field has changed. In 2015, Corinne Duyvis's hashtag, #OwnVoices, took off. With respect to books by and about Native people, we've seen an increase over time, in books by Native writers. That's significant! There are many reasons #OwnVoices are important. With traditional stories that are creation stories, an insider knows the nuances of the story and how or when it can be told. If this book was by someone who is Blackfoot, I would call it #BlackfootVoice. But it isn't. It is by a white woman.

Third: what are the sources for the retelling? When I open the Amazon page I can see Van Laan names four sources. One is Joseph Campbell's Primitive Mythology: The Masks of God. That book came out in 1959. I know Campbell has quite a lot of fans but I'm not among them. In his Hero with a Thousand Faces, chapter 1, he starts with "Whether we listen with aloof amusement to the dreamlike mumbo jumbo of some red-eyed witch doctor of the Congo, [...] or catch suddenly the shining meaning of a bizarre Eskimo fairy tale..." Those clearly judgmental words didn't stop Campbell's book from being published in 1959, but it should stop you from thinking he's the bees knees, today. Van Laan's second source is The Blackfeet by John Ewers, published in 1958; and her third one is Blackfoot Lodge Tales by George Bird Grinnell published in 1962. I would look up those two sources to see how they are evaluated, today, by Native scholars. I wouldn't take them at face value because of the long history of outsiders going into Native spaces, and writing what they saw--from a white perspective that was supposedly objective. Her fourth source is The Buffalo by Francis Haines, published in 1970. A quick look at reviews of that book indicates it is the "tragic Indian" account that is captured by those dreadful "end of the trail" images.

Fourth: what does the book say? I don't have a copy of it at hand. I could go to the library and see one there. What I do see, online, is the introduction. It starts with "Long ago, when the Blackfoot Indians roamed the hills of the Great Plains of Montana, they depended on the meat and fur of the buffalo to survive." Speaking quite frankly, I find past tense wording like that highly problematic because it dovetails with the idea that Native peoples no longer exist. It confines our existence to the past, when we are very much part of the present day. The first and second paragraphs of the intro continue with past tense verbs. The third paragraph does have "is" but I don't think that one use of "is" is enough to displace the existing knowledge children have about Native peoples, or the extensive use of past tense in the first two paragraphs. I also object to the use of the word "roamed." I see that a lot in books about Native peoples. I view it as a biased word. It suggests they didn't have a homeland--that they just went here and there. It isn't a small problem. It contributes to the idea that Native peoples were primitive and uncivilized.

If I got a copy of the book, I would probably end up giving it a not-recommended label. If I do pick up a copy, I'll be back with more to say but based on what I see right now, I doubt that I would hand it to any child and if I was working in a library, I'd probably weed it.

Eve Bunting's CHEYENNE AGAIN

Not Again! Boarding School Story Misses the Mark*

Last year, Debbie and I analyzed several picture books about children in Indian boarding school for a book chapter. We intentionally left out of our chapter a fairly popular 1993 book, Cheyenne Again, by European-American writer Eve Bunting, illustrated by Dine artist Irving Toddy. I recently saw it in a display of children’s books about Native people in the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument bookstore (which also featured several good books created by Native people.)

Young Bull, the narrator of Cheyenne Again, is 10 when the story starts. It’s apparently set in the late 1800s, when boarding schools began to proliferate. A white man and a uniformed, fully assimilated Native man come to Young Bull’s community and tell his family that he must go away to school.

The boy doesn’t want to go. But his father tells him he “needs to learn the White Man’s ways”– and there will be food for him at school. How the father can be sure of that is not explained.

So Young Bull rides the train to an unnamed school. School officials cut his hair, take his clothes, make him wear a scratchy uniform, disrespect his heritage. With dozens of fellow students, he marches in formation, goes to church, and helps repair the school dormitories. He learns to read, and notices that the school’s history books say nothing about how Cheyenne and Sioux (sic) defeated Custer at Greasy Grass. He cries for home in his bed at night.

Then one night he runs away -- into a blizzard. He’s caught and shackled for a day as punishment. A sympathetic teacher then encourages him to “Never forget that you are Indian inside.” He finds that drawing scenes of home and of Cheyenne heroism at Greasy Grass helps him feel that he is “Cheyenne again.”

In her review of this book for A Broken Flute: the Native Experience in Books for Children, Beverly Slapin comments that Irving Toddy’s illustrations vividly express the depressed, desperate boarding school ambience, in contrast to the bright golden scenes of Young Bull’s early boyhood and the heroic events he imagines. I agree: the illustrations feel psychologically “true,” which makes sense, given that Toddy himself attended a boarding school.

The historical record confirms elements of Bunting’s story: parents who were misled but hoped for the best, unpleasant or hostile school environments, children’s loneliness, the harm deliberately inflicted on students in service to the goals of conquest and/or assimilation.

Historical accuracy is essential but goes only so far in supporting authenticity. I wondered why Young Bull doesn’t seem to interact with peers. Boarding school survivors have reported social relationships and friendships among children, despite efforts at some schools to squelch such relationships (to reduce the chance of organized resistance to their regime). And would school officials have tolerated ledger book drawings of Cheyenne military glory? If not, Young Bull’s drawings are acts of resistance, and the author should make that clear to readers!

But Young Bull’s escape attempt feels especially out of touch. Many children ran from boarding schools. Some were caught and punished. Some died of hunger or exposure. Some made it home.

It makes sense that Young Bull wants to escape. He’s been there long enough to learn to read history books in English. But instead of carefully planning his get-away, this otherwise seemingly cautious character, from a region that has severe winters, seems to ignore everything he knows about blizzards and walks into one, barely clothed, at night, apparently on impulse.

This lack of clear motivation, for me, undermines the protagonist’s credibility and misses a chance to bring an important dimension to the story. An adult reader is likely to think, “Sure he hates it there, but he should know better than to run NOW!” Child readers/listeners may imagine themselves as more sensible: “I’d take food and a blanket and I’d wait for a warmer night.” It’s just hard to avoid the sense that the kid made a dumb move.

Bunting has depicted affronts to Young Bull’s dignity and well-being that might lead him to plot an escape. But running into a winter storm -- from a place that, for all its awfulness, at least provides shelter – suggests extreme, immediate fear and desperation. What could make death by hypothermia preferable to “staying put” a moment longer? What threat or actual harm has pushed Young Bull to run, after so long at the school? Was he assaulted or threatened by a teacher? Unfairly and cruelly punished? Humiliated once too often to bear? The story would be a clearer window on boarding school experience if it showed readers why fear/loneliness/anger overpower the boy, making him forget his own safety.

I feel that Toddy’s evocative illustrations are worth a look. But I don’t recommend Cheyenne Again as historical fiction for children about boarding schools or Native kids.

Try these instead!

Home to Medicine Mountain by Chiori Santiago (ill. by Judith Lowry)

When I Was Eight by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton (ill. Gabrielle Grimard)

Shin-chi’s Canoe by Nicola Campbell (ill. by Kim LaFave)

-----
* "Not Again" was submitted by Jean Mendoza. 

What is wrong with the phrase "First Americans"?

Characterizing Native peoples as "First Americans" is not accurate. You've probably seen that phrase used to describe Native peoples, right?

The Very First Americans by Cara Ashrose, with illustrations by Bryna Waldman, is one example. Here's the cover. As you see, I've put a large red x over the cover to let you know, visually, that I do not recommend the book:

So: what is wrong with the phrase "First Americans"?

The Native peoples of this continent were not "Americans". They were--and are--organized societies who chose/choose their leaders and who engaged in trade with other Native Nations.

See? We were nations before the United States of America was a nation. Our nations decided who its citizens were, and, we still do that.

The other problem with this book? The use of past tense verbs, as shown in these two sentences from the book:

Tribes like the Chinook, the Makah, and the Salish made their homes near the water along the northwest coast of America.

and

The Makah were very good whale hunters. 

Aimed at pre-school and elementary aged children, The Very First Americans was published in 1993 by Grosset & Dunlap. You can still get a new copy which probably means, unfortunately, that it is still in print.

Divided into several geographic locations, the book provides an overview of several nations, but the language is all past tense.

And then, on the final page, the author opens with present tense, saying that

Today, almost two million American Indians make their homes in this country. More than a third live on reservations. The rest live in cities and towns. Many Indians say they "walk in two worlds." 

But her final sentence goes back to that error, calling Native peoples "first Americans":

They are part of today's America, but at the same time, they keep the ways of their people--the very first Americans.

I wish that I had a nonfiction book, in-hand, to recommend for young children... A book that would give them accurate information. The only one that comes to mind is Simon Ortiz's The People Shall Continue, but it is out of print. You can get a used copy online. Find one, get it, and use it instead of ones that use "First Americans" in them. You can also choose picture books like Cynthia Leitich Smith's Jingle Dancer, that provide children information that is accurate. In it, a young girl is learning to do a dance. Through the author's note, Smith tells us that the girl is a member (citizen) of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.