Third American Indian Youth Literature Awards announced by American Indian Library Association

The American Indian Library Association  (AILA), an affiliate of the American Library Association, announced the recipients of its American Indian Youth Literature Awards...

Best Picture Book is Thomas King's A Coyote Solstice Tale, illustrated by Gary Clement, published by Groundwood Books, 2009. Louise Erdrich, author of Birchbark House, says that A Coyote Solstice Tale is:

"The perfect book to read in the Birchbark Loft.  This is a wonderful coyote sweet and funny book, a gentle anti-Christmas craziness story that resonated with me and will, I think, with every mother and father whose children's visions of sugar plums require them to visit a crowded mall.  It made me want to drink hot chocolate and curl up with a good book."

You can get the book from her shop, Birchbark Books.

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Best Middle School Book is Meet Christopher: An Osage Indian Boy from Oklahoma. Written by Genevieve Simermeyer, with photographs by Katherine Fogden, Meet Christopher is published by the National Museum of the American Indian, in association with Council Oak Books, 2008. It is the fourth book in the "My World: Young Native Americans Today" series, in which each book is written and photographed by Native contributors.

It is available from the National Museum of the American Indian. The website includes this excerpt from the book:

One of my favorite activities outside of school is Osage language class. I go to the language class at the public library one evening a week with my mom, dad, and Geoffrey. The class is special because I’m learning a language that could disappear soon if no one works to keep it going. About 130 years ago, Osage children—like other Native kids—were sent away from their families to live at boarding schools, where they were supposed to speak only English. Over time, a lot of people forgot their language. Most boarding schools for Native children were shut down in the 1930s, but today not many people can speak Osage fluently. In my family, people stopped speaking it when Iko’s [Christopher’s grandmother] grandmother died. Her mom was still a little girl when her grandfather told all of his children that they needed to learn to speak English, since they didn’t have a mother to take care of them anymore.

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AILA's choice for the Best Young Adult Book is Lurline Wailana McGregor's Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me: A Novel, published by Kamehameha Publishing, 2008.

The book is available from Kamehameha Publishing, where you can also read an extensive interview with the author.  Joy Harjo, author of The Good Luck Cat and For a Girl Becoming, worked with McGregor on development of the screenplay that evolved into this book. On her blog, Harjo said:

"Though this is a particularly Hawaiian story, the issues, characters, and sensibilities are similar to indigenous people all over the world."

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Winners of the AILA Youth Literature Award receive a cash award and a beaded medallion featuring the AILA awards logo.Winners will receive their award and medallion at the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. on Monday, June 28th.

Michael Steele, "Honest Injun," and, "Injun" in children's books

When Harry Reid's remarks about Obama hit the news yesterday, Michael Steele (head of the Republican Party) said Reid ought to resign. When called out on his own language (Steele said "Honest Injun" on January 4), he said, at first, that he did not to apologize or step down from his own position. Now, he's issuing the classic "IF" I offended anyone..... (not)apology.

There's been a lot of spin about both men and what they said. With this post, I focus on the terms "Injun" and "Honest Injun."

Steel says his use of the phrase was not intended as a racial slur. I imagine a lot of people were surprised to learn that "injun" is derogatory.

Surprised, because, it is, after all, quite common. You can find "Injun" and "Honest Injun" in older books that are widely read today, like:

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - published in 1876, where "evil is embodied in the treacherous figure of Injun Joe," (p. x of the intro to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a Signet Classic book published in 2002) and in the oath used several times by characters.

Seems to me, in my cursory study of the phrase, that it may have been coined by Twain. In the entry on "Injun," the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists Twain as the first person to use "Injun." It also lists several other noted writers who used "Honest Injun." Some are George Bernard Shaw in 1896 and James Joyce (in Ulysses) in 1922.

And you can find "Injun" in new books, like The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly, published in 2009. It appears twice in Kelly's book, on page 135 and 251. In both instances, it is used as an oath. Here's the relevant excerpt on page 135?

"Double-Injun-blood-brothers-swear-to-die-promise?"

"Double Injun."

"It doesn't count unless you say the whole thing," he said.

"Saaaam."

"Okay, okay, okay. But say it, huh?"

"Double Injun blood brothers swear to die," I said. "Now leave me alone."

Kelly used it again on page 251:

She swore the deepest double-Injun-blood-brothers oath for me.

I have not read Kelly's book, so I have no idea what the two characters in the exchange are talking about. The novel is set in 1899 and the oath was in use by then. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is getting a lot of buzz this year. There's a lot of people hoping it'll get one of the top prizes (the Newberry Medal).

Given that attention, I hope that teachers are taking the opportunity to talk with students about that word, "Injun." I wonder if Steele's schoolteachers used Holling C. Holling's Paddle-to-the-Sea? Published in 1941, it was awarded a Caldecott Honor Medal. In Holling's book, a toy Indian in a toy canoe is put into the water. It makes its way downriver, and ends up in Lake Superior, where a fisherman catches it (page 23):

'Best catch in weeks!" one man was saying. 'And that's not all---look! we're even netting red Injuns in canoes!

I've also come across the word "Injun" in The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Classic Stories compiled by Barbara M. Walker, published in 1989. It includes a recipe for "Rye'N'Injun, a kind of bread. "Rye'N'Injun" appears several times in Farmer Boy, published in 1953.  Walker says that bread is known today as Boston Brown Bread. On page 86, she writes

"Its history reaches back to the first New England colonists, whose only grains were the rye they brought from Europe and the corn they got from the Indians (hence "injun" for cornmeal).

Was "Injun" a word for cornmeal? I don't know, and I'm not going to take time right now to find out...  Staying on point with "Injun"...

It's in Elizabeth George Speare's Calico Captive, and Lois Lenski's Indian Captiv, The Story of Mary Jemison.  I understand it being used in historical fiction. It was a phrase used in the past, but not today, and it'd be terrific if, when they come across it, teachers would point out that "Injun" is a derogatory word.

It's in Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys.  You can find it in Lynne Reid Banks's The Key to the Indian. But, did Benjamin Franklin use the phrase, "Honest Injun," as suggested by Augusta Stevenson in her biography, Benjamin Franklin: Young Printer? 

Another children's book author uses it...  Joseph Bruchac. In his The Heart of a Chief, you'll find him pushing back on the use of it and other words. His protagonist, Chris, and his friends are at a football game. His friend is Anthony, or Tony, or Pizza. Here's the excerpt (p. 55):

People are going crazy on our side of the field. A bunch of kids are doing the tomahawk chop while others are patting their hands against their mouths to do phony war whoops.

The cheerleaders are doing cartwheels. They hold up their pom-poms and sing out together, "TONY, TONY, HE'S OUR MAN. IF HE CAN'T DO IT, NO ONE CAN!"

Just as I realize they are talking about Pizza--Anthony is his given name, which no one at Penacook ever uses--the big man in the New England Patriots jersey stands up, "Scalp 'em, Injun, scalp 'em!" he bellows. Other people take up his chant.

"SCALP 'EM, INJUN, SCALP 'EM"

I realize for the first time what it is like to be excited and depressed all at once. I look at my friends and see the same look on their faces that must be on mine. Should we laugh or cry?

In his book, Bruchac calls attention to a lot of words and to the mascot issue. For that reason alone, I encourage teachers and librarians to get and use his book, especially right now, in the wake of William Michael Steele's remarks. You might also want to talk with students about Native response to Steele. See "GOP leader uses racist term" by Rob Capriccioso in Indian Country Today on January 12, 2010 and  "Michael Steele's 'honest injun' comment sparks backlash", in the Chicago Tribune on January 7, 2010.

American Indians/American Presidents

Last semester, Matt Gilbert gave me a book called American Indians/American Presidents: A History. Published by the Smithsonian, it looks to be quite promising, and something libraries ought to get. I say "looks to be" because I've not had time to read or study it. I'm drawn to the photographs.... 

The book is full of photographs. Richard Nixon in a headdress? Wondering why he's in a headdress?!

The book includes an introduction by Clifford E. Trafzer, followed by:

1. "Native Nations and the New Nation, 1776-1820," by Robert W. Venables
2. "Native Nations in an Age of Western Expansion, 1820-80," by Donna Akers
3. "Dark Days, American Presidents and Native Sovereignty, 1880-1930," by Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert
4. "From Full Citizenship to Self-Determination, 1930-75," by Duane Champagne
5. "The Era of Self-Determination: 1975-Today," by Troy Johnson

As I look at the photographs, I like that they're straight-up black and white. They have not been reproduced in that sepia tone that we've come to associate with the past in a romantic way (or at least that's what it seems to me.) Some are in sepia, but I'm guessing they were originally preserved that way. A lot of photo software programs allow users to turn photos into sepia, and it seems to me people do that a LOT with Native photos. Its an aesthetic choice, but I don't like it. I think its one of the ways that representations of American Indians are done to frame us in the past, or, in a timeless way.

Check out Matt's blog, Beyond the Mesas. Reading what he writes provides you with the opportunity to become deeply knowledgeable about the Hopi Nation, thereby becoming a more-informed librarian or teacher. Being more-informed will help you better-select children's and young adult literature.

Judy Dow and Robette Dias Comment on SIGN OF THE BEAVER

A note from Debbie on July 15, 2024: I no longer recommend books or writings from Judy Dow. I made the decision to withdraw my recommendations based on a letter by Rick O'Bomsawin, Chief, Abenaki of Odanak and Michel R. Bernard, Chief, Abenaki of W8linak. Rather than remove the content specific to Dow, I am striking thru that content. It provides readers with a visual indication that Dow's work is of concern.

Details here: Leaders of Abenaki Nations request Educators stop making space for specific individuals in Vermont's "Abenaki" tribes

Original content and struck-thru content is below. 

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Elizabeth George Speare's Sign of the Beaver has been discussed here several times...

On March 20th, 2007, I posted "Eighth Graders Analyze SIGN OF THE BEAVER." It is an essay submitted by Karen, a classroom teacher.  

On Wednesday, April 11, 2007, I posted a report on the book, put together by Students and Teachers Against Racism, located in Fairfield, Connecticut.

And then on Monday, October 22, 2007, I discussed the use of the word squaw in the book, in the context of the use of that word in larger societal contexts.

What I'm sharing today was submitted by Judy Dow and Robette Dias as a response to the Oct 2007 discussion of the word squaw. Rather than add it to that discussion, I'm featuring it as a stand-alone piece. I'm grateful to Judy and Robette for this contribution. Judy is Abenaki, and Robette is Karuk. They are on the board of Oyate.

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After reading the concern and comments about the use of the word “Squaw” in The Sign of the Beaver we are concerned. It is our hopes that people don’t see this as the only thing wrong with this book because there are far too many other things wrong to just stop there. Judy's two children were forced to read this book in their fourth grade classes. She still has her son’s copy of the book filled with hand-drawn doodles and arrows. Some twenty years later we can visually see the disgust he must have felt as he read through this book.

Why is it books like this are used in a classroom to teach what the “period” was like as if it is an historical book? There is nothing historical about this book except that twenty-seven years later it is still being read in many classrooms and is on some mandatory reading lists.  Why is it some parents and some teachers protect their children and students from the truth? Is it because truths can be painful? So is this book to some. Why is it people feel they must hide the facts about genocide, acculturation, assimilation, and ethnocide? Is it because they are difficult topics for young people to understand? The proper words exist to teach these topics to young people. As educators of the generations that will be caring for us when we get older we believe it is important that we start using the proper words to teach these difficult topics. It can be done. We cannot continue to hide or protect our children from the truth. Let’s teach them instead to be seekers of the truths.

Here is one truth that wasn't discussed on Debbie’s blog posts, and, that is never even mentioned in The Sign of the Beaver.

In the year of 1755, a mere thirteen years before The Sign of the Beaver story takes place, the Indians of Norridgewock, Arresaguntacook, Weweenock, the St. Johns Tribes and other tribes inhabiting the Eastern and Northern Parts of New England had seen a bounty placed on their heads by His Majesty.

Details of the bounty proclamation are in a volume titled Documentary History of the State of Maine, published in 1908 by the Maine Historical Society.

The proclamation stated what colonists would be paid:

For every Male Indian Prisoner above the Age of Twelve Years, that shall be taken and brought to Boston, fifty pounds. 

For every Male Indian Scalp, brought in as Evidence of their being killed, forty Pounds.

For every Female Indian Prisoner, taken and brought in as aforesaid, and for every Male Indian Prisoner under the Age of Twelve Years, taken and brought in as aforesaid, Twenty-five Pounds.

For every Scalp of such Female Indian or Male Indian under twelve Years of Age, brought as Evidence of their being killed, as aforesaid, Twenty Pounds.


Signed on the twelfth day of June 1755 by His Excellency William Shirley, Esq.

Knowing this, how can someone possibly believe that Sign of the Beaver can be used to teach this “period” of history? This proclamation was never talked about or even alluded to in the book. Sign of the Beaver certainly never mentioned that the good people from Massachusetts Bay Colony were scalping Indian people for a bounty. This was the reality of the "period". The relationship as it is written in Sign of the Beaver between Matt and Attean would never have existed in a place such as Maine so soon after the above proclamation was written. Let us teach our children to seek the truth. 

Judy Dow (Abenaki)

Robette Dias (Karuk)

Those romance-novel-authors and their indian-love

I've written about Cassie Edwards and her "Savage Indian" series, and today, am directing you to the blog maintained by the Santa Ysabel Tribal Library.  These books are not meant for young adults. I discuss them as an example of the sort of imagery that permeates society.

So---click on over to "Book using Kumeyaay Words and the Lucas Name." I gather that the novel is supposed to be about the Kumeyaay, but, the author offers up the usual stereotypes...

We saw AVATAR...

We saw Avatar a few days before Christmas. Using my cell phone, I thought I'd take a few notes as I watched the film, sending the notes as brief text messages to my email account. There was so much wrong that I quit after a few minutes. My txts are in bold. In parenthesis are my off-the-cuff response.

arrows in tires
(Modern day covered wagons!!)


sig weaver (anthro) wears bead necklace.
(She's the Indian lover. I guess Cameron never read Deloria or listened to Westerman's "Here Come the Anthros")

indigenous school provided by humans

(Hearing that part made me think that Cameron HAS read some history and DOES know a little... )

na'vi are called savages

(no surprise)

their homeland most hostile environment known to man.

(the wild west)

braids and tail. 

(Drawing from lots of "other" there, collapsing them all into na'vi... )

flute and drum music

(Of course!)

they're (na'vi)  watching us

(Just like the Indians in Little House on the Prairie!!!)

riders on horses

(Plains Indians!!)

the riders whoop 

(Classic Western)

A lot of people say that the special effects make the movie enjoyable. A lot of people wave away problems with the story because of the special effects. Those defenses are given again and again in response to critiques of children's books. A lot---a WHOLE LOT---of people defend Brother Eagle Sister Sky because taking care of the environment is more important than Indian stereotypes. Same thing with Touching Spirit Bear. The "good" it does for students who are bullies is more important than its misrepresentations of American Indians.

Support of books like Brother Eagle, Sister Sky and Touching Spirit Bear plays a role in the embrace of films like Avatar.  In my view, we're all kidding ourselves. None of it is worth defending.

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UPDATE. Monday, January 4, 2010

This post has generated a lot of email to me, mostly from people who share my view of the film. In some, people are surprised that this sort of thing is still happening. I think some of those individuals are not close readers of film or children's and young adult literature. AVATAR is only one film of the last two months that has given viewers Indian stereotypes. Here's others:

BLIND SIDE---I did not see the film. I saw the trailer, though, and in it, Sandra Bullock and her husband (that's a guess) and her little boy are in their car. The child is in the backseat, wearing a headdress. I can only imagine why. If anyone has seen it, let me know!

THE PROMISE---Betty White's character is out in the woods "dancing" and chanting. This movie mostly takes place in Alaska.

INGLORIOUS BASTARDS---Lots of references to "Indian" methods of killing. And of course, scalping was a big piece of the story.

Native blog: "Last Woman: Political & Cultural Snaps"

Julia Good Fox (Pawnee) publishes Last Woman, a blog that I read. Julia is on the faculty at Haskell Indian Nations University, in its Indigenous Nations and American Indian Studies department.

I was especially thrilled to learn that she reads my site. In fact, I'm one of her "Seven Must-Read Blogs." Also on her list are a couple of blogs I read (in addition to hers): Turtle Talk, a blog on Indigenous Law and Policy, and, Brenda Norell's CENSORED NEWS.

Thanks, Julia, for including my site.

I encourage people who read my site to read Last Woman, Turtle Talk, and, Censored News. By reading these sites, you'll gain a lot of insight into how to think critically about the ways that American Indian peoples are portrayed in children's and young adult literature.  To do a good job of selecting books about us, you must know what we care about. What world and legal matters affect us? How? Why?

As you start this new decade, I want you to help me to help us all. I don't mean to spout self-righteous pap. I'm serious. I'm one person out of literally hundreds of thousands involved with children's and young adult literature. Some of you are already doing what you can, but we must do a lot more.

California Indians Critique Lesson Plans on California Missions

A colleague, Deborah Miranda, publishes a blog called When Turtles Fly. A few days ago, she wrote about the California Missions and how they're taught. I'm copying her first four paragraphs below as a sample of what you'll find if you click on over to "4th Grade California Mission Projects: A Thought Experiment for Parents, Educators, and Students."

Deborah's site has links to books you should read if you're interested in developing a critical understanding of American Indians in California. One example is Rupert Costo and Jeannette Henry Costo's 1984 The Missions of California, A Legacy of Genocide. The information accompanying the book reads:

For two hundred years the native people of California have borne the stigma of "Mission Indians." The names of their nations and tribes are Hupa, Kumeyaay, Chuilla, Pauma, Malki, Cupa and Pamo to name a few.

Do you refer to the indigenous peoples of California as "Mission Indians" or do you use specific names? Deborah's site has much to offer. Do add When Turtles Fly to your reading this year.  

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4TH GRADE CALIFORNIA MISSION PROJECTS: A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT FOR PARENTS, EDUCATORS AND STUDENTS

In California schools, students come up against the "Mission Unit" in fourth grade, although the same children have been breathing in the lies most of their lives. Part of California’s history curriculum, the unit is entrenched in the system, and impossible to avoid.

Because this assignment is typically started over Winter Vacation, I’m posting this note for parents and children who are starting their research now. Please be aware that I have other blog posts about the missions as well; please take a look at them too.

The Mission Unit is a powerfully authoritative indoctrination in Mission Mythology against which fourth graders have little if any resistance, and intense pressure is put upon students (and their parents) to create a "Mission Project" that glorifies the era and glosses over both Spanish and Mexican exploitation of Indians, as well as American enslavement of those same Indians during American rule.

In other words, the Mission Unit is all too often a lesson in imperialism, racism, and Manifest Destiny than actually educational or a jumping off point for critical thinking or accurate history.

News from Oyate

Earlier this week I received an email from Oyate. I'm sharing that news today.

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Dear Friends and Supporters,

Oyate co-founder Doris Seale and the Board of Directors are pleased to share with you the beginning of a new season for Oyate. After a long and distinguished career with Oyate, Beverly Slapin has resigned as executive director.  We thank Beverly for her twenty years of service and wish her the best moving forward. Board members and current staff are excited about maintaining day-to-day operations while we enter into our new phase.  Oyate continues to be up and running.  We appreciate your patience during this growth period as we smooth out the usual transitional wrinkles.  The Board is in the process of developing a new leadership structure and is currently communicating with several well-qualified and talented Native American candidates to fill open staff positions. 

Thank you for your support as Oyate continues to grow.

Doris Seale, CoFounder (Dakota, Cree, Abenaki)

Robette Dias, President (Karuk)

Janet King, Vice President (Lumbee)

Judy Dow, Secretary-Treasurer (Abenaki)

Nellie Adkins (Chickahominy)

Danielle DiBona (Wampanoag)

Tomie de Paola's THE LEGEND OF THE INDIAN PAINTBRUSH

A note from Debbie on July 15, 2024: I no longer recommend books or writings from Judy Dow or Joseph Bruchac. I made the decision to withdraw my recommendations based on a letter by Rick O'Bomsawin, Chief, Abenaki of Odanak and Michel R. Bernard, Chief, Abenaki of W8linak. Rather than remove the content specific to Dow, I am striking thru that content. It provides readers with a visual indication that Dow's work is of concern.

Details here: Leaders of Abenaki Nations request Educators stop making space for specific individuals in Vermont's "Abenaki" tribes

Dow's review (below) aside, I do not recommend Tomie de Paola's books. 

Judy Dow (Abenaki) and Doris Seale (Dakota, Cree, Abenaki) sent me this review in response to the query from Patricia O. a few weeks ago about Tomie DePaola's books.  Judy and Doris are board members of Oyate, and Doris is one of its co-founders. 
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The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush by Tomie dePaola

As usually Tomie dePaola has done an exquisite job with the paintings in this book. The colors are bright; the pictures are simplistic and can easily be understood by a reader of the book’s intended age group.  A spiritual leader does explain to Little Gopher that he has a “special gift” and “that he should not struggle” because “his path would not be the same as others”. Most Native people believe everyone has a special gift; life itself is a special gift and that nobody will follow the same path. However, it seems to be very unrealistic that a young boy would go out alone for a Dream-Vision without guidance of some kind from an elder or spiritual leader. Furthermore when this “spiritual event” is completed Little Gopher then interprets what his vision meant. Again this would be highly unusual.

Little Gopher eventually begins to paint pictures “of great hunts, of great deeds, of great Dream-Visions” so that “the people would always remember” says dePaola. This seems odd to us. How did Little Gopher learn of these great deeds, great hunts and great visions after all "his path was different then the others". Little Gopher was not a warrior or a hunter and had only one vision and no elders were present in the story to teach him of these great things? Curious isn't it.

One more thought crosses our mind. Indian paintbrushes (Castilleja Coccinea) are indigenous to Latin American not the plains of the west as the story implies.

However beautiful the paintings in this book are we would not recommend it or the companion video because of the complex issues that the intended audience would not understand.

Judy Dow (Abenaki)

Doris Seale (Dakota, Cree, Abenaki)

Did P.C. and Kristin Cast plagiarize?

Yesterday, I posted a rather jumbled piece about Marked, by P.C. and Kristin Cast. I titled that piece "P.C. and Kristin Cast Plagiarize" but, the plagiarism discussion is lost in the other thoughts I had as I read the book. Here's just the portions of their book that I think are plagiarism-at-worst or sloppy-writing-at-best.

Example 1
Page 240: Zoey is smudging Damien. She tells him:

"Smudging is a ritual way to cleanse a person, place, or an object of negative energies, spirits, or influences. The smudging ceremony involves the burning of special, sacred plants and herbal resins, then, either passing an object through the smoke, or fanning the smoke around a person or place. The spirit of the plant purifies whatever is being smudged."

I found that identical passage on over 100 different websites. The excerpts below are from here (scroll down and click on "Smudge Ceremony"):

The Smudging Ceremony

Smudging is a ritual way to cleanse a person , place or an object of negative energies, spirits or influences. The smudging ceremony involves the burning of special, sacred plants and herbal resins, then, either passing an object through the resulting smoke, or fanning the smoke around a person or place. 

 
There are a couple of other passages I looked at. Neither one is word-for-word, but pretty close

Example 2
On page (241), Zoey tells Damien:

"It's really important to remember that we're asking the spirits of the sacred plants we're using to help us, and we should show them proper respect by acknowledging their powers."

The website says:

Remember that when you smudge, you are asking the spirit of sacred plants for assistance and you must pay proper respect to their healing power.

Example 3
Later on page 241, Zoey tells Damien she prefers white sage to desert sage:

"White sage is used a lot in traditional ceremonies. It drives out negative energies, spirits, and influences. Actually desert sage does the same thing, but I like white sage better because it smells sweeter."

The website says:

Desert Sage (Artemesia tridentata). This plant will drive out negative energies, spirits and influences. Use this as a smudge to purify people and places before any sacred ceremony.

White Sage (Salvia apiana) This sage is used just like desert sage, but many people prefer White Sage because of the sweeter aroma it gives off.

Those passages may be helpful to teachers and librarians who want to discuss writing and the ins and outs of copying/pasting.

P.C. and Kristin Cast Plagiarize in MARKED

To see only the plagiarism section of what I wrote below, click here. 

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Back on November 13, 2009, I posted my first response to the House of Night vampire series by P. C. Cast and her daughter, Kristin. I'd found the first chapter online on the House of Night website. I'm copying here what I posted then, and I've put that entire post in italics to distinguish it from what I'm adding to that response today.


In studying Marked, specifically page 240 when Zoey smudes Damien, it looks to me like the Casts borrowed word-for-word from "The Smudging Ceremony" online at a New Age site!

[Formatting note: I apologize for the too-many line spaces in this post. Not sure how to fix that problem.]

First response: HOUSE OF NIGHT SERIES

For some time now, I've been aware of the HOUSE OF NIGHT series of vampire stories. I picked one up in a bookstore and skimmed it, but put it back down. I did not want to spend time on it. I am still not sure how much time I will give to it...

Here's the final words from the first chapter of the first book. Reading this online from the House of Night website:

I stared at the exotic looking tattoo. Mixed with my strong Cherokee features it seemed to brand me with a mark of wildness... as if I belonged to ancient times when the world was bigger... more barbaric.

From this day on my life would never be the same. And for a moment--just an instant--I forgot about the horror of not belonging and felt a shocking burst of pleasure, while deep inside of me the blood of my grandmother's people rejoiced.

Exotic. Cherokee. Wildness. Ancient. Barbaric. This "Cherokee" girl is now a Vampire, too!!! And her Cherokee grandmother's people rejoice. Why? Because this girl is now going to feel like she belongs? Is that why P.C. Cast says her character's ancestor's rejoice? Or is it something else?

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I continue that initial response today (December 21, 2009):



A couple of weeks ago, I was at the Urbana Free Library to pick up Marrin's Years of Dust. While there, I saw that the library had a copy of Marked on the shelf, so checked it out, too. (I subsequently wrote about Years of Dust here, which sparked a lively dialogue at School Library Journal.)



Once she's marked, Zoey must go to the House of Night. In the world the Casts imagine, vampires are a fact-of-life. Zoey doesn't get along with her mother and her mother's husband, and hopes that being marked will elicit a caring response from her mother. When it doesn't, Zoey heads for her grandmother.  Her grandmother, as we learned in chapter one, is Cherokee. In chapter five, we learn that Zoey calls her grandmother "Grandma Redbird" or "Grandma."  Having been marked, Zoey is experiencing physical changes. She's full of questions. As she climbs a bluff to find her grandmother, the text reads (p. 33-34):

I needed to find Grandma Redbird. If Grandma didn't have the answers, she'd figure them out. Grandma Redbird understood people. She said it was because she hadn't lost touch with her Cherokee heritage and the tribal knowledge of the ancestral Wise Women she carried in her blood. Even now it made me smile to think about the frown that came over Grandma's face whenever the subject of the step-loser came up (she's the only adult who knows I call him that). Grandma Redbird said that it was obvious that the Redbird Wise Woman blood had skipped over her daughter, but that was only because it had been saving up to give an extra dose of ancient Cherokee magic to me. [...]  In the meadow of tall grasses and wildflowers we'd lay out a brightly colored blanket and eat a picnic lunch while Grandma told me stories of the Cherokee people and taught me the mysterious-sounding words of their language.

"Mysterious-sounding words" is another signal, to me, that the Casts are running with romantic, stereotypical ideas of who American Indians--in this case Cherokees--are. Course, their point may be that their protagonist is romanticizing her Cherokee identity, but I don't think so. 

As I struggled up the winding path those ancient stories seemed to swirl around and around inside my head, like smoke from a ceremonial fire...

Smoke from a ceremonial fire! Just like we saw in Disney's Pocahontas! Another signal of romantic imagery.

...including the sad story of how the stars were formed when a dog was discovered stealing cornmeal and the tribe whipped him. As the dog ran howling to his home in the north, the meal scattered across the sky and the magic in it made the Milky Way. Or how the Great Buzzard made the mountains and valleys with his wings. And my favorite, the story about young woman sun who lived in the east, and her brother, the moon, who lived in the west, and the Redbird who was the daughter of the sun.

Through her veil of turning-into-a-vampire, Zoey starts thinking about drums and powwows her grandma took her to when she was a little girl. She starts to hear drumming, and then voices, and then wind...

Wind? No, wait! There hadn't been any wind just a second ago, but now I had to hold my hat down with one hand and brush away the hair that was whipping wildly across my face with the other. Then in the wind I heard them--the sounds of many Cherokee voices chanting in time with the beating of the ceremonial drums. Through a veil of hair and tears I saw smoke. The nutty sweet scent of pinon wood filled my open mouth and I tasted the campfires of my ancestors. I gasped, fighting to catch my breath.


That's when I felt them. They were all around me, almost visible shapes shimmering like heat waves lifting from a blacktop road in summer. I could feel them press against me as they twirled and moved with graceful, intricate steps around and around the shadowy image of a Cherokee campfire.


Join us, u-we-tsi a-ge-hu-tsa... Join us, daughter...

Zoey runs, and then falls and is in some sort of dreamlike state where the High Priestess speaks her her (p. 39):

Your grandmother has taught you well, u-s-ti Do-tsu-wa...little Redbird. You are a unique mixture of the Old Ways and the New World--of ancient tribal blood and the heartbeat of outsiders. [...] I am known by many names... Changing Woman, Gaea, A'akuluujjusi, Kuan Yin, Grandmother Spider, and even Dawn..."

A unique mix! Ancient tribal blood. Heartbeat of outsiders. Sounds a bit like..... Jake Sully in Avatar!

Looks like the Casts are grabbing at all manner of spiritualities...  Navajo, Cherokee, Buddhism...  But where is Mary in this lineup? Why did they avoid drawing on Christianity?!


When Zoey comes to, she's in the House of Night, her grandma is with her, and Zoey tells her that she can't believe that she got Marked. Her grandmother replies (p. 45)

"I'm not surprised you were Tracked and Marked. The Redbird blood has always held strong magic; it was only a matter of time before one of us was Chosen. What I mean is that it makes no sense that you were just Marked. The crescent isn't an outline. It's completely filled in."

Of course! Indians are special! The ones the Casts dreamed up are, apparently, extra special. They've got strong magic, but what else???  The High Priestess is with Zoey, too, and that High Priestess tells Zoey that she can start over, choose her true name. Zoey discards "Montgomery" and chooses Redbird.





And then, the Casts plagiarize!

Much later in the book (page 240), the Casts have Zoey doing ceremony:

"Smudging is a ritual way to cleanse a person, place, or an object of negative energies, spirits, or influences. The smudging ceremony involves the burning of special, sacred plants and herbal resins, then, either passing an object through the smoke, or fanning the smoke around a person or place. The spirit of the plant purifies whatever is being smudged."

That sounds like something you'd find in a New Age store! Or on the internet! And that is exactly what I found. That passage above, comes word-for-word from "The Smudging Ceremony" at a New Age store that sells "smudge bundles."

----------------------------

[Update, Dec 22, 6:38 AM.  In the comment below submitted by Lou Gagliardi, Lou says that my examples are not word-for-word. The ones below this update are not quite word-for-word, but the passage above is exactly word-for-word. I did not include the passage from the website because it seemed redundant. I'm adding it now:

The Smudging Ceremony

Smudging is a ritual way to cleanse a person , place or an object of negative energies, spirits or influences. The smudging ceremony involves the burning of special, sacred plants and herbal resins, then, either passing an object through the resulting smoke, or fanning the smoke around a person or place. 

And Kat W., a librarian in Benton Harbor wrote to say "if you can find at least 5 sources that do not reference a specific piece of information then it is considered general knowledge and does not need to be sited in your work."  Of course, novels don't cite materials in the same way that nonfiction does, but Kat raises an interesting point. She suggests it is ok for the Casts to copy and paste from the internet. I did note, below, that the passage in question appears on over a hundred websites. Does that make it ok? Perhaps, but what does that say about the author(s) and their writing?

------------------------------------------------
But there's more of that sort of borrowing...



Zoey says (p. 241):

"It's really important to remember that we're asking the spirits of the sacred plants we're using to help us, and we should show them proper respect by acknowledging their powers."

At the New Age store/website, you'll find this:

"Remember that when you smudge, you are asking the spirit of sacred plants for assistance and you must pay proper respect to their healing power."

And here's some more... 

Zoey prefers white sage to desert sage. She tells Damien (p. 241) that

"White sage is used a lot in traditional ceremonies. It drives out negative energies, spirits, and influences. Actually desert sage does the same thing, but I like white sage better because it smells sweeter."

On the New Age store/website:

Desert Sage (Artemesia tridentata). This plant will drive out negative energies, spirits and influences. Use this as a smudge to purify people and places before any sacred ceremony.

White Sage (Salvia apiana) This sage is used just like desert sage, but many people prefer White Sage because of the sweeter aroma it gives off.

Maybe the Casts didn't take it from that site. Doing that internet search using "Smuding is a ritual way to cleanse a person" I got 273 hits (date of search, December 21).

Cassie Edwards plagiarized several people in her Savage Indian series, including N. Scott Momaday's book The Way to Rainy Mountain.

Edwards seemed to think it was ok to do that. Do you? Do you think its ok for the Casts to do it? In my view, they've not only erred in their presentation of the Native content but they're also plagiarizing. Neither one is ok.






.

"I is for Indian Village"

Head on over to Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert's blog, Beyond the Mesas, and read his entry on December 16, 2009: "I is for Indian Village" - Photographs and Hopi Protocols.

When you go to a National Park, there are signs all over the place that tell you not to take items you find on the ground. Some parks have pottery shards. It is against the law to take those, and the federal government can fine you for taking things.

Visitors to Nambe Pueblo cannot take photographs. As Matt's post says, visitors are not allowed to take photographs at Hopi, either.

Please follow instructions! Don't take photographs!

[And of course, don't objectify Indian people by using us as items in your alphabet activities.]

INDIAN BOYHOOD and MIDDLE FIVE - use in 1904

Two of the books on my list of recommended books are The Middle Five by Francis LaFlesche and Indian Boyhood by Charles Alexander Eastman. Both can be used by students in grades 7 through 12. I'm thinking about those two books because I've come across a reference to them. A reference, that is, in a letter written over 100 years ago.  In 1904, Clara D. True wrote to C. J. Crandall. She was a teacher at the Day School in Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico. Crandall was in Santa Fe, New Mexico, serving as a Superintendent of U.S. Indian Schools. True wrote:

Dear Sir:

Enclosed is [a] new set of Abstract F. I am sorry I did not know of the distinction in books. Those I cannot use myself nor give to the children I have been putting on the magazine and newspaper table I have kept for the returned students, hence the wearing out of the so called "Library" books, or most of them. "Indian Boyhood" and "Middle Five" were enjoyed.

I expend a lot of property, I know, but I try to get the intended good out of it and get rid of it as I have not room enough to turn around in anyway. If I put discarded stuff outside the house I seldom see it again. I kept a variety of junk on the roof until I found it was causing leaks by interfering with the running off of the rain water. To keep from sitting up at night with stove legs and desk irons I have buried them in the chicken yard where they await the final resurrecting.

Very respectfully,
Clara D. True

I don't know what Abstract F is. I don't know (yet) anything about Clara D. True. The letter is in files of the National Archives. In the 1800s, the federal government established boarding and day schools for American Indian students.  From time to time my research takes me into archives. Finding letters and the like that refer to literature is one of my tasks. Clara D. True's letter tells me that Eastman and LaFlesche were being read by Native students in 1904. [Update, Aug 18, 2018: I think I saw the letter when I was at Yale University, studying items in the archives. Information about her is here: Letters received from day school teacher, Clara D. True.]

Indian Boyhood by Charles Alexander Eastman, was published in 1902 by "McClure, Philips &; Co." in New York. Eastman was Dakota (Sioux). He was born in 1858. As a child, his paternal grandmother took him to Canada, leaving Minnesota during the Minnesota Dakota conflict of 1862 (that was the "Minnesota Massacre" Laura Ingalls Wilder referred to via Mrs. Scott in Little House on the Prairie). Eastman's formal education began at Santee Normal School. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1886, and got a medical degree at Boston College in 1889. There's a lot to say about him and his life, both as a child and as an adult.  The first stories he wrote were published in St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks.

The Middle Five: Indian Boys at School by Francis LaFlesche, was published by Small, Maynard in Boston in 1900.  LaFlesche was Omaha. He was born in 1857 in Nebraska. The Middle Five is his autobiographical account of his years at the mission school he attended. That school was run by the Presbyterian Church. Later, he worked with Alice Fletcher on a book about the Omaha's. 

I'm glad to know that True's returning students liked both books, and I'm also glad to know that she was providing students with books by Native writers. I imagine it meant a lot to them, in the same way that Native-authored books mean a lot to me, now, in 2009.

New cover for Erdrich's BIRCHBARK HOUSE

Each semester in my courses at Illinois, we read Louise Erdrich's Birchbark House. It's a terrific book, as are the two that followed it, Game of Silence, and, Porcupine Year.

This time, one of the students had a copy with a cover I'd not seen before. Instead of Louise's art on the cover, this one has a photograph (shown here) of a young girl. No doubt the publisher is following a trend of putting photographs rather than illustrations on book covers when a book is reprinted. The rationale is that the photograph is more appealing to the consumer. I wonder who the girl in the photo is?

[Update: December 14, 10:15 AM CST. Heather (in comment) asked to see both covers, so I've added the original cover.]

Sexy Indians...

As soon I wrote the title for this post, I realized it will probably generate a lot of hits from people looking for porn...  As I said last year, Meyer's books (amongst other problems) are like soft porn. Recently I was e-talking about Twilight with Brian Y., a Dine (Navajo) student at Yale. Something he said reminded me of covers on Cassie Edwards books. So here, just for fun, are two "sexy Indians" in the "moon" genre of best selling....  best selling.... hmmm...  I won't call them literature...  I don't recommend either author, by the way...  Meyer or Edwards. Save your money.

Brian is working on a paper. Hopefully, he'll let me quote from it...  In it he makes some astute observations about the appeal of New Moon...

Chaske Spencer, "Sam Uley" of Twilight, visits Yale

On Tuesday, December 9, Chaske Spencer, the actor who plays Sam Uley in New Moon, visited students at Yale.  Read about his visit in Twilight actor speaks in the Yale Daily News. Spencer is a member of the Lakota Sioux tribe.

Reports from Native students at Yale (including my awesome daughter, Liz), are that Spencer is a very cool guy, personable and unpretentious. He spoke with Native students about being a Native actor, and specifically about the politics of casting. Liz is busy with term papers and can't go into detail at this point, but I hope to learn and share more later...

The photo I used here is from his website.

Update: YEARS OF DUST

Jonathan Hunt at SLJ responded to my critique of Albert Marrin's Years of Dust. If you're interested in the on-going dialogue, click on over to Years of Dust and read his rebuttal of what I said, comments to his rebuttal, and, my responses to that conversation.

Hopi writer, Polingaysi Qoyawayma

Reading Beyond the Mesas this morning, I see that Matt (my friend and colleague in American Indian Studies here at Illinois) wrote about Polingaysi Qoyawayma. Her book, No Turning Back, is on my list of recommended books (see the text top right of this page that says "Click here to see a list of recommended books and resources). She was Hopi from Orayvi on Third Mesa, and, Matt says, she was the first Hopi teacher to teach Hopi children at a Hopi day school.

What I learned by reading Beyond the Mesas this morning is that Qoyawayma also wrote a book for younger children! I ordered it right away and look forward to reading it. The title of her children's book is The Sun Girl.

Reading what Matt says about it, I think it may be similar to one of my favorite picture books, Cynthia Leitich Smith's Jingle Dancer. Both are about a Native child learning a dance her people do. (Reminder: Native dance is not entertainment or performance. Pueblo dance in particular is a form of prayer.) Fortunately, Jingle Dancer is still in print. The Sun Girl, published in 1941, is not. I'll blog it when I get it. In the meantime, click on over to Remembering Polingaysi Qoyawayma at Beyond the Mesas and see what Matt says about her and her books.

Albert Marrin's YEARS OF DUST: THE STORY OF THE DUST BOWL

Over on Heavy Medal, a blog at School Library Journal, I posted my concerns with Richard Peck's new book, A Season of Gifts. In the course of discussing/defending the book, Jonathan Hunt (one of the blog hosts) referenced another book. That book was Albert Marrin's Years of Dust: The Story of the Dust Bowl. In A Season of Gifts, a preacher is given a box that may or may not have remains of a "Kickapoo Princess" inside. The preacher agrees to rebury the box and waxes poetically in his sermon. As you might imagine, I find the discussion of bones problematic from the get-go. I am working on an essay about that aspect of the book. 


In his post, Jonathan correctly describes the preacher's speech as hokey, sentimental, and, stereotypical in the way it situates Indians in nature. Then, he says, he came across another passage that was like that in Albert Marrin's Years of Dust. Jonathan quoted the passage, which I will quote here as well (it appears on the final page of Marrin's book, p. 122):

Chief Seattle, a leader of the Suqamish tribe, understood our place in nature.  In 1855, President Franklin Pierce offered to buy Suquamish lands in what is now the state of Washington.  Before accepting the president's terms, Seattle is said to have reminded the American envoys of some basic truths.  "Will you teach your children what we have taught our children?  That the earth is our mother?" the chief asked.  Then Seattle answered his own questions.  "What befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth . . . The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth . . . All things are connected like the blood which unites us all.  Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.  Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."

Then Jonathan tries to equate the fictional preacher in A Season of Gifts with a real person: Chief Seattle of the Suquamish Nation. He asks why it is not ok for Preacher Barnhart to use that sort of language, when, he says, it was ok for Seattle to use it. 


When I read Jonathan's words and the excerpt he quoted, I chuckled to myself, thinking that Marrin had done sloppy research, quoting---not Seattle---but Ted Perry, the person who wrote a version of Seattle's speech for use in a made-for-TV movie in the 1970s. And, I wondered how Jonathan could equate a fictional character with a leader of an American Indian Nation.


Among my comments to his post, I said "oops!" and then something snarky about white-guy-Marrin quoting white-guy-Perry. Maybe I should not do that sort of snarky writing. I know it rubs some people the wrong way. 


I could say, instead, non-Native-Marrin quoting non-Native-Perry...  Or maybe I should say sloppy-researcher-Marrin quoting fiction-as-fact...  Or maybe I shouldn't say anything like that at all. My point is, what are your sources???!!! What is the bias in those sources??? Are you using sources critically???



But setting my rant aside for now...

Jonathan said he'd check into Marrin's source for that speech and let us know. I was surprised (and not) to learn that Marrin's source was....  Al Gore's book, Earth in the Balance! Oops again!!! Now, we have this:


Non-Native-Marrin quoting Non-Native-Gore quoting Non-Native-Perry.


I decided it was time to get Marrin's book, and, Gore's too, and take a look at both books. 


The cover of Marrin's book includes, across the top, "Recipient of the 2008 National Endowment for Humanities Medal."  An impressive accomplishment for Marrin. His Sitting Bull and his World won the 2001 Carter G. Woodson Book Award and the 2000 Boston Globe Horn Book Award for Non-Fiction. I wish the selection committees had been able to read Doris Seale and Beverly Slapin's review of the book...  They probably wouldn't have chosen Sitting Bull and his World for either award! Do read the review... once you do, you'll be a bit embarrassed that you or anyone would think the book was worthy of the label "nonfiction."



Back to Years of Dust...  As I flip through it, I love the images on the pages. Photographs, posters, newspaper clippings. Good stuff! Or some of it is...  Some of it is not so good....



Looking right now at page 11 in the section titled "The Great Plains World." there's a sidebar titled "The Buffalo and the Indian." The second sentence is:

 "These hunters [Lakota and Cheyenne] ate buffalo meat at every meal, several pounds at a time." 

Several pounds of buffalo meat at every meal? Really? That'd be one big hamburger! (Want a laugh? Watch Sesame Street's Grover the Waiter in "Big Hamburger.")


The illustration at the bottom of the sidebar is a reproduction of a 1901 painting by Charles Schreyvogel titled "Doomed." It shows an Indian man on horseback, wearing a feathered warbonnet, lance held high, about to plunge it into a buffalo. 

Who was Schreyvogel? I read a little about him in an article called "Racism, Nationalism, and Nostalgia in Cowboy Art" by J. Gray Sweeney, published in Oxford Art Journal in Vol. 15, No. 1, 1992. Here's what Sweeney wrote (p. 72):

The third painter revered by the modern cowboy artists of today is Charles Schreyvogel. Schreyvogel painted about one hundred works in the years from 1900 to his death in 1912, and although he visited the West briefly, his work was executed entirely in his studio in Hoboken, New Jersey, where he frequently posed his 'manly' German-American compatriots on the tin roof of his apartment overlooking New York City. One of his sources of information about Native Americans derived from sketching actors in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Shows. [...] It seems perfectly comprehensible how such representations of war-like Indians would have met the cultural expectations of Schreyvogel's urban audience in New York City around 1910 whose only knowledge of Native Americans was from dime novels and wild west shows. As such the image is disturbingly indicative of the cultural mind-set of the last half of the nineteenth century that approved genocide. One critic of the day put it this way: Schreyvogel is more than a historian of the Indian. He is giving us an invaluable record of those parlous days of the Western frontier when a handful of brave men blazed the path for civilization and extended the boundaries of empire for a growing nation.

Ouch! Ouch! And OUCH again!!! Nineteenth century? Ironically, the date of the painting is almost 100 years ago....  Why did Marrin choose that art?! Probably because it reflects what he knows! Sweeney closes the article by discussing how popular this art has become for collectors, and, as subject matter for scholarly studies of its ideology. That scholarship is attacked, as Sweeney says (p. 79):

[R]ecent attacks by conservative critics make it abundantly apparent that the supporters of western art are willing to do everything in their power to protect the cherished fantasy of America's 'winning of the West' promoted in this art. 

Moving along in Years of Dust, I come across another winner in terms of source...  At the bottom of page 14, Marrin quotes from Laura Ingalls WIlder's On the Banks of Plum Creek, where she writes about grasshoppers on the Great Plains. Would you be ok with students in your classroom citing Wilder as though what she provided was a work of non-fiction?


It is interesting to me that in the text---not the illustrations or photographs or sidebars---Marrin does not mention American Indians. When he starts talking about buffalo on page 12, he says 

The lord of the Great Plains was the American bison, or buffalo. When the first Europeans reached the New World, some 40 to 60 million buffalo roamed the region in their endless search for pasture.

And on the next page, he talks about Laura Ingalls Wilder. His final paragraph in that section says (p. 16):

The Great Plains, then, was (and is) a harsh land. Despite the hardships, Americans still saw the plains as a place of opportunity. A place where, through hard work and good luck, they could buld a better future. And so, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, settlers flocked to the rolling grasslands west of the Mississippi. Unfortunately, the arrival of settlers would change the delicate ecology of the plains.

The one mention American Indians get in this section is the sidebar. In the text itself, the indigenous people of the Great Plains don't get any attention at all. Marrin talks about Europeans, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and, Americans, but, not Indians.



Course, that changes in the next section, "Conquering the Great Plains."



Marrin starts by talking about Daniel Boone, pioneers, Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark, and, an army officer who was mapping the land who said that the Plains were unfit for cultivation. Then Marrin says (p. 20)

Flat, treeless, and dry, the grasslands were fit only for wild beasts and nomadic Indians. 

Marrin sounds like Laura Ingalls Wilder in Little House on the Prairie! What does that say about the Wilder apologists who say "that's what they thought back then." Marrin isn't quoting the Army officer at that point. Those are Marrin's words.



Most people were only moving through the Plains, headed for the West Coast. But then after the Civil War, some decided they wanted to become cattle ranchers. To do that, they needed to get rid of the buffalo, which the Indians depended on for food. Here's what Marrin says (p. 22),

"Progress," as white people saw it, demanded that both the buffalo and the Indians should go.

Hence, the wholesale slaughter of buffalo began, followed by moving Indians onto reservations. Marrin's next section "The Coming of the Farmers" is a good example of bias in selection of information to include. He talks about the Homestead Act, how it offered public land to any citizen or immigrant intending to become a citizen.  Public land? Wait! What? How did that happen? I guess it doesn't matter. 

In this section, Marrin includes a sidebar titled "For Want of Rain" that is about the Anasazi. In the sidebar, Marrin writes (page 32): 

The drought drove the Anasazi away, but it is unclear where they went.

Let's see... when did Marrin's book come out? 2009??? What research did he do??? From Wikipedia to the online Encyclopedia Brittanica, I see something I've known for a long time.... the Anasazi are ancestors of the Pueblo people! (That's me. Pueblo person, Debbie Reese, enrolled at Nambe, established in its present location in 1200 AD). 

What do you think so far? I'm on page 32 of a book that 128 pages long. One fourth of the book, and, I think its kind of a mess. Worthy of a medal? I don't think so, and I'm not even at the part of the book that Jonathan Hunt quoted from! I'll flip to that page...


Oh but wait!!! As I flip pages, I spy with my little eye on page 55 and 56, some more Indians. On page 55 is a sidebar "The Hopi Snake Dance." Marrin provides a photograph of "a snake priest." The caption is a quote from Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy telling us about snake dances. I wonder what my Hopi friend, Matt Sakiestewa Gilbert, would think about this: 

These dances are prayers or invocations for rain, the crowning blessing in this dry land. The rain is adored and invoked both as male and female; the gentle steady downpour is the female, the storm with the lightning the male... The snakes, the brothers of men, as are all living things in the Hopi creed, are besought to tell the beings of the underworld man's need of water.

On page 56 is an 1899 photograph of a Hopi "snake priest with a snake in his mouth in the Hopi snake dance." Hmmmm...  Does Marrin know that those photographs are off limits? That the Hopi people disallowed photographs of their dances because those photographers did not understand what they were photographing and/or describing???


On page 102 is something rather intriguing about this famous photograph.

Taken by Dorothea Lange, it is known as "Migrant Mother." Lange was working for the Farm Security Administration, documenting the lives of Dust Bowl refugees. Lange described the woman as a hungry, desperate mother who told Lange that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the fields, and, birds her children killed. She has just sold the tires from their car to buy food. The photo was taken at a pea picker's labor camp in California.



But!!! Marrin tells us...

Forty years later, the two older children in Lange's photo remembered the incident differently. Their mother was FLorence Owens Means, a full-blooded Native American who had left Oklahoma ten years earlier, and so was no Dust Bowl refugee, as the photo suggests. The family had not been living on frozen peas and dead birds. Nor had Mrs. Thompson sold her tires. Her husband had taken the car for repairs, and she had moved to the pea camp from another camp. Before leaving, she had left word for her husband to come to the new location. She looked worried in the picture because she was not sure he got the message.


Lange, the children recalled, had promised not to publish the photo, but had done exactly that. It appeared on March 10, 1936, in the San Francisco News, agove First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's weekly "My Day" column. Thompson saw the picture and felt betrayed. For the rest of her life, she resented Lange's use of her image for publicity. Thompson was an active woman, who had helped organize farmworkers' unions. "She was a very strong woman," said daughter Katherine, seen in the photo of her mother's right shoulder. "She was a leader. I think that's one of the reasons she resented the photo--because it didn't show her in that light. (5) "What upsets us is that people are making money out of our mother's pain," (6) said daughter Katherine. 

I did not know anything about that woman being Native... I'm going to have to look into that! I'll see what I find and follow up when I have more information.

Again, back to the reason I started this particular study...  The speech attributed to Seattle. Hunt quoted Marrin who cited Gore who doesn't cite anybody. 


Here's what Gore wrote on page 259:

Native American religions, for instance, offer a rich tapestry of ideas about our relationship to the earth. One of the most moving and frequently quoted explanations was attributed to Chief Seattle in 1855, when President Franklin Pierce stated that he would buy the land of Chief Seattle's tribe. The power of his response has survived numerous translations and retellings:

How can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people...


If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his firt breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth. 

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. 

One thing we know: Our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its Creator.

  
A few years ago, Jean Mendoza and I did some work on Brother Eagle Sister Sky, illustrated by Susan Jeffers. My copy of that book is at the office, so I can't do a line by line comparison of Gore's excerpt to the text in Brother Eagle...  

I will, however, point you to our analysis. It is in our article, Examining Multicultural Picture Books for the Early Childhood Classroom: Possibilities and Pitfalls, published in Early Childhood Research & Practice, Volume 3, #2, Fall, 2001.  In it, we talk about several children's picture books. Here's what we said about Brother Eagle, Sister Sky:

The text of Brother Eagle, Sister Sky has an interesting history. According to a 1993 memorandum from the Washington/Northwest Collections office of the Washington State Library (see Appendix I), at least four versions of the speech attributed to Seattle have appeared through history. In January of 1854, he spoke at length during negotiations involving the Suquamish, the Duwamish, and the U.S. government. Historians agree that the speech was translated into Chinook jargon "on the spot" since Seattle did not speak English. The first print version of what he said was not published until October 29, 1887, in a Seattle Sunday Star column by Dr. Henry A. Smith, a witness to the 1854 speech who had reconstructed and translated the speech from his notes. In the late 1960s, poet William Arrowsmith rewrote the speech in a somewhat more contemporary style, though it is still similar to Smith's version (Ellen Levesque, personal communication, September 29, 1993).

Later, Ted Perry created another version for "Home," a historical program about the northwest rain forest televised in 1971 (Jones & Sawhill, 1992). This version was constructed as if it were a letter to President Franklin Pierce, though "no such letter was ever written by or for Chief Seattle" (Ellen Levesque, personal communication, September 29, 1993). A shortened edition of the "letter" was exhibited at Expo '74 in Spokane, Washington.

At the end of Brother Eagle, Sister Sky, Susan Jeffers writes, "The origins of Chief Seattle's words are partly obscured by the mists of time." She mentions Smith's version and states that, like Joseph Campbell and unnamed others, she has adapted the message. Readers and listeners are left with the impression that the book offers perhaps an abridged version of the actual speech. The Suquamish tribe's Web site reproduces the 1854 1887 version, which addresses with great depth of feeling the state of Native-White relations in that place and time. In it, Seattle reluctantly, and perhaps with some anger, agrees that he and his people will move to a reservation, on the condition that they be able to visit their ancestors' graves without interference. Environmental responsibility does not appear to be the topic.

Take a look, too, at what Paul Chaat Smith wrote about the book. At the top of his page is a quote from Brother Eagle, Sister Sky that is a lot like what Gore quoted. Sigh. Big, big sigh. 


Sloppy research by Gore. Sloppy research by Marrin. Should Marrin's book be considered for any award, from anyone? I don't think so. If you have read Marrin's book, and want to weigh in on the discussion, head over to Team Nonfiction: The Second Wave.



I'll post there, letting readers there know that I've done this post.



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Update, 12:27 PM CST, December 7, 2009
Julia Good Fox directed me to a NY Review of Books essay about Dorothea Lange and the Migrant Mother photograph. Here's some of it, but do read the entire essay. Interesting!

In 1958 the hitherto nameless woman surfaced as Florence Thompson, author of an angry letter, written in amateur legalese, to the magazine U.S. Camera, which had recently republished Migrant Mother:

...It was called to My attention...request you Recall all the un-Sold Magazines...should the picture appear in Any magazine again I and my Three Daughters shall be Forced to Protect our rights...Remove the magazine from Circulation Without Due Permission...

Years later, Thompson's grandson, Roger Sprague, who maintains a Web site called migrantgrandson.com, described what he believed to be her version of the encounter with Lange:

Then a shiny new car (it was only two years old) pulled into the entrance, stopped some twenty yards in front of Florence and a well-dressed woman got out with a large camera. She started taking Florence's picture. With each picture the woman would step closer. Florence thought to herself, "Pay no mind. The woman thinks I'm quaint, and wants to take my picture." The woman took the last picture not four feet away then spoke to Florence: "Hello, I'm Dorothea Lange, I work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the plight of the migrant worker. The photos will never be published, I promise."

Some of these details ring false, and Sprague has his own interest in promoting a counternarrative, but the essence of the passage, with its insistence on the gulf of class and wealth between photographer and subject, sounds broadly right. "The woman thinks I'm quaint" might be the resentful observation of every goatherd, shepherd, and leech-gatherer faced with a well-heeled poet or documentarian on his or her turf.
It also emerged that Florence Thompson was not just a representative "Okie," as Lange had thought, but a Cherokee Indian, born on an Oklahoma reservation. So, in retrospect, Migrant Mother can be read as intertwining two "mythical cult-figures": that of the refugee sharecropper from the Dust Bowl (though Thompson had originally come to California with her first husband, a millworker, in 1924) and that of the Noble Red Man. There is a strikingly visible connection, however unnoticed by Lange, between her picture of Florence Thompson and Edward S. Curtis's elaborately staged sepia portraits of dignified Native American women in tribal regalia in his extensive collection The North American Indian (1900–1930), perhaps the single most ambitious—and contentious—work of American pastoral ever created by a visual artist.