Established in 2006 by Dr. Debbie Reese of Nambé Pueblo, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books. Dr. Jean Mendoza joined AICL as a co-editor in 2016.
"Dear Fans: Thank you for all the calls and emails regarding the scene in the movie where Jacob whispers to Bella in Quileute. Please know, we would love to translate the phrase for you, but out of respect for Jacob's feelings for Bella we are unable to at this time."
And who is Grandma Dowdel? Since nobody but a reader ever became a writer, Grandma Dowdel marches in a long tradition. She is the American tall tale in a Lane Bryant dress. There's more than a bit of Paul Bunyan about her, and a touch of the Native American trickster tradition: she may just be Kokopelli without the flute. (p. 399-400)
"I hear you, Debbie, and have several copies of The Good Luck Cat and Jingle Dancer among other titles in the “to be wrapped pile” for the coming holidays for presentation to special young friends."
Debbie Reese said, “There are some things that I think non-Native writers ought to stay away from: religion, spirituality, worship.”
She also said something very provocative: “Most Native writers don't even put that in their books. Why do non-Native writers feel the need to do it?”
The question you, as a non-Native writer, should ask yourself is this: why don’t Native writers put overt references to Native religion, spirituality and worship in their books? Take a minute to think about it. This is important.
Okay. Time's up. Let’s be totally honest here. We all know that if we as writers are, say, Christian, it is not okay to preach in our books, not even obliquely. It’s not even okay to mention religion except in passing, very casually, in a nondenominational sort of way. Unless of course it’s a problem novel in which religion is the problem. These are the rules and we all know that if we don’t follow the rules we will not sell our books, except maybe to Christian niche publishers.
In fact, what Debbie said about Native writers not writing about their religious beliefs is also true for most Christian writers—writers like Katherine Patterson, for example, or Madeline L’Engle. They do not take us into their inner sanctuary of their own spiritual world. CS Lewis has been soundly criticized for sliding his Christianity in sideways.
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.
"Go back!? Go back to Neverland? Go back to the mysterious island, with its mermaids, pirates, and redskins?"They are incredulous at the idea of going back. Wendy ignores their protests, and by the end of the chapter, they have found a baby, made it laugh its first laugh (which hatches a fairy), and collected fairy dust from that fairy.The fairy's name is Fireflyer.
"Because, of course, that's how it is done. Everyone knows that when you put on dressing-up clothes, you become someone else."(p. 26)
"If the redskins are on the warpath, I'm going too!" (p. 30)
"The redskin totem poles leaned at crazy angles, felled by wind or war, and roped in creepers and ivy." (p. 36)
"If there were redskins on the warpath, their warpaths were hidden from sight." (p. 36)
"How 'in trouble'? In a cooking pot with cannibals waiting to eat me, you mean?" (p. 39)
"Are you quite well, Chief?" (p. 41)and takes Peter's pulse and temperature. Peter says he is dying, of boredom, and now that they are back in Neverland, they can have adventures.
"No one tried to explain. They knew that Peter Pan (and foolish young fairies like Fireflyer) were much better off not knowing about the War. (p. 63)Chapter 6 - A Ravelling Man
"Signal fires," he said. "Or bonfires...Maybe the Tribes are feasting." (p. 71)They hear a great crackling sound and the cries of frightened and agitated animals. Peter remembers the Twins saying they had killed a Forest Dragon. He asks them how, they say "with fire" and they realize they've set the forest on fire. They're trapped on the beach, face the lagoon, and see a boat.
They made an unnerving sight, because these pirates, though no more than waist high, were wearing full warpaint and were armed with hatchets, bows and arrows, and bowie knives.
"Starkey's redskins!" said Peter under his breath.
The captain of the steam-cutter was carried for'ard from the bridge, borne aloft on a swiveling leather captain's chair carried by four child warriors. (p. 89)Of Starkey's crew, McCaughrean writes:
Half were girls, with long silken hair and cleaner buckskin tunics. But they were all armed. Drawing back their bowstrings to full stretch, they bowed (or curtsied), blinked their large dark eyes at the crew of the Jolly Peter, and shouted, "Hello. Thank you very much. How do you do. Delighted I'm sure. Kindly shed your loot in our direction, then lie face down on the deck or, sadly, we will have to slit your gizzards and feed you to the fishes. Deep regrets. Please do not ask for mercy, as refusal can give offense. Thank you very much. Nice weather we are having." (p. 89)
"Very good, buckos, but you forgot about the scalping. You must always mention the scalping." (p. 89)
"I heard you were captured by the redskins, Starkey! After we routed you in the Great Battle? I heard you were put to looking after their papooses! Terrible fate for a man who calls himself a pirate!" Peter loaded the words with contempt, as he would have loaded a musket. (p. 90)Starkey agrees that it was beneath him, calling it a fate worse than death, but, Starkey says, he made the best of it:
See what a job I done on 'em, my little squaws an' braves? You won't find better manners in the King of England's parlous. An' I trained them up in a trade, too, which is more'n you can say for most schoolmasters. Learned 'em everything I knowed. Turned 'em into pirates, every Jack-and-Jill of 'em. Got some real talent in there, I can tell you! Pride of me heart, these little throat slitters are! Pride of me heart." (p. 91)
Turn out your pockets, cock-a-doodle, or I'll have my throat-slitters shoot you full of arrows, and take a look myself, after." (p. 92)
Starkey laid a fatherly hand on the shoulder of one young squaw, whose bowstring was pulled taut. "On my word, bucko... shoot him in the thigh," he said, and the squaw took careful aim. "Let's see what an arrow can do to puncture his pride!" (p. 93)
Grappling irons came over the ship's rail like gigantic claws. After that came... well, gigantic claws. The redskins saw the tigers first. (p. 94)
No doubt Starkey's sprogs were, in the normal course of things, wonderful at archery and throat slitting. (p. 94)
The little redskins inside could be heard screaming and whimpering and calling for their mothers. (p. 98)
After years spent teaching manners to redskin sprogs [babies], Starkey said it without thinking: "Now now, son. What's the little word that gets things done?" (p. 104)
"We'll sell them for slaves or spit-roast them for supper!" (p. 109)
"We shall map it as we go!" said Peter.
"And find the source of the Nevva River!"
"Discover new animals!"
"Take rock samples!"
"You might also care to name mountains and lakes, sir," suggested Ravello, setting down the afternoon tea.
"Pour me a tot of Indian courage," he commanded. "The smoke from Starkey's filthy pirate barge has turned my stomach." (p. 111)
"the redskins swarmed on deck, weeping and shrieking and struggling into cork life-jackets." (p. 112)
"everybody felt so much better that they decided to overlook all the grown-up pirates, redskins, and circus masters known to inhabit Neverland." (p. 121)
"Oooo. Right into the past! I see the Aztecs and the Vikings!" (p. 136)
"What language is he talking?" asked John. "Is it Esquimeau?" (p. 187)
"sent smoke signals summoning help (though the blizzard did its best to smudge them out)." (p. 229)
...the sky ahead turned ochre yellow with flying dust. Sandstorm, they thought. Then they topped the rise, and a sight met their eyes that none would ever forget. There, streaming towards them across the flat skilet of the sear desert sands, came all the bison and appaloosas and travois and squaws and dogs and braves and thunderbirds and drums and papooses and war bonnets and peace-pipes and braids and coup sticks and moccasins and bows and arrows that went to make up the Tribes of the Eight Nations.The Company of Explorers curl up to sleep, too. Puppy is with them, but, suddenly he runs off, starts to dig, and next thing he's dug a hole into the den where Peter and the Lost Boys lived. What follows are reunions and lots of storytelling.
The smoke signals Peter had sent from the top of Neverpeak had never been smudged out completely. Now Tribes from north, south, east, west, and the ohter place came thundering over the Thirsty Desert as fast as their appaloosas and bisons would carry them. At the sight of Peter and his fellow Explorers, the Tribes began to bang on their shields and drums and papooses and so forth in a triumphant chorus of greeting.
The Tribes threw a potlatch for the League: A party that consisted of eating and drinking and giving away most of their belongings. They gave a lot of these to Peter and Wendy and Tootles and the Twins and John (who was thrilled to the core). Bud sadly, because they had nothing of their own to give, the children had to give away the gifts they had just been given.
At the feast that followed, a lovely Princess came and smeared their faces with warpaint and told them that now they were honorary members of the Eight Nations.
"Hello, Tiger Lilly," said Peter. But the Princess looked at him strangely and said she was Princess Agapanthus, actually. "Ah. I could never remember names," Peter said. "Or faces."
"Twins? Whatever is the matter?" asked Tootles. "Just because you had to give away those bowie knives..."
But the Twins were not crying because of the bowie knives. They had just remembered riding on an omnibus to Putney and falling asleep and waking to find themselves wearing warpaint. "Will we ever see Putney again, Wendy?" they asked.
Wendy put on her most businessslike face. "We shall just have to wait for the fairies to stop quarrelling and for our shadows to grow back. Look: yours are starting to come already." The Twins brightened--then, of course, their shadows stopped growing again, which rather defeated Wendy's efforts.
They travelled on in a cloud of dust, with an escort of Eight Nations (not to mention the bison)--through the Elephant's Graveyard, over Parcel Pass and the primaeval ruins of Never City and the Groves of Academe. If there were Roarers or lions lying in ambush, the bison and travoises flattened them, because suddenly the horizon was plush with the trees of Neverwood, and the Tribes were saying good-bye and moving off in eight different directions--to tepees, hogans, kivas or longhouses, roundhouses, bivouacs or stockades; some to sleep under the stars. (p. 282)
October 14, 1952
Dear _____
Your letter to Mrs. [Laura Ingalls] Wilder, the author of Little House on the Prairie, came several weeks ago. We took the liberty of opening it as we do many of the letters that are addressed to Mrs. Wilder. Often we can send the writers the photographs and biographical material they want. Mrs. Wilder is now in her eighties and we try to handle much of the correspondence here.
We are indeed disturbed by your letter. We knew that Mrs. Wilder had not meant to imply that Indians were not people and we did not want to distress her if we could possibly avoid it. I must admit to you that no one here realized that those words read as they did. Reading them now it seems unbelievable to me that you are the only person who has picked them up and written to us about them in the twenty years since the book was published. We were particularly disturbed because all of us here feel just as strongly as you apparently feel about such subjects, and we are proud that many of the books on the Harper list prove that. Perhaps it is a hopeful sign that though such a statement could have passed unquestioned twenty years ago it would never have appeared in anything published in recent years.
Instead of forwarding your letter to Mrs. Wilder I wrote her about the passage and said that in reprinting we hoped that she would allow us to change it. I have just received her answer. She says: "You are perfectly right about the fault in Little House on the Prairie and have my permission to make the correction you suggest. It was a stupid blunder of mine. Of course Indians are people and I did not intend to imply they were not." We are changing the next printing to read "There were no settlers."*
We appreciate your letter, but we are terribly sorry that ___ could not have the book for her eighth birthday. The new printing will be available for her ninth one though, and we are making a note now to be sure that you receive a complimentary copy. As a children's book editor, I was touched by your not wanting ___ to know only the Saggy, Baggy Elephant and I was therefore all the more upset by your very reasonable complaint against Mrs. Wilder's book.
I am sorry this is not a better letter and I am particularly sorry that I have not written you long before this. I wanted to wait, though, until I had written Mrs. Wilder and received her answer.
The passage in question appears in the opening chapter. As revised it reads as follows: "There the wild animals wandered and fed as though they were in a pasture that stretched much farther than a man could see, and there were no settlers. Only Indians lived there."Hmmm... And, WOW!!! Reading all of that, I wondered what the original text said. I posted a query to LM_NET (over ten thousand librarians subscribe to LM_NET) hoping someone had a copy of the 1935 edition.
This picture brings you face to face with two different cultures. The Mountie is a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman sent by the Queen of England and the Government of Canada to enforce the law of the Europeans. The Chief is a leader of the Plains Cree. He is protecting our people and our way of life.
In those days our Nation, the Plains Cree people, followed the buffalo in the spring and summer.
Traditionally, our people are hospitable and generous in nature. However, spiritual teachings, sacred ceremonies and burial grounds, are not openly shared with the public.
We are proud of our teachings, and our heritage. They have been passed to us by our ancestors, and represent thousands of years of our individual histories. Your patience and understanding of our traditions and cultures is appreciated.
Each November educators across the country teach their students about the First Thanksgiving, a quintessentially American holiday. They try to give students an accurate picture of what happened in Plymouth in 1621 and explain how that event fits into American history. Unfortunately, many teaching materials give an incomplete, if not inaccurate, portrayal of the first Thanksgiving, particularly of the event's Native American participants.
Most texts and supplementary materials portray Native Americans at the gathering as supporting players. They are depicted as nameless, faceless, generic "Indians" who merely shared a meal with the intrepid Pilgrims.
