Did you see... PaperTigers post about Larry Loyie's books?

Larry Loyie's As Long as the Rivers Flow: A Last Summer before Residential School is on my list of recommended books. It is nice to see other bloggers who write about his books, too. Case in point is Larry Loyie's Work at PaperTigers.

Do you read CYNSATIONS? And have you read JINGLE DANCER?

Yesterday I was at Urbana Free Library (my local library) and was happy to see Cynthia Leitich Smith's new novel, Blessed, on the TEENS NEW FICTION shelf. See it on the third shelf? It is Smith's third gothic fantasy. The first one was Tantalize. Next was Eternal. It debuted at #5 on the New York Times best-seller list. The reviewer at The Bloomsbury Review said that "Cynthia Leitich Smith is the Anne Rick for teen readers." Pretty cool, eh?

I'm glad Cynthia's gothic novels are well-received. She is a terrific writer. She's one of my favorite authors. Get her books! And read her blog, Cynsations. It is a great place to read about authors, new books and general news about literature for children and young adults.

Cynthia is a tribal member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and the author of one of my favorite books, Jingle Dancer. It is the book I wish I had when my daughter (Liz, who is now in her 20s) was dancing for the first time at home (Nambe Pueblo)...

Shown here on the left is the cover of Jingle Dancer. It is the story of a young Muscogee girl named Jenna who wants to do the Jingle Dance at the upcoming powwow. Family members help her get ready. Getting ready means learning the dance and her regalia ready. Note that I didn't say "costume." A lot of people think we wear costumes to do these dances. Like a Jewish prayer shawl, the items we wear are worn at a specific time for a specific purpose.  With the help of her family, Jenna dances at the powwow.

If you're looking for romantic or noble Indians who wear feathers 24/7, you won't find them in Jingle Dancer, and you wouldn't find them in my house either. That sort of thing is stereotypical and gets in the way of seeing us as people of today who---like other people---have ways of doing things that are specific to our heritage and yet, live lives like other people of the present day. Most of the time I wear shoes I buy at the mall, but that doesn't make me less-Indian because I'm not wearing moccasins.

Back in 1994, we were getting Liz ready to dance for the first time. "We" is primarily the women in our family: my mom, my sister's, and my nieces, but it also includes men who help us get items we don't have within our own families. Liz was three years old. It was right around this time of year (spring). I remember that period with great warmth. Those are powerful memories! It was the first time we were both dancing. Two of her older cousins, Berna and Brooke, also danced that day.

Over on the right is a photo of Liz at the end of that day. (Note: We were doing a ceremonial dance that is best thought of as prayer-in-motion. It wasn't dancing for fun, or to entertain anyone, or to perform for anyone, either.) Liz is standing in front of our kiva (like a church). She's danced many times since then and we often tell the story of the day. When she was in elementary school during the mid to late 90s, I'd go in to her classrooms and the two of us would tell part of the story there. It would have been cool to give her teachers a copy of Jingle Dancer, but it came out in 2000.

As we're all aware, the economy is hitting us in many ways. People are being furloughed and laid off, and budgets for buying books are almost nonexistent in many schools. If you've got $20 to spare, get a copy of Jingle Dancer and donate it to your local library.

Unexpected intersections: Thanksgiving and Karen Russell's SWAMPLANDIA!

Earlier this week a reader wrote to ask me about Karen Russell's Swamplandia! Not familiar with it, I read reviews and learned that it is the story of a not-Native family who uses Native names to pass as Native people who run an alligator-wrestling theme park. I've got a copy on order so I can read it.

Here's what I know so far (reading from the "look inside" option at Amazon):

Swamplandia! is the name of the theme park. It is run by the "Bigtree clan of alligator wrestlers." The star of their show is Hilola Bigtree. She is described as being "brown-skinned" and muscular. She's married to "Chief Bigtree" and their children are Kiwi (a boy), Osceola (a girl) and the protagonist, Ava. In the billboard promoting the theme park, the family is shown gathered round an alligator. On page five, Ava tells us that they:

"are wearing Indian costumes on loan from our Bigtree Gift Shop: buckskin vests, cloth headbands, great blue heron feathers, great white heron feathers, chubby beads hanging off our foreheads and our hair in braids, gator "fang" necklaces.

The text continues:

Although there was not a drop of Seminole or Miccosukee blood in us, the Chief always costumed us in tribal apparel for the photographs he took. He said we were "our own Indians." Our mother had a toast-brown complexion that a tourist could maybe squint and ball Indian--and Kiwi, Grandpa Sawtooth, and I could hold our sun.

Osceola, we learn, is "snowy white" and that getting her ready for the photos required that she be "colored in with drugstore blusher." Later we learn of Ossie's boyfriend (Ossie is short for Osceola), Louis Thanksgiving.

I'm guessing you can see why I ordered the book. The family, calling itself Bigtree, is posing as Indians. They're playing Indian. Ava tells us so. It isn't something that is hidden from readers, but I'm guessing the visitors at the theme park have no idea the Bigtree family is not Native.

Identity and race seem to figure prominently in the book. On page 166, we learn that when he was 14, Kiwi (Ava's older brother) declared:

"I'm a Not-Bigtree. A Not-Indian. A Not Seminole. A Not Miccosukee."

We're given that information because in that part of the story, Kiwi is keenly aware that he is white and in the minority of his mostly not-white class of students in a GED class. On page 191, we learn about Seminoles ghosts who "haunt" the swamps, and, that Ava's father (Chief Bigtree) envied

...the "real" Indians... in a filial and loving way...

I wonder if there are any Seminole characters in the book? I'll let you know when I get the book. It got rave reviews. RAVE reviews. At the Amazon page, there are blurbs from everyone from Stephen King to the reviewer for Oprah's magazine. I don't see any comments at all about the fact that the family is playing Indian. If they were playing Black, would that be noted?

Two of my recent reviews are about Thanksgiving picture books: The Berenstain Bears Give Thanks, and, Jon Scieszka's Trucksgiving. (Note: A reader wrote to chastise me for having a myopic viewpoint, saying there are more important things to worry about. In a response to that sort of criticism, I've written 'why it matters' as part of the "ABOUT AICL" page.)

Given those two reviews, I've been doing a bit of reading about Thanksgiving and how it is taught. I came across "On Education: Pilgrims, No Thanks in Mohawk County," a terrific article published in the New York Times on November 26, 2003.  (If the link doesn't work, send me an email and I'll send it to you directly.)

In the article, a 6th grade boy says that Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday. That boys name leaped out at me because I've been reading and thinking about Swamplandia! The child's name? Gage Bigtree. He goes to school at St. Regis Mohawk Elementary, a public school near the Canadian border where all 450 students in the school are Mohawk. Here's an excerpt from the article:

It is a fine balance, teaching American history at a public school so different from the mainstream, a place where so much American history is taken personally and negatively. These are young children, and while their teachers -- many themselves Mohawk -- do not want them to be naïve about history, they do not want them embittered, either.

And so a fair amount of time is spent focusing, not on what the Pilgrims did, but on the richness of the Indians' own culture and history. When Mrs. King and Carole Ross attended this school as children in the 1950's and 1960's, students were barred from speaking Mohawk; today, the two women work full time teaching the Mohawk language to every child.

Students learn that centuries before the Europeans arrived and held the ''first Thanksgiving,'' the Mohawks were celebrating nine Thanksgivings a year, commemorating the first running of the sugar maple sap; the first thunder (and warming) of spring; the first strawberries; and the great harvest -- the ninth Thanksgiving and the one that coincided with the Europeans' Plymouth celebration.

This week, each class, from kindergarten to sixth grade, went over the Thanksgiving Address, recited at the start of all ceremonies and played each morning at dawn on the Mohawk Reserve radio station, CKON. They give thanks for the earth, the plants, the fish, the waters, the birds, the nighttime and daytime suns. In first grade, Mrs. King had them name all the types of water they could give thanks for, from bottled water to the St. Lawrence. At Gage's Thanksgiving celebration, his family will recite the address together. ''If we make one mistake -- like my sister messing up, we have to start all over,'' he said.

So. Lots of interesting intersections this week... Thanksgiving, names, playing Indian, real Indians. All of it in the world of children, young adults, their books, and their education. 

2011 New Mexico Library Association Annual Conference

On April 26th I'll head home (yeah!) for the 2011 New Mexico Library Association Annual Conference. It will be in Albuquerque. I'm doing a pre-conference workshop there on evaluating books with American Indian content, and a session the next day about books specific to Native peoples in New Mexico.

I'm looking forward to it, and to green chili at the Frontier Restaurant!

A reader writes to me about Jon Scieszka's TRUCKSGIVING

Amongst the email I received this morning is one from Danielle, who wrote to ask if I'd seen Jon Scieszka's Trucksgiving.  While at the local library earlier today, I picked up a copy of it.

Like The Berenstain Bear's Give Thanks, Scieszka's Trucksgiving is new; the publication year is 2010. The illustrators are David Shannon, Loren Long, and David Gordon.  Trucksgiving is one book in Scieszka's "Ready To Roll" series of easy readers published by Simon and Schuster.

On the back cover is the website for the series: Trucktown.com.  I typed it into the search window on my computer, and WOW! Way cool. I can see lot of kids really liking the site. Truck horns blare, and Jack greets me, saying welcome. Constantly playing in the background is the low sound of a motor. Rolling my cursor over the other trucks on the page, Jack introduces each one.

If you study gender, you might want to take a look at the gender of the trucks. The pink garbage truck is "Gabriella Garbage Truck." She picks up garbage. The blue dump truck is "Dump Truck Dan." More analysis might not hold up, but some of it looks to me to be rather....  stereotypical.

The white ambulance is "Rescue Rita." There's a green wrecker (truck with a wrecker ball) named "Wrecker Rosie" (her wrecking ball is pink). There's bios for each truck, and a lot of things kids can do... listen to sounds, print out coloring pages...

Clicking on the "Parents Section" opens a "Grown Ups Section" that says the site is about fun and games, and that there is little to read on the site.

Some might say the title of the book "Trucksgiving" is clever. It reflects Scieszka's play with words. I like word play, but not in this case. The word play is at the expense of a specific population. Scieszka did that before in Me Oh Maya, one of the books in the Time Warp Trio. I've written about two other books Long illustrated. If you're interested, see what I said about his illustrations for Barack Obama's Of Thee I Sing, and, Watty Piper's The Little Engine That Could.

NOT RECOMMENDED

On the first double-paged spread of Trucksgiving, we learn that many years ago, "the first trucks came to Trucktown" (part of the spread is used on the cover). In the foreground are two trucks: Jack Truck (the star of the series) and Gabriella Garbage Truck. He's wearing a black hat with a buckle on it and she's wearing what I think is supposed to be a white bonnet. They've just come off a ship. Beside the ramp is a rock---Plymouth Rock, perhaps?

On the next double-paged spread, we see Payloader Pete and Dump Truck Dan scooping and dumping dirt. They're both wearing black hats with buckles. Turning the page, we see Cement Mixer Mike in a black hat and Grader Kat (she's described on the website as "sensitive, creative, and mature") in a bonnet. They are making roads. On the next double-paged spread we see four cabins on a scroll. Above the scroll the text reads:

They built Trucktown. And they saw that it was good.

Somehow, "they saw that it was good" reminds me of Genesis. Was that deliberate on Scieszka's part? A gesture towards the Puritan's spirituality?

On the next double-paged spread, the trucks wanted a way thank every truck that helped. On that page, the trucks are gathered around a long table that is set with plates full of nuts and bolts and oil cans. Here, for the first time, we see a truck wearing feathers:

"Big Rig" is the truck chosen to be an Indian. His bio page (on the website) says:

Big Rig is a bully. He's a tailgating, horn blasting, black exhaust spewing, license expired, outlaw. And those might be the nicest things you could say about him. The best thing to do with this guy is steer clear.

Gabriella and Big Rig

Instead of round eyes like all the other trucks have, he's got rectangular ones with orange instead of white eyeballs.

On the next two double-paged spreads, Big Rig glares at Lucy the fire truck when she suggests they spray water to celebrate, and, he glares at Gabriella when she suggests they smash garbage.

On the next double-paged spread, Izzy the ice cream truck suggests they eat ice cream. Next to him is another truck wearing feathers. This is Monster Truck Max. His bio (on the website) reads:

Max is everything you would expect a monster truck to be. Especially ACTIVE! He is oversized, jacked up, and nitro-boosted to the MAX! He's always getting his wild self into trouble and it's a good thing he's got friends like Jack and Dan to help him along the way. 

On that page, Izzy is shown on the table. The plates of nuts and bolts are flying about. Was it Max's nitro that upset things?!

For the sake of comparison, I'm including bios for Jack Truck:

Jack is a prankster action hero! He is active, rowdy, messy, loud and goofy. He is the fastest truck and the best-at-truck-sports truck. Jack's work is to play. And he plays, and plays, and plays, and plays.

And Dump Truck Dan's bio...

Dan is Jack Truck's best friend. He is one strong truck and loves to show off that strength, whether its pushing rocks, loading up dirt, or getting into trouble with Jack. 

Max doesn't have the scary appearance that Big Rig does. Max has eyes like the others (round and white).  He is "wild" and perhaps it is his "wild" characteristic that led the illustrators to put feathers on him. Feathers on the bully, and feathers on the wild guy.

The story continues with Jack suggesting they have a race each year instead of the ideas posed by others. Big Rig and Max aren't shown objecting. The final page shows Rita (the ambulance) crossing the finish line, dressed as a turkey.

Overall, the book is stereotypical.

Scieszka's language play is troubling, and the story itself doesn't quite make sense to me. The trucks want to do something to say thanks to all the trucks who helped build Trucktown. The two Indian characters object to ideas put forth. Why? I'm stretching to say that maybe these two "Indian" characters are making a statement about the entire idea of Thanksgiving and how it is observed in the United States.

But, that is wishful thinking. Instead, we have two male trucks. One is a bully and the other is a wild guy. They shut down options put forth by the two female trucks.  

On the website, Szieszka says that the stories are ones that reflect the ways that 4 year old kids act. Perhaps, but it still doesn't make sense to me. Have you read it? Does it work for you?

Letter from reader about THE BERENSTAIN BEARS GIVE THANKS in which the Bears fatten up Squanto (their turkey)

Last week, Kim in Canada wrote to me...

-------------
Hi Debbie,

Here's another book to add to your poison pile of inappropriate, misleading Thanksgiving resources (if it's not already there).
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21451595/The-Berenstain-Bears-Give-Thanks-Full-Book

I found it on my nephews' bookshelf when I was reading them bedtime stories a couple of weeks ago. I was immediately suspicious as soon as I saw the cover, but before I could talk my nephews into reading another book, the 6-year-old caught a glimpse of one of the illustrations inside and the first thing out of his mouth was "That's a First Nations bear!" (he's in the middle of a unit on treaties at his school). At 6, he's apparently already absorbed the dominant society's misconception that all Aboriginal peoples in North America are signified with headdresses. Sigh.

I asked my sister where she got the book, and she said the boys chose it from a book fair at their school. I explained to her why I didn't want to read it to my nephews, and she donated it to the library where I work so we can include it on our shelf of "not recommended" kid lit (our main clientele are Metis and First Nations students studying to be elementary school teachers).

I just assumed that a book this bad (it manages to include every single bit of American Thanksgiving misinformation and stereotyping out there; to add insult to injury, the turkey in the book is named Squanto) would have been written in the 1970s or 1980s with all of the other Berenstain Bears books I grew up with, so I didn't give it much thought. As I was cataloging it today, though, I was shocked (well, more dismayed than shocked, I guess, as I'm a regular reader of your blog) to see that it had been published in 2009. And in a series of books called "Living Lights," which professes to "help children learn how God wants them to live every day,"  no less.

Sorry to go on for so long. Thanks so much for your blog. Reading it has been a big part of my education over the last couple of years.

Kim
------

I read Kim's email and clicked on the link she provided. On that page you can read most of the book.

I....

Well. I have literally been stuck on that "I..." ever since I got Kim's email and looked at the book. I don't know what to say. I'm shocked, and not shocked. I'm surprised, and not surprised. Maybe the right word is disgusted.

I'm disgusted.

They named the turkey Squanto! And they're fattening him up so they can KILL him and EAT him. In the end, he is saved and turned into their PET. Kristina Seleshanko, managing editor of the Christian Children's Book Review, writes on Amazon that:

when Mama calls "Dinnertime!", Sister suddenly remembers Squanto. But she's relieved when Papa points out the window at the pen he's made for the family's new pet: the turkey Squanto. A fine salmon is the center of the family's Thanksgiving dinner and when prayers of thanksgiving to God go round, Sister adds, "And I am especially thankful for my wonderful new pet, Squanto the turkey!" "AMEN!" everyone cries. 

Amen?! Can you see why this book is problematic? Are Jan and Mike Berenstain that obtuse?! Or do they know perfectly well what they're doing???

Is The Berenstain Bears Give Thanks in your library?  If it is, can you move it, as Kim is doing, to a place where it can be used as a teaching tool?

You can also write to Jan and Mike Berenstain at this email address: zauthor@zondervan.com. Or directly to Zondervan (the publisher) at zreview@zondervan.com.

Note: Sunday, March 11, 2012
See the follow-up at Update on Berenstain Bears Give Thanks
You might also be interested in the stereotyping in Berenstain Bears Go to Camp. 

Dear Mr. Goble: Questions for Paul Goble about THE GIRL WHO LOVED WILD HORSES

Paul Goble's The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses was published in 1978. It won the prestigious Caldecott Medal.

Due to the popularity of his style, and the Caldecott, too, The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses has been printed and reprinted lots of times. The copy I'm looking at right now (dated 2001) indicates I have one that was in the 12th reprinting.

As we saw in the discussion of Robert Lawson's They Were Strong and Good, books can be revised, with problematic language removed in the process.

I'm wondering if Paul Goble or an editor at Simon & Schuster might do some revising of The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses?

Well---maybe not revising, but an addition to the book. By that, I mean information about the story itself. I mean a source note!

Let's look at his book, using criteria developed by Betsy Hearne in her "Cite the Source: Reducing Cultural Chaos in Picture Books, Part 1" article. It was published in 1993 in School Library Journal. Betsy called her criteria "A Source Note Countdown."

Before I start, I'll say I find the book as problematic as the other "Native" book that won the Caldecott in the 70's: Gerald McDermott's Arrow to the Sun. The subtitle for McDermott's book is A Pueblo Tale. There are nineteen different pueblos... which one does he mean? Does he think we're all the same? What is the source for the story he tells? Does McDermott know that the pueblos in the northern, mountainous part of New Mexico are not the same as the ones located in more southern areas of the state, where the geography is not as mountainous? There are significant differences, in fact, even within a single pueblo, from one society or clan to the next one...  Without providing a source, McDermott introduces the chaos Betsy points to by being non-specific. An elementary school teacher who chooses to use his book to supplement teaching about Pueblos people heads down a rather risky road...

Course, his book---and Goble's, too---were written in the 1970s...  Because of that, some might argue that it isn't fair to judge them by today's standards. Still, given their status as Caldecott books, maybe we can ask them to be updated with a solid source note...

In her source note countdown, Betsy writes about five ways an author can acknowledge his or her sources. Worst case is #5, "The nonexistent source note." Next is #4, "The background-as-source-note." Number 3 is "The fine-print source note." At #2 is "The well-made source note." And the best note, #1, is "The model source note."

In Betsy's countdown, the worst note is "the nonexistent source note."  In this case, the subtitle or jacket copy makes a vague claim that is, as Betsy writes, "faithfully picked up and authoritatively echoed in the Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication statement." To the right is the cover of The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses. No subtitle. The text on the jacket book flap, however, says "In simple words and brilliant paintings that sweep and stampede across his pages, Paul Goble tells of a Native American girl's love of horses."  And here's the CIP info:

Summary: Though she is fond of her people, a girl prefers to live among the wild horses where she is truly happy and free. [1. Fairy tales. 2. Indians of North America-Fiction. 3. Horses-Fiction] 

I'm guessing the Library of Congress cataloger used the jacket copy to assign the book its 2nd category (Indians of North America-Fiction). There isn't an author or source note anywhere in the book. The only information we are given is the Library of Congress summary. No "background as source note" or "fine-print source note" or "well-made" or "model" note. In interviews, Goble says he does extensive research. So...

----------------
April 3, 2011 

Dear Mr. Goble, 

Can you tell your editor at Simon and Schuster that you'd like to add a well-made source note to this book? One that tell us the specific source (or sources) you used to tell this story? Can you give us a description of the cultural context in which this story was/is told? And, can you tell us what you've done to change it, and why you've changed it as you did (if you did)? 

Thanks,
Debbie Reese

(I'll send this on to Simon and Schuster, and to Mr. Goble, too, if I can find a way to contact him. I'll let you know if I hear back from either one.)

Update, June 11, 2014:
I did receive a reply to my letter. In it, Mr. Goble said that I could not quote him. The gist of his short letter is that publishers cannot afford to add pages like the one I requested. I find that answer curious because his later books include that information.

Nodelman on WHERE THE GREAT HAWK FLIES

In 2007, I published Beverly Slapin's review of Liza Ketchum's Where the Great Hawk Flies. Today I'm pointing you to Perry Nodelman's review of the book.

Reading his review made me laugh aloud. He references several other novels he analyzed for his chapter in Home Words: Discourses of Children's Literature in Canada (I highly recommend his chapter, "At Home on Native Land: A Non-Aboriginal Canadian Scholar Discusses Aboriginality and Property in Canadian Double-Focalized Novels for Young Adults").

Perry writes:

And the novels almost always resolve the dispute by giving the disputed thing or place over to the care of anyone of any race or background who adopts what are presented as being aboriginal values–which usually are some version of a new-agey ecological spirituality about respect for the planet and all creatures on it, and a dislike for fatcat capitalists, factories and frozen entrees.  

That hits my funny bone! There's a lot of people like that...

He also writes about how, in Ketchum's novel, the hawk (from the title) always appears at key moments. Those of you who watch or study film are well-acquainted with the hawk's cry...  It signifies "Indian" just as much as faux-Indian-music does.   

Seriously, though, Perry writes about multiculturalism in the novel. About the impulse to create a multicultural world that is safe, that feels the need to "defang" (Perry's word) aboriginal culture, making it less authentic, and therefore less dangerous, so it can be something everyone can embrace. 

Most everyone wants to think they're not racist, that they embrace others, value diversity, etc.  But what is it they're after? For too many people, it is a superficial understanding that ends up being window-dressing.

I, for example, don't want people to embrace traditional Native stories and reject objections that American Indian scholars or tribes put forth regarding appropriation and misrepresentation of Native stories. The stories feel safe. Thinking about appropriation and misrepresentation of the stories is POLITICS, and that isn't safe.  To "defang" the objection, a writer will talk about how stories are always changed when retold, no matter who tells them. Or, the writer will talk about freedom of expression... 

"Multiracial" identity and American Indians

The US Census released 2010 demographic data a few days ago. Among the data being pointed to in articles and essays is that "...American Indians and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are the most likely to report being of more than once race. Blacks and whites are the least likely." That excerpt appears in the New York Times, in the March 24, 2011 article by Susan Saulny.

It suggests that more American Indians claim more than one race than was the case in the past, that there is more mixing than ever before. I don't doubt that, but let's hit the pause button...

I'm tribally enrolled with Nambe Pueblo. I grew up there. My daughter and I, like my parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, etc., live our identity as Indians of Nambe Pueblo.

I teach at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. In every class I teach, I've got a handful of students who say they have a great grandparent who was Native. They don't know what tribe that ancestor was, and, they usually have only a vague idea of what it might mean to be Native. Most of them have no idea of Native Nations, of Native sovereignty, of being on a tribal census, what treaties mean, that dances might be sacred...   A great many of them romanticize an Indian identity based on popular culture and (sadly) biased teachings in school. Some of them manufacture that identity, putting it on in the form of, for example, a bone choker. They mean no harm. In fact, they wear such things with great pride. But! They don't live a specific Native Nation identity.

Yet, many of them check a box on school enrollment forms, and, likely on the U.S. Census, that says they're part Indian. And so, the statistics are kind of... skewed.

A few months ago, the Times ran another article in which college students reported being mixed, some of them with Native heritage, but that none of those distinct identities mattered.

Identity matters for those of us who are raised Indian. We work very hard at maintaining our nationhood and our sovereignty, and, we work to protect the integrity of our traditions from being exploited by people who don't understand them... 

The students interviewed for that Times article mean no harm when they say their Indian identity doesn't matter. It doesn't matter---to them. But it does to me, and it does to Native Nations. The students' well-meaning embrace of a mixed identity, in effect, obscures a lot, and in that obscurity, it does do harm. It contributes to the lack of understanding of who American Indians are...  And it takes the US down a merry melting pod road where we all hold hands and smile in ignorance.

Ignorance is not bliss. It is ignorance.

You don't have to be ignorant. You can learn a lot about American Indians, and know us---and maybe your own ancestry---for who we were and are, rather than some abstract stereotypical notion you've been carrying around. 

Spend some time on American Indians in Children's Literature, learning about who we are and what we care about. Read our newspapers! Check out Indian Country Today. Read Mark Trahant's columns there, and see how ICT covers mascot stories. Listen to our radio stations! Start with National Native News. Did you know we have Tribal Colleges? And a journal called Tribal College Journal that you can read online? There's a lot to know!

"Settler ponies" and buffaloes in MY LITTLE PONY (new TV series)

I did not know that there is a new My Little Pony television show being aired... 

I watched a segment today, prompted to do so by reader, DV, who told me about a recent episode called "Over a Barrel."


You can see the whole episode on YouTube... This is the second half:



In it, the ponies visit a western town of ponies that have planted apple orchards all around the pony town. The orchards are on the lands belonging to the buffaloes. The ponies did not know the land belonged to the buffaloes.

The buffaloes use that land "for stampeding." It is their "sacred tradition" to stampede. The buffaloes want the ponies to take the trees down.

The ponies say they've worked hard to get those trees planted and growing, and therefore do not want to take them down.

Neither group backs down, so, they have a fight at high noon.

The town ponies are led by a sheriff; the buffaloes have a chief. In the fight, the ponies hit the buffaloes with pies that knock the buffaloes out. The chief is barreling down on the sheriff. He is hit by a pie and everyone thinks he is dead. Sad music plays. But, apple pie filling drizzles down to his mouth, and he wakes up. He loves the pie.

They settle the dispute. The ponies keep the orchard and land. In return, the buffaloes get apple pies and apples.

Sound familiar?

Peter Sieruta on Laura Adams Armer's WATERLESS MOUNTAIN

Peter Sieruta publishes the blog, Collecting Children's Books. On Friday, March 25, 2011, he wrote about Laura Adams Armer's Waterless Mountain. Published in 1931, it won the Newbery Medal. He wondered what I think of it.

Some time ago, a reader wrote to me, also asking about Waterless Mountain.

So.... I went out to the library today and got a copy. For now, you can see the conversation Peter and I are having in the comments section of his post.

"Wounded Bird" in RANGO, and a note about Johnny Depp playing Tonto

Several people have written to ask me if I've seen Rango.

I haven't, but I just came across a critique of the character, Wounded Bird, at the Drawing on Indians blog where blogger Stephen Bridenstine says "Wounded Bird draws his inspiration directly from the scores of Indian depictions in countless Hollywood Westerns."

The image here is from Bridenstine's site. See the bone choker? (Imagine me groaning.) Bone chokers have become one of the things anyone (and anything) who wants to be marked as "Indian" wears (or is shown wearing.)

Johnny Depp does the voice for Rango in that film. Depp has gotten a lot of press lately because he's playing the part of Tonto (the Lone Ranger's Indian sidekick) in a remake of the Lone Ranger. Depp says he's seen stereotypical portrayals of American Indians in films and plans to do something different in his portrayal. I wonder what it'll be? Depp was in Dead Man with Gary Farmer. I wonder if he learned anything from Gary? For those who don't know Gary's work, watch him in Smoke Signals.

News on Scholastic's "Dear America" series

Are you a fan of the Dear America series of historical fiction diaries published by Scholastic?

Many of the students in my classes at the University of Illinois remember them fondly. And many are disillusioned when we spend time studying Ann Rinaldi's book in the series. That book is My Heart is on the Ground: The Diary of Nannie Little Rose, A Sioux Girl. Several years ago, I co-wrote an extended review of the book. Today, I reproduced that review for those of you who are having trouble locating it in the Way Back Machine (Internet Archive).

The news about the series is that Scholastic is relaunching it.

"Relaunching" means they're adding new books to the Dear America series, and, they're reissuing five of the older books. Rinaldi's is not among the five, and neither is the one about the Navajo Long Walk. I'm glad Scholastic decided not to reissue those two. I haven't read the five, so can't say (yet) whether or not the Native content in them (if there is any) is accurate.

For information about the launch, see "Fresh Approaches" at School Library Journal's website.

Review of Ann Rinaldi's MY HEART IS ON THE GROUND

Several years ago I co-wrote an extended review of Ann Rinaldi's My Heart is on the Ground. For those of you who are intimidated by (or otherwise having trouble finding it on) the Way Back Machine, I'm reproducing it here (with apologies for formatting problems I'm struggling to fix).  Immediately below the review essay is the accompanying essay "Literary License" or "Mutated Plagiarism." Until 2010, both were available on the Oyate website. 

___________

 

Introduction 

There is a story behind this review and how it came to be. In March, Debbie Reese (Nambè), a doctoral student at the University of Illinois, saw My Heart Is On the Ground in a local bookstore. She picked it up, skimmed it, and put it down in distaste. She walked away from it, took a few steps, and felt it couldn't be ignored. Reading through the book, she was outraged and called Beverly Slapin of Oyate in Berkeley and read excerpts to her. Beverly had already ordered a review copy from Scholastic and was not looking forward to reading it. A day later and equally outraged (or "stunned but not surprised" as she said), Beverly called it the "worst book she had ever read." Both women began talking about this book to colleagues.

Debbie contacted Barb Landis, a research specialist on the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Barb had also read the book and felt it was an outrageous depiction of a tragic period in Native American history. A series of internet and telephone discussions followed, and the circle came to include Marlene Atleo (Nuu-chah-nulth), Naomi Caldwell (Ramapough), Jean Mendoza, Deborah Miranda (Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen), LaVera Rose (Lakota), and Cynthia Smith (Creek). We quickly drew up a first draft of what came to be this review, with each of us contributing particular areas of knowledge about Carlisle Indian School, Lakota culture and history, and critical evaluation of children's books; and, a few days later, Debbie raised the issues it contained at a children's literature conference at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

As individuals, we write and speak in many voices, but we feel that our collective authorship of this piece adds to its strength. This piece represents a first-time collaboration among nine women. Some of us are Indian and some of us are not. Some of us are parents and grandparents and some of us are not. We all call ourselves teachers in some way; as well, we are learners. For purposes of practicality, we are listing our names alphabetically.

We do this for our children and grandchildren—Elizabeth, Carlos, Will, Michael, Michele, Stephanie, Miranda, Danny, Robert, Aimee, William, Thomas, Terri, Jamal, Kiana, Rose, Brittany, Shelena, Noah, Kevin, Tyson, Tara, Alexandria—and for their children and the next seven generations.

A Brief Digression about Pratt, Carlisle, and the Boarding School Experience

Because Captain Richard Henry Pratt figures so prominently in this book, it might be a good thing to stop for a moment and look at who he was and what his relationship was to Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Born in 1840, Pratt began his military career by enlisting in the Union army in 1861. As a young cavalry officer, Pratt commanded a regiment of Buffalo Soldiers. The Buffalo Soldiers were a Black regiment, that, along with hired Indian scouts, were used as mercenaries, Indian-fighters, for the benefit of white expansionism during the post-Civil War period. In 1875, Pratt was assigned the command of Fort Marion, the notorious prisoner-of-war camp in Saint Augustine, Florida, where Kiowa, Comanche, and Cheyenne prisoners were taken as hostages to ensure the subjugation of their people.

A decade later, Chiricahua Apache men, women, and children were also sent to Fort Marion, where the children were separated from their parents and sent on to Carlisle. It was at Fort Marion that Pratt began to formulate his early ideas about "civilizing" the Indians: he cut off their hair, replaced their traditional clothing with military uniforms, organized them into hierarchical-structured regiments, and taught them English. After enrolling several of the Fort Marion prisoners at the Hampton School for Negro Children in Virginia, Pratt recruited young children from the Standing Rock Agency and his ideas about Indian "education" began to take shape.

In 1879, Pratt founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which he ruled with an iron hand, his stated philosophy being "Kill the Indian and save the man." Carlisle, and the Indian boarding schools which followed, were set up to break spirits, to destroy traditional extended families and cultures, to obliterate memories and languages, and especially to make the children deny their Indianness, inside and out.

Sun Elk, from Taos Pueblo, told of his experiences at Carlisle in 1890:

"They told us that Indian ways were bad. They said we must get civilized. I remember that word, too. It means 'be like the white man.' I am willing to be like the white man, but I did not believe Indian ways were wrong. But they kept teaching us for seven years. And the books told how bad the Indians had been to the white men—burning their towns and killing their women and children. But I had seen white men do that to Indians. We all wore white man's clothes and ate white man's food and went to white man's churches and spoke white man's talk. And so after a while we also began to say Indians were bad. We laughed at our own people and their blankets and cooking pots and sacred societies and dances. I tried to learn the lessons—and after seven years I came home..." (Nabokov, 1991, p. 222).

During the period in which My Heart Is On the Ground takes place, Native people were confined to reservations and not allowed to leave without permission of the government-appointed Indian agent assigned to their reservations.

In 500 Nations (1994 ), Alvin Josephy writes:

"By the mid 1870s, reservations had become virtual prisons, ruled like empires by authoritarian agents who were given almost total power over the Indians. Shut inside the reservations, where outside eyes could not see them, the Indian peoples were subjected to unspeakable abuses. Housing monies were stolen, food rations were inadequate or spoiled, people were left to die without medical treatment or medicines, others were forcibly separated from their families to be punished without trial for real or trumped-up offenses, and individual Indians were frequently murdered.

"The Indians were at the mercy of a system of corrupt government officials and private suppliers and speculators, known collectively as the Indian Ring, who, taking advantage of public indifference, cheated the powerless tribes. Trapped on the reservations, without freedom and the ability to provide for themselves in time-tested fashion or make their complaints known, the Indian families lived in poverty and misery."

Many parents were coerced into sending their children to these early schools. Many times, children were kidnapped and sent far away to schools where they were kept for years on end. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Thomas Jefferson Morgan described his procedure for taking the children from their families. He said:

"I would...use the Indian police if necessary. I would withhold from [the Indian adults] rations and supplies...and when every other means was exhausted...I would send a troop of United States soldiers, not to seize them, but simply to be present as an expression of the power of the government. Then I would say to these people, "Put your children in school; and they would do it" (Josephy, 1994, p. 432).

Still, some parents found ways to avoid sending their children to the schools. In her autobiography, Helen Sekaquaptewa (Hopi) remembers that parents taught their children to play a game similar to hide-and-seek to avoid being taken away to boarding school. In Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families 1900-1940, Brenda J. Child (Ojibwe) reports:

"The most painful story of resistance to assimilation programs and compulsory school attendance laws involved the Hopis in Arizona, who surrendered a group of men to the military rather than voluntarily relinquish their children. The Hopi men served time in federal prison at Alcatraz" (p. 13).

Many children died at Carlisle, and they died running away from the institution. Child (1995), in her study of boarding schools, found that running away was a universal thread that ran across boarding schools and across generations. Physical and emotional abuse, including sexual abuse, is well documented in the stories of survivors of the boarding schools in the United States and Canada. Children were beaten and worse for not understanding English, for speaking their languages, for minor infractions of military rule, for running away, even for grieving. Many died of illnesses, many died of abuse, and many died of broken hearts.

It must be remembered also, that at this time, the Indian boarding schools were a cross-cultural experience for children who were taken from their parents and families, who were abruptly thrust into a foreign world, who were harshly punished for not knowing what was expected of them.

Lone Wolf (Blackfoot), tells this story:

"It was very cold that day when we were loaded into the wagons. None of us wanted to go and our parents didn't want to let us go. Oh, we cried for this was the first time we were to be separated from our parents. I remember looking back at Na-tah-ki and she was crying too. Nobody waved as the wagons, escorted by the soldiers, took us toward the school at Fort Shaw. Once there our belongings were taken from us, even the little medicine bags our mothers had given to us to protect us from harm. Everything was placed in a heap and set afire.

"Next was the long hair, the pride of all the Indians. The boys, one by one, would break down and cry when they saw their braids thrown on the floor. All of the buckskin clothes had to go and we had to put on the clothes of the White Man.

"If we thought that the days were bad, the nights were much worse. This was the time when real loneliness set in, for it was when we knew that we were all alone. Many boys ran away from the school because the treatment was so bad but most of them were caught and brought back by the police. We were told never to talk Indian and if we were caught, we got a strapping with a leather belt.

"I remember one evening when we were all lined up in a room and one of the boys said something in Indian to another boy. The man in charge of us pounced on the boy, caught him by the shirt, and threw him across the room. Later we found out that his collar-bone was broken. The boy's father, an old warrior, came to the school. He told the instructor that among his people, children were never punished by striking them. That was no way to teach children; kind words and good examples were much better. Then he added, 'Had I been there when that fellow hit my son, I would have killed him.' Before the instructor could stop the old warrior he took his boy and left. The family then beat it to Canada and never came back." (Nabokov, 1991, p. 220).

Part of the education students received at boarding schools included distorted instruction about who Indian people were. Chippewa student Merta Bercier wrote:

"Did I want to be an Indian? After looking at the pictures of the Indians on the warpath—fighting, scalping women and children, and Oh! such ugly faces. No! Indians are mean people—I'm glad I'm not an Indian, I thought." (Josephy, 1994. p. 434).

Many of those who survived Carlisle came out thoroughly brainwashed, and suffering from what we now call "post-traumatic stress syndrome."

"The point of brainwashing," Paula Gunn Allen (Laguna/Sioux) says,

"is to take away all sense of self, of community, of value, of worth, even of orientation, to be replaced by habits of mind and behavior that the captor finds acceptable. The boys and girls at Carlisle Indian School were trained to be cannon fodder in American wars, to serve as domestics and farm hands, and to leave off all ideas or beliefs that came to them from their Native communities, including and particularly their belief that they were entitled to land, life, liberty, and dignity.

"In a short time, the child comes to love and admire his captor,...a not uncommon adjustment made by those taken hostage; separated by all that is familiar; stripped, shorn, robbed of their very self; renamed.

"By and large the procedure was successful, although the legacy of damaged minds and crippled souls it left in its wake is as yet untold. Psychic numbing, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, battered wife syndrome, suicide, alcoholism, ennui—are there any names for psychecide? A century after..., the great-great grandchildren of decultured Indians struggle to find the world that was ripped away...by a deliberate, planned method euphemistically called education." (Allen, 1994, pp. 111-112).

 

A Brief Digression about Naming

When the administrators at Carlisle took the Indian children's names away, they knew what they were doing in the long, painstaking process of "killing the Indian." In taking away the linguistic Indian name—which had been a source of strength, cultural pride and psychic identity—and making the "new" names very common, written everywhere, used again and again, they in effect erased all spiritual aspects of the children's identities.

Traditionally, Indian children did not have their names spoken often. When someone was referred to, it was usually either by relationship or by a nickname. But the children knew who they were: they belonged to the name, and the name belonged to them, and to no other. Naming and self-naming was a fluid, ongoing process which changed throughout a person's life according to circumstance, personal experience, loss, triumph, foolishness, or social commentary. So a person could have (at least) a birth name, a baby name, several nicknames, a child name, a "young adult" name, an adult name, and an elder name. In addition, there might be a "secret" or ceremonial name, known only by the individual and the holy person who gave that name.

Compare all this, if you will, to the act of "re-naming" at Carlisle, as related by Ota K'te, Plenty Kill, who became known as Luther Standing Bear:

"One day when we came to school there was a lot of writing on the blackboards. We did not know what it meant.... None of the names were read or explained to us, so of course we did not know the sound or meaning of any of them.

"The teacher had a long pointed stick in her hand, and the interpreter told the boy in the front seat to come up. The teacher handed the stick to him, and the interpreter told him to pick out any name he wanted.... When the long stick was handed to him, he turned to us as much to say, 'Shall I—or will you help me—to take one of these names?' He did not know what to do for a time....

"Finally, he pointed out one of the names written on the blackboard. Then the teacher took a piece of white tape and wrote the name on it. Then she cut off a length of the tape and sewed it on the back of the boy's shirt. Then that name was erased from the board.... Soon we all had names of white men sewed on our backs." (Standing Bear, 1928, in Allen, 1994, pp. 116-117)

Once the children's naming in this random way became enforced, they were denied the ability to express their life stories in name, an act of independent, autonomous identity central to Native ways of being in the world. It was a small, but important, step in "killing the Indian."

With this history in mind, let us now turn to the children's book, My Heart Is On the Ground by Ann Rinaldi.

About the Dear America Series and My Heart is on the Ground

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data summary of My Heart Is On the Ground states, "In the diary account of her life at a government-run Pennsylvania boarding school in 1880, a twelve-year-old Sioux Indian girl reveals a great need to find a way to help her people."

In this account, Nannie Little Rose, who refers to herself as "Sioux," describes her life at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where she has been sent to be educated in the English language, and "American" customs and lifeways. Although determined to make her people proud, she finds this new world overwhelming—from its inside buildings and cumbersome dress, to the requirements that she take an English name, submit to having her hair cut, and adapt to a foreign culture. With the arrival of Nannie's friend, Lucy Pretty Eagle, the tenor of the story shifts. Lucy's propensity to lapse into self-induced trances causes her to be buried alive by the white people who mistakenly think she has died; and Nannie, who was not there to save her, suffers from not only grief but overwhelming guilt. But Nannie overcomes all of this, and adapt she does. Resolute in learning all she can in order to share her knowledge with her people, Nannie Little Rose meets every challenge and overcomes every obstacle, finally deciding to become a teacher "to help other blanket Indian children to learn."

All of the books in the "Dear America" series are identical in format. Each book begins with a title page, followed by "the diary." There is an epilogue, telling us what happened to the protagonist and her descendants afterwards. There is a Historical Note and a section of photographs, followed by a section called "About the Author," which gives a biographical sketch and then quotes directly from the author about her research. The fictional aspect is played down, with the dedication, acknowledgments, and CIP pages in the back.

The authors of the books are not identified on the book covers or on the spine. Each cover carries the "Dear America" logo, a small image of the protagonist, the book title, and a place/time note that indicates setting. Each book looks like a genuine diary. The books are attractive to look at and comfortable to hold. Special features include a sewn-in satin ribbon bookmark and cream-colored pages cut with a deckled edge that give them the look of quality diaries.

The portrait of the child on the cover of My Heart Is On the Ground, originally entitled "Cree Indian Girl, Little Star," is listed on the permissions page as "Indian Girl, Little Star." It was done by James Bama, a painter of romantic western and Indian subjects. The child in the portrait has her long hair parted and loose. She is wearing a headband, with two eagle feathers hanging straight down near her left temple. Her head is tilted forward, and her eyes are lowered. Behind her portrait is an underlay of an 1892 photograph of the Carlisle students, their hair cut short, in front of the school.

Discussions with child readers, teachers, and librarians reveal initial confusion about the fictive nature of this series. The epilogue, especially, continues to confound both professionals and young readers. Are these real diaries? Are these fictional diaries of real people? Are the epilogues, at least, real? Given the format of this series, it's hard to tell, unless one is an expert, a detective, or just naturally suspicious.

"Launched in September 1996, and with over 5 million books in print," according to Scholastic, "Dear America has become one of the most popular book series in America, charting regularly in the Top 5 on Publisher Weekly bestseller lists." The "Dear America" series clearly has mass appeal, and Scholastic aggressively markets these books to nine- to twelve-year-old girls. Marketing strategies and tie-ins include the "Dear America Desk Collection," a "new line of desk accessories for fans of the best-selling book series," and a series of six hour-long "Dear America" movies on HBO.

The "Dear America" website, also playing down the fact that this series is fiction, states:

"Dear America invites you into the personal experience of girls from different times in American History. The books and television show are inspired by real letters and diaries from girls who lived in extraordinary circumstances. You will experience firsthand what it was like to grow up and live in another time and place."

and

"Open Their Diaries.... Make History Your Own! Today's most distinguished authors lend their voices and talents to these moving narratives— presented in an intimate diary format—with each book extensively researched and inspired by real letters and diaries of the time."

My Heart Is On the Ground is described simply as, "A Sioux girl is sent to the Carlisle Indian School to help save her people."

The "Dear America" series continues to receive overwhelming critical acclaim. The Chicago Tribune notes that the "Dear America diaries represent the best of historical fiction for any age," and School Library Journal cites the books as "engaging and accessible."

Like the series, My Heart Is On the Ground has received extremely favorable reviews. School Library Journal says, "Rinaldi depicts widely divergent cultures with clarity and compassion.... The period, the setting, and Nannie herself all come to life. An excellent addition to a popular series."

And Booklist states,

"The entries are a poignant mix of past and present—Nannie's life with her family, encounters with other students, the horrific death of a friend, the efforts of both well-meaning and misguided adults. They burst with details of about culture and custom, adding wonderful texture to this thought-provoking book, which raises numerous questions as it depicts the frustration, the joy, and the confusion of one of yesterday's children growing up in two cultures."

 

The Review

"There I found the Indian burial ground, with dozens of white headstones bearing the names of the Native American children from all tribes who died while at the school. The names, with the tribes inscribed underneath, were so lyrical that they leapt out at me and took on instant personalities. Although many of these children attended Carlisle at dates later than that of my story, I used some of their names for classmates of Nannie Little Rose." (p. 195)

"Like Lucy Pretty Eagle, not all the children in the book were at Carlisle that first year. But like Lucy Pretty Eagle, their personalities came through to me with such force and inspiration, I had to use them. I am sure that in whatever Happy Hunting Ground they now reside, they will forgive this artistic license, and even smile upon it." (p. 196)

Individuals in the field of children's literature may dismiss our concerns and ask, "But is it a good book?" We think not. From a literary perspective, it lacks consistency and logic. As a work of historical fiction, it is rife with glaring factual errors. As a work of "multicultural" literature, it lacks authenticity.

 

Appropriation

Appropriation of our lives and literatures is nothing new. Our bodies and bones continue to be displayed in museums all over the U.S. and Canada. For the last hundred years, many of our traditional stories have been turned into books for children without permission and with little if any respect given to their origins or sacred content. Now, Rinaldi has taken this appropriation of Native lives and stories one step further. That she would take the names of real Native children from gravestones and make up experiences to go with them is the coldest kind of appropriation. These were children who died lonely and alone, without their parents to comfort them. They were buried without proper ceremony in this lonely and sad place. Native people who visit the cemetery today express a profound sense of sadness.

Rinaldi chose to name this book by appropriating a Cheyenne proverb that goes, "A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is done, no matter how brave its warriors nor how strong their weapons." In its original form, this statement is about the strength and courage of Indian women. In its original form, the phrase suggests total defeat, the conquering of a nation, the death of a way of life. Throughout this book, the child protagonist, Nannie Little Rose, uses the phrase "my heart is on the ground" whenever she happens to feel sad or upset. This is a trivialization of the belief system of a people.

 

Lack of Historical Accuracy

A basic criterion of historical fiction is that facts about people who actually lived and events that actually happened must be accurate, or, at least, any deviations clearly spelled out. This is especially important in books for young readers. Factual errors abound here; they are on nearly every page.

There was no such person as "Chief Sitting Bull of Cheyenne nation." (p. 14) His name was Tatanka Iotanka, whom the whites called Sitting Bull. He was a spiritual leader, not a chief; and he was Hunkpapa Lakota, not Cheyenne.

American Horse was not a "chief of the Red Cloud Sioux." (p. 20) He was a cousin to Red Cloud.

Spotted Tail did not take his band west to "be free." (p. 12) He left Whetstone Agency to get away from the alcohol that ran heavily there.

The Cheyenne and Oglala "Sioux" were not the only ones to fight Custer. (p. 50) Hunkpapa and Arapaho were also part of the battle.

The whites did not "give" the Lakota the Black Hills in a treaty (p. 12); by treaty, the people were able to retain a portion of what had been theirs for millennia. They are still fighting to keep it.

In a diary entry, composed only six months after her arrival at Carlisle, Nannie Little Rose writes in perfect English, but transcribes Red Cloud's speech into her diary, using stilted language instead of Red Cloud's own flowing and eloquent words (pp. 103-104).

Spotted Tail sent his sons to Carlisle because he knew it was going to be important for them to learn to speak, read and write English. He did not instruct his daughter, Red Road, to recruit children or to convince them to go. Yet in this book Red Road says, "You must learn the white people's ways. To help our people. You will see great trees with red apples. You will ride on the iron horse. You will wear a school dress." (p. 27) As Hyde (1979) notes:

"[B]efore he openly supported the plan and offered his sons as pupils, [he] stipulated that his daughter Red Road and her husband Charles Tackett should go with the children...and be paid a salary to act as their guardians.... [He] had the mentality to realize that these children, in faraway Pennsylvania, would be terribly frightened and unhappy if some adults of their own tribe were not there to protect and advise them." (p. 278)

When Spotted Tail visited Carlisle in 1880 and found his children, unhappy, in military uniform, drilling with rifles, he insisted that they return with him to Rosebud. In Rinaldi's rendition of this episode, Nannie writes: "We all knew Max and his three brothers did not wish to go, not even Paul. There was much screaming and crying. Red Road tried to calm her little brothers. Spotted Tail made them take off their citizens' clothing and put on their blanket clothing. He had to drag Max into the wagon." (p. 121) But according to historical accounts, the scene was just the opposite:

"Spotted Tail [talked] in private with his sons and the other boys from Rosebud and found that most of them were miserable and homesick.... None of them had learned English or to read or write." (p. 290) "[He] took all his children, apparently four sons, a grandson, a granddaughter, and another small boy he claimed as a close relative. He carried them off under guard of Sioux chiefs and headmen, daring Pratt to try and stop him. Pratt was too overwhelmed to attempt that. He had to guard the rest of his school, as there were indications that a general stampede for the train might take place. As it was, some of the heartbroken children who were being left at the school managed to steal away and hide themselves on the train.... At Harrisburg the train was searched again and a little Oglala girl (Red Dog's granddaughter) was found and dragged screaming back to captivity." (Hyde, 1979, pp. 292-293)

Rinaldi paints Pratt as a model of sweet reason, kind to the children, counseling them, talking with them about their futures: "Mr. Captain Pratt has been having private talks with every student in our class. He is making sure we are doing the right lessons for what we want to become." (p. 167) Again, written accounts paint a different picture:

"It seems curious that church people, humanitarians, and idealists should fall so much in love with Pratt. He was a quite ordinary army officer who had developed a marked ability for knocking the spirit out of the Indians and turning them into docile students who would obey all orders. Pratt was a domineering man who knew only one method for dealing with anyone who opposed his will. He bullied them into submission." (Hyde, 1979, p. 289)

All of the references to loaning money or having access to money are inaccurate. (p. 122) Money was not available to the children, no matter how much they had earned. It would have been highly unlikely for Nannie to have given her brother money without the approval of the administration.

Contrary to Rinaldi's statement in the historical note that "most of the graduates were able to earn a living away from the reservation," and "others went on to higher education," evidence points to the opposite. Earning a living "away from the reservation" meant going into Indian service and working on a reservation or agency— or in one of the dozens of off-reservation boarding schools modeled after Carlisle. And very few children graduated. Of the total population of 10,000, only 758 students—or fewer than 10%—graduated. More students ran away than graduated—1,758 runaways are documented.

Lack of Cultural Authenticity

The events in My Heart Is On the Ground are not plausible. In 1880, a Lakota child of the protagonist's age would have been well-educated by her aunties and grandmothers in Lakota tradition and lore, and ways of seeing the world and behaving in right relation to it. She would probably have had younger children to care for, as well as older sisters in her extended family, her tiospaye, to emulate.

A Lakota child in 1880 would not have referred to herself as "Sioux." (beginning at p. 6) It is a French corruption of an enemy-name used by the Ojibwe. She would have referred to herself by her band (Sicangu) or location (Spotted Tail Agency) or from a much smaller familial group, her tiospaye. And she would certainly not have referred to Indian men as "braves."

A Lakota child would not have been misinformed about her own people: "I come from a place called Dakota. My people belong to the Great Plains tribe." (p. 12) Nor would she have voiced stereotypes such as "Our men are very brave and honorable. Our women are noble." (p. 12) Nor would a Lakota child have used phrases such as "our men" and "our women"; she would probably have referred to people by their relationships, e.g., "our mothers" or "our grandfathers." Nor would she have used the French word "travois"—she would have used the Lakota word, or its English equivalent, pony-drag (p. 33).

If this Lakota child had in fact been given a diary (which is highly unlikely at Carlisle in 1880), she would probably have been much more circumspect in her writing, because she would have known that words have power, even written words. And she would have known that she could be severely punished for speaking her thoughts.

She would probably not have written about the wholesale slaughter of the buffalo, broken treaties, land theft, and "ann-u-itees" (p. 5 and throughout), nor would she have written disparagingly about the white people—including the teachers who would read this diary —who held the power of life and death over the children.

And a Lakota child certainly would not indict her own people for the theft of the land—"our chiefs have made large mistake in giving over our lands." (p. 5 and throughout)

Children who knew some English were used at Carlisle and other boarding schools to help control the other children. The respect they were taught at home for their elders was used against them in boarding school. They were not taught to be simple interpreters, or "Friends-To-Go-Between-Us" (p. 3 and throughout)—they were taught to be informants, and used as such.

Children were severely punished for speaking their own languages. They were beaten, confined, forced to eat lye soap, and worse. Although they often would speak their own languages in secret, perhaps whispering after lights-out, they would not have engaged in such risky behavior in the dining room or in front of Pratt. (p. 69)

Children might certainly have made fun of their teachers in secret, giving them names like "Miss Chipmunk," but again, they would not write negatively about white adults (in a place where there was no privacy of any kind), "She is bad to the eye. Fat and ugly." (p. 13)

On page 7, Nannie says, "The white people are very powerful. They know almost everything on the earth's surface and in the heavens also. So much to learn!" Here, the young reader is set up to believe that Lakota people had/have no scientific knowledge, no education system. By the age of 12, Nannie would have been educated by her elders in Lakota history, ways of the Earth, Stars, Thunders, Spirits, and healing plants. Although the wisdom of these things was passed down through the oral tradition, it does not diminish the wisdom of the people. To assume that, one week after arriving at Carlisle, Nannie would have negated all of her traditional teachings is unbelievable.

After a week at Carlisle, Nannie says, "I think Missus Camp Bell (a teacher) would make a good Sioux woman." (p. 11) Does "Missus Camp Bell" know about traditional ways of being? How could she know how to care for a traditional Lakota family if she is not connected to the culture? Could she do quillwork, find food, skin animals, cure skins, prepare meat, make traditional clothing?

Lakota children were taught to be deferential, cooperative, and respectful to their elders. A Lakota child would not have written about her mother, "My mother is jealous of Red Road because she is so young and pretty." (p. 11) Most plural marriages included sisters or cousins so that there was harmony in the family. Young girls learned quillwork from their mothers or aunties. Nannie would not have gone to Red Road's tipi to learn quillwork.

On page 4, Nannie says, "I have been on no battles or hunts. Of what worth am I, a girl of twelve winters?" A young Lakota girl feeling worthless? One of the seven sacred ceremonies involves a girl's passage. At 12, she would have certainly known her importance to her own family and community as both a cherished child (wakanyela, sacred being) and a new young woman.

Brothers and sisters have a special bond in Lakota society that was even more pronounced in this time period. They were taught to honor each other above all others, including spouses. That way, if there was a divorce, they could turn to their siblings for help. Given this bond, a Lakota girl would not criticize her brother this way: "He much time acts like a fool.... On the way here he made much trouble.... Whiteshield is always trouble" (pp. 9-10).

Moreover, Nannie would not have been shamed by her brother's doing a war dance in the yard: "You are no warrior.... A warrior does not shame his people." (p. 39) More than likely, she would have supported everything he did because he was being extremely brave in rebelling.

Nannie would not have considered her brother "spoiled" for having been honored for counting coup on a dead enemy at age 12. "Spoiled" is not a Lakota concept; the honoring of children is; and counting coup is counting coup, whether the enemy is dead or alive.

And, of course, Whiteshield would not have referred to his sister, or any girl, in a derogatory way, such as: "Only a stupid girl would say such a thing." (p. 39)

When Whiteshield, in an act of open rebellion, does a war dance, this is how Nannie describes it: "There was a strange figure carrying a torch and doing a dance. He was wearing only a breechclout and moccasins. In his belt he had a knife. Around and around he danced while he chanted a war song." (p. 37) This "strange figure" is her brother. He would be known to her and not be considered strange. If he were dancing a particular dance, she would name it and understand its significance. If he were singing, she would know the words and what the words meant. If all of their traditional clothing had been taken to be sold or destroyed as was the case at Carlisle, where did he get a breechcloth and moccasins? And where did he get a knife?

"He hates baths," Nannie says of her brother (p. 16). Traditionally, Indian people bathed every day. This has been documented. Whiteshield may have disliked bathing at the school, in tubs, which would have been far less sanitary than bathing in a lake or stream; but this suggests that Indians didn't like bathing when in fact they bathed much more regularly than the newcomers.

However, the rebellious Whiteshield finally does a brave deed, according to Nannie: He catches, and brings to the guardhouse, a "tramp" who crawled over the school wall, entered the grounds, and stole some wood (p. 82). For children who are raised to be generous above all things, it is highly unlikely that they would participate in capturing a poor homeless person. And, in any event, it would certainly not be seen as an act of bravery.

Nannie's father would not have asked her to do an act that would have been her brother's responsibility: "Then he says I must study and work and obey, and do one act of bravery.... I must bring him honor with this act. I ask him if he would also ask one act of bravery from my brother.... [H]e shakes his head and says...my brother is older, but I am wiser." (p. 30) It just would not have happened that way. Men and women have different roles in Lakota society; they are not subordinate, they are just different.

Nor would her father have ever suggested that she take on a vision quest (p. 30). This was and is a male activity. Women experience moontime (menstruation) and special ceremonies and practices to acknowledge them.

On page 31, Nannie says, "My grandmother...has powerful medicine. She has visions. She tells them to the shaman, our holy man, who explains it to our people." (p. 31) If a child's grandmother indeed had visions, she might or might not share them with a spiritual leader. But visions are a private thing; they wouldn't be "explained" to anyone. And "shaman" is not an Indian term.

Nannie would not have said, written, or thought: "I think sometimes that Pretty Eagle is going to be a shaman, even though she is a girl." (p. 33) Pretty Eagle is a child, and only post-menopausal women can attain the status of spiritual leader.

Later, Rinaldi has Nannie's grandma teaching Pretty Eagle to go into trances, which she practices, and sending her on a vision quest, where her "spirit helper" tells her to come to Carlisle and "show the children it is not wrong to be here..." (pp. 75-76). This passage suggests a Native spiritual affirmation of the mistreatment of Indian children at Carlisle.

On page 40, Nannie says, "We learned about the Devil in Sunday school. I think he is like some of our medicine men. He can change his shape if he wishes." (p. 40) To compare a respected and loved spiritual leader to the foreign Christian concept of "devil" is not something a Lakota child, steeped in Lakota cosmology, would do. More likely, she would compare the "devil" to an evil spirit.

On page 32, Nannie's mother asks, "What will you learn? To be more silly than you are?" Lakota children were, and are, treated with more respect than that. The Lakota did not/do not talk down to their children.

On page 33, Nannie says to Pretty Eagle, "We will gather all the wildflowers on the plains and put them in front of every tipi." This is not something that Lakota children would do. This would be considered wasteful and overlays a European perspective on Lakota daily life.

On page 58, Nannie is fasting "to find her spirit helper," something she, as a young woman, would not have done. When the doctor orders her to eat, she does, with gusto, then feels guilty: "I had two pieces [of chocolate cake]. How can I ever be pure enough to find my spirit helper when I love choc-o-late cake so?" This reflects an overlay of European-style guilt upon Lakota belief and ritual. Lakota children would have preferred a big bowl of soup, some fry bread and, for "dessert," a bowl of wojapi instead of chocolate.

Nannie Little Rose describes Sun Dance, the most sacred ceremony of the Lakota people, this way: "Part of me is missing. I feel like a young warrior in our Sun Dance, who has had the skin near his breasts cut and sticks put in the openings. The sticks are fastened to two ropes and I am left hanging, to show my bravery." (p. 29) This is an exoticized description that reflects a lack of understanding of Sun Dance, which is a thank-offering for the good of the community. In Sun Dance,

"participants offer Wakantanka the greatest gift they have, their flesh and blood.... The dancers move in a circle around and around and around. The circle represents our universe.... As the participants dance, they pray hard for their personal prayers and the prayers of the entire Lakota nation. Family members and friends stay nearby to offer their support and send their own prayers to Wakantanka." (Rose, 1999, pp. 34-35)

Moreover, a Lakota child in 1880 would not likely think about talking to strangers about (or writing about) Sun Dance in any way, nor would she obsess over it or dream about it (pp. 123, 127, 131).

And a young woman in art class would not be drawing pictures of Sun Dance, as Red Road does (p. 60). She just wouldn't.

Later in the diary (p. 44), Nannie Little Rose says, "Today we buried Horace Watchful Fox. The ground was hard and cold. I know some of the boys and girls wanted to tear their garments, cut their hair, cover themselves with mud, and slash at their arms because the Death Angel took Horace. But we were made to stand in citizens' clothing, clean and quiet." This is more a description of Rinaldi's fantasy than it is of a Lakota grieving ceremony. Moreover, it is unlikely that children of other nations would participate in a Lakota ritual, nor would children of that time period have engaged in the same kind of grieving ceremony as adults.

And Indian children would not be gathering evergreen and berries to make funeral wreaths (p. 43) unless they had been forced to by school officials.

The passage where Nannie describes her father shows a lack of understanding of the clothing traditional people wore: "He is wearing his chief's garments. A shirt with fringe and beaded bands on the shoulders and sleeves. Also his chief's leggings with beads, his bear claw necklace, and his braids are wrapped in otter tails. On his head is a stick headdress. I know he wears it to show the white people who we are. But no other men on the reservation wear their chief's clothing. I think my father wishes to be what he once was, maybe so." (pp. 29-30) Tribal leaders did not dress in headdress and regalia every day and every moment. And none of us can even guess as to what a "stick headdress" might be.

A Lakota child would not have been able to give away the possessions of a friend who has just died (p. 147). At home, it would have been the parents' responsibility; and here, at Carlisle, everything would have been taken away from the children anyway.

The characterization of Belle Rain Water is also confusing. Hopi children were, and are, taught to be quiet, respectful people. Hopi children in the foreign culture of a boarding school would be even more likely to keep to themselves or to try to seek out their relatives, rather than openly engage in conversation, not to mention arguments, with people outside their culture. For a Hopi child to be so belligerent and aggressive just does not fit with how her society would have raised her.

Later, Belle Rain Water, in apology, gives Nannie a prayer stick. A Hopi child would not have given a "prayer stick" to a Lakota child. (p. 145) First of all, sacred objects like these were/are not things children have or share, especially intertribally. Second (see above comment), all the children's things were taken away from them; they were not permitted to own anything of a cultural/spiritual nature. And finally, where would Belle Rain Water have gotten an eagle feather?

Wealth is not, and never has been, measured by the number of poles in a tipi! (p. 41) Wealth was measured by how much one gave away, not by how much one collected.

Among the Plains peoples, kinnikinnic ("kin-ni-kin-nic") is not tobacco. It is willowbark shavings often mixed with tobacco (p. 15).

Lakota people did not grow corn and wheat in 1880 (p. 62).

Stereotypes

A basic criterion of good children's literature is that it be free of stereotypes, but stereotypes abound in children's books about American Indian peoples. They are usually found in descriptive passages about Native characters. A few authors like Rinaldi take this one step further, by placing stereotypical language and images in an Indian child protagonist's own words.

Stereotypical Language

Throughout, Rinaldi uses stereotyped language to express Lakota (or "Indian") speech and thought patterns. These include over-emphasis on compound words (e.g., "Friend-To-Go-Between-Us," "Time-That-Was-Before," "night-middle-made") to "sound Indian," when there is no basis for such use. For instance, Rinaldi makes up the term "Friend-To-Go-Between-Us" as Nannie's word for "interpreter." Yet there is a Lakota word for "interpreter": iyeska, literally, one who speaks well. The original term meant "translator," since most translators at the time were the mixed-blood children of Indian women and white traders. Hanco'kan is the Lakota word for midnight.

Rinaldi also uses romantic-sounding metaphors throughout the book: "[T]he path between my mother and me is filled with rocks" (p. 27), "The council fire burns bright" (p. 21), [H]is spring is poisoned with anger" (p. 49), and, of course, the ever-present "My heart is on the ground." A favorite among us is this multi-metaphor: "And her words are not empty gourds, with nothing inside to quench our need, but full of meaning, from which I drink hope." (p. 29)

Throughout, Nannie romantically obsesses over the concepts "bravery," "honor," and "nobleness." Nannie also repeatedly uses the term "blanket Indians" as descriptive, rather than as a derogatory term used by whites at the time, to refer to traditional people.

As well, Nannie Little Rose speaks and writes in the stilted speech pattern we call "early jawbreaker" at the beginning of the book ("My teacher, Missus Camp Bell, say I must write in this book each day. She calls it die-eerie. It is the white man's talking leaves. But they talk not yet.... Teacher tells it that I know some English, that she is much proud of me, but wants be more proud."). (p. 3) Yet, in only ten months, Nannie is speaking and writing perfect, if not eloquent English, except for when she "lapses" back into "Indian" thought-patterns.

Stereotypical Nobility

Throughout, Nannie "explains" Lakota belief and ritual to the child reader, a transparent literary device we find annoying. As well, these "beliefs" are wrong. Besides the Sun Dance and mourning ritual, discussed above, there are many examples of this.

"With my people we believe that all things have a spirit. A war club has a spirit. A prairie dog has two spirits." (p. 81) This is a gross oversimplification of the belief that everything has life and purpose.

"In order to be brave I must have a spirit helper." (pp. 30-31) This obsession with bravery and "spirit helpers" runs throughout the book, and, again, is a gross oversimplification of the value of courage.

Nannie is obsessed with doing "a brave deed to bring honor to my people." This is practically the only thing she thinks about. At the end of the book, young readers are left to believe that her "brave deed" is to play the part of a pilgrim in the school's Thanksgiving play. In the scene which is supposed to show her victory, this little girl has successfully made the transition from Indian to white— she has become a clear victim of colonialism.

Stereotypical Treatment of Girls and Women

 

Derogatory references to girls and women abound in this book. Besides coming from Nannie herself (e.g., "Of what worth am I, a girl of twelve winters?"—p. 4), most of these references are mouthed by her brother, Charles Whiteshield ("only a stupid girl would say such a thing—p. 39, "women's dreams are worth nothing" —p. 67, "he says I am not a warrior, just a girl"— p. 105). This is not, and never has been, a Lakota way of expression; and is the opposite of honored brother-sister relationships (see above).

As well, traditional Lakota girls and women were not obsessed with appearance. That is not meant to say that they did not dress well. But concepts such as "fat and ugly" (p. 13) and "young and pretty" (p. 11) are not Lakota concepts.

Long hair had, and has, great significance for Lakota people. Traditionally, hair was/is cut only at a time of mourning. At Carlisle, children's braids were lopped off to frighten and subdue them, to "cut them off" from their people. When Pretty Eagle gets her hair cut, Nannie says, "Pretty Eagle is very frightened. I held her hand while they cut her hair. When it was cropped short, Pretty Eagle shook her head and only she laughed. "It feels so light," she said. "I think I will like it." (p. 71) This is not how Lakota children experienced this awful first assault. Often, they screamed and cried, and would be beaten for it.

In describing the practice of Lakota courtship, Nannie says, "If I came of age to wed before our ways were done, the man, he puts on his best robe and walk by our tipi. Then he come closer and grab of me. I would struggle, but he would win. If I like him I bring him water and ask him to come another time...." (pp. 5-6) This description is a mixture of TV-caveman ritual and fantasy. In any event, it is nothing like traditional Lakota courtship. By the age of 12, Nannie would probably have received traditional womanhood instruction from her elders in addition to having witnessed the courting process (and perhaps giggled about it many times with her girlfriends).

A Brief Digression about Lucy Pretty Eagle and Colonialism

We don't know very much about Lucy Pretty Eagle. We know that her Lakota name was Take the Tail, that she was the daughter of Pretty Eagle, that she came to Carlisle from the Rosebud Agency at age ten on March 9, 1884, and that she died four months later. Hers is the first gravestone in the Carlisle cemetery.

According to the author's note, "Some research indicates that Lucy may not have been dead when she was buried. She could have been in a self-induced trance, to try to appeal to spiritual powers for any number of reasons." (p. 180) So Rinaldi has taken a well-known ghost story that has been circulating around Carlisle for several decades, embellished it further with her own interpretation of Lakota cosmology, and crafted a children's book around this "event."

Whether Rinaldi did this unconsciously or not, an Indian girl being buried alive is a gruesome metaphor for colonization and the spiritual, cultural and psychic suffocation and trauma Indian children suffered at Carlisle and other boarding schools.

But this is much more than a metaphor: Nannie Little Rose, Lucy's friend, knew about the trance-like states and blames herself for not being able to tell the white people in charge that Lucy wasn't really dead. Here we have Indian children responsible for the death of Indian children— after all, the white people had just made an "honest mistake." And the story, crafted this way, allows both Rinaldi and the non-Native reader to avoid the issues and erase the real reasons that many, many children died at the boarding schools: malnutrition, tuberculosis, pneumonia, smallpox, physical abuse (including sexual abuse), and—no less importantly—broken hearts and spirits, and loneliness.

Moreover, the "trance-mistaken-for-death" scenario that Rinaldi uses here again perpetuates the stereotype that Indians died or were decimated because they were Indians: unable to adapt, unwilling to change, and— worst of all—physically and emotionally different from white people. A possible translation of this scene: Lucy is killed, not by the tragic boarding school experience, not by the loss of parents and homeland, not by inadequate diet or disease—but by her own "Indianness." In other words, Indian people have only themselves to blame for their own demise. They just couldn't become civilized—it was inherently, genetically impossible.

It is entirely possible that Rinaldi may not even be conscious of what she's done. Such stereotypical colonialist attitudes as expressed in this book may be so embedded in the American psyche that we often miss it even at its most blatant. We call this to the non-Native reader's attention because it is easy to miss otherwise, this attitude that colonization is "meant to be" or "inevitable." It is neither.

A Brief Digression about Perspective

 

In many ways, My Heart Is On the Ground reflects what can go wrong when a non-Native author writes about Native cultures. One of the more controversial questions in literature is who should be writing books that include characters or themes related to members of a particular ethnic, racial, or religious group. Those who prefer that such books be written from within communities perhaps justifiably fear exploitation, misrepresentation, or having their voices pre-empted. However, some non-Indians have written quality books about Native peoples, histories, and cultures, so it won't be argued here that only Native authors can write Native-themed stories.

While many fine books are written by authors outside of a community who do their homework, the voice of an insider still offers a unique perspective that is in many ways a rare gift to young readers. We sometimes see stories from those who have married Native people, borne Native children, been adopted into Native families, or known Native people who called them "friend." Even more directly, we sometimes see stories by Native people, stories that have been passed down or reshaped to reflect family and personal histories.

Indeed, books written by Native authors do not usually contain conventions that are typically used to signal the book as being about a Native character. For example, characters in books written by Native authors don't speak in guttural English. They don't act like savages and they don't seem like mystical creatures. Rather, they are often eloquent speakers. But this eloquence may not fit the non-Native reader's (or publisher's) expectations of how Natives speak, so they may reject the book as not being "authentic enough."

But on more subtle grounds, Indian writers have to do their research as well. A story from one's great uncle may actually be more authentic than anything written by someone with a Ph.D. in anthropology. A childhood experience may lend itself to a scene, even a whole story. Not everything crafted by Native writers will necessarily present the most popular or desirable or comfortable picture, even within their communities, certainly to the mainstream. Although each story will have the individual storyteller's own vision and voice, they are all taking care to fulfill their responsibility.

An outside researcher, however careful, who goes on to write a story based entirely on written words—especially the words of another outsider—rather than experiences may craft a book that few would hesitate to share with children. However, these authors may unknowingly mimic misconceptions or stereotypes inherent in the research material, and still others may "whitewash" history to make the non-Native audience more comfortable with issues like stolen land and forced assimilation.

Indian voices are grossly underrepresented in books with Native characters and themes. It is common that African-American literature classes or book lists feature a number of books by African-American authors and illustrators. It is common that Asian-American and Latino literature classes and book lists feature a number of books by Asian Americans and Latinos. It is also common that Native-American literature classes and book lists often fail to feature a single title by any person with any sort of tie to a Native community. The proportional disparity is staggering. A child could read literally hundreds of books with Native characters and not one by anyone who had ever so much as shaken hands with a real live Indian.

Final Comments

 

Despite all the documented horrors of the "noble experiment" that was Carlisle, My Heart Is On the Ground casts the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in a positive light as though it were a good thing. Rinaldi even says in her author's notes, "Those first Sioux children who came to Carlisle could not have been happy there. But it was their only chance for a future." (p. 177)

The legacy of Carlisle and the other Indian boarding schools—this "future"—is a legacy of hopelessness and despair, of alcoholism and other substance abuse, suicide, dysfunctional parenting; an open, gaping century-long wound that will take many more years for the Indian communities all over the U.S. and Canada to heal.

Yet, the only "bad" characters in this book are Indian people —Belle Rain Water, a jealous, spiteful Hopi child, who eventually comes around to seeing the error of her ways; Charles Whiteshield (Nannie's brother), a "renegade" who "acts like a fool" and makes "much trouble," and whose behavior "shames" Nannie, until he eventually comes around to seeing the error of his ways; Goodbird (Nannie's mother), who is jealous and spiteful; White Thunder (Nannie's father), who ignorantly tries to maintain the old ways; and Spotted Tail, who takes his children back, even though they don't want to go home.

Nowhere in this book is to be found the screaming children, thrown onto horse-drawn wagons, being taken away from their homes. Nowhere is to be found the desperately lonely children, heartbroken, sobbing into the night. Nowhere is to be found the terrified children, stripped naked and beaten, for trying to communicate with each other and not understanding what was expected of them. Nowhere is to be found the unrelenting daily humiliation, in word and deed, from the teachers, matrons and staff. Nowhere is to be found the desperate runaways, lost, frozen in the snow. Nowhere to be found is the spirit of resistance. Nowhere.

Resistance among the Indian students was deep, subtle, long-lasting and valiantly carried on for as long as boarding schools existed. Besides running away, this resistance took many forms—physical, spiritual, intellectual. Children destroyed property and set fires. They refused to speak English. They subverted teachers' and matrons' orders whenever they could. But except for Charles Whiteshield's "war dance," which is presented as a shameful thing, that resistance—and the courage it represents—receives no attention in this book. As in Francis LaFlesche's The Middle Five and Basil H. Johnston's Indian School Days, an Indian author would have made this resistance a central part of such as story.

To those who would argue that "it is possible" that a Native child might have had Nannie Little Rose's experiences, the overwhelming body of evidence—written and oral—suggests otherwise. The premise of this book—that a Native child would come in and, within a period of ten months, move from someone who reads and writes limited English and has a totally Indian world view to someone who is totally fluent in a language that is foreign to her and totally assimilated to a foreign culture—and be better for the experience—is highly unlikely. Brainwashing did not come readily. Brainwashing took time.

Given the marketing and distribution forces behind My Heart Is On the Ground, we know that it will probably be more widely read than any other book about the boarding school experience. The book adds to the great body of misinformation about Native life and struggle in the United States and Canada. This one book epitomizes the utter lack of sensitivity and respect that has come to characterize the vast majority of children's books about Native Americans. Non-Native readers of My Heart Is On the Ground will continue to be validated in whatever feelings of superiority they may have; Native children will continue to be humiliated.

Rinaldi goes on to say in the author's note that "I am sure that in whatever Happy Hunting Ground they now reside, they will forgive this artistic license, and even smile upon it." (p. 196) This is the epitome of white fantasy: that Indian people will forgive and even smile upon white people, no matter the atrocities—past and present.

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References

Paula Gunn Allen (Laguna/Sioux), editor, Voice of the Turtle: American Indian Literature 1900-1970. Random House, 1994.

Bell, Genevieve, Telling Stories Out of School: Remembering the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879-1918. PhD Thesis, Stanford University, 1998.

Brenda J. Child (Ojibwe), Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940. University of Nebraska, 1998.

George E. Hyde, Spotted Tail's Folk: A History of the Brulè Sioux. University of Oklahoma, 1979.

Basil H. Johnston (Ojibwe), Indian School Days. University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.

Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., 500 Nations. Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

Francis LaFlesche (Omaha), The Middle Five: Indian Schoolboys of the Omaha Tribe. University of Nebraska Press, (1900), 1978.

Peter Nabokov, Native American Testimony. Viking 1978, revised 1991.

LaVera Rose (Lakota), Grandchildren of the Lakota. Lerner, 1999.

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For additional comments about Ann Rinaldi's My Heart is on the Ground, see the accompanying essay “Literary License” or “Mutated Plagiarism”?

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The contributors
Marlene Atleo (Nuu-chah-nulth), is a mother and grandmother, adult educator and doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia investigating transformational learning strategies in First Nations narratives.

Naomi Caldwell (Ramapough), is a mother, doctoral candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, and past president of the American Indian Library Association.

Barbara Landis is a mother, and the Carlisle Indian School Research Specialist for the Cumberland County Historical Society in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Jean Mendoza is a mother and doctoral student in early childhood education at the University of Illinois. She has been teaching children for more than 20 years.

Deborah Miranda (Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen/Chumash) is a poet, mother, and doctoral candidate in English at the University of Washington. Her article, "A String of Textbooks: Artifacts of Composition Pedagogy in Indian Boarding Schools" is forthcoming in Journal of Teaching Writing.

Debbie Reese (Nambè), is a mother and doctoral student at the University of Illinois studying representations of Native Americans in children's literature. She is a regular reviewer for Horn Book, and her articles include "Look Mom, It's George and He's a TV Indian!" and "Teaching Young Children about Native Americans."

LaVera Rose (Lakota), is a mother and grandmother, an archivist at the South Dakota State Historical Society, and author of Grandchildren of the Lakota and Meet the Lakota People/Oyate Kin.

Beverly Slapin is a mother, co-founder and executive director of Oyate, co-editor, with Doris Seale (Santee/Cree), of Through Indian Eyes: The Native Experience in Books for Children and co-author of How to Tell the Difference: A Guide to Evaluating Children's Books for Anti-Indian Bias.

Cynthia Smith (Creek) is a reviewer of Native-themed children's books.

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“Literary License” or “Mutated Plagiarism”?

Additional Comments about Ann Rinaldi’s My Heart is on the Ground

Without attribution or acknowledgment, Ann Rinaldi has lifted phrases, ideas, and entire passages from several books, and used them in My Heart Is On the Ground. (Scholastic, 1999). This may or may not be legal, but it is certainly not moral. We want people to be aware of what Ann Rinaldi has done.

The books include the following:

Francis La Flesche (Omaha), The Middle Five: Indian Schoolboys of the Omaha Tribe. ©1900 by 

Francis La Flesche. Lincoln: University of Nebraska (1978)

Luther Standing Bear (Lakota), My People the Sioux. ©1928 by Luther Standing Bear. Lincoln: University of Nebraska (1975)

Zitkala-Sa (Dakota), American Indian Stories. ©1921 by Gertrude Bonin. Lincoln: University of Nebraska (1985)

Here are three pairs of writing, two each of the same event. The first of each pair is an event taken from an Indian person’s published autobiography. The second part is a rewrite of that event, using the voice of a fictional protagonist, a 12-year-old Lakota child, and written by Ann Rinaldi, a non-Indian author.

Some questions to think about: How were the passages changed to fit into this fictional voice? What are the effects of these changes? How have the ethics, principles and behaviors of the original writers been changed in the rewritten passages? And finally, is this “literary license” or “mutated plagiarism”?

 

pair 1

“It did not occur to me at that time that I was going away to learn the ways of the white man. My idea was that I was leaving the reservation and going to stay away long enough to do some brave deed, and then come home again alive. If I could just do that, then I knew my father would be so proud of me.” (My People the Sioux, p. 128)

“Then he says I must study and work and obey, and do one act of bravery. Then come home and tell him about it. I must bring him honor with this act.” (My Heart Is On the Ground, p. 30)

 

pair 2

“The ‘Mericans are awfully fond of tea, and when they saw they’d have to pay the trader and the king, too, for their tea, they got mad; and one night, when everybody was asleep, they painted up like wild Indians, and they got into a boat and paddled out to the tea ship and climbed in. They hollered and yelled like everything, and scared everybody; then they spilted the tea into the ocean….Well…the old king sat still for a long time, then he said to his soldiers, you go and fight those ‘Mericans. And they did fight, and had the Rev’lution. That war lasted eight years, and the king’s soldiers got licked. Then the ‘Mericans made General George Washington their President because he couldn’t tell a lie.” (The Middle Five, pp. 51-52)

“Today is a holiday. The birthday of the white people’s great father, George Wash-ing-ton. Gray Beard told us about the Boston tea party. The Mericans dressed like Indians and threw all the tea in the water. Then the English king got very angry and sat for a long time. Then he told his soldiers, go and fight those Mericans. Bring me their scalps. So his warriors went out and there was a rev-o-lu-tion. Wash-ing-ton was a great chief of the Mericans. The war lasted eight years and the soldiers of the king lost their scalps and the Mericans won and made Wash-ing-ton their great father because he could not tell a lie.” (My Heart Is On the Ground, p. 55)

 

pair 3

“With fire in my heart, I took the wooden tool that the paleface woman held out to me. I stood upon a step, and, grasping the handle with both hands, I bent in hot rage over the turnips. I worked my vengeance upon them! I saw that the turnips were in a pulp, and that further beating could not improve them; but the order was “Mash these turnips,’ and mash them I would! I renewed my energy; and as I sent the masher into the bottom of the jar, I felt a satisfying sensation that the weight of my body had gone into it. Just here a paleface woman came up to my table. As she looked into the jar, she shoved my hands roughly aside. I stood fearless and angry. She placed her red hands upon the rim of the jar. Then she gave one lift and stride away from the table. But lo! the pulpy contents fell through the crumbled bottom to the floor! She spared me no scolding phrases that I had earned. I did not heed them. I felt triumphant in my revenge, though deep within me I was a wee bit sorry to have broken the jar. As I sat eating my dinner, and saw that no turnips were served, I whooped in my heart for having once asserted the rebellion within me.” (American Indian Stories, pp. 60-61)

“Today, I was so angry I drove my wooden spoon through the bottom of a jar of turnips. At our table we had no turnips for supper. Everyone likes turnips. I feel bad that I did this thing.” (My Heart Is On the Ground, p. 88)

–Beverly Slapin