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THE EVOLUTION OF SURVIVAL AS THEME IN CONTEMPORARY
NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE: FROM
ALIENATION TO LAUGHTER
DISSERTATION
Presented to the Graduate Council of the
University of North Texas in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
By
Marie M. Schein, A.A., B.A., M.A., M.A.
Denton, Texas
December, 1994
£ 7 ?
AlQld Afo. V 0 6 5
THE EVOLUTION OF SURVIVAL AS THEME IN CONTEMPORARY
NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE: FROM
ALIENATION TO LAUGHTER
DISSERTATION
Presented to the Graduate Council of the
University of North Texas in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
By
Marie M. Schein, A.A., B.A., M.A., M.A.
Denton, Texas
December, 1994
Z-AM
Schein, Marie, The Evolution of Survival as Theme in Contemporary
Native American Literature: From Alienation to Laughter. Doctor of
Philosophy (English), December, 1994, 171 pp., 38 titles.
With the publication of his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, House
Made of Dawn. N. Scott Momaday ended a three-decade hiatus in the
production of works written by Native American writers, and contributed
to the renaissance of a rich literature. The critical acclaim that the novel
received helped to establish Native American literature as a legitimate
addition to American literature at large and inspired other Native
Americans to write.
Contemporary Native American literature from 1969 to 1974
focuses on the themes of the alienated mixed-blood protagonist and his
struggle to survive, and the progressive return to a forgotten or rejected
Indian identity. For example, works such as Leslie Silko's Ceremony and
James Welch's Winter in the Blood illustrate this dual focal point. As a
result, scholarly attention on these works has focused on the theme of
struggle to the extent that Native American literature can be perceived
as necessarily presenting victimized characters. Yet, Native American
literature is essentially a literature of survival and continuance, and not a
literature of defeat.
New writers such as Louise Erdrich, Hanay Geiogamah, and Simon
Ortiz write to celebrate their Indian heritage and the survival of their
people, even though they still use the themes of alienation and struggle.
The difference lies in what they consider to be the key to survival:
humor.
These writers posit that in order to survive, Native Americans must
learn to laugh at themselves and at their fate, as well as at those who
have victimized them through centuries of oppression. Thus, humor
becomes a coping mechanism that empowers Native Americans and
brings them from survival to continuance.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The completion of this study would not have been possible
without the help and support of many people.
I am forever grateful to my husband, Sam, and my daughter,
Malorie, who have had to be patient with me for more than a year, while
I worked on this dissertation. I also want to thank my grandmother,
Marie-Jeanne Izard, for her love and understanding.
I am indebted to the members of my dissertation committee,
particularly Professor Antonio Mares, for their support and good advice.
I want to thank my dear friends, Clay Reynolds and Charlotte
Wright, who have inspired me to keep on fighting when the pressure
seemed too great to bear. Finally, I think of my mother, Simone Fabre,
whose memory has sustained me through my darkest moments.
in
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. REDEMPTIVE VIOLENCE AND REGAINED IDENTITY: THE PATH TO SURVIVAL IN THE NOVELS OF N. SCOTT MOMADAY AND LESLIE MARMON SILKO 17
3. JAMES WELCH'S WINTER IN THE BLOOD: A TRANSITIONAL NOVEL IN THE STUDY OF ALIENATION AND SURVIVAL 47
4. HUMOR AND SURVIVAL IN CONTEMPORARY NATIVE AMERICAN DRAMA: TWO PLAYS BY HANAY GEIOGAMAH 76
5. COMMUNAL EXPERIENCE AS THE AGENT FOR SURVIVAL IN LOUISE ERDRICH'S LOVE MEDICINE. THE BEET QUEEN. AND TRACKS 105
6. A LESSON IN INDIAN HUMOR: THE POETRY AND
FICTION OF SIMON ORTIZ 134
7. CONCLUSION 157
WORKS CITED 168
IV
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
"Properly cared for, preserved intact, a story has the
power to sustain an entire culture."
Lester A. Standiford
In her Introduction to American Indian Literature. LaVonne Brown
Ruoff argues that literature in the United States begins "twenty-eight
thousand years ago" (1) with the Native people who migrated to North
America and took the form of tales. Those tales, told or performed, reflect
not only tribal cultures and experiences but also, after the colonization of
this country, the relationships between Indians and Anglos.
Regardless of the tribes, Native American1 stories include specific
1 The term Native American has recently become the preferred term to describe Indian people. However, most Native Americans resent the use of this term because it is a generic label that does not distinguish between the various tribes. As a result, most Native Americans prefer to be identified by the name of the tribe to which they belong. Still others use the term "Indians" to identify themselves.
During a conversation with Simon Ortiz, the poet began to laugh when I mentioned that the editor of a major publication on American poetry who was going to publish one of my articles argued that I should use the term "Native American" instead of "American Indians" because it is politically correct. Ortiz said to me that most Indians are unable to
themes that inform Native American lifestyle. First, the stories illustrate
the belief that people must live in harmony with nature in order to
maintain a sane spiritual life; consequently, these stories emphasize a
heightened respect for the land and all natural things. Second, many
stories underline Native Americans' belief in the power of the spoken
word and the power of thoughts. Next, the circle is a consistent
element of oral literature that symbolizes life cycle and continuity. The
circle also represents a sense for the community which empowers tribal
members. Thus, life is communal experience and each individual lives in
cooperation with the other. Finally, oral literatures demonstrate the
belief that a strong religious foundation is necessary and that
ceremonies, rituals, chants, and drama must be a part of everyday life.
Stories are transmitted from generations to generations and are
sometimes modified through the process of transmittal. The changes
that may occur do not betray the message of a story, but, in fact, help
to preserve and renew the story. Storytelling has always been an
important of Native American life and continues to be practiced today.
choose between the two terms since they find neither one of them to be satisfactory. He added that he personally did not care. In this study I will use the terms "Indians," "Native Americans," "American Indians" interchangeably.
Stories were first transmitted aurally in most tribes; however,
certain tribes transcribed stories through drawings. Brown Ruoff notes
that "the history of the collection of oral literatures of Native America
begins in Mesoamerica in the books of the Maya" but remarks that "a
scholarly collection of oral literature did not flourish until the
development of the anthropological and linguistic study of American
Indian cultures in the late nineteenth century" (18). One must add that
the nineteenth century is marked by a general interest in the people who
were said to be the "vanishing Americans," which results in the
popularity of personal narratives that were translated into English.
The first Native American narrative to become popular in this
country is Pequot William Apes' Son of the Forest, published in 1829, in
which he describes his childhood spent with his alcoholic and abusive
grandparents and his placement into a white family who sold him as a
slave several times. Apes' work shows the effect of acculturation that
made him become fearful of his own heritage. Apes, who became a
Methodist priest, also points to the hypocrisy of many Christians who do
not practice what they teach and treat people of color as inferior to
whites.
Others works by Native Americans are published after the success
of Apes' narrative. One of the most often anthologized is Ojibway
George Copway who also addresses the issue of acculturation in The
Life. History, and Travels of Kah-ae-aa-aah-bowh (1847).
At the turn of the century, Charles Eastman, with the help of a
collaborator, authors Indian Bovhood (1902) in which he depicts the
traditional life before reservation life. Other Native Americans were
inspired by Charles Eastman including Luther Standing Bear, Gertrude
Bonin, and Francis La Flesche.
Native American writers of the nineteenth century and early
twentieth century were aware of the urgency of their mission; they must
educate Anglos about Native American cultures and sensitize them to
the mistreatment of which they were the victims. Consequently, Native
American literature of that time provides an important contribution to the
already dense literature of experience that chronicled the failures and
successes of the colonization of this country.
Although Indian Boarding Schools displaced many Indians and
worsened the process of acculturation, the increase in educational
opportunities and the study of the English language required by the
Anglos inspired several Indians to write about their experiences. Samson
Occom (Mohegan) became the first author to publish in English. A
preacher in charge of disseminating the word of God to the yet not
Christianized Indians, Occom wrote a powerful sermon which became
the first Indian best-seller. Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses
Paul (1772) is still anthologized today.
American Indian literature up to the early 1900's evolved from a
strictly oral literature to a literature that was first transcribed, later
translated, and finally written in English often with the collaboration of
Anglo scribes in the case of Indian authors who had not yet been
educated in English. Up to that point American Indian literature was
exclusively composed of non-fictional works.
The first novel by a American Indian writer was published in 1927.
Mourning Dove (Colville) wrote with the help of Lucullus Virgil
McWhorter the novel Coaewea. the Half Blood. The novel focuses on
the first mixed-blood protagonist in American Indian literature and on the
importance of storytelling as an instrument of survival for Indians who
were struggling in a nation turned hostile to them. The novel is a
poignant account of a young woman's fight to survive despite her
divided background; Cogewea is half white and half Indian. The young
woman is discriminated against by the whites who only see her as a
savage and by the Indians who despise her for her white blood.
Mourning Dove introduces in American Indian literature the theme of
alienation and quest for identity that many writers after her will focus on
as well. As the first novel written by an American Indian, Coaewea. the
Half Blood may lack in matured techniques and plot development, but it
deserves to be credited for being the first fictional work written by an
American Indian writer.
Nearly ten years elapse between Mourning Dove's novel and
D'Arcy McNickle's The Surrounded (1936), but the latter work shows
that McNickle had been influenced by Mourning Dove's work. Like
Mourning Dove, McNickle examines the problems of the protagonist
Archilde Leon, a mixed-blood, who questions his heritage in his effort to
define who he is.
A thirty-three year hiatus in the publication of fictional works by
American Indian writers finally came to an end with the publication of N.
Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn in 1969. The novel is
considered by critics as the artistic symbol of what LaVonne Brown
Ruoff calls the "revitalization of Indian pride in the 1960's" (76) and
marks the new beginning of American Indian literature.
One of the major difficulties associated with any scholarly
approach to the study of contemporary Native American literature is the
formation of an essential definition of precisely what delineates it from
American literature in general. Kenneth Lincoln in Native American
Renaissance (1983) takes a major step in resolving this dilemma by
explaining that the contemporary American Indian writers are "children
of the old ways and students of historical transition: they begin to serve
as teachers of contemporary survival" (184). This definition, while not
essential in the classical sense, does provide a sound basis for beginning
any study of Native American literature.
One of the most visible and significant Native American writers
and one who easily fits Lincoln's definition is N. Scott Momaday.
Momaday's Pulitzer Prize winning novel of 1969, House Made of Dawn.
graphically blends the theme of conflict between the "old ways" and
"historical transition" by illustrating the tension felt by a single character
caught between these opposing cultural forces. Additionally, the novel
marked the re-introduction of the theme of the alienated, mixed-blood
protagonist which Mourning Dove and D'Arcy McNickle had been first in
developing. Two other writers followed in Momaday's path: Leslie
Marmon Silko and James Welch. Silko's Ceremony (1977) and Welch's
Winter in the Blood (1974) also focus on the same theme.
Each of these novels demonstrates how a mixed-blood Indian, who
has been alienated from his cultural past through the process of
"historical transition," is able to survive both emotionally and physically
and is ultimately reconciled with his Indian identity. As a result, the
theme of alienation has become virtually a subdefinition of Native
American literature. This is both fortunate and unfortunate; it is
8
fortunate because the theme is at the heart of the American Indian
Movement's philosophy and is fundamental to the political and cultural
revival of Native American culture; it is unfortunate because
concentration on this single theme tends to exclude consideration by
critics of another theme.
The recurrence of the theme of alienation has resulted in a great
number of scholarly studies, many prompted by the current trend in
literary criticism toward multicultural genres. These studies have
elevated Native American literature to a long-awaited recognition as a
legitimate ethnic literature in the United States. Even so, one of the
most important themes in Native American literature has been long
overlooked and is just beginning to attract the scholarly attention it
deserves; survival humor.
The concentration of scholarly studies on the themes of alienation
and quest for identity has led to an implied definition of Native American
literature as a literature of defeat that emphasizes that Indians are
victims. However, Native American literature, even when it focuses on
these themes, is not a literature of defeat but a literature that celebrates
and emphasizes the survival and continuance of a culture and a people.
Thus, Momaday's House Made of Dawn as well as his latest novel, The
Ancient Child (1989), Welch's Winter in the Blood and Silko's Ceremony
present the story of a protagonist who conquers his sense of alienation
and finds ways to survive and assert his Indian identity.
Momaday and Silko treat the theme of alienation in the same way,
using redemptive violence to trigger a sudden prise de conscience by the
protagonist that results in a renewed sense of pride in the "old ways."
Both writers approach the theme in a way that is reminiscent of
Mourning Dove and D'Arcy McNickle with the exception that they
emphasize triumph instead of suffering. Welch also examines the
traditional theme of alienation but he proceeds from a different angle
noticeable by a new point of view and a different tone. Welch's
protagonist in Winter in the Blood narrates his adventures in a way that
is funny at times and frankly sarcastic at other times. Humor becomes
an outlet that helps the protagonist to survive even if it does not
alleviate the effects of alienation.
Welch's approach to the theme of alienation is not an isolated case
since other writers including Louise Erdrich, Simon Ortiz, and Hanay
Geiogamah also dare to inject their works with a substantial dose of a
piquant sense of humor. Even though these writers use the traditional
theme of conflict between the Native American experience and the
dominant white world, they prove that the ability to laugh when
confronted with adversity is crucial to the survival of Native Americans.
10
Often survival humor appears in their works in the form of irony and dark
comedy throughout even the most serious events. It is as disturbing as
it is revealing of the outrageous abuses that Native Americans have had
to endure since 1492.
In Humor and Laughter: An Anthropological Approach (1985)
Mahadev L. Apte defines humor as "by and large culture based" and "a
major conceptual tool for gaining insights into cultural systems" (16).
Survival humor in contemporary Native American literature functions as
such "tool." Contemporary Native American writers emphasize an
attitude about life that is at the heart of the culture today as well as in
the past. Yet, most readers of Native American literature are not aware
that humor is a way of life for Indians and readily overlook its presence
in a text. In Custer Died for Your Sins (1988) Vine Deloria remarks that:
It has always been a great disappointment to Indian people
that the humorous side of Indian life has not been mentioned
by professed experts on Indian Affairs. Rather the image of
the granite-faced grunting redskin has been perpetuated by
American mythology...Indians have found a humorous side
of nearly every problem and the experiences of life have
generally been so well defined through jokes and stories that
they have become a thing of themselves. (146)
11
The assumption by the "experts on Indian Affairs" that Deloria mocks
has also been shared by literary critics, but the new Native American
writers since the seventies have made it difficult for scholars to overlook
humor as technique.
James Welch, Hanay Geiogamah, Louise Erdrich, and Simon Ortiz
believe that humor informs survival, but each of these writers chooses a
unique vehicle through which they demonstrate that conviction.
During the hay days of the American Indian Movement, one Native
American writer was able to capture the essence of the long-awaited
attempt by Indians in this country to claim their existence and to demand
recognition. Hanay Geiogamah, an Oklahoma Kiowa and playwright,
participated in the resurgence of ethnic theater in America between the
1960's and the 1970's which resulted from the political and societal
tensions felt by the various ethnic groups represented in this country. In
her introduction to Jeffrey Huntsman's Ethnic Theater in America Maxine
Schwartz-Seller explains the impact of ethnic theater over America's
artistic life during those difficult times. She states:
The heightened political and cultural ferment among
"third-world" ethnic community in the 1960's and 1970's
was reflected in an upsurge of theatrical activity. Blacks,
Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian Americans used
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drama to explore the past and present realities in ethnic life
in America and to protest the injustices their communities
had encountered and were still encountering in American
society. (Schwartz-Seller 11)
Hanay Geiogamah's plays fit in the political context that Schwartz-Seller
describes and are motivated by a philosophy of protest but, at the same
time, display a heightened sense of humor that is proposed by the writer
as an alternative to physical violence in the streets and an instrument
that is capable to engender reform.
Welch's narrator in Winter in the Blood (1974) is tossed around in
a symbolic ocean of meaningless events that he accepts with
resignation. The nameless narrator lets life control him because he is not
able to identify himself as Indian. Without any control over what
happens to him, he finds himself in undesired situations that are often
burlesque even though they reveal a somber reality. Welch's anti-hero is
aware that he is in the middle of a universe where nothing works right,
and where failure is stronger than success. Yet, although he describes
the waste land that surrounds him, the nameless narrator maintains a
survivalist attitude by casting a sarcastic eye on everything that happens
to him. Humor in this novel does not solve any problem, but allows the
protagonist to carry on.
13
In Body Indian and Foghorn, first performed in 1972, Geiogamah
creates a universe of communal experiences for his characters ranging
from the effect of alcoholism on families and friends to the reality of the
stereotypes about Native Americans imagined by Euroamericans that
threaten to erase their true identity. In these plays Geiogamah's sense
of humor is caustic and triggers a sudden awakening to the reality of the
life contemporary Native Americans. Yet, Geiogamah's drama is not just
propaganda; it seeks to awaken his Native American audience from the
somewhat comforting slumber in which they plunge when they accept to
be defined by others as victims.
Louise Erdrich's trilogy which includes Love Medicine (1984), The
Beet Queen (1986), and Tracks (1988) forms a rich canvas of many lives
within four families: the Kashpaws, the Lamartines, the Pillagers, and
the Morrisseys. These novels, published in reverse chronological order,
examine a section of the history of the Chippewas of North Dakota by
focusing on the those four families and their friends. Their relationships
are characterized by love, hatred, jealousy, passion, envy, lust, fear,
sorrow, and conflicts of generations. Through the descriptions of these
relationships Erdrich defines her characters, particularly the women, in
terms of their Indian identity and their commitment to their culture. In
each novel Erdrich creates a female character who strongly impresses
14
and shapes the destiny of the other characters. Above all, Marie
Kashpaw in Love Medicine. Sita Koska in The Beet Queen, and Fleur
Pillager in Tracks learn to endure and strive to survive.
Erdrich's style is also characterized by a generous sense of humor
that provides a bittersweet counter balance to the serious events that
she relates in her novels. In her interview with Laura Coltelli, author of
Winaed Words: American Indian Writers Speak (1990), Erdrich describes
the necessity to use humor in her works; "It's one of the most important
parts of American Indian life and literature and when it's survival humor,
you learn to laugh at things" (46). Erdrich's novels provide a direct
application of her conviction that humor is essential to cope with
hardship. Thus, in each novel, tragic events and comedic situations are
juxtaposed to create an effect non pareil in an effort to underline that the
ability to laugh at one's fate ensures survival.
Simon Ortiz, one of the most prolific contemporary Native
American poets, also relies on the use of survival humor to help him
describe his subject. Ortiz explains to Laura Coltelli that he writes about
"the Native America of indigenous people and the indigenous principle
they represent," (116) and that is "the real America" Ortiz intends to
visualize. Ortiz's poems reveal his concern for the land and the people
and underline a fundamental lack of communication, first between Native
15
Americans and Euroamericans, and second, between people and the
surrounding nature.
Ortiz's latest collection of poetry, Woven Stone (1992), which
compiles poems previously anthologized and new poems, celebrates the
endurance of a people and a culture and the struggle of the people to
protect their land from various aggressions. In his poems, Ortiz uses the
first person point of view, a technique that allows him to identify with
the persona and become the voice of the culture he belongs to, but also
enables him to establish a closer rapport with his audience, a kind of
intimacy through which Ortiz's ideas have a greater impact upon the
reader who becomes a confident. The narrator's overwhelming sense of
alienation is conveyed through provoking observations about the irony of
his condition. Consequently, Ortiz's humor is more piquant than
Erdrich's; he constantly relies on a biting black humor that resounds
throughout his works and is as disturbing as it is enlightening.
Survival humor in Ortiz's works establishes a sense of continuity
that enables him to fulfill his goal: the description of America seen
through the eyes of a Native American. Ortiz's narrator embarks on a
voyage across the country, and each poem coincides with a stop in the
journey that allows him to take stock of the people and the land. Each
poem is a picture taken somewhere in America, and the album about
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"Native America" is not complete until the last picture has been
examined. Ortiz's "Native America" is a composite picture that not only
describes the present but also reminisces about the past and looks to the
future. The past, the present, and the future underline the continuance
of Native Americans and their traditions.
Survival humor is a particularly effective writing technique that
contemporary Native American writers use to erase the stereotypes
about and to promote a new image of Native Americans. In the hands of
the new generation Native American writers, "Native America" emerges
from its ashes and celebrates its rebirth. The fiction, poetry, and drama
that has been published since the 1970's are empowered with a
disarming sense of humor that underlines survival and points to the
continuance of the people and the culture.
CHAPTER 2
REDEMPTIVE VIOLENCE AND REGAINED IDENTITY: THE PATH
TO SURVIVAL IN THE NOVELS OF N. SCOTT MOMADAY
AND LESLIE MARMON SILKO
"American Indian novelists are revising fundamentally
the long cherished, static view of Indian lives and cultures
held by people around the world."
Louis Owens
The re-emergence of Native American literature and its acceptance
by literary critics resulted from the publication of N. Scott Momaday's
masterpiece and winner of the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, House Made of
Dawn. Indeed, the national recognition of the novel established two
important points previously overlooked; first, the novel confirmed
without a doubt the existence of a literature by Native American writers;
second, it awakened the critics to such literature as a worthy addition to
the larger canon of mainstream American literature. A few years later,
another Native American writer joined Momaday in his efforts to promote
the literature of this forgotten minority in the United States, Leslie
17
18
Marmon Silko. At the heart of Silko's Ceremony (1977) lies the crucial
problem of the survival of a culture within a pragmatic and modern
society that seems to reject traditions.
Although ten years separate House Made of Dawn from
Momaday's second incursion into the theme of survival, The Ancient
Child (1989), the later novel is a necessary work to consult in order to
produce a complete case study of the principles of survival in Native
American literature before the 1980's. These three novels discuss
alienation and survival through regained identity in a similar way.
Momaday's House Made of Dawn tells the story of Abel, a
mixed-blood Indian, who returns to his village, Walatowa, Canyon de
San Diego, as a veteran of World War II. Abel arrives drunk and is met
at the bus station by his grandfather Francisco who carries him home.
Francisco tries to provide a comfortable and safe environment for his
grandson and encourages him to look for a job. Abel begins to rebuild a
life for himself when he is hired by a very attractive woman who lives on
a ranch on the edge of town. Angela Grace St. John offers Abel a job to
help him with his reinsertion into civilian life, but also because she is
curious about him and attracted to him. Abel and Angela become
involved, but their relationship is aborted when Abel kills a white man
during the village feast and is sentenced to seven years in jail. After his
19
jail term is over, Abel finds a job in Los Angeles in a factory, but does
not fit in with the people who work with him. As a former convict, Abel
remains under the surveillance of a BIA official by the name of Martinez.
Martinez does not like Abel and tries to provoke him whenever an
opportunity presents itself until, one day, he loses control and beats Abel
almost to death. In the Los Angeles hospital where he is recovering from
his wounds, Abel decides that the only place for him is the reservation.
Able returns to Wallatowa for the second time, but his grandfather is not
there to greet him. In fact, Abel learns that Francisco is near death and
the unexpected news triggers in him the urgency to establish himself on
ancestral land. He dresses the old man in traditional Kiowa clothing prior
to the burial and decides to take part in a ceremonial race, the Dawn
Race, to celebrate his identity regained and show respect for traditions
since his grandfather had also participated in the same race many years
before.
Abel returns to Wallatowa the first time having lost his sense of
identity and is tossed between the white world and the world of his
people. The novel shows the slow progression toward Abel's renewed
sense of self and survival.
Momaday's second novel, The Ancient Child, offers a different
version of the theme of alienation and survival. Set Lockman is a
20
famous New York painter, trapped in the fast-paced world of the artist
and caught between his agent's demands and the reality of his creative
abilities. Set cannot decide whether to paint what he wants when he
wants or to paint for the sake of fulfilling commitments to the art
galleries that exhibit his works. In the midst of this turmoil, Set is
suddenly awakened to his forgotten Indian background by the arrival of a
letter that announces the death of his Kiowa grandmother. Although Set
rejects his ties to the Kiowa culture at first, the letter instills in him a
certain curiosity about his Indian heritage. He decides to go to
Oklahoma for the funeral and there, he meets a very intriguing young
woman, Grey, who has been asked by the grandmother to guide Set
back to his roots. Grey gives Set a medicine bundle that the old woman
had prepared especially for Set.
After Set returns to his New York life, he begins to question
himself about his expectations about his life as a painter as well as his
expectations about life in general. This self examination brings about a
crisis of identity and makes him decide to go back to his roots. Set
returns to Oklahoma and there he begins to understand that he is an
important part of the traditions of his people, the Kiowa. Set decides
that his place is with Grey on the land of his ancestors. Therefore, the
letter he receives at the beginning of the novel is it triggers the desire to
21
re-discover his heritage. Set ceases to feel alienated in his world and
ultimately accepts and comes to respect his heritage. The novel closes
with a powerful claim of identity when Set admits to himself that he is
indeed a Kiowa.
Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony is reminiscent of Momaday's plot
in House Made of Dawn. Indeed, Silko's protagonist is a World War II
veteran who comes back to the Pueblo of Laguna after spending some
time in a hospital in California where he was treated for battle fatigue.
As soon as he is back, Tayo begins to be pressured into militant activism
by other Indian veterans who have returned to the pueblo with the bitter
realization that the United States government has forgotten them and
has sent them back to reservation life. Tayo is confused by Emo's
antagonistic attitude and his own sense of pride as veteran. Emo wants
to pretend that he and all the other veterans can continue to live as they
did when they were soldiers. He particularly brags about the many
conquests he was able to make and insists that his position in the
military contributed to his success with women. But above all, Emo is a
dangerous man who is not in touch with reality or his heritage. He
begins to single out Tayo because the latter is tempted to return to a
traditional Indian way of life and wants to put his military past behind
him. Tayo does not fit in Emo's plan and consequently, Emo chooses
22
him as his target. With the help of a medicine man commissioned by his
grandmother to help him and also with the help of the woman of the
mountain, Ts'eh, Tayo embarks on a resurrecting journey toward the
affirmation of his Indian identity. But the road to a recovered sense of
self and place is difficult. Silko's novel stages Tayo's recovery of his
Indian self through a series of epiphanies, often the result of violent acts
perpetrated against him or of which he is the witness, but always
redemptive.
The combined examination of these novels reveals that the
protagonists move along parallel roads in their search for identity and
thus contribute to establish a tradition for the survival novel in
contemporary Native American literature in the hands of N. Scott
Momaday and Leslie Marmon Silko. These novels contain the principal
elements of the theme of alienation that were originally developed by
Mourning Dove and D'Arcy McNickle^ but bring the theme to new
dimensions by focusing on the means that lead the protagonists to
escape their interior prison and free themselves of the notion that they
are victims and must continue to suffer. Unlike Mourning Dove and
McNickle, Momaday and Silko emphasize deliverance from such an
imprisoning notion and celebrate the new notion that a return to their
23
Indian heritage empowers them and ensures their survival within the
dominant Euroamerican culture.
In the Sacred HOOP Paula Gunn Allen explains that the sense of
belonging is "a basic assumption for traditional Indians" (127). Yet,
most Indians have been deprived of that "basic assumption" because of
the pressure to survive within a different culture which often leads to
acculturation. Momaday and Silko have imagined a social context in
which their Indian protagonists can aspire to survive as Indians. Their
novels prove that it is possible to regain a sense of belonging through a
renewed pride and commitment to traditional Indian life, knowing that
the price to pay is to endure emotional and physical violence. Abel, Set,
and Tayo must fight back in order to survive as Indians. The path to
survival in these novels is a complex proposition that progresses through
several steps: recalling the memories of a cultural past, identifying to a
spiritual guide, telling stories, and returning to the land. The progression
from step to step is marked by the ability of the protagonists to endure
physical violence. Violence in these novels becomes the instrument of
redemption.
The pattern of salvation and violence first appears in N. Scott
Momaday's House Made of Dawn. Book I describes Abel's unsuccessful
attempt to adapt to civilian life after he returns home as a veteran of
24
World War II. Despite the help of his grandfather Francisco, who finds
him a job, Abel remains estranged from the land and the culture of his
people. The emptiness in his life and his inability to fit in suddenly
overwhelms him and causes him to lose control. During a village feast,
Abel is challenged by an Albino man at a traditional Indian game, the
rooster pull. Larry Evers analyses the consequences of Abel's failure to
win the contest: "Abel's failure at the rooster pull demonstrates his
inability to reenter the ceremonial life of the village" (Evers 305). Abel is
humiliated by the loss and subconsciously blames the Albino man,
symbol of the white society, for his inadequacy. It is because Abel has
lived as a white man that he has forgotten his Indian culture and the
Albino man becomes a convenient scapegoat. Consequently, Abel kills
the white man and the murder exorcises his feeling of imprisonment in
the hands of the whites. Momaday's description of the murder is
striking because every movement by Abel or the white man is presented
as if in slow motion. Momaday carefully describes the moment when
the white man meets his death:
The white man raised his arms, as if to embrace him, and
came forward. But Abel had already taken hold of the knife,
and he drew it. He leaned inside the white man's arms and
25
drove the blade up under the bones of the breast and
across. (Momaday 82)
This stylistic technique magnifies the murder scene and gives it a
symbolic dimension, as if Abel suddenly releases out of his soul and
body an obsessive urge to rid himself of the source of his alienation.
The Albino man becomes the scapegoat for the white, dominant society
at large. By killing him Abel symbolically eliminates a man whom he
considers to be an evil oppressor. The imagery used by Momaday in his
description of the white man is reminiscent of a serpent, the animal that
is a traditional metaphor for evil, and underlines Abel's conviction. Even
after the white man has been stabbed, he still holds on to Abel who can
hear the strange excitement of the white man's
breath, and the quick, uneven blowing at his ear, and felt
the blue shivering lips upon him, felt even the scales of his
lips and the hot slippery point of the tongue, writhing. (82)
The recurrent references to whiteness confirm the symbolism in the
murder scene. Indeed, Abel tries to "fling himself away, but the white
man held him close. The white immensity of flesh lay over and
smothered him" (82). Abel holds in his arms the dying representative of
a world that he sees as his oppressor.
26
Instead of solving his problem though, Abel makes it worse, as the
murder yields no renewed sense of identity. As Evers underlines, the
whiteness thought to be eliminated through the murder takes on
monstrous proportions and "suggests an emptiness in the universe, a
total void of meaning" (Evers 310). This "void of meaning" is only made
greater during the seven year imprisonment that Abel is condemned to; it
continues to haunt him when he tries to make a new life for himself.
The second violent incident happens after Abel has finished his
sentence and found work in a factory in Los Angeles under the constant
scrutiny of his boss and of a relocation officer named Martinez, who
harasses Abel about his criminal past. One day, after much drinking and
antagonizing Martinez beats Abel half to death and abandons him on a
deserted beach. This time violence is turned against Abel and although
his physical pain is extreme, it is necessary to promote self awareness.
Abel's slow coming to consciousness is the beginning of his awakening
to the reality of his life. The scene offers a striking parallel with the end
of Book I which compared the Albino man to a "fish" (Momaday 84).
Here Abel returns to life as a seemingly dead fish that the sea has
washed on its shores.
Again Momaday uses a slow moving highly stylized description of
Abel's crushed body and of his return to consciousness as he opens his
27
eyes and becomes aware of the throbbing pain that paralyzes his body.
Unable to move, Abel begins to recall images of his life, including images
of his dead mother and his dead brother, and Fat Josie, his confidante,
who comforted him after his mother's death. These memories represent
the beginning of his return to his Indian identity.
Thus, the pain Abel must endure produces a cathartic effect in him
that forces him to take stock of the events of his life. He recalls images
of his girlfriend Milly, of the battlefields during the war, and of his
brother Vidal.
By the time his wounds have healed, Abel has rejected the "void
of meaning" in his life and has made the decision to return to his
grandfather's home. In the last pages of the novel, Momaday narrates
Grandfather Francisco's participation in the traditional dawn race several
years earlier and his victory. The memories of the grandfather are
transferred into Abel's mind when the old man dies. This mysterious
transfusion of traditional Kiowa ways helps Abel regain his Indian
identity. Thus, on the last day of the novel, February 28, 1952, before
dawn, Abel begins to dress his dead grandfather with traditional Kiowa
garments in preparation for a traditional burial ceremony. His decision
represents Abel's affirmation of his regained identity, which becomes
complete when he joins in the dawn race, a symbolic act that honors his
28
grandfather and confirms his renewed sense of belonging. Seven years
before, during the rooster pull ceremony, Abel was not ready to re-enter
traditional Indian life, but by the end of the novel, he has changed and
understands that his survival depends upon his willingness to become a
part the traditional way of life of the Kiowas. In this novel Momaday
builds the case for the return to and continuance of Native American
traditions as the primordial condition for survival.
In his latest novel, The Ancient Child. Momaday also uses violence
as the catharsis for the recovery of the protagonist's identity. Set
Lockman is a famous painter, "in the first rank of American artists,"
(Momaday 36) who begins to re-evaluate the meaning of his art and
realizes he is losing control over his creativity. Set must determine
whether or not to continue to compromise his work for the benefit of
popular demand and the commercial concerns of his agent. The narrator
in the novel remarks: "those who exhibited his work, who praised and
purchased it, and who demanded its proliferation began to determine it"
(36). The profit making side of his career gradually affects his inspiration
and causes a dilemma for the artist. Set wants to remain faithful to the
essence of his painting and tries to rationalize with his emotions:
It was a fine thing to paint, to see something—a human face
or an orchard or the moon rolling—and to make a picture of
29
it, according to his vision, which was unique, which was
uniquely valid. (Momaday 37)
Set's naive perception of his art conflicts with the "calculations" of "the
dealers and critics" (37).
In addition to the professional crisis he faces, Set is troubled by a
blurred notion of identity. Indeed, Set has been living in by the rules of
white society in which he was integrated after the death of his Indian
father when he was seven years old. Acculturation has erased the
memories of his cultural past. Yet, a telegram that announces the death
of his Indian grandmother raises the question of his origins. At first, Set
is defensive and refuses to accept any ties to his father's people.
Perplexed because of the telegram, he thinks:
They had nothing to do with him. They were related to him,
he supposed, but that was only an accident; they were his
relatives, but they were not his family. (51)
However, despite his resistance, the telegram triggers "a strange feeling,
as if some ancestral intelligence had been awakened in him for the first
time" (54).
His professional dilemma and the sudden emergence of his Indian
past are not separate problems in the novel. In fact Momaday has set
30
the stage for Abel's awakening to his identity as a Kiowa, which will
solve his problem as an artist.
Physical violence is the immediate result of the emotional chaos
that disturbs Set. The telegram that he receives invites him to travel to
Oklahoma to attend the funeral of Grandmother Kope'mah. There, Set
meets a beautiful woman, Grey, who has promised Kope'mah that she
will convince Set to return to a belief in his Native American heritage.
According to Judith Antell, Grey represents the "feminine principle" in
the novel, an important aspect of the theme of alienation in Native
American literature. Antell explains the role of women in this literature:
In order to demonstrate the acute despair and alienation in
the lives of their male protagonists Momaday, Welch, and
Silko separate these men from Indian women and the
feminine principle, indicating the feminine principle is the
source of integration and connection. (217)
Grey represents the connection with the land and the people that Antell
refers to in her article. The first element that connects Set with his
Kiowa culture is the Medicine Bundle, a gift prepared by the grandmother
that Grey gives to Set after the funeral is over. The second element is
Grey herself, who progressively rekindles in Set the desire to paint.
31
Grey is preparing to dance in a Kiowa ceremony wearing the
traditional dress and she asks Set to paint her face, a necessary addition
to her traditional outfit. Painting Grey's face foreshadows Set's eventual
understanding of the essence of his art. Grey gives him the tools of the
recovery, "the paints, the daubs, and a drawing," (Momaday 112) and
lends her face to the artist. To Set, Grey's face is his blank canvas. The
subject for this painting that marks the beginning of Set's recovery is
basic and the colors are the essential blue, yellow, black, and red. While
applying the paint to Grey's face, Set experiences the uneasiness of the
beginning artist and "His hand was not steady, but he did a reasonably
good job under the circumstances" (112-113).
This scene is crucial to the development of the novel since it
represents Set's first direct contact with Indian ceremonies since the
death of his father. As Set paints Grey's face, he sees in her his ideal
subject matter:
She was more than beautiful. She was infinitely interesting,
and she appealed more than anyone else ever had to his
painter's eyes. (114)
Grey also helps Momaday to convey his message on art and the
artist's allegiance to his subject. Not only does Grey serve as the
essential instrument of Set's regained faith in his painting, she also is an
32
artist herself and offers a contrast to Set's depression about his career.
Unlike Set, whose inspiration diminishes, Grey's visions are abundant
and continuous as she imagines a life with Billy the Kid. Early in the
novel, Momaday identifies Grey as a prolific thinker, "Never had Grey to
quest after visions. They happened upon her irresistibly and all the time
(Momaday 12). What really marks the difference between Grey and Set,
however, is a question of integrity.
In Book I, Chapter Thirteen, Set analyzes his work and reminisces
about a "time in which he had painted for the sake of painting, out of
some wild exuberance of the spirit" (38). The loss of that sense of
excitement occurs when he begins to devote himself to his audience, in
other words when he begins to cater his works to popular taste. Grey
does not have an audience to worry about; she creates for the "sake of
creating, out of some exuberance of the spirit" (38). Set is driven to
stop painting because his allegiance to popular taste and profitability,
brought on by the influence of his agent, is greater than his faithfulness
to his artistic impulses. But Grey remains faithful to her subject matter
and does not suffer from the advice of an agent whose priorities are
commercial rather than artistic. Consequently, she will be able to
transform her visions about Billy the Kid into a manuscript.
33
When Set leaves Grey after the funeral of Kope'mah, he takes
with him the Medicine Bundle, a traditional Native American charm
designed to restore harmony within the self and ward off any negative
influence. Although Set is not aware of the power of the content of the
bundle, he begins to respond to its presence. The Medicine Bundle
triggers an interior struggle that makes Set resist the call of the past, of
the land, and of the true essence of his painting. The bundle, a bag
made out of a bear cub skin, has been carefully prepared by Kope'mah.
It contains—
a shrivelled grizzly paw with great yellow claws, pouches of
tobacco and herbs, some fluorite and quartz crystals, a
pipestone carved in the shape of a fish, a hard black twist
that Grey would later identify as the penis of a wolf, bits of
ancient bone, a yellow scalp. (Momaday 242)
The grizzly paw is the most important part of the bundle and the most
symbolic. Indeed, according to Kiowa beliefs, a young man must be
chosen to take part in the spiritual continuance of the tribe, which in
turns contributes to the physical continuance of the people.
Grandmother Kope'mah has chosen Set to become part of the tradition
of the Bear Son myth. The bear paw is placed in the bundle to represent
the future identification of the young man to Bear, the most powerful
34
animal for Native Americans. The bear is defined by Paul Shepard in The
Sacred Paw as a symbol of "Well-being, with the recovery from spiritual
malaise and physical illness, and rebirth from a spiritual death" (165).
Because Bear is powerful, he is also capable of destruction, and Set first
experiences the power of the bundle through a nervous breakdown that
leads him to destroy his studio. The sight of the studio is evidence of
his rage:
The studio stank of whiskey and vomit and urine, and it was
in shambles. Canvases and paper were strewn about,
crumpled and torn. (Momaday 242)
Set is empowered with a force that he cannot identify and must allow to
manifest itself. However, the power of the medicine is only seemingly
destructive; actually, the violent effect of the medicine over Set is
regenerating. Only after he has destroyed everything around him can he
rebuild a life from the scattered pieces. In his rage Set does not destroy
his career; he simply makes a new commitment to the essence of his art
and severs all ties to a materialistic and sterile way of life. The
destruction of his studio enables him to exorcise the malaise he has been
suffering from and frees him from the pressures of production.
Moreover, his rejection of his bondage to the commercial aspect of art
also reveals to him that he has been living a lie.
35
The true success of the medicine lies in the sudden urgency that
Set feels to return to Oklahoma and claim his Indian identity. The
memory of Grey draws him back to Luckachukai; there, she completes
his initiation voyage by inviting him to open his eyes to a striking and
inspiring landscape, a paradise of colors:
The plain reached out across endless gradations of color,
endless tiers of colored rock and shaded earth as far as the
eye could see, smoky pastels, brilliant slashes of red and
yellow and purple. (Momaday 288)
As Lawrence Evers underlines, the role of the land in the initiation
voyage brings the protagonist " from chaos to order, from discord to
harmony" (298). The beauty of the land restores in him the desire to
paint.
Grey's role is crucial in this novel since she has been chosen by
Grandmother Kope'mah to find Set who will insure the continuation of
the people and its traditions. Through Grey, Momaday establishes the
spirit that guides Set back to traditional Kiowa ways. Set's rebirth
cannot occur unless he finds his role in the mythology of his people
through identification to an animal spirit guide, the bear. Thus the
identification to Bear will restore in Set the strength that had
disappeared. In addition, Shepard underlines that "the bear symbolizes
36
harmony of society arid nature, a harmony disrupted in the modern
world, in a philosophical lurch separating man from his natural origins"
(Shepard X). Set's identification to Bear will restore harmony in his life.
Momaday chooses to stage a sudden identification as a result of a
Vision Quest which restores the missing link between him and his
culture. The novel is preceded by a prologue which narrates the Kiowa
story of Tsoai. In the story, seven sisters and their brother are at play
when, suddenly, the brother is transformed into a bear. At the end of
the novel, Set faces Tsoai, the rock tree, and is suddenly struck by the
vision he has been waiting for. Set sees the bear from the story and
then sees himself become Bear. This ultimate acknowledgement of Set's
Kiowa identity is the logical final step of the recovering process that has
been orchestrated by Momaday since the prologue.
Leslie Marmon Silko also uses a similar pattern of recovery in her
novel Ceremony. Tayo, the protagonist, is a World War II veteran who
has fought in the Pacific theater. He returns to his native Laguna Pueblo
after spending some time in a Veterans' hospital in California where he
has been treated for battle fatigue. After his return to Laguna, Tayo
begins to be confused about his life. During the war, Tayo had a sense
of identity; he was not looked upon as a reservation Indian but as a
soldier serving his country. His mission to fight against the enemy in
37
order to defend his country was all he needed to know to develop a
sense of worth. However, with the end of the war, Tayo must return to
reservation life. At Laguna, Tayo is reunited with other war veterans,
and among them is a particularly bitter man by the name of Emo. Emo
resents the government for giving him and many others a false sense of
belonging during war times and for taking it away after the war. Emo
looks at Tayo as a personal challenge and hopes to convert him to his
philosophy; white people must be hated because they have taken away
from the Indians all the benefits that war times occasioned. Tayo is
vulnerable because he has come back confused and guilt ridden. First,
Tayo cannot forgive himself for not saving his cousin Rocky, who fought
alongside with him and whom he has always considered a brother.
Second, Tayo is bitter because wartime circumstances have removed
him from his heritage and have caused him to forget the traditions of his
people. With the help of a Medicine Man Tayo progressively recovers a
sense of self and leads him to reclaim his heritage.
Silko's novel is constructed as a story within a story. On one
level, the writer narrates Tayo's quest for identity; on another level, she
presents the reader with several traditional Keresean stories of
emergence and survival. Like Momaday, Silko emphasizes the principle of
story telling as part of the traditional Indian way of life and its power to
38
insure the survival of a culture. The juxtaposition of the two forms of
narrative continues throughout the novel and ceases only when Tayo
understands his place within his culture and is able to tell the story of his
life.
The novel opens with a scene in the V.A. hospital where Tayo lays
in bed struggling with the memories of war, of his family, and of his
uncle Josiah who raised him. These images of a fragmented past are
confined within the walls of the hospital room in which Tayo claims he
has been trapped within "white smoke" (Silko 15). Peter Beidler in his
article "Animals and Human Development in Contemporary American
Indian Novels" explains that typically "the young Indian is disoriented by
prolonged contact with the world of the white man" (133). Thus, Tayo
behaves as a typical Native American protagonist and experiences the
effects of his life among non-Native Americans.
Tayo pretends to be invisible and refuses to talk to his doctors
about the images of the war that haunt him. At first, Tayo experiences
painful remembrances that have been fabricated by the white world to
which he has been assimilated during the war. Tayo's immediate
memories are those of the days spent in the jungle hiding from the
Japanese, side by side with Rocky. Tayo remembers Rocky being
wounded by a grenade, his own efforts to transport him to safety,
39
making his way with difficulty through the mud, under the pouring jungle
rain. He also remembers the sight of Rocky's dead body as well as the
bodies of other dead soldiers. The memories are nightmares populated
by morbid visions:
He saw the skin of the corpses, again and again, in ditches
on either side of the long muddy road--skin that stretched
shiny and dark over bloated hands; even white men were
darker after death. There were no difference when they
were swollen and covered with flies (Silko 7).
Tayo's nightmares underline the theme of the destructive effects
of assimilation and establishes the premise for Tayo's long process of
recovery of a sense of belonging. The war has left Tayo with traumatic
memories, whereas the good memories, those of his cultural past, have
been stripped or emptied of their significance during the war. In his
hospital room, Tayo realizes that "his visions and memories of the past
did not penetrate there and that the medicine of the white men have
drained memory out of his arms and replaced it with a twilight cloud"
(15). The transfusion image in this passage underscores Tayo's spiritual
death.
The violence of the war is all encompassing to the point that
Tayo's visions of the enemies are confused with visions of his uncle
40
Josiah lying dead among the dead Japanese soldiers. Death caused by
combats is expanded in Tayo's mind to include both Josiah's death and
Rocky's death as well.
Back at Laguna, Tayo is overwhelmed with guilt because he has
convinced himself that his uncle "died because there was no one to help
him search for the cattle after there were stolen," (Silko 124) but also
because he did not bring back Rocky alive. Furthermore, Tayo believes
that he is responsible for the drought that has plagued the Laguna pueblo
while he was fighting in the Pacific war theater because he prayed the
rain away when he was trying to get Rocky to medical help. Rain is
salvific according to the Indian world view, and to wish the rain away is
sacrilegious. Although Tayo's wish to see the rain stop in the jungle is
motivated by his desire to get Rocky to a safe place, he believes that it
has affected life on the reservation by causing a drought.
Tayo also believes that he has betrayed his Uncle Josiah's trust
and love by failing to save Rocky. Tayo comes back to the pueblo alone;
Rocky has died in the jungle. Uncle Josiah is the only father figure Tayo
has ever known; he is, the man who took care of him, overlooking the
fact that Tayo had an Indian mother and a white father. In Tayo's mind
Josiah was a savior to him and took him in his home without paying
attention to the rumors that people were spreading. Josiah considered
41
Tayo as a son, and Rocky looked upon him as a brother. In losing Josiah
and Rocky, Tayo has lost his best allies.
After he returns to Laguna, Tayo's confusion and sense of
displacement are augmented by his confrontation with Emo and Harley,
two other veterans, who spend their time bragging about their prowess
during the war and blaming the white men for taking away their sense of
identity which Tayo knows was false. Emo blames the white men for
forgetting about him and for sending him back to reservation life; he
wants Tayo to join him in his hatred for the whites. But Tayo
understands that the only thing Indians gained from their participation in
the war was a false sense of worth and identity, and that Emo lives for
the memories of a time when he felt integrated in mainstream America.
Tayo refuses to become Emo's ally because, for him, recapturing
those memories is not important. What Tayo wants is to be able to
remember his Indian heritage and to regain a sense of belonging. Silko
exposes all the contradictory forces that maintain her character in a state
of mental waste before she presents him with the tools for his recovery.
For Tayo the long process of recovery begins when he visits a
Medicine Man, Betonie, who helps him to externalize his emotions by
asking him to tell his story. Without a story to tell Tayo has no identity.
The two stories that precede the opening of the novel predict the
42
outcome of the narrative by emphasizing the necessity for and the
healing power of stories.
The first traditional story is about Ts'its'nako, Thought-Woman
who thinks the world into existence. The second story is entitled
Ceremony and explains that stories are essential for the survival of a
culture:
I will tell you something about stories [he said]. They aren't
just entertainment. Don't be fooled. They are all we have,
you see, all we have to fight off illness and death (Silko 2).
Betonie, the Medicine Man, begins a healing ceremony for Tayo and
offers him some tea. The first effect of the ceremony is Tayo's dream
about Uncle Josiah's lost speckled cattle. When he wakes up from the
dream, he wants to leave immediately to look for the cattle because
"there would be no peace until he did" (145). The cattle symbolize the
animal spirit guidance that will help to lead Tayo back to his true self.
Later, when Tayo has been riding on the mountain looking for
Josiah's cattle, he begins to understand the therapeutic value of his
search:
He had been so intent on finding the cattle that he had
forgotten all the events of the past days and past years. It
43
was a cure for that, arid maybe for other things too.
(Silko 192)
Tayo is not looking for ordinary cattle, but for a hybrid variety, the mirror
image of his own mixture of bloods. The lost cattle have been able to
find ways to survive and their survival instincts teach Tayo that it is
possible to overcome adversity. The identification to the cattle is
essential in the process of survival since it replaces Tayo within a
traditional Native American world view in which animals and humans are
complimentary components of a natural world. Furthermore, the search
for the cattle generates a story to tell later.
The other form of spiritual guidance results from Tayo's encounter
with the woman of the mountain, Ts'eh, whom he meets during his
search. According to Judith Antell "Indian women provide the power
that can save [the protagonist] who is eventually restored to spiritual
harmony" (218). In this novel, Leslie Silko offers an illustration of
Antell's theory through the salvific effect that Ts'eh has over Tayo.
Tayo, who has been raised by his uncle Josiah, has not been nurtured by
a woman; consequently, when he meets Ts'eh, he regains the feminine
influence that was lacking. Moreover, Ts'eh is the key to Tayo's
recovery since she is able to guide him to the speckled cattle and also to
rekindle in him his sensitivity toward his ancestral land.
44
Ts'eh takes him along with her on the mountain as she gathers
herbs and plants and teaches him about nature, about "the roots and
plants she had gathered" (Silko 224). Tayo is aware that in the
company of Ts'eh he no longer thinks about his painful past and remarks
that "now the old memories were less than the constriction of a single
throat muscle. The breaking and crushing were gone" (227). Ts'eh thus
functions as a link between Tayo and the land and renews a relationship
that had been destroyed by the war. The distance between Tayo and
the land culminates when he prays for the rain to stop while he is pulling
the body of Rocky in the mud, and forgets that rain is beneficial for the
land. But Ts'eh is strong medicine for Tayo who finally regains a sense
of belonging as he beholds the land around him and later, when he finds
the cattle.
The last step toward a complete recovery of a sense of identity is
to defeat Emo. Emo and his friends Leroy and Pinky promote hatred and
violence toward white people as well as mixed-blood Indians like Tayo,
and in Tayo's mind they are "the destroyers" (Silko 247). Clearly, Tayo
does not want to be a part of their "witchery," (247) even if sometimes
he too resents the way white America looks down on Native America.
45
When Tayo comes down from the mountain, he is confronted by
Emo's cruelty who is torturing Harley, another veteran who sympathized
with him and understood his confusion. Tayo sees:
Harley's body hanging from the fence, where they had
tangled it upright between strands of barbed wire. Harley's
brown skin had gone as pale as the cloudy sandstone in the
moonlight, and Tayo could see the blood shining in his
thighs and fingertips. (Silko 251)
This crucifixion of his friend Harley almost influences Tayo to give in to
the witchery and to kill Emo, but revenge would only make him a part of
a "circle of death" that unite all the "destroyers." His resistance to his
own desire to become violent informs his final separation from the white
world and his return to traditional life. By the end of the novel, Tayo has
a story to tell the people of Laguna; it is the story of his regained sense
of identity.
These three novels are the landmarks of Native American literature
and establish a pattern for the theme of survival. The protagonist in
each novel regains a sense of identity through a series of cathartic
events that dissipate the confusion he suffers from and allow him to
regain a sense of belonging and a sense of self.
46
But these novels exploit the theme of survival in a traditional way
when compared to the style of other writers such as James Welch,
Hanay Geiogamah, Louise Erdrich, and Simon Ortiz. Welch is the first in
this group to introduce humor as a weapon that combats alienation.
Geiogamah, Erdrich, and Ortiz also use humor to counteract the effects
of alienation. Together, these writers posit that humor, often bleak and
thought provoking, underlines that survival is possible only through a
process of self awareness and the ability to laugh at oneself.
CHAPTER 3
JAMES WELCH'S WINTER IN THE BLOOD: A TRANSITIONAL
NOVEL IN THE STUDY OF ALIENATION AND SURVIVAL
For those who outlive genocidal terrors, ironic survival
has become a bisociative way of life.
Kenneth Lincoln
N. Scott Momaday and Leslie Silko have contributed to revive and
popularize the theme of alienation and quest for identity. Their works
have inspired other Native American writers to give their interpretation of
this theme including Janet Campbell Hale, Louise Erdrich, Michael Dorris,
Paula Gunn Allen, Gerald Vizenor, and James Welch. James Welch's
novel Winter in the Blood (1974) marks a turning point in the
development of alienation and quest for identity as well as the chance of
survival of the Indian culture as the thematic foundation of a novel.
Although Welch is influenced by Momaday's style—fragmented
narrative, flashbacks—and also by his progressive re-directing of his
protagonist toward a regained sense of identity through a series of
epiphanies, the message of survival is conveyed through a different tone.
Black humor makes its debut in contemporary Native American fiction in
47
48
Winter in the Blood and from it a new Native American consciousness
emerges. Consequently, James Welch's Winter in the Blood, situated
between Momaday's masterpiece which belongs to the tradition
established in the first half of the century by Mourning Dove and D'Arcy
McNickle, and the savory novels of Louise Erdrich, represents a
transitional work in the evolution of the treatment of survival in the
works of contemporary Native American writers.
At the beginning of the novel the nameless narrator, a Blackfeet,
returns home after wandering around his town of Havre and learns from
his mother Teresa that his girlfriend Agnes, a Cree whom the narrator's
mother despises because she is Cree and not Blackfeet, has left him and
has taken with her his gun and his razor. Teresa's allegiance to her
Blackfeet ancestry is limited to their never ending hatred of the Crees. In
fact she rejects Indian ways and lives her life as a Catholic. Although
the news hardly disturbs him, he sets out to find Agnes more out of the
determination to get his belongings back than because he cares for the
girl. Through the first person point of view the narrator describes his
search for the runaway girlfriend, an enterprise which prompts the
narrator to search for his own identity. The fragmented narrative in the
novel corresponds to the narrator's fragmented mind which makes him
remember his childhood and his life on the ranch with his mother Teresa,
49
his father First Raise, and his brother Mose, and also revives the stories
his grandmother used to tell him about the Blackfeet and the Gros
Ventres. Although the narrator is engaged in the reality of trying to find
Agnes, the present often yields to the memories of a past made distant
by the passage of years, but also by the narrator's mother's efforts to
erase the traces of their Blackfeet heritage. While looking for Agnes, the
narrator entertains meaningless relationships with two whores, Marlene
and Malvina, whom he routinely takes to bed and meets an enigmatic
man who confesses to him that he is being pursued by the FBI for
embezzlement and that he needs a ride across the border into Canada to
escape the law. The only positive relationship he develops is with
Yellow Calf, a Blackfeet who used to befriend the narrator's father and
who lives alone and practices traditional Indian ways. Yellow Calf
becomes his only tie to his heritage, and although he is himself too
acculturated to fully understand the old man's ways, he is drawn to him
and to his knowledge of the narrator's past. The narrator is particularly
interested in finding the truth about his grandmother's survival when, as
the young widow of Standing Bear she was abandoned by her tribe on
the pretext that her beauty had brought bad luck to Standing Bear. That
question along with the recurrent memories of his past prompt a sudden
return to his ranch without Agnes whom he has found in a bar in town.
50
Upon his return the news of his grandmother's death leads him to seek
Yellow Calf's presence. During their meeting Yellow Calf reveals that he
himself saved the narrator's grandmother after Standing Bear's death
and that he is his grandfather. This revelation provides the narrator with
a renewed sense of identity and the determination to celebrate his
heritage, beginning with his request that his grandmother be buried in
the ways of the Blackfeet.
On first reading Winter in the Blood several parallels with N.Scott
Momaday's House Made of Dawn appear. First, Welch's nameless
narrator like Momaday's Abel embarks on a search for self recognition
that leads him away from urban, corrupted life and guides him back to a
rural and traditional existence. Abel leaves Los Angeles, his bad job at
the factory, the scrutiny and cruelty of Martinez and returns to his
grandfather Francisco's house. There, he finally reconciles himself with
his Kiowa heritage. Similarly, by the end of Book I, Welch's protagonist
voices his disenchantment with what Havre has to offer, namely
barroom brawls, too much alcohol, and disappointing one-night stands,
and returns to his mother's ranch where he vows to live proudly as a
Blackfeet. William Bevis in his article "Native American Novels: Homing
In" identifies the return of the protagonists to tribalism in these two
novels as examples of "homing in" and explains that in both cases the
51
writers "present a Western 'self' seeking to transfer energy to a tribal
context" (Bevis 618). Bevis further explains that in Momaday's novel as
well as in Welch's "the homing plots marry white failure to Indian pride"
(618). Thus, Abel and the nameless narrator return home not only to a
house and a family but also to a traditional way of life particular to the
tribe to which they belong. Therefore survival results from the
characters' affirmation of their Indian self.
The road to the recovery of a forgotten identity is long and painful
for the nameless narrator as it was for Abel. As the novel opens
Welch's protagonist returns to his mother's ranch with a shiner on his
eye, the result of an altercation at one of the town's bars he frequently
visits. Drinking has become a way of life for him as well as a means to
compensate for his meaningless life. The barrenness of his existence is
mirrored in the barrenness of the landscape that surrounds the ranch that
the narrator describes in the opening paragraph of the novel. With his
good eye—the other one is half shut by the blow he received from a
drunken white man at a bar—he can see the log-and-mud cabin and
notices that it is in pitiful shape:
The roof had fallen in and the mud between the logs had
fallen out in chunks, leaving a bare skeleton, home only to
52
mice and insects. Tumbleweeds, stark as bone, rocked in a
hot wind against the west wall. (Welch 1)
Thus, on his way home, the narrator must walk across a waste land as
horrifying as the waste land that inhabits his heart and mind. Kathleen
Mullen Sands underlines this parallel in "Alienation and Broken Narrative
in Winter in the Blood:"
Welch is blunt as he reveals the barrenness of the narrator's
perception of himself and his environment. The land he
crosses is empty and abandoned. The story of his life is
disordered, chaotic, and finally, to him, meaningless.
(97-98)
Louis Owens also insists on the importance of the natural elements
in Winter in the Blood as reflections of a disrupting humanitarian truth
when he writes about Welch in Other Destinies: Understanding
American Indian Novels. Owens argues that the introductory phrase of
the novel and the paragraph that ensues inform not only the plight of the
protagonist but also that of the Blackfoot culture at large. As the
narrator explains:
In the tall weeds of the borrow pit, I took a leak and
watched the sorrel mare, her colt beside her, walk through
burnt grass to the shady side of the log-and-mud cabin. (1)
53
Owens focuses on the choice of the word "borrow" and on the
implications of its double entendre:
A borrow pit is an excavation from which the earth has been
taken for use elsewhere, earth appropriated or "borrowed."
Just as the very earth itself has been taken, so we come to
realize Blackfoot culture and identity have been appropriated
by the dominant white culture, leaving a kind of nothingness
in their place—a dormancy, winter in the blood. (Owens
129)
Owens' statement confirms that Welch has carefully crafted the opening
of the novel to create a sense of alienation that affects both the land and
the people. Thus, Welch like Momaday presents two anti heroes who
re-enter their forgotten traditional environment confused about their
place in the world and betrayed by their own bodies. Abel is so drunk
that he nearly falls off the bus that has brought him back to his
grandfather's house and the nameless narrator cannot see straight since
one of his eyes is swollen and bruised as the result of a fight. The first
encounter with the protagonist testifies to a psychological "disease" that
needs to be healed and foretells the redemptive quest that will ultimately
liberate him from the bonds of alienation. Welch's opening paragraph
blatantly establishes the extent of the desolation of the land and
54
establishes the correspondences between exterior landscape and interior
landscape. Welch's narrator states:
I felt no hatred, no love, no guilt, no conscience, nothing but
a distance that had grown through the years . . . The
country had created a distance as deep as it was empty, and
the people accepted and treated each other with distance.
But the distance I felt...came from within me. (2)
Thus, the distance within him is also the evil within him, and to exorcise
it means to survive.
The first return home, which takes place at the beginning of the
novel, offers no reward neither for the nameless narrator nor for Abel,
but instead poses many questions that remain unanswered until the end
of each man's story. The self-imposed interrogation leads to a
fragmented recollection of past events and a blurred vision of present
events. Consequently, and like Abel's story, the story of the protagonist
in Welch's novel is broken into pieces. Told in the first person by the
nameless man, the narrative is as fragmented as his mind and is
constructed through a voyage through times present that is regularly
interrupted by incursions in times past. Welch's choice of a first person
narrator creates a sudden intimacy between storyteller and audience
that enhances the directness of the narrative and makes clear the sense
55
of alienation that the narrator feels. Unlike Welch, Momaday and later
Silko do not use the same point of view; the omniscient perception of
their narrators maintains the readers at a certain distance from the
emotional dilemma that unravels. Welch's narrator, on the contrary,
seems to address the readers/audience directly, almost confiding in
them, and to tell the story of his search for self.
The elders play an important part in the search for a sense of self
and a sense of place in all of native American literature. Momaday's
protagonist Abel needs his grandfather Francisco to help him make sense
of the fragments of his heritage that remain in his mind; Tayo in Silko's
Ceremony remembers his grandmother's stories; and Welch's nameless
narrator has both a grandmother who tells him the story of her survival
and befriends a wise old man whom the narrator recognize as his
grandfather at the end of the novel. In each case, the elderly man or
woman represents the only element of stability in the protagonist's life
and the only direct and undamaged line to a forgotten past as Kathleen
Mullen Sands explains in the case of Welch's narrator who recalls the
tales his grandmother used to share with him about the rivalry between
the Blackfeet and the Gros Ventres. Sands notes:
He is caught up in the mystery of the past, in a yearning to
know the complete story, and in a fear that he might lose
56
what part of it he still holds. The memory is incomplete but
it is not cause for confusion or recrimination. It is the single
intact thread in the torn fabric of his history. It holds
promise of some continuity with the past, of pride in his
Blackfeet ancestry. (Sands 99)
The grandmother's stories represent the incursion of oral traditions
into the narrative. She is responsible for telling the stories of the
Blackfeet heritage and she hopes that someone will keep the stories alive
by remembering them and sharing them with others. The nameless
narrator fulfills the grandmother's unspoken wish since he constantly
refers to her stories. In addition, the first person narrative establishes a
kind of conversational mode between narrator and unseen audience, a
medium through which the grandmother's stories are transmitted and
kept alive. The nameless narrator pieces together the story of his origins
through the stories of his grandmother and Yellow Calf. Such reference
to the importance of storytelling by way of the narrative exists in
Momaday's House Made of Dawn and also constitutes one of the
principal element of the narrative in Silko's Ceremony as well as in
Momaday's later novel The Ancient Child.
The narrator is particularly interested in discovering how his
grandmother survived the winter after she was cast away by her
57
deceased husband's tribe. His own survival depends upon the answer to
that question which draws him to the one person who is likely to know
the answer, Yellow Calf. Yellow Calf is also a direct line into Blackfeet
heritage since he lives in a traditional Indian way, by himself, in a cabin
remote from town, with deer as his only companion. Furthermore,
Yellow Calf knows the history of the Blackfeet and the Gros Ventres and
at the end of the novel he reveals that he is the narrator's grandfather.
Yellow Calf is essential to the narrator's recovery of his identity since
without his contribution to the story of the Blackfeet that the narrator is
attempting to reconstruct, the epiphany of the end of the novel would
not be possible.
Kathleen Sands emphasizes the importance of the revelation for
the narrator as well as for the process of storytelling that is being
demonstrated in this novel. According to Sands:
The story has done more than give the narrator a personal
identity. It has given him a family, a tribal identity. It has
invested the land with history and meaning, for Yellow Calf
still lives in that place of bitter winter, dwelling in harmony
with the earth. (102)
Yellow Calf's own words illustrate Sands' argument:
58
Sometimes in winter, when the wind has packed the snow
and blown the clouds away, I can still hear the muttering of
the people in their tepees. It was a very bad time. (Welch
153)
Without his grandmother and Yellow Calf, the narrator cannot hope to be
reconnected with his heritage since his own mother has long repudiated
traditional Indian ways.
Welch's approach to his novel continues to emulate Momaday's
through the use of a female principal. There are five women in this
novel: the narrator's grandmother, his mother, his girlfriend Agnes, and
two one-night stands, Malvina and Marlene. The latter ones function
only as temporary compensations for his alienation; they provide easy
and convenient sexual encounters, but they are meaningless. The
narrator's mother no longer nurtures him and her second marriage to a
man he resents has created a distance between the two of them that is
irreversible. The grandmother can no longer care for him, let alone for
herself. She is weak and sick. Still, the narrator feels closer to her than
to his mother and likes to remember the stories she used to tell him.
Nevertheless, she does not provide the nurturing that he needs. It is
with Agnes, the Cree girlfriend, that he ultimately seeks to secure a
59
relationship, although he does not come to fully understand this until he
has gained a sense of identity.
Finally, Welch, like Momaday in House made of Dawn, uses
violence to bring about the narrator's acceptance of and beliefs in his
Blackfeet heritage. When the nameless narrator comes back to his
mother's ranch after spending a night in town, he bears on one eye
evidence of a fight of which he was the victim. The swollen eye, his
headache, and the pain in his bad knee take away all glimpses of the
happiness anyone would feel in returning home. For him coming home
"had become a torture" (Welch 2). With one swollen eye the narrator
has only a partial vision of things; Welch uses this temporary handicap to
extend the narrator's obstructed vision into his perception of life. As a
result, he seems to look at his life through a dark glass and to present a
universe that is malfunctioning. Through a technique that reminds of
T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Welch describes a landscape, interior and
exterior, that does not work. Although the eye heals, the narrator's
perception continues to be blurred throughout the story, and he focuses
only on the negative. The narrator catalogs what troubles him; he
resents his mother for remarrying with Lame Bull who is a drunk and
whom he accuses of marrying his for her "360 acres of hay land" (13);
he despises his girlfriend for stealing his razor and his gun which forces
60
him to look for her in Havre; and finally, he blames himself for not being
able to prevent his brother Mose from being hit by a car on the side of a
road near the ranch. The accident has left "servant to a memory of
death" (Welch 38).
Two other violent incidents also contribute to show that the
narrator has not succeeded into making sense of his life. The first
incident happens at the Silver Dollar, a bar in town where he has found
Agnes. There, Dougie, Agnes' friend, punches him in the face. When
the narrator regains consciousness, he is sitting on the sidewalk with a
broken tooth and a severe headache. Marlene, a whore, tends to him
and later brings him to her apartment. The ensuing sexual encounter
instead of soothing his pain triggers in him the sudden urgency to return
the violence of which he has been the victim and slaps her across the
face. This act of gratuitous violence leaves him emotionless:
Everything had gone out of me, and I felt the kind of peace
that comes over one when he is alone, when he no longer
cares for warmth, or sunshine, or possessions, or even a
woman's body, so yielding and powerful. (123)
The final lines of Part II bring about a decisive moment of
revelation for the narrator who vows to sever himself from the life he
has been leading and to start anew. Welch's narrator begins to recover
61
a sense of identity when he decides to erase all images of his demise
including the town, the people he has associated with, his drinking habit,
and most important, himself. The narrator explains:
I wanted to lose myself, to ditch these clothes, to outrun
this burning sun, to stand beneath the clouds and have my
shadow erased, myself along with it. (Welch 125)
The narrator wishes for a complete make over of his diseased soul and
broken body of which he is reminded when he feels the bruise on his
nose. To make the narrator's resolution take effect immediately, Welch
closes the last chapter of Part II on a note that clearly foreshadows a
new direction in the narrator's life and closes the door on a disturbing
past. When the narrator notices that "there were no mirrors anywhere,"
(125) he has become invisible to himself as he once was and can look to
the future. Thus, violence may be gratuitous in Winter in the Blood, but
it is not useless. It serves as shock treatment that awakens the
protagonist to his crumbling existence and gives him the will to change.
Thus, Welch's Winter in the Blood shares the themes reintroduced
by N. Scott Momaday in House Made of Dawn such as alienation,
violence, the female principle, and sense of self and place, which were
first presented in the novels written by Mourning Dove and D'Arcy
McNickle. Therefore, Welch's novel fits in the tradition of fiction writing
62
as it has been established in the first half of the twentieth century by
Native American writers and as it continues to be followed by many
writers since the 1950's. Yet, Winter in the Blood does not simply
qualify as another example of the treatment of alienation and recovered
identity; the novel reveals a new approach to the popular theme and
gives it a new direction.
The story is told by a man with no name, no home to speak of, no
family nucleus to nurture him , no job, and no plans for the future. Yet,
despite a grim existence, the narrator is a survivalist who manages to
carry on by turning bitterness into sarcasm and black humor, a weapon
that helps him survive.
In an interview conducted by Ron McFarland and reproduced in his
book James Welch. Welch expresses his surprise that many people
are afraid to laugh with that book, and I can't understand
why. They think it's Indians and they think it's about
alienation and so on and, therefore, there should be no
funny moments in the novel. (McFarland 9)
Winter in the Blood offers many comedic moments despite the somber
predicament in which the narrator finds himself; however, readers should
not expect to burst out laughing. In another interview, this time
conducted by Laura Coltelli for her book Winged Words. Welch explains
63
that he tries to be humorous but not in a "'belly-bustin' way, but in a
way that has a certain play on words or whatever" (Coltelli 192). The
"whatever" part of Welch's statement is, in fact, what makes his sense
of humor difficult to predict and to perceive immediately. Welch's humor
is subtle and sophisticated, but as Kenneth Lincoln remarks in Indi'n
Humor: Bicultural Plav in Native America "the comedy in Winter in the
Blood does not come easily, nor is it always on the surface. This is a
comic vision from way down, deadpan, satiric, understated" (272). For
the narrator, sarcasm does not make the reality of his life disappear, but
it helps to cope and to soften the emotional blows.
Andrew Horton's article on Winter in the Blood which appeared in
the special issue of American Indian Quarterly dedicated to Welch
defines humor in the novel as:
. . . a tool by which he manages to gain some degree of
perspective on and control over his troubled life. He is
discontent with his present, haunted by his past, and
uncertain about his future. (131-132)
Consequently, if humor derives from a profound sense of malaise, it will
never be completely dissociated from moral and/or physical suffering.
Comedy in the novel is not omnipresent; instead, it relies on the
element of surprise to achieve its effect. The dark comedy of the novel,
64
conveyed through the narrator's attitude and account of the events he is
recalling, emerges when it is least expected through numerous
one-liners, jokes, or descriptions. The only consistent element of humor
is a magpie, a traditional Native American symbol of wit, that seems to
keep an eye on the narrator's life. But whenever the magpie appears in
the narration, it always squawks to make fun of the narrator. The
magpie laughs at the expense of the narrator and always reminds him of
his foolishness.
Dark humor first materializes through the narrator's grandmother's
resentment toward the Cree girl whom she believes to be married to her
grandson. The grandmother has not forgotten that the Crees were once
the worst enemies of the Blackfeet, and although old age has so
weakened her that she cannot stand up on her own, she still gathers
enough energy to plot ways to kill her grandson's presumed wife. The
description of the odd cohabitation of the two women represents an
example of the type of situational comedy that Welch uses in his novel.
The narrator explains how the grandmother would sit across from the
Cree girl smoking her pipe and plotting, while the "enemy" would read
magazines and dream of becoming a model. The narrator remembers:
The old lady imagined that the girl was Cree and enemy and
plotted ways to slit her throat. One day the flint striker
65
would do; another day she favored the paring knife she kept
hidden in her legging. Day after day, these two sat across
from each other until the pile of movie magazines spread
halfway across the room and the paring knife grew heavy in
the old lady's eyes. (Welch 5)
Although the grandmother's murderous impulses are funny, her
reasoning for wanting to kill the Cree girl is anchored in her painful
memories of violent and sad times when the Crees fought with the
Blackfeet. The grandmother had often told her grandson why she
resented the Crees. She had mentioned that:
Crees were good only for the white men who came to
slaughter Indians. Crees had served as scouts for the
mounted soldiers and had learned to live like them, drink like
them, and the girls had opened their thighs to the Long
Knives. (33)
Nevertheless, the grandmother's behavior is amusing; as the narrator
remarks even his Cree girlfriend would have laughed if she had known
who was plotting to kill her. Yet, the grandmother's reasons for wanting
to kill the girl also remind of a somber and not too distant reality for her
tribe. The juxtaposition of the amusing and the sad is the technique that
Welch chooses to convey a sense of bleak humor. This technique aborts
66
the laughter that the situation arises and substitutes for it a snicker,
loaded with the guilt of wanting to laugh that a sudden awareness of
reality occasions.
Humor of absurdity replaces situational comedy when the
nameless narrator encounters a mysterious man at the bar of the Pomp
Room. The man is even more anonymous than the narrator; his name is
never revealed and his identity and purpose in life remain an enigma. He
claims to be from New York and shows the narrator his credit cards as
proof of his origins, but the story he begins to tell is not clear. The
narrator refers to him as the airplane man because he explains to him
that he tore up his airplane ticket just prior to taking a flight to the
Middle East. The mysterious man flashes a grotesque khaki African
hunter outfit and wears a flowery handkerchief around his neck. He
confesses that he is fleeing from his pursuers, whose identities are not
clear, because he has stolen something. Three other characters are
added to the scene: two men in suits and a barmaid. What follows is a
nonsensical conversation about the presence of unknown fish in the
town's reservoir, barroom jokes about the men's wives, interrogation of
the barmaid whom the airplane man thinks he knows, and the mention of
Portland roses and morning glories.
67
Robert Gish argues that the entanglement of this barroom scene
offers the characteristics of a mock intrigue. Questions arise: Who is the
airplane? Who are the two men wearing suits? How did the airplane
man and the barmaid meet? How to make sense of this entangled
conversation? At the end of the scene, the airplane man makes a
burlesque exit:
The airplane man glared at her. Suddenly he jerked upright
and roared _ I thought first suit had stuck a knife in his back
_ then rushed her, arms extended as if to hug or to strangle
her. At the last instant, he swerved and hit the door,
plunging into the night. (Welch 51)
Gish believes that the mock intrigue illustrated in this barroom scene
"dramatizes the sad hilarity of life as a bad joke" (55). Gish's comment
also applies to the remainder of the comic interlude featuring the airplane
man and alleged FBI agents in which the narrator becomes entangled.
At the Dutch Shoppe restaurant, the narrator meets one of the
two unidentified men wearing a suit, the older one, suspected to be an
FBI agent by the airplane man. He begins a conversation with the old
man in hope of being confirmed in his opinion that the reservoir contains
no fish. The man utters "Heh, heh" in lieu of an answer, lights a
cigarette, and plunges face down in the bowl of oatmeal placed in front
68
of him and dies instantly. The absurdity of the scene further confirms
Gish's theory of life as a bad joke as does the graffiti inscribed on the
walls of the toilet the narrator visits shortly after the sudden death of the
old man, almost as in an attempt to purge himself of a general sense of
nausea. He reads, "What are you looking up here for? The joke is in
your hand" (Welch 92).
Life continues to be a bad joke when the airplane man asks him to
drive him to Canada where he hopes to be free from the pursuit of the
FBI agents, who appear more and more to be a figment of his
imagination. The narrator's awareness of the absurdity of his life is
heightened when he walks across town carrying the airplane man's
teddy bear on his way to the nearest used car lot. The narrator explains
that "he felt like a fool carrying the purple teddy bear through the streets
of Havre" (95). Andrew Horton specifies the narrator's sense of being
grotesque by comparing him to Tonto "following and obeying the
safari-suited white man" (134). Again, the comedy of situation is
undercut by the tragic realization by the narrator that he has once again
lost control of his existence and finds himself subordinate to the whims
of pathetic paranoid white man he knows nothing about. The dark
humor that accompanies the episodes describing the narrator's
association with the airplane man informs the tragedy of his existence:
69
he continuously drifts in the midst of meaninglessness. The sudden
realization of the absurdity of the airplane man's proposition and the
unexpected but welcomed sight of Agnes entering a nearby bar finally
lead him to take control of his life.
The humor used in Part III of the novel differs from the dark humor
that creeps through Parts I and II. The rejection of the absurd along with
the rejection of the narrator's past that closes Part II develops in him a
new perception of life illustrated by his commitment to traditional
Blackfeet way. The narrative continues but tone points to purgation and
renewal.
When the narrator returns to his mother's ranch, he discovers that
his 100 year-old grandmother has died and plans are under way for her
burial. Comedy returns to the narrative through the description of the
grave digging process. Although the association of the term "comedy"
with a burial may point to a morbid sense of humor, the reality is
different. The narrator helps Lame Bull dig the hole in which the coffin
of his grandmother will be lowered. The act of digging is symbolic in
two ways. First, it represents the end of the cycle of life and the
traditional return to earth from which all creatures emerge according to
Native American beliefs. Therefore, death does not equate finality but
beginning. Second, digging a hole in the ground becomes a symbol for
70
the narrator's regained sense of place. Lame Bull and the narrator can
joke about the size of the hole they should dig without being
disrespectful. In fact, they both work lightheartedly and willingly, and
for the narrator this kind of work is a celebration of his commitment to
become involved with his tribe. The narrator recalls:
Lame Bull wanted to dig my grandmother's grave five feet
long because that was how long she was. He is willing to
add a couple of inches in case she had grown any in the
funeral parlor. (Welch 137)
The humor increases when the narrator says:
The old lady wore a shiny orange coffin with flecks of black
ingrained beneath the surface. It had been sealed up in
Harlem, so we never did find out what kind of makeup job
the undertaker had done on her. (174)
The image of the old lady wearing her coffin may be surprising and odd;
however, it indicates an essential reality for the narrator who speaks of
his grandmother as though she were still alive. He can afford to tease
about the old lady because he can still feel her power and her presence.
The humor surrounding the grandmother's burial culminates when
the family discovers that the hole Lame Bull and the narrator dug is too
small for the coffin. Lame Bull quickly takes control of the situation and,
71
as the narrator recalls, "lowered himself into the grave and jumped up
and down on the high end. It went down a bit more enough to look
respectable" (Welch 174). In this scene humor becomes slapstick.
Finally, the most important humorous scene in this novel occurs
instants before the nameless narrator discovers the identity of his real
grandfather and thus, gains insights into his origins. After he discovers
that his grandmother has died, the narrator visits Yellow Calf to tell him
the news. While the two talk, the narrator asks again of the old man
that he tell him how his grandmother survived that winter Standing Bear
died and she had been abandoned by the tribe. The narrator tries to add
the pieces of the puzzle: the old 1936 calendar in Yellow Calf's cabin,
the old man's age, his grandmother's age. He says, "He had followed
the calendar, the years, the time—I thought for a moment" (158). And
that very moment, his horse "Bird farted" (158). Kenneth Lincoln argues
that "bodily functions cleanse through elimination" and that "the novel's
revelations come as excreted bursts, basically comic, evacuant" (273).
Indeed, the opening statement of the novel refers to the narrator taking
"a leak" in the "tall weeds of the borrow pits" (1) as he comes back
from a night of drinking and fighting. At that time, the revelation is
negative; he feels estranged from his family as well as from his land.
Later, at the Dutch Shoppe restaurant, he goes to the bathroom after he
72
witnesses the death of the old man who collapsed in his bowl of
oatmeal. This time, the bodily function helps him compensate for the
absurdity of his life.
In the scene with Yellow Calf, the horse's fart coincides with the
most important revelation in the narrator's life and is followed by his
laughter of recognition. The narrator remembers:
I began to laugh, at first quietly, with neither bitterness nor
humor. It was the laughter of one who understands a
moment of his life, of one who has been let in on the secret
through luck and circumstances. (Welch 158)
In Andrew Horton's view, " Bird's humorous trumpeting closely unites
Bird, the narrator, and Yellow Calf in an instant of shared communion"
(137).
The narrator's laughter is his claim to existence, his victory over
the unknown, the acknowledgement of his identity regained. As Lincoln
writes, it is "an absurdist cry of survival, an old yelp" (274) which is
announced by Bird's fart.
The humor of the last part of the novel helps to celebrate the
narrator's newly recovered sense of place and sense of self. As Louis
Owens emphasizes humor supports the fact that the narrator "has
articulated his existence and earned an identity: he is both the grandson
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of Yellow Calf, the hunter, and the storyteller of this narrative" {Owens
144). In Andrew Horton's words, "humor is liberating" (137); it is also
regenerating.
James Welch's Winter in the Blood is a powerful case study of
alienation and acculturation with a twist. Unlike Momaday's House
Made of Dawn. Welch's Winter in the Blood establishes that survival is
possible not only through perseverance and beliefs in traditional ways
but also through the ability to maintain a sense of humor through
adversity. Welch tells Ron McFarland, "I intentionally put comic stuff in
there just to alleviate that vision of alienation and purposelessness" (9).
By using humor as technique, Welch does not invent anything, but
simply uses one important aspect of the oral tradition. Welch explains to
Laura Coltelli how he arrives to the kind of humor noticeable in Winter in
the Blood:
it is based on presenting people in such a way that you're
not exactly making fun of them, but you're seeing them for
what they are and then you can tease them a little bit.
That's a lot of Indian humor teasing, and some plays on
words; Indians are very good at puns . . . It might have to
do with that traditional Indian sense of humor that has
survived for hundreds of years. (192)
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Welch's novel represents a new direction in Native American
literature while at the same it remains part of a tradition in fiction
established by the early writers. The novel is traditional because it treats
the important theme of alienation and its effect on tribal people; it is
innovative in that it proposes a way to compensate for the suffering that
had not been previously considered in fiction, although it has been part
of the Native American culture for thousands of years. Andrew Horton
points that Native American oral tradition includes many
comic ceremony-dramas that have been passed down and
are celebrations of life. They are religious rituals which
evoke laughter as a liberating force. Employing song, dance,
sexual farce, slapstick, and drama, these ceremonies were
truly a group experience, a celebration of community. (131)
Horton should also mention that those dramas often featured the most
important comic figure in Native American culture, the trickster. Welch's
nameless narrator shares certain characteristics with the trickster
character; he frequently seeks sexual encounters, he has an attitude, he
is always in trouble, but he always manages to survive. As Lincoln
states, the narrator/trickster along with the reader "go on going on—to
the point, cathartically, that Welch has purged his fictive Indian scene"
(Lincoln 272).
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Winter in the Blood marks a decisive turn in the evolution of Native
American literature by allowing writers to focus on techniques as support
for theme, particularly humor. Welch's success with the novel and its
critical acclaim helped to popularize a forgotten vehicle of meaning which
became more and more utilized by Native American writers after the
seventies and still contributes today to define a new Native American
identity.
CHAPTER 4
HUMOR AND SURVIVAL IN CONTEMPORARY NATIVE AMERICAN
DRAMA: TWO PLAYS BY HANAY GEIOGAMAH
"Participation in ritual dramas unites tribal members
with one another."
LaVonne Brown Ruoff
Before its translation into written words, Native American literature
was oral and intended to be performed in front of an audience. Rituals,
ceremonies, chants, and oratories constituted the essence of art as
entertainment as well as religious expression for Native Americans. Oral
literatures were performed by Native Americans for Native Americans,
instilled a sense of community, and contributed to the preservation and
dissemination of the traditions particular to the different tribes.
Translation and written literature produced since the nineteenth century
have helped to make the works of Native Americans accessible to
non-Indian readers; unfortunately, the written word has eliminated the
chances for performances as well as the possibility for the renewal of
the stories with each performance. For example, a storyteller has the
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77
power to change the story as he tells it by adding or subtracting details.
Each storyteller after him can change the story as well, thus making
storytelling a process through which myths and legends can be
transformed as to produce different versions and are forever kept alive.
Today, Native American writers rely on the written English word to
reach not only Indian readers but also non-Indian readers. Writing in
English instead of their respective tribal languages allows them to appeal
to a large audience and to earn a living. Yet, if writing in English has
become a necessity for Native American writers if they want to subsist
financially, many including N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko,
Louise Erdrich, or Simon Ortiz look for ways to maintain a sense of
orality in their works, mainly through the inclusion of references to
traditional stories, chants, or trickster characters in their stories, novels,
or poems. Nevertheless, drama is the only form of literature that offers
the possibility for orality and renews the closeness between performers
and audience.
Unfortunately, Native American playwrights are few and so are the
plays that have been published. Indeed, since the 1931 publication of
Green Grow the Lilacs by Cherokee writer Rollie Lynn Riggs, a play
which later became the musical comedy Oklahoma!, less than twenty
plays have been published and performed. In recent years, Native
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American drama has been accessible to the general public through
various adaptations of the historical tragedy known as the Trail of Tears
that focuses on the removal of several tribes from their ancestral lands
and their displacement to unfamiliar territories. The reenactment of this
tragedy has become a particularly popular tourists attraction notably in
Tahlequah, Oklahoma, where every summer Cherokee actors stage their
interpretation of the tragedy. In Texas, the Alabama Coushattas also
stage renditions of the Native American experience since the colonization
of this country, and in New Mexico, Navajo groups also offer
productions that illustrate their experience in the Southwest. These
various productions run throughout the summer months and pretend to
offer to their audiences, mainly composed of Anglo tourists, a realistic
vision of the displacement and/or mistreatment of thousands of Native
Americans which dwells not on their victimization by the whites but
rather conveys an image of them as surviving and triumphant. These
plays are popular tourists attractions that propose to awaken non-Indian
audiences to the plight of the Indians, but they only account for a small
portion of Native American drama.
Kiowa Hanay Geiogamah is the most respected Native American
playwright because he has been able to maintain the tradition of ethnic
theater in the United States, a tradition which was established in the
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nineteenth century by immigrants who wanted to preserve a sense of
identity in this new world and secure an inexpensive form of
entertainment for the new Americans to enjoy. Maxine Schwartz-Seller
emphasizes that ethnic theater in this country functioned as much as an
educational tool as a way for the immigrants to entertain themselves.
Ethnic theater educated the new Americans in their own cultures and
languages and thus attempted to palliate the general lack of education of
many of these immigrants. Furthermore, ethnic theater also benefitted
the young generations. Schwartz-Seller explains:
Ethnic theater made the history, literature, and folklore of
the homelands accessible to literate and illiterate alike and
gave the new American-born generations at least some
understanding of the cultures of their immigrant parents. (6)
Among the most active participants in ethnic theaters were
French, Germans, Polish, Chinese, Jewish, Black, and Spanish-speaking
immigrants. Schwartz-Seller remarks that by the turn of the century,
ethnic theaters not only provided cultural support but also a social
commentary on the status of the immigrants in the United States. She
also explains that ethnic theater soon became a way to escape the
somber reality of the life of the immigrants in this country.
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Schwartz-Seller reproduces the description of the thrill to go to the
theater given by a Jewish immigrant:
I do not go to the theater to think, but to f o r g e t . . . I seek
to forget my wife, the children, the crowded tenement, the
littered wash, the bad ventilation . . . I want to see men
dressed in armor or in the costumes of wealthy shepherds
who wear silk chemises. (7)
Ethnic theater provided a necessary outlet for many immigrants whose
living conditions were difficult; the theater allowed them to transcend
their difficulties and to dream of and hope for a better life.
Unfortunately for the thousands of immigrants who had come to
enjoy productions by ethnic theaters, the depression put a stop to most
activities. This hiatus in theatrical productions last until ten years after
the second world war, at which time Schwartz-Seller notes:
the black civil rights movement stimulated interest in black
history, culture, and identity and served as a catalyst for
increased political activism and ethnic awareness among
Hispanics, Native American, and Asian Americans. (11)
Even though ethnic theaters are no longer as popular and as numerous
as they were in the first half of the twentieth century, a few have
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survived that continue to promote "ethnic awareness," but it seems that
"political activism" is the least important part of the agenda.
Today, the newest and loudest voice in Hispanic ethnic theater
resounds in San Antonio, Texas. There, six women holding different day
jobs and caring for several children have formed an artistic group called
Murejes Grandes. The group meets after work and prepares material for
their acts which include performed poetry, performed short stories, and
multiple character short dramas. The uniqueness of this group results
from the high energy of these women and a pointed sense of humor that
transpires through their material. Mureies Grandes embody the purpose
of ethnic theater as defined by Schwartz-Seller:
Ethnic theater allowed Asian American, black, Native
American, Chicano, and other actors to move beyond the
stereotypical roles usually assigned them in mainstream
entertainment, to define themselves rather than to accept
others' definitions, and to play the full range of human
emotion and human behavior. (14)
Muieres Grandes educate their audiences in the culture they represent,
but also sensitize non-Hispanics to the many stereotypes that prevent a
realistic perception of Hispanics in the United States. Although
Schwartz-Seller's definition of the purpose of ethnic theater applies
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specifically to the activities of that theater in the seventies, it easily
transfers to today's ethnic theater at large, and certainly to the type of
entertainment provided by Mureies Grandes.
The other major component of ethnic theater since the seventies
has been Native American drama led by Kiowa Hanay Geiogamah who
headed the most active Native American theater company in the 1970's,
the American Indian Theater Ensemble, which later became known as
the Native American Theater Ensemble. Geiogamah's works do not
characterize Native American drama at large since the diversity of tribes
creates a diversity of types of drama; yet, a few general statements
about Native American drama apply to Geiogamah's works as well.
Jeffrey F. Huntsman in his chapter on Native American theater included
in Ethnic Theater in the United States edited by Maxine Schwartz-Seller
discusses the major characteristics of Native American drama.
First, Huntsman emphasizes that Native American drama is
community oriented and that consequently, "the artistic self is typically
unobtrusive, and the dramatic work in effect proclaims the artist's
involvement with his community, not his or her distance from it" (377).
Geiogamah's best known plays, Body Indian. Foghorn, and 49/ emanate
such a sense of community by focusing on several characters who are
related either by family ties or by their participation in tribal activities.
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Second, Huntsman points out the religious characteristic of
community life which is transposed to stage action and which centers on
the concepts of "nonlinear time and dimensionless place" (359). These
two concepts provide the foundation for the action in Geiogamah's plays
and are represented through the constant shift from past to present and
a shifting sense of place. This concept of time is one of the major
characteristics of oral literature which Geiogamah imitates in his plays.
Also, Geiogamah maintains a religious tone in his plays by using
certain objects or actions that creates the effect of a ritual. For
example, in Body Indian bottles of wine are constantly passed form one
person form another and drinking becomes ritualistic through the actors'
movement as they bring the bottle to their lips to drink. Those
movements are carefully guided by Geiogamah's stage directions.
Finally, Huntsman writes:
Native American drama is by its nature celebratory of the
essential being of the community, emphasizing that
ultimately all are affected by what the central participants
do. (360)
Geiogamah's plays also point to such communal experience by
showing the destructive effect of alcohol in Body Indian, by the long
history of the settlers' lack of respect toward Native Americans that was
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brought to public consciousness during the occupation of Alcatraz in
Foghorn and by the efforts of all Native Americans to legitimize the
existence of night gatherings known as 49's in 49.
Geiogamah's plays function on two levels: first, they promote self
awareness; second, they provide a political and historical commentary on
the conditions of Native Americans in the United States today and in the
past. In addition, Body Indian and Foghorn illustrate that humor is a
vehicle to support self awareness and to promote the sense of
continuance and survival, a technique shared by many contemporary
Native American writers. Geiogamah's sense of humor resembles that of
Simon Ortiz by its piquancy, but is also reminiscent of the type of humor
that Louise Erdrich uses in her novel in the sense that it points to
communal experience and collaborative survival.
Body Indian is a play in five scenes, set in a small apartment,
which offers a glimpse of the life of eleven individuals. The central
character is Bobby Lee who lost his leg as a result of a train accident and
who drinks heavily. Bobby Lee remains on his bed for the duration of
the play since he is too drunk to get up and is only occasionally
conscious. Bobby Lee has received money from the government; the
other characters who come to visit know that and want to steal it to
purchase alcohol. The other characters include Howard, an elderly man
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who is referred to as Bobby's uncle, Thompson who also drinks heavily,
Eulahlah, Thompson's?wife, Bobby's cousin Marie, Howard's girlfriend
Ethel, Bobby's aunts Betty and Alice, two teenagers by the name of
Martha and Fina, and James who is Howard's grandson.
The action takes place in Howard's one room apartment that is
poorly furnished and littered with wine bottles . Geiogamah's stage
directions imply that there are so many bottles on the floor that the
characters must stumble over them as they make their way through the
apartment. The bottles represent ironic sacred objects that the
characters use in their ironic ceremony that celebrates alcohol. Yet,
Geiogamah insists that his play is not about the problem of alcoholism
among Indians and indeed, Body Indian addresses more than just that
problem.
Geiogamah's stage directions also establish the mood of the play
which is intended primarily for an Indian audience. Consequently, the
characters' speech is altered so as to include certain linguistic
characteristics that are typical of Native Americans. In addition, the
characters use Indian words, and sing and dance. These techniques
propose to recreate a ritualistic mood that the audience will recognize
and with which they can identify. Therefore, Geiogamah's play provides
an Indian frame of mind and the semblance of a traditional ceremony.
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Actually, Geiogamah parodies Indian ceremonies and gives his characters
pagan ceremonial tools such as the wine bottles instead of rattles for
example. The characters do not believe in the power of the ceremony
and do not understand its significance. Geiogamah implies that the
demise of today's Indians is due partly to their rejection of a traditional
Indian life and that continuance depends upon the transmission of the
traditions.
Geiogamah writes to entertain and to instruct. Jeffrey Huntsman
in his introduction to New Native American Drama explains that
Geiogamah's interest
does not lie in reconstructing the dear, dead, romanticized
past...nor in self indulgent vituperation of the White Man . .
. he is interested more in survival and self knowledge than in
reproach and confrontation, (xi)
To promote "self knowledge" Geiogamah relies on a bitter sense of
humor that may not be directly accessible to a non-Indian audience who
feels as an outsider, but that triggers laughter within an Indian audience.
This particular type of humor results from the audience's self recognition
in viewing a probable mirror image of themselves, the drunken Indian,
which is a popular conception often used by Anglos to define today's
Indians. Geiogamah insists on the fact that often Indians come to live up
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to the misconceptions Anglos have created about them; they come to
define themselves in the way in which they are defined by outsiders, i.e
drunken, poor, and victimized. This type of negative self definition
prevents Indians from seeing past the stereotypes affixed to them and in
so doing are not able to look to the future. In Body Indian all the
characters' actions are motivated by their need for more alcohol except
for Bobby who intends to use his government check to commit himself
to an Alcoholics Anonymous program in Norman, Oklahoma.
Humor in this play results from the audience's recognition of a
familiar addiction; they laugh at the characters on stage because they
are so intoxicated that they can hardly stand on their feet, fall into a
drunken stupor, and have difficulty speaking. However, the laughter is
bitter; they laugh at the characters who make a pitiful spectacle of
themselves. In an interview with Kenneth Lincoln, Geiogamah explains
how the humor of the play is created by the audience who responds to
the comedy of situation (Lincoln 73). Bobby Lee becomes an easy target
for the characters who surround him; too drunk to realize their
intentions, Bobby enjoys the attention he is receiving. In his confused
mind he believes that relatives and friends are attentive because they
have not seen him in a long time. Everyone encourages Bobby to drink
with the group as if to celebrate this pathetic family reunion, while in
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fact, they only seek to get him drunk so that he will reveal where he has
put away his government money.
In Scene I, uncle Howard's affected compassion for his nephew
who must wear an artificial leg reveals him to the audience as a fraud;
Howard is as obsessed with alcohol as the other characters are and
consequently, sees Bobby as a defenseless prey. Howard asks Bobby,
"Does your leg feel okay? Does it hurt you, sonny? Do you want us to
take it off for you?" (Geiogamah 14) Howard's patronizing questions to
a stupefied Bobby are comic because they emphasize his hypocrisy and
make his intentions clear. Geiogamah's attack on hypocrisy is rooted in
his personal understanding of the problem and in his wish to awaken his
audience to its lethal effect on Indians today. Geiogamah confesses his
concern to Kenneth Lincoln:
the hypocrisy that Indi'n brotherhood, Indi'n love, all this
Indi'n king of thing...to me was an hypocrisy that I felt very
strongly about, 'cause I had seen it, experienced it, and
believe in every part of my mind and my heart that it was a
real thing. The really pernicious part was that so many
Indi'ns did it without really knowing it, without really
understanding what they were doing to each other. (73)
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Geiogamah wants his Indian audience to realize that self destruction can
lead to the destruction of many and hopes to rekindle a lost sense of
communal experience.
In Scene 2, Howard continues to generate the audience's laughter
when he initiates a mock war dance. Howard is encouraged to dance by
Ethel and is joined by Betty and Alice, who pretend to shake rattles, and
by Thompson, who begins to play an imaginary drum. Howard shouts:
"Fancy dance! Eee-hah! Eee-hah! Eee-hah! Eee-hah!" and everyone
laughs (Geiogamah 18). But the war dance is a travesty and the
merriment of the characters only points to a somber reality; the mock
war dance points to the characters' lack of understanding of and respect
toward Native American traditions. Furthermore, the mockery of the war
dance is aggravated by Howard's level of intoxication that causes him to
stumble across the stage as he dances, unable to maintain his balance.
The physical comedy of this scene only temporarily camouflages the
bitterness that results from the spectacle Howard makes of himself
which cultivates the stereotype of the drunken Indian. Howard's
clowning around nears abomination. Indeed, as an elder, Howard should
symbolize the preservation of the traditions; instead, he turns a
traditional dance into a joke. In addition, Betty and Alice, who represent
the younger generation in this play, take part in this buffoonery, unaware
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that their ignorance of and disrespect toward traditions contribute to the
vanishing of the culture. All the characters have lost their sense of
cultural identity and indulge in self destructive activities. Geiogamah's
allusions to communal experiences are ironic in this play since the
characters live in a semblance of togetherness; in fact, their behavior
promotes collective degeneration. Scene II provides a striking example
of what Geiogamah refers to as "the excessiveness of Indi'n humor"
(Lincoln 77).
"Excessiveness" also characterizes the behavior of the characters,
except for Bobby, because he is unable to remain conscious for more
than a few minutes. Each scene offers a new opportunity to the
characters to make Bobby drink more in an effort to make him share his
government money with them. In each scene, Bobby drinks more and
falls into a drunken stupor which allows the others to roll him over and
search him for money. The repetition of this situation confirms Bobby in
his role as the comic figure in the play. The audience comes to expect
him to fall over and lose consciousness every time he drinks and to be at
the mercy of the others' probing fingers. Bobby also embodies the
typical attitude of a drunk when he suddenly awakens from his slumber
and surprises everyone around him with some disjointed discourse.
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Bobby is like a jack-in-the-box who unexpectedly and only for a few
moments springs back into shape and regains consciousness.
Geiogamah's stage directions emphasize Bobby's resemblance
with an automated stage prop. Scene 2 is particularly characteristic of
the effect Geiogamah seeks to establish. Marie's arrival at the
apartment awakens Bobby and prompts him to start a conversation, but
as the conversation progresses, Geiogamah's directions reveal that the
Jack-in-the-box is rapidly fading away:
Bobby has been coming around, and now sits up on the bed
. . . adjusting . . . pausing to drink . . . angrily . . . irritated .
. . slurring his words . . . slumping, jerking, drooling. Bobby
is again stupefied from the wine. (Geiogamah 19-20)
Geiogamah uses similar indicators of Bobby's physical state in Scenes 3,
4, and 5. This technique establishes that Bobby's addiction to alcohol
has robbed him of his abilities to be a productive member of the group to
which he belongs. Bobby is worthless.
Bobby's jack-in-the-box like behavior and the effects of
intoxication over the other characters generate the comedy of situation
in Body Indian. Their need for more wine makes them grotesque. The
wine governs their thoughts and actions and leads them to indulge into
outrageous behavior. The characters are like vultures who have found a
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prey, Bobby, and tear their prey to pieces. The exaggerations of their
behavior causes laughters in the audience until the final scene when
Howard and Thompson remove Bobby's artificial leg and decide to pawn
it for a few dollars.
Geiogamah's technique is reminiscent of Louise Erdrich's in her
novel; in Scene 4, the comedy of situation is suddenly undercut by the
culmination of the characters' obsession with alcohol which results in
their assault on Bobby. The removal of Bobby's leg is a symbolic
violation of his body and the symbolic tearing apart of a man's identity.
Bobby cannot subsist without his artificial leg because the missing limb
destroys his sense of self.
Body Indian functions as a microcosm of today's Native Americans
as they ought not to be; the characters are passive, see themselves as
defeated by the white dominant society, and have chosen to give their
lives away to alcohol. They do not demonstrate a sense for the
community to which they belong, but they are instead egotistical and
interested in fulfilling their personal need. The play utilizes the
stereotype of the drunken Indian first to create a series of situations that
are humorous, and second to transform laughter into recognition and
action. On stage, the characters choose to allow themselves to be
controlled by the spirit of self destruction. Geiogamah counts on the
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humor of the play to awaken his audiences to a reality that can be
changed; Native Americans can exorcise the stereotype by which they
allow themselves to be defined by taking responsibility.
Jeffrey Huntsman analyzes the type of survival humor that
Geiogamah uses in Body Indian and notes its effects:
The laughter is typically Indian—sometimes uneasy and
bitter but always revealing: it helps maintain the social
equilibrium, for those things that are in the open, subject to
teasing and even ridicule, cannot fester and breed
unconscious discontent, (xvi)
Body Indian demonstrates that selfishness is unforgiving and that
togetherness is essential to the survival of the culture. In Scene 5,
Bobby understands that he has let himself become a part of this cycle of
destruction and finally, takes the responsibility to remove himself from
the sterile and potentially lethal environment that exists in Howard's
apartment. When Bobby reaches for his crutches, he symbolically
reaches for renewal.
Foghorn best demonstrates Geiogamah's taste for a type of humor
that is disturbing and shocking at times. The play opens with a
conversation between settlers about their first encounters with Native
Americans in 1492, then goes back and forth through time from 1492 to
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the early seventies. The term "foghorn" refers to the horns that were
sounded by authorities on the island of Alcatraz when activists of the
American Indian Movement occupied the island in 1969. The horns
were used to disturb the occupants and force them out of the island. In
this play as in Body Indian humor results from the presentation of
stereotypes about Native Americans and promotes awareness.
Scenes 1 and 2 focus on the systematic appropriation of the land
by settlers and their prejudices against Native Americans who are
referred to as "vermin, filthy savages, scalpers, and murderers"
(Geiogamah 52). The tone of the play transpires from the words of one
character who plays the part of a United States senator who claims
Indians "must settle on the reservations we have so generously set aside
for them" (53). The senator's words are mocked by an Indian narrator,
who announces the decision by Native Americans to reclaim their land.
The narrator's statement is a parody of the language commonly used
when treaties were signed between various tribes and the government of
the United States and that intended to show the settlers' concern for the
Indians:
We, the Native Americans, reclaim this land, known as
America, in the name of all American Indians, by the right of
discovery. We wish to be fair and honorable with the
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Caucasian habitants of this land and hereby pledge that we
shall give to the majority inhabitants of this country a
portion of the land for their own, to be held in trust by the
American Indian people for as long as the sun shall rise and
the rivers go down to the sea! We will further guide the
majority inhabitants in the proper way of living. (Geiogamah
55-56)
The narrator in this revised speech maintains the original patronizing tone
that the government officials used, but the words spoken by a Native
American emphasize the implications of the proposition: the systematic
assimilation of one culture into another. The parody of the language of
the treaties is a powerful tool that reveals the boldness of the United
States government assumption that Indians would gratefully accept its
offer to adopt Anglo traditions. The speech also aims to imply that if
Native Americans were to offer Anglos the same agreement, they would
not likely accept its terms.
This desire to reverse the roles as assigned by history originates in
the goals of the American Indian Movement of the 1970's. Therefore,
the play serves as a testimonial to the political activism of that time and
a springboard for Geiogamah's imagination. Geiogamah orchestrates a
series of sketches that point to the misinterpretations of the Indians by
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the settlers which occasioned the rebellion of the 1969 and offer an
unexpected twist of events at the end of each
sketch that stresses survival instincts.
Scene 3 features a Catholic nun and an Indian altar boy and
parodies the efforts of the settlers to christianize Indians. At first, the
nun's sermon reflects the caring attitude of a missionary toward the
Indians, but her comments rapidly reveal her fanaticism and profound
intolerance for a people she does not understand. Her sermon gradually
turns into a frenzy and culminates when she accuses them of being
"Poor, miserable, ignorant, uncivilized and NAKED!" (Geiogamah 57)
The nun stereotypes the attitude of superiority displayed by the
missionaries who sought to Christianize all Indians and also reveal the
missionaries' goals as an outrageous proposition. At the end of her
sermon, the nun is assaulted by the Indians who have been listening to
her. This unexpected turn of events is representative of the spirit of
resistance that dominates Foghorn.
The next scene presents the Native American perspective on
Indian boarding schools. From the end of the nineteenth century through
the 1920's, Indian boarding schools were considered the best solution to
the Indian question. Government officials were sent to reservations with
instructions to convince families to send their children to government
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schools. In those schools, the process of acculturation began and often,
Indian children were never allowed to return to their reservations. The
main character in this sketch is a school teacher who, for the first time,
faces Indian children in her classroom. The reactions of the teacher to
the Indian children reflect the typical attitude of the educators who
taught at Indian boarding schools. The schoolteacher is "snobbish,
nervous, rude, feisty, and blusterous" (58). When she first addresses
her class, the teacher refers to her students as "savages" not children
and angrily tells them that they are ignorant. As the teacher continues
to talk to her class, her remarks become more condescending toward the
way of life of the Indians.
Through the teacher's outrage and her promise to transform these
"savages" into civilized pupils, Geiogamah presents the major tenets of
the educational programs at Indian boarding schools. First, the
schoolteacher threatens to beat the students if they communicate with
each other in their own language and begins to teach them English.
Second, she imposes on them hygienic rules including a mandatory
haircut for boys. Finally, the teacher vows that she will make them
forget their own culture and will teach them how to be good citizens.
These three tenets constitute the foundation of the educational program
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as it was instituted at the first Indian school in the country, the Carlisle
School in Pennsylvania.
In this scene, Geiogamah stresses the abusive treatment of the
Indian children by the teacher. The children are abused emotionally
when they are stripped of their Indian identity and forced to act like
Anglos; but, they are also abused physically when the schoolteacher
grabs them and pushes them around, and, in one case, when she pours
castor oil down a little girl's throat because she was using her own
language to communicate with another child. In this sketch, survival
humor results from the futile attempts of the teacher to intimidate the
children and crush their sense of identity and the persistent resistance of
the children who make fun of her when she is not looking. Despite her
mean disposition and her profound hatred for the Indians, the children
carry on and in the end win over her when they rebel against her
fanaticism and overpower her.
The following scene in this play provides an unexpected account
of the relationship between Princess Pocahontas and Captain John
Smith. Paul Lauter, general editor of the second edition of the Heath
Anthology of American Literature from the Colonial period to the early
nineteenth century, argues that Powhatan, Pocahontas' father, used
Captain John Smith to help him demonstrate his power over the Native
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Americans under in control. Smith helped Powhatan to trade with the
Europeans and this allegiance showed Powhatan's followers how
important and powerful he was. Lauter also argues that in order to
maintain his control over the many tribes of the Chesapeake region,
Powhatan offered his own daughter to Captain John Smith at a time
when she was already married to English settler and tobacco planter
John Rolfe (4). Geiogamah provides a humorous twist to the story by
imagining Pocahontas' account of her adventure with Captain John
Smith. Pocahontas tells her handmaidens what happened when John
Smith took her into his tent.
The handmaidens huddle closely with Pocahontas for the
intimate details. One of them pops up, exclaiming "Pink?"
Then Pocahontas rises above them, lifts her arms in a
manner to suggest an erect phallus. The handmaidens gasp.
Then a kazoo whistle indicates that the erection falls
quickly, and the handmaidens explode with laughter.
(Geiogamah 65)
The story ridicules Smith and the details of her account point to Smith's
impotence. Tonto and the Lone Ranger, two Hollywood figures highly
popularized by a television series in the 1960's, are the target of
Geiogamah's sense of humor in the next sketch. Tonto is shining Lone
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Ranger's boots and as the latter waits for Tonto to finish his duty, he
begins to think of a scheme to change his public image. Lone Ranger
says:
The way you always bail me out of the crisis right at the last
minute with your clever thinking sure does not look too good
for me . . . It looks maybe like I'm not too smart having to
rely on an illiterate Injun like you to do all the clever thinking,
and even outsmarting the white man. (Geigomah 65)
Tonto passively listens to Lone Ranger as he continues to plan a
situation in which he could save Tonto from danger and thus, gain some
recognition. His only response to Lone Ranger's thoughts is the laconic
phrase, "Kemo sabay," a distortion of the Spanish phrase meaning,
"Who knows?" At first, Tonto's response shows his lack of interest in
Lone Ranger's scheme; but, as the scheme takes shape, Tonto
understands that the only way Lone Ranger's public image can change is
if he is no longer part of the equation. In the light of Tonto's sudden
decision to kill Lone Ranger so as to not be killed himself, "Kemo sabay"
becomes a sarcastic phrase that reveals Tonto's silent thought process
as he understands Lone Ranger's plan.
Another scene illustrates the frequent decisions by the government
to designate reservation lands as national parks. The situation features
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Lady Bird Johnson ̂ giving a press conference at the dedication of a new
park. The First Lady speaks with affected consideration for Native
Americans which reveals her own tendency to confuse Native Americans
with artifacts and to respond to popular conceptions about Native
Americans. In her opening statements, the First Lady enthusiastically
declares:
I have never seen such lovely, stoic faces as those of our
Indian friends with us today. Just look at those beautiful
facial lines, those high cheekbones, those wonderfully
well-rounded lips, those big dark eyes...l just know they are
going to be wonderful assets to the new national recreation
park that I am here to dedicate. (Geiogamah 68)
Furthermore, the speech emphasizes that the "Indian natives" will
provide "hundreds of pretty pictures adding to family albums in home all
across our land" (69). Lady Bird's speech reveals her superficial
understanding of Native Americans and her total ignorance of the
consequences of her proposition. Furthermore, with the First Lady's
casual mention that the decision to turn an entire reservation into a
national park was made over a cup of tea and ladyfingers, Geiogamah
implies that the fate of Native Americans is not a serious concern of
government officials but at best a second rate question.
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This scene also ends on a note of defiance. An Indian
photographer asks to take the First Lady's picture and when the shutter
of the camera clicks, a puff of smoke and a spark fly, implying that she
was killed.
The last situation presented before a return to the opening scene
at Alcatraz features what has been the most popular form of
entertainment about the west since its beginnings in 1917, but also the
most public source of misconceptions about Native Americans, the Wild
West Show. Here, Geiogamah reproduces the language used by the
announcers of the shows to emphasize the sensationalized rendering of
life in the West and the stereotypical portraiture of Native Americans.
The announcer's voice promises "a series of stirring tableaux, intensely
and accurately illustrative of Indian modes and customs," prepares the
crowd for "the taking of the scalp of a lovely white maiden," and insists
that all the scenes are "true to life" (Geiogamah 78).
At the end of the play, all the characters identify themselves by
giving the audience the name of the tribe they belong to. After six tribes
are named, the last character to speak identifies himself as "I am...NOT
GUILTY" (82). These are the last words spoken on stage and they refer
to every sketch that has been presented to the audience and sum up the
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message in each; Native Americans are not guilty of the misconceptions
of which they have been the object for centuries.
Survival in Body Indian and Foghorn is presented through a black
sense of humor, often unexpected and always shocking. Hanay
Geiogamah is not bashful about his subject matter: Native Americans of
today and of yesterday. As a Kiowa, he brings to the stage an objective
perspective of his culture. His perspective includes his recognition that
Native Americans have been abused by the dominant culture since
Columbus' discovery of their land. However, Geiogamah does not
encourage agitation as the solution to the situation of Native Americans
in the United States today. In fact, he is asking Indians to take control
of their lives and to not to live up to the many preconceptions that have
been formed about them. Geiogamah particularly wants to encourage a
life of sobriety and involvement with the traditions of tribal life and
promote a sense of responsibility for the community. Such a control is
possible despite the difficulties past or present through the adoption of a
humorous outlook on life because humor is a powerful coping
mechanism. Geiogamah explains to Kenneth Lincoln his theory on
humor:
I see the Indi'n capacity for humor as a blessing. It is a
miraculous thing that's pulled us through so much. It's
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everything from the past that we've brought forward with
us, our memories, ancestors, especially that, all these things
are religion to me—singing, dancing, stories, suffering, all of
that. And respect and caring for each other. So in that
sense humor is truly a part of religion. I truly believe the
older Indi'ns laughed, and laughed, and laughed. (Lincoln
79)
Geiogamah envisions the Native American of tomorrow as an individual
empowered by a renewed sense of self made possible by the rejection of
a destructive past and the faith in laughter as a remedy against
acculturation as well as in tribal life. He notes, "Survival means your
life, and your life is your religion. Jokes are like skewed prayers bringing
things back down" (80). These words are the most powerful expression
of tomorrow's Native Americans by a contemporary Native American
writer and point to a peaceful takeover of a land that belonged to Native
Americans through a renewed commitment to traditions.
CHAPTER 5
COMMUNAL EXPERIENCE AS THE AGENT FOR SURVIVAL
IN LOUISE ERDRICH'S LOVE MEDICINE.
THE BEET QUEEN. AND TRACKS
"Love, assisted by humor, triumphs over pain."
William Gleason
The daughter of Ralph, of German descent and teacher with the
Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Rita Gourneau, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa
and an employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Louise Erdrich was born
in Little Falls, North Dakota on July 6, 1954.
Louise Erdrich is the most popular and prolific Native American
novelist today. She owes her recognition and success to the publication
of three novels in the 1980's; Love Medicine (1984), The Beet Queen
(1986), and Tracks (1988). A fourth novel, The Crown of Columbus
was published in 1991 and was written in collaboration with her
husband Michael Dorris. Her latest novel, The Binao Palace, appeared in
1993. Erdrich has also authored two collections of poetry, Jackliaht
(1984) and Baptism of Desire (1988).
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106
She attended school in Wahpeton and later went to Darmouth to
seek a degree in English and creative writing. She graduated from
Dartmouth in 1976 with a bachelor's degree, then returned to North
Dakota where she directed poetry workshops for the Poetry in the
Schools Program of the North Dakota Arts Council. She also attended
John Hopkins University and graduated with a master's degree in
creative writing. After completing her degrees, Erdrich moved to Boston
and became editor of The Circle, the Boston Indian Council newspaper.
In 1981, she married Michael Dorris, a scholar and writer, who became
her collaborator and agent.
Although Erdrich's novels include the traditional themes of anger,
depression, and acculturation, she does not paint a picture of Native
Americans as a conquered people. On the contrary, her fiction is often
comic and stresses the survival of a people, not their disappearance.
Erdrich's novels feature a plethora of characters, often related to
each other, who desperately need each other to survive. In his new
book, Indi'n Humor: Bicultural Plav in Native America. Kenneth Lincoln
best describes the backdrop of Erdrich's novels:
There is little, if any, old-style ethnography in Erdrich's
fictions: no Chippewa chants, no ceremonies of the Great
Spirit, no wizened old medicine people. Instead, her stories
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detail pickups and bars and nuns and crazed uncles and
fierce aunts and small 'issues of how "Indi'n" kin are, or
aren't, by intermarriage. (Lincoln 214)
Consequently, Erdrich's fiction often transcends ethnicity and focuses on
a universal message.
In her first three novels, Erdrich concentrates on the description of
familial relationships and individual emotions and inner conflicts. The
novels constitute a trilogy that spans time from the second decade of
the twentieth century to the early eighties. The reader meets the
Pillagers, the Lamartines, the Kaspaws, the Lazarres, and the Morrisseys
and learns how the various family members come to love and hate each
other over the years; most important, the reader is left with a powerful
sense of continuation for the culture these people represent. Throughout
the stories of these families Erdrich maintains a style that harmonizes
painful events that affect the characters' life and lighthearted moments.
Thus, the reader is never allowed to brood too long over the emotionally
devastating events that are narrated and finds that the picture of the
Chippewas of North Dakota that Erdrich develops is not that of a
defeated people but rather of a people who want to fight back. Although
Louise Erdrich writes about acculturation, the lack of sense of place and
of belonging, and of alienation, she does not write ethnotragic fiction.
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The ultimate message in her fiction is one of survival and continuance
conveyed through a delightful sense of humor. Erdrich's fiction focuses
on the trials of life and the ability to laugh at fate in order to compensate
for the pain. Her female characters lead the path to survival and
dominate by their determination as well as by their physical strength.
Love Medicine narrates the tumultuous lives of Marie and Nector
Kashpaw through the points of view of seven narrators who are all
related to each other. The novel begins with the description of June
Kashpaw's death, in the middle of a snow storm, on Easter day 1981.
The events that follow June's death are narrated by Albertine Kashpaw,
June's adoptive daughter, who is in fact Zelda's daughter, herself the
daughter of Marie Kashpaw. Albertine narrates a family gathering that
introduces the offspring of the older generation: Lypsha Morrissey, son
of June Kashpaw and Gerry Kashpaw; King, June's other son and his
wife Lynette and son King Junior; Gordie Kashpaw, son of Marie and
Nector Kashpaw; and Eli, Nector's twin brother. The twelve chapters
that follow are narrated by the major characters in the novel: Marie
Kashpaw, Nector her husband, and Lulu Lamartine, who was Nector's
high school sweetheart and remains his mistress for the better part of his
life. The three of them form a love triangle that generates the comedy of
the novel.
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The first chapter of Love Medicine establishes the dynamics of
the three novels. This chapter, entitled "The World's Greatest
Fisherman", sets in motion both the principal agents for trouble in a
highly dysfunctional family as well as the instrument of their
reconciliation. Albertine describes the family gathering after June's death
during which Gordie Kaspaw tells a joke about the Indian, the
Frenchman, and the Norwegian about to be guillotined during the French
Revolution. When the Indian is placed on the guillotine, the blade gets
stuck and the Indian is spared. When the Frenchman's turn comes
around, the same thing happens. The Norwegian has been observing the
guillotine and has figured out what the problem with the blade is. So
when it is his turn, he tells the executioner that a little grease on the
blade would help it go down. And indeed, when the executioner
activates the blade, it easily goes down and through the Norwegian
neck. Gordie's narration is interrupted by signs of a quarrel between
King and Lynette. King is heard yelling obscenities at his wife, but the
fight outside does not stop Gordie from continuing to tell the joke.
Although Gordie is interrupted several times, he goes on with the joke
and manages to make it to the punch line. The joke, which is an
example of the lighthearted moments in the novel, and the quarrel,
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which represents the tragedy of the scene, convey Erdrich's philosophy
through her story: in the light of adversities humor serves as an outlet.
In Custer Died For Your Sins. Vine Deloria writes: "In humor, life
is redefined and accepted." He adds that "Indians have found a
humorous side of nearly every problem" (147). Love Medicine
exemplifies how humor can make life more bearable.
The next chapter, "Saint Marie", discusses the dilemma of mixed
bloods through both the character of Marie Lazarre who is French with
not "much Indian blood" (Erdrich 41), as well as the result of the
religious missions to the Chippewas since the seventeenth century: the
conversion of the people to Catholicism. Marie Lazarre tells the story of
her years at the Sacred Heart Convent and her confrontation with Sister
Leopolda, who is introduced in Tracks as Pauline Puyat. Marie, "a girl
raised out in the bush," is in Sister Leopolda's mind, a perfect prey for
Satan. Leopolda has vowed to rid her of the influence of the Dark One.
In this chapter, Erdrich describes the abusive relationship between Marie
Lazarre and Sister Leopolda. Although what happens to Marie is
essentially tragic, Erdrich does not dwell on Marie's predicament to show
the young woman as victim. Instead, she writes from the point of view
of Marie who is rebellious and has declared war against her abuser. The
two women are pitted against each other and the combat is as symbolic
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as it is physical and potentially harmful. At one point, for example,
Sister Leopolda pours boiling water over Marie's body to exorcise Satan,
but instead of dwelling on the violence of the scene, Erdrich depicts
Marie's comedic retaliation. The scene that follows the torture is pure
slapstick and proves that Marie is not defeated by Sister Leopolda but,
rather, she is ready to fight back. Marie manages to extricate herself
from the grip of the nun and a few minutes later finds herself in a
position to avenge herself:
The oven was like the gate of a personal hell. Just big
enough and hot enough for one person, and that was her.
One kick and Leopolda would fly in headfirst. (Erdrich 53)
Marie may have let herself be at the mercy of Sister Leopolda, but she is
determine to not miss any opportunity she may have to get even.
The effect of surprise that comes from the next scene is as
powerful as the shock felt when Leopolda tortures Marie. Marie
remembers: " I kicked her with all my might. She flew in. But the
outstretched poker hit the back wall first, so she rebounded" (53). At
the same time Marie admits the failure of her bold plan, she explodes in
a fit of rage that, if nothing else, gives her the impression to have
regained control for the moment. She screams: "Bitch of Jesus Christ!
Kneel and beg! Lick the floor!" (53) and momentarily feels that she can
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overpower Sister Leopolda. But Marie's true victory comes later, when
Leopolda pokes Marie's hands with a fork. The wound soon begins to
look like stigmata, and Leopolda seizes the opportunity to hide her
sadistic behavior. She turns Marie into a saint. Leopolda fabricates a
story about the marks in Marie's hands and convinces all the sisters that
they are in fact stigmata. Leopolda's lie gives Marie the sublime pleasure
of making Leopolda kneel beside her and admit the ploy that saved her.
Marie delights in playing the saintly game that will make her go down in
the records of the convent as "Saint Marie of the Holy Slops! Saint Marie
of the Burnt Back and Scolded Butt!" (Erdrich 54)
Marie Lazarre's will helps her to survive Leopolda's fanaticism and
gives her the strength to return years later to the convent with her
daughter Zelda. Even then, the vivid memories of the past give her the
strength to fight Leopolda's will one more time and to take possession of
a metal spoon, which reminds her of the fork that hurt her hands. This
time, however, Marie does not gloat over the confrontation. Instead,
she finds herself unable to conquer Leopolda and simply watches with
pity the skeletal shape of her past abuser dying on her convent bed.
Such strength of character makes her go on with life when, years
later, she discovers her husband Nector's infidelity. Again, Marie reverts
to seeking the humor in the situation. She remembers her reaction to
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the discovery of Nector's affair: "Him loving her, finding true love with
her, was what drove me to peel all the potatoes in the house" (Erdrich
126). Marie Kashpaw makes a commitment to herself, "But I was not
going under, even if he left me. . . I'll still be Marie. Marie. Star of the
Sea! I'd shine when they stripped off the wax" (128). Marie Kashpaw
remains a fighter throughout her life and is empowered by the
knowledge that she holds the instruments for her survival.
In Love Medicine Louise Erdrich gives Marie Lazarre the power to
endure adversity by viewing it with a sense of humor. Marie is a strong
woman and a survivor. In contrast to this dominant female character,
Erdrich has imagined Nector Kashpaw, who also contributes to the
comedy of the novel through his confusion about life and women. In the
chapter entitled "The Plunge of the Brave," Nector Kashpaw begins to
narrate his movie making days when westerns were popular and Indian
parts were numerous if not prestigious. In a statement that encapsulates
American history as perceived by Hollywood and explains the demand
for actors who could play Indians, Nector's words illustrate his life of
survival and failure. Nector remembers, "Because of my height, I got
hired for the biggest Indian part. But they didn't know I was a Kashpaw,
because right off I had to die" (90). Once Nector figures out that "Death
was the extent of Indian acting in the movie theater" (90) and that "it
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was quite enough to be killed the once you have to die in this life,"
(Erdrich 90) Nector looks for another way to make a living.
Nector's voice carries the weight of self awareness. His thoughts
are humorous because they reveal his understanding of the stereotypical
perception of his people by the dominant Anglo society in which he lives,
a perception so ridiculous he must laugh at it, even though he is
conscious that it is also damaging to Indians.
Nector's next attempt at making a living is not any less comic than
the previous one and confirms his analysis of the Anglo society. Nector
Kashpaw goes to work for a painter, "an old wreck of a thing" (90), as a
model. Almost immediately Nector shows his surprise at his boss's
request, "Disrobe." Although he will later emerge as a ladies' man, he is
yet naive about women and interprets painter's wish as a proposition.
Nector recalls his reaction:
I stood there and looked confused. Pitiful! I thought. Then
she started to demonstrate by clawing at her buttons. I was
just about to go and help her when she said in a near holler,
'Take your clothes off.' (90)
Nector's realization that the woman is only interested in her artistic
purposes prompts another stab at American history as seen by the
settlers:
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There I was jumping off a cliff, naked of course, down into a
rocky river. Certain death. Remember Custer's saying? The
only good Indian is a dead Indian? Well from my dealings
with the whites I must add to that quote: 'The only
interesting Indian is dead, or dying by falling backwards off a
horse. (Erdrich 91)
Of course, it was not Custer who said that; it was Sherman, and
Nector's error translates his general attitude toward all Anglo oppressors.
To identify them correctly is beside the point in Nector's mind. Although
metaphorically slain for the sake of art, Nector Kashpaw praises his
ability to stay alive and well in real life; he compares his survival to that
of Ishmael in Mobv Dick, a book he has read many times:
'Call me Ishmael' I said sometimes, only to myself. For he
survived the great white monster like I got out of the rich
lady's picture. He let the water bounce his coffin to the top.
In my life so far I'd gone easy and come out on top, like
him. (92)
The reference to one of the masterpieces of nineteenth century
American literature provides Erdrich with an irresistible opportunity to
insert a pun through Nector's mother's comment about the "story of the
great white whale" (90). "What do they got to wail about, those
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whites?" she exclaimed, and the words carry the legacy of pain and
sufferance imposed upon the Indian by Euroamericans.
Humor takes on a new face, though, when it comes to Nector and
women. Here, the novel becomes humorous less because of situation
than because of Nector's character. Caught between the comfortable
love for his wife and the passionate love for Lulu Nanapush, he emerges
as a confused man. He succumbs to Lulu, his mistress, on a hot
summer day of 1952, when the two of them deliver surplus butter in her
car and end up using the said butter to enhance each other's sexual
pleasure. But when Nector returns home, he is defeated in his attempt
to get back into the house unnoticed and is greeted by Marie who smells
the butter and quickly traps him at his own game:
She said I smelled like a churn. I told her about the
seventeen tons of melting butter and how I'd been hauling it
since first thing that afternoon.
'Swam in it too' she said, glancing at my clothes.
'Where's ours?' (Erdrich 99)
Clearly Nector should think about continuing his affair with Lulu, but he
does not. Erdrich sets her character up for a defeat and instills pity for
the poor man who struggles for five years to stay physically able to
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handle a wife and a mistress, but ultimately cannot. In contrast, the
stoic endurance of Marie shines through. Nector admits,
I was living fast and furious, swept so rapidly from job to
home to work to Lulu's arms, and back again, that I could
hardly keep my mind on straight at any time (Erdrich 102).
And Nector is drawn back to Marie, to the power and comfort she
provides, to a woman whose innate femininity seemingly blends with
masculine traits, at least in his thoughts of her:
Marie has never used a bottle of perfume. Her hands are
big, nicked from sharp knives, roughed by bleach. Her back
is hard as a plank. Still she warms me. (106)
Nector's understanding of Marie's almost divine power over him surfaces
unconsciously in church when he screams, "HAIL MARIE FULL OF
GRACE" (194) and admits to himself that his Marie is indeed a saint.
Nevertheless, Nector carries on his relationship with Lulu for five years.
Nector is pathetic in his stubbornness but never a bad man.
Even as an old character, Nector continues to be a major source of
comedy in the novel. In the chapter entitled "Love Medicine" Lipsha
Morrissey remembers the time he surprised Grandpa Kashpaw and Lulu
Lamartine in the laundry room. Nector's passionate lovemaking to Lulu
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is unexpectedly interrupted by the coming alive of Lulu's wig. Lipsha
says:
Turned out though, in the heat of the clinch, as I was trying
to avert my eyes to see, the Lamartine's curly wig jumped
off her head . . . Grandpa's eye were bugging at the change
already, and swear to god if the thing didn't rear up and pop
him in the face like it was going to start something. (Erdrich
17)
Nector Kashpaw does not seem physically or mentally fit to win the
battle over the two women in his life. He completely loses control over
his love life and is basically reduced to the role of bouncing ball between
Marie and Lulu up until his very last day when Marie's last attempt to
keep him all to herself with the help of traditional Native American
medicine proves fatal for Nector.
The love medicine episode in this novel is the only section that
specifically incorporates Native American ways into the plot, namely the
preparation and use of medicine, "something of an old Chippewa
specialty" Lipsha proclaims (199). But even so, Erdrich takes an
unexpected approach to the presentation of the medicine making
tradition and turns it into another comic passage of the novel. Grandma
Kashpaw wants Lipsha to make the medicine that will give her back
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Grandpa Kashpaw's love. But in the hands of Lipsha Morrissey the
ingredients that go into the love medicine are changed and he takes a
dangerous short cut.
The comedy in this section is twofold. First, Lipsha is clumsy and
cannot find the right ingredients. He is at a loss to figure out a way to
catch two frogs "in the act" (Erdrich 202), and when he shoots at two
geese, he misses his target. Second, Lipsha, who is desperate but
believes he still has power, does not hesitate to run into the nearest
store to buy frozen turkeys. Here, Erdrich takes a stab at the clash
between Indian culture and mainstream culture. The Anglo culture
privileges convenience over tradition and Lipsha cannot resist the
temptation to give in to convenience; he buys frozen meat instead of
hunting for it. Lipsha has to admit to himself, "I took an evil shortcut. I
looked at birds that was dead and froze. So now I guess you will say,
'Slap a malpractice suit on Lipsha Morrissey"' (203). Yet when Lipsha
rationalizes with what he has done, his thought reveals not a concession
but a belief in the healing power of the medicine, even if Grandma and
Grandpa Kashpaw will have to ingest frozen turkey hearts instead of the
hearts of freshly killed geese. What is most important about Lipsha's
medicine is that it is Marie's last resort to win Nector's heart back,
something she is determined to do. In the scene that describes Marie's
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effort to make Nector eat the hearts, she again is motivated by the will
to survive by saving the love of her life. Nector puts up a good fight
since her insistence has awakened his suspicion. He dares Marie to get
mad at him:
First he rolled it into one side of his cheek, 'Mmmmm.'
Then he rolled it into the other side of his cheek, 'Mmmmm'
again. Then he stuck his tongue out with the heart on it and
put it back . . . (Erdrich 207)
Erdrich's description of this scene emphasizes the likeness of the two
characters; each tries to outsmart the other in a ruthless battle of the
minds.
In response to Nector's defiance, Marie "hopped up quick as a
wink and slugged him between the shoulder blades to make him
swallow" (207). This wins him back for eternity, although it kills him;
Nector chokes to death.
William Gleason in "Her Laugh an Ace: The Function of Humor in
Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine" accurately perceives the many forms of
humor in the novel: "The humor in Love Medicine is protean. Laughter
leaks from phrase, gesture, incident, situation and narrative comment
equally" (Gleason 51-52). In Indi'n Humor: Bicultural Plav in Native
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America. Kenneth Lincoln adds an important point to the diversity of
comedic devices used in the novel. Lincoln posits:
The novelist's humor integrates people, place, and
circumstance in a feminine web finely woven, holding out
for something better, the children's future, mutual tolerance,
forgiveness, even love (Lincoln 234).
Thus, Erdrich uses situations and characters as often as she sees an
opportunity for a humorous incident and creates a variety of instances
through which she can emphasize her belief in humor as a coping
mechanism.
In Erdrich's first novel, the "feminine web" that Lincoln discusses
is woven by Marie Lazarre, who empowers the story with her sense of
survival. Marie is the common thread for all these different lives, and
many are affected by her presence. She tries to forgive and to reconcile,
she is sensible and rational, and she is giver of life and love. Lipsha's
last thought about her tells best of her worth: "The thought of June
grabbed my heart so, but I was lucky she turned me over to Grandma
Kashpaw" (Erdrich 272). Lipsha realizes that Grandma Kashpaw is the
gel that holds the family together.
Louise Erdrich's second novel, The Beet Queen (1986) deserves
critical attention for its plot and technique. The Beet Queen tells the
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poignant story of two children, Karl and Mary Adare, who are abandoned
by their mother. They learn prematurely to fend for themselves and
manage to survive. The novel opens with the arrival of Mary and Karl
Adare in the North Dakota town of Argus. There, they seek refuge at
their aunt's house. The novel spans their lifetime, following the two
orphans in their quest for a good life. The Beet Queen also focuses on
the relationships that form among family members and friends, and
provides a study of life through the emotions of the characters created
by the writer. Again characters exist in the midst of a dysfunctional
environment and again they strive to leap over such obstacles and to
return to a renewed sense of community. Humor in The Beet Queen
results principally from the presence of Sita Kozka, a self centered and
stubborn character, who becomes the epitome of continuance.
The second chapter establishes the main character traits of Sita
and foreshadows her attitude toward life for the forty years the novel
covers. In this chapter, Sita narrates the arrival of Mary Adare in her
home and the consequent changes the event occasioned. Sita's side of
the story reveals that she is obsessively possessive of her things and of
her friends. It also reveals that pride will become the enemy within her.
Sita candidly confesses how she reacted against the unwanted
friendship between Mary and Celestine, but the confession actually
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prefaces her life long tendency to let her impulses lead her into irrational
decisions. Sita's choice of retaliation against Mary is both unexpected
and ludicrous. In an effort to prevent Celestine from forming a new
allegiance with Mary, Sita decides to establish the difference between
her and her rival. She exposes her breasts to Celestine as if they are
trophies. Instead of impressing Celestine with her maturity, the scheme
backfires on Sita who is left "breasts out" in the middle of a graveyard,
while Celestine, totally oblivious to the sight, goes away chewing on
some grass (Erdrich 32). This chapter sets the mood for the type of
relationship Mary, Celestine, and Sita will share throughout their lives.
They remain friends and rivals and the events in their lives test their
willingness and ability to maintain a sense of community among them by
staying friends with one another. The three girls come from fragmented
backgrounds and their only hope to restore some stability in their life is
to form their own nucleus. Erdrich knows that fragmentation means the
disappearance of the culture, and consequently, The Beet Queen
provides ample opportunities for the three girls to reconcile.
In The Beet Queen. Erdrich emphasizes the conflict between
Roman Catholicism and Native American traditional religion and culture.
Roman Catholicism eroded traditional Chippewa religion and the
systematic conversion of hundreds of Chippewa weakened the nation.
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Mary Adare goes to school with Sita and Celestine. One winter day,
Mary suddenly becomes the principal object of curiosity at school. She
slides down the icy slide and lands face first on the ground. Her face
leaves an imprint in the icy ground upon impact which is soon
interpreted to be a divine sign. Here again Erdrich combines the dual
effect of Mary's distress and pain with the instant exploitation of the
incident to validate religious beliefs. Moreover, Erdrich adds to the
reader's disbelief the surprise of seeing none other than Sister Leopolda
rushing to the scene. She is more concerned about the publicity that
might arise from such a miracle than about Mary's well-being, and she
busies herself "setting up a tripod and other photographic equipment"
(Erdrich 36). Mary survives her accident and is soon surprised to see the
story published in the local newspaper under the headline, "GIRL'S
MISHAP SHAPES MIRACLE." In the newspaper article Mary reads that
the slide is now labeled as "an innocent trajectory of divine glory" (37).
Apparently, Mary's face's imprint in the ice is looked upon as the
apparition of the face of Jesus and Mary is the lucky girl who has made
the miracle possible. Celestine's account pokes fun at the effect of the
so called miracle on Sister Leopolda:
She is kneeling at the foot of the slide with her arms bare,
scourging herself past the elbows with dried thistles,
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drawing blood. After that she is sent somewhere to
recuperate. (Erdrich 38)
Again, laughter is interrupted by Mary's own interpretation of the imprint
in the ice as the manifestation of her brother Karl, whom she has not
seen since he disappeared on the train that had brought the two of them
to Argus. The "glitter" that Celestine sees in Mary's eyes suddenly
brings back the reality of her life as an orphan who misses her lost
brother. Thus, the episode is another example in which the comedy of
situation is undercut by the sadness of Mary's fate.
Another episode in the novel shifts the focus back to Sita and
describes what happens at her wedding. Sita's abduction by her own
brother-in-law and her abandonment at a reservation bar makes for
another burlesque scene, punctuated in the end by Sita's spectacular
entrance in the bar to the disbelief of the patrons. The description of the
incident is slapstick:
What the ten people and the bartender experienced coming
at them through the door was a sudden explosion of white
net, a rolling ball of it tossed among them by freezing winds.
Two bare spike-heeled legs scissored within the ball,
slashing lethal arcs, tearing one old man's jacket before he
reared away in fright. And the ball was frightening, for
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while the wind tumbled it about and the patrons of the bar
dogged to avoid danger, it kept up a muffled and inhuman
croaking. (Erdrich 90)
While the chaos of the scene and the seeming abundance of the white
cloth make some of the patrons irreverently identify Sita as a "fucking
queen" (90), another patron is not mistaken and recognizes that Sita is a
bride.
The effect of the sudden revelation is another example of Erdrich's
technique of causing laughter to stop abruptly and to yield to a more
painful and, in this case, more pathetic discovery. However, there is not
much time to brood for Sita since she is quickly back on her feet,
"disheveled but normal in all aspects except that her face was loose and
raging, distorted, working horribly in silence" (90).
In this scene, Erdrich manages to establish the notion that Sita
Koska can fight back against the odds of her situation because fighting
back ensures survival. The fiasco on the night of the grand opening of
Sita's restaurant is a good example of survival mechanism.
The incident is narrated by Celestine who, along with Mary, has
learned to despise Sita's pedantic ways. So when the invitation to
attend the grand opening arrives, neither Celestine nor Mary is eager to
go. Erdrich orchestrates the disastrous evening by leaving several clues
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that prepare the reader for the events that are about to happen. The
name of the restaurant, "Chez Sita, Home of the Flambe Shrimp,"
already awakens suspicion and illustrates the characteristic disproportion
between Sita's ambitions and the reality of life, an attitude that prompts
her to open a French restaurant in Argus instead of a more modest but
more realistic choice of a pizza parlor, for example. Moreover, Celestine
notes that Sita's previous restaurant, "The Poopdeck," has failed and
here again the calculated effect of the name is enough to make us
imagine the causes for the failure.
Celestine's description of what used to be "The Poopdeck" and is
now "Chez Sita" creates the mental picture of a gothic building, a "black
ship, unmoored in tossing yew shrubs, ready to sail as if gathering souls"
(Erdrich 104). Therefore, when Celestine begins to describe what
happens when she and Mary and Russell Kashpaw sit down at their table
at "Chez Sita," the reader is only half surprised to find out that the cook
Sita has hired is sick with food poisoning obtained from the tainted
flambe shrimp. As a result, Mary, Celestine, and Russell transform
themselves in cooks and save the evening despite the resentment they
feel toward Sita. The will to survive as well as their understanding that
life is a communal experience bring the tree women together again.
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The final meeting between Mary, Celestine, and Sita happens
years after the incident at the restaurant. On Sita's birthday, Mary and
Celestine bring a cake, but Sita is grouchy and unappreciative. In fact,
the two friends are amused by Sita's attitude and make fun of her. They
laugh at her when she comes down from her bathroom with her hair up;
a forgotten piece of toilet paper is still visible, an indication of Sita's
peculiar way of doing her hair while bathing. They also want to laugh
when she disgustedly picks out a moth's wing out of her piece of cake.
But suddenly, Sita's idiosyncracies yield to the shocking revelation of her
addiction to pills that is killing her.
Celestine and Mary stay with Sita until she dies. This time
together provides them with an opportunity to review their lives and
reach reconciliation through the admittance of their sisterly love for each
other. Thus, the final meeting between the three women confirms
Erdrich's recurrent theme of love as the indispensable agent of
continuance.
Louise Erdrich's next novel, Tracks, published in 1988, focuses on
the effects of the encroachment of Chippewa land by whites and on the
dilemma faced by Chippewa landowners to fight for their land or to sell
out. The novel begins with a conversation between Grandpa Nanapush
and his adopted granddaughter Lulu, daughter of Fleur Pillager. In the
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first chapter, Erdrich sets the tone: Nanapush is attempting to vindicate
Fleur's behavior and to convince her daughter that her mother has not
abandoned her gratuitously, but for the sake of her people and their
future. Each chapter following the first is narrated from Nanapush's
point of view or from the point of view of Pauline Puyat, who observed
Fleur through the years and even thought of her as a friend.
Typically Erdrich emulates the pattern of her previous novels in
that Tracks reveals the many conflicts that arise between several
families in the wake of assimilation. The subject of land appropriation
gives this novel a definite tone of seriousness and underscores the
conflict of resignation, hopelessness, and rebellion. However, despite
the tragedy in this novel, Erdrich manages to preserve humor which
arises from the chaotic relationship between Nanapush and Margaret
Kashpaw.
Nanapush used to be partners with Margaret's defunct husband
and thinks he can seduce her. But Margaret is too busy making sure her
son Eli does not fall in love with the wrong woman, which is precisely
what he has done. Eli has fallen in love with Fleur Pillager, the woman
all men fear because of her suspected powers, but whom all men desire
because of her beauty. Rumors abound about her and about the fate of
any man who ever approaches her. But when Eli comes to see
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Nanapush for advice on how to make Fleur love him, the old man can
only give in to the boy's determination and tells him how to achieve his
goal. When Margaret finds out about Eli and Fleur, she is furious against
Nanapush. Nanapush remembers her visit and reflects:
'Aneesh,' she said, slamming my door shut. There was no
knocking with Margaret because with warning you might get
your breath, or escape. She was headlong, bossy, scared of
nobody and full of vinegar. (Erdrich 47)
Nanapush's description of Margaret reveals another of Erdrich's
strong female characters and foreshadows the outcome of the
relationship between the two. But Nanapush is not unhappy about this
situation; in fact, he is amused by Margaret's temper and enjoys teasing
her, knowing she always wins over him. When Margaret demands some
explanation about Eli's behavior, Nanapush hides behind his newspaper
pretending not to know and anticipating her next move. But "she won,
of course, because she knew I'd get curious. I felt her eyes glittering
beyond the paper, and when I put the paper down she continued" (48).
Clearly Nanapush is as strong willed as Margaret; yet, he must bow to
her ways of accomplishing what she intends to do.
This exchange of remarks between the two elderly characters is
witty and often punctuated by sexual connotations, particularly from
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Margaret who mocks Nanapush for his pretenses. For example, when
she wonders who has taught her son his sexual behavior, Nanapush
volunteers the name of his former partner Kashpaw. To the suggestion
Margaret sarcastically replies, '"Not from him! . . . Old man, she
scorned, two wrinkled berries and a twig'" (Erdrich 48). She leaves after
these words and Nanapush is still looking for the last word. Later, when
Margaret and Nanapush go across the lake by boat to get to Pillager
territory, she offers the old man a beef jerky which he cannot chew, and
Margaret does not miss the opportunity to tease him. "That 's right,'
she sneered, 'suck long enough and it will soften.'" (50)
To emphasize Margaret's strength of character, Nanapush recalls
her in terms of animal behavior. Thus, to him, Margaret shares some
characteristics with snakes and bears, two of the most powerful
animals; indeed, "she hissed," "her hand could snake out quickly," "she
stamped through the door," "her claws gave my ears two furious jerks
that set me whirling" (50).
Despite the rivalry and the teasing, Nanapush and Margaret are
still united through their sense of family and their loyalty to each other
and to their tribal life. For example, when Boy Lazarre and Clarence
Morrissey ambush them, seeking revenge for the way Eli treated Boy's
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sister Sophie, the two of them try their best to save each other from the
trouble that awaits them.
Pauline, jealous of Fleur's conquest of Eli's heart had worked some
medicine that had led Sophie and Eli to have passionate sex for hours,
unaware of the effect of the medicine on them. Lazarre's idea of
revenge is to cut off Margaret's braids and to shave her head as
punishment for her son's behavior. The assault on Margaret, a spiritual
rape, takes place in front of Nanapush who is powerless and reduced to
watch in horror. Nanapush feels "damaged in spirit, more so than
Margaret" because of his inability to save her (Erdrich 115). However,
he manages to pick up the severed braids and gives them to Margaret to
keep in a drawer. Margaret exclaims, '"I knew you would get them,
clever man!' she said. There was satisfaction in her voice" (116). The
shared emotional pain and the desire to make Boy Lazarre pay establish a
bond between Nanapush and Margaret stronger than any feud that might
have existed between them before. Together they conquer the witchery
embodied by Boy Lazarre and Clarence Morrissey which threatens to
destroy the tribe.
Erdrich defines humor in her novels as "a different way of looking
at the world, very different from the stereotype, the stoic, unflinching
Indian standing, looking at the sunset" (Coltelli 46). The type of survival
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humor that Louise Erdrich practices in Love Medicine. Beet Queen, and
Tracks serves to underline that despite the quarrels and the pain, the
people represented in these works can only survive if they learn to stay
together, and make life their communal experience. Erdrich's Indian
characters share universal qualities with non Indian characters. Kenneth
Lincoln observes:
These characters exist much like the rest of rural working
America, but with that added inflection of pain, desperation,
humor, another aboriginal tongue and cultural heritage, and
immeasurable enduring strength that is "native"
American—the ache of tribal self-definition and the going on
in the face of all odds. (223)
Ultimately, a strong sense of love for others as well as for ideals and the
land shapes Erdrich's theme in her novels, and that love, along with a
humorous outlook on life, help the characters in their everyday life.
Survival and continuance are possible only through the power of love,
the understanding that life is a communal experience, and the ability to
laugh during hard times which helps to move forward.
CHAPTER 6
A LESSON IN INDIAN HUMOR: THE POETRY AND
FICTION OF SIMON ORTIZ
"The interesting thing about the use of humor in
American Indian poetry is its integrating effects: it makes
tolerable what is otherwise unthinkable: it allows a sort of
breathing space in which an entire race can take stock of
itself and its future."
Paula Gunn Allen
Among the Native American writers who most frequently use
survival humor is Simon Ortiz. Ortiz was born in 1941 in Acoma Pueblo,
the Sky City, near Albuquerque, on top of a three hundred foot mesa in
the middle of what Willard Gingerich describes as "a vast landscape of
low brown mountains, cliffs, and a shallow valley that rests green with
centuries of nurture and carefully guarded fertility" (18). The pueblo is
said to have been built when "Masaweh, one of the Divine Twins
created by Earth herself, led the people up the cliff" (18). Ortiz is an
"eco-poet" who finds his inspiration in the land on which he lives; he
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135
observes his personal environment meticulously, looking for signs of
affliction and denouncing perpetrators of harm, always seeking to
emphasize the bond between land and people. It is not surprising that
Andrew Wiget has stated that Ortiz's poetry and fiction are "clearly and
consciously political" (Wiget 17). In addition, Ortiz celebrates the
continuance of the Native Americans and mocks the notion of the
"vanishing American."
His major works include three collections of poems, Going for the
Rain (1976), A Good Journey (1977), and Fight Back: For the Sake of
the People, for the Sake of the Land (1980), as well as two collections
of short stories, Howbah Indians (1978) and Fighting New and
Collected Stories (1983). In 1992 Ortiz published Woven Stone, a new
volume of poetry that includes poems from the previous collections, as
well as new titles.2
Ortiz received an National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in
1981 and the Pushcart Prize for Poetry for From Sand Creek. In 1993,
he received a Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature from The
Returning the Gift Foundation and Native Writers Circle of the Americas.
2All references in this chapter to Ortiz's poems come from his latest collection, Woven Stone.
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Ortiz's observations about his Native America are reinforced with a
biting sense of humor, channeled through two main themes: the process
of acquisition and reckless exploitation of the land by the whites, and
the defying continuance of tribal people. To express his views, Ortiz
writes from the perspective of a first person narrator, a technique which
creates a sense of intimacy between poet and reader. The personal
narrative effect that results from such a technique enables the poet to
reach his audience effectively and often promotes an effect of surprise
and shock that awakens and moves the reader. Consequently, the
sensitization of his audience to Native American culture is rapid.
Ortiz observes and writes about what has become of the country.
What concerns him most are the changes that have been taking place in
the name of progress, changes that have betrayed the respect of the
Native Americans towards the land. Ortiz believes in the Native
American world view which emphasizes the connection between humans
and the surrounding nature as well as animals. He writes, "Everything
that is around you is part of you" (Ortiz 471). Consequently, Ortiz
misses no opportunity to point out the many violations of the land that
result from the lack of respect for Indian traditions and the resources the
land offers.
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In his interview by Laura Coltelli for her book Winaed Words, he
talks about the problem that non-Native American critics have in
understanding the views on their land of Native Americans. He tells
Coltelli:
If the critic really looked at what Native America was and is
today, he would have to undo the construct that America
according to Western civilization and its rationalization is
(115).
Ortiz's bitterness about the process of land appropriation and
expansion is recurrent in many of his poems. For example, he shares his
concern with his horse in the poem "The Wisconsin Horse" when he
hears sounds of construction nearby and remarks sarcastically: "That's
America building something" (Ortiz 93). Although he is resentful about
America's obsession with expansion, Ortiz chooses to laugh about the
obsession that Americans have developed for building everywhere. In
"Washyuma Motor Hotel," he writes:
Beneath the cement foundations
of the motel, the ancient spirits
of the people conspire sacred tricks.
They tell stories and jokes and laugh
and laugh...
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The American passersby
get out of their hot, stuffy cars
at evening, pay their money wordlessly,
and fall asleep without benefit of dreams...
They haven't noticed that the cement
foundations of the motor hotel
are crumbling, bit by bit. (Ortiz 97-98)
Ortiz uses the metaphor of the crumbling motor hotel to signify that
America itself is falling apart; the country neither understands nor cares.
William Oandasan explains that Ortiz's attitude is determined by the
sense of urgency he feels when he observes that the gap between land
and people is widening. Oandasan writes:
Ortiz's revulsion from urban life is best understood as an
attempt to maintain identity in an antagonistic environment.
The conservation of identity is especially crucial when one's
sense of self is culturally founded on the land of one's birth.
(35)
Indeed, Ortiz considers every infringement on this sacred bond between
land and people as an attack on his personal chance at surviving.
The poet continues to reveal to his audience other instances of
encroachment in "Grand Canyon Christmas Eve 1969," a poem in which
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he narrates a journey with his son Raho. They are suddenly disturbed by
the sight of a U.S. Forest Service sign:
KAIBAB NATIONAL FOREST
CAMP ONLY IN CAMPING AREAS
NO WOOD GATHERING
GO AROUND OTHER SIDE OF ENCLOSED AREA &
DEPOSIT 85 CENTS FOR WOOD
The notion of paying the government in order to enter ancestral grounds
is insulting and triggers an outraged response:
This is ridiculous.
You gotta be kidding.
Dammit, my grandfathers
ran this place
with bears and wolves.
And I got some firewood
anyway from the forest,
mumbling, Sue me. (Ortiz 187-188)
Although Ortiz's challenge to the government is funny, the humor is
undercut by the revelation of the tragedy and absurdity of the situation.
The implications in the message on the sign establish a disturbing sense
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that something is terribly wrong with this picture. Later in the poem,
Ortiz creates a striking image, one that is intended to disturb the peace
and joy of the preparation of the meal for him and his son. Ortiz has
been painting a very soothing picture of their camp site bathed in the
moon light, and even the process of cooking mutton and cut fries over
an open fire becomes poetic. A sense of contentment is confirmed
when he writes, "it's good,/ eating by the canyon,/ the forest all around"
(187). Therefore, the words on the sign abruptly destroy the mood of
peace and happiness surrounding the campsite provides and replace it
with an impression of malaise. Suddenly the poet is conscious of an
unexpected anomaly in this picture.
Another powerful contradiction is the source of the striking effect
of the poem, "A Designated National Park." Ortiz narrates another
incident that illustrates the effect of the encroachment on the land by
the Whites. He writes, "This morning,/1 have to buy a permit to get
back home" (235). The sharp contrast between the concept of home
and that of a permit creates an instantaneous realization that the
proposition is nonsensical. The impression is further emphasized when
Ortiz notices a sign that invites to "PRESS BUTTON, for a glimpse into
the lives of the people who lived here" (236). When he presses the
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button, he sees "painted sticks and cloth fragments," (236). Another
nearby sign explains:
59 CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AT
THE FIRST SESSION,
BEGUN AND HELD AT THE CITY OF WASHINGTON ON
MONDAY, THE FOURTH OF DECEMBER, ONE THOUSAND,
NINE HUNDRED AND FIVE.
AN ACT FOR THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICAN
ANTIQUITIES. (Ortiz 236)
Here, Ortiz conveys his rage over the use of the term "antiquities,"
implying that Native Americans are extinct. In these poems, the various
signs displayed underline Ortiz's bleak sense of humor and underline the
discrepancy between what used to be and what is. These signs function
like traffic lights that suddenly turn red; reading comes to an abrupt stop
and the reader must absorb the shock created by Ortiz's images. This
new reality also informs of the struggle of Native Americans to maintain
their identity.
Ortiz is also relentless in his effort to reveal the changes his native
Southwest has undergone in the process of expansion begun by land
developers. In his 1977 collection A Good Journey, one poem
particularly stresses those changes. The title of the poem is actually a
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comment taken from an editorial piece published in the Albuaueraue
Journal in April 1974 that reads: "The State's claim that it seeks in no
way to deprive Indians of their rightful share of water, but only to define
that share, falls on deaf ears" (Ortiz 254). The poem describes how the
land was changed by the arrival of the railroad, electricity, gas,
highways, phone, and cable television. The modernization of the
Albuquerque area prompts some of Ortiz's most disturbing remarks. For
example, he remembers his reaction to the telephone and writes:
When I was a boy, I didn't know
whether or not you could talk in Acoma
into the telephone and even after I found
that you could I wasn't convinced
the translation was coming out correctly
on the other end of the line. (258)
Ortiz's distrust in the phone company as a boy reveals the fear of losing
the language of his people.
The poet does not look upon the installation of cable television
with any more enthusiasm. To the salesman's argument that, "You can
get thirty more channels than you do presently. You can even get Los
Angeles," he wryly responds that at home, "the kids are getting weird
from being witness to the Brady Bunch" (259). The most poignant
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comment that Ortiz makes about expansion appears in the section
entitled "Right of Way," in which a young man tries to explain to his
grandparents what "right of way" means. Ortiz writes:
They ask," What is right of way?"
You say, "The State wants to go through your land."
They ask, "The Americans want my land?"
You say, "Yes, beloved Grandfather."
They say, "I already gave some land . . .
This right of way that the Americans want, does
that mean they want all our land?" (Ortiz 259)
Many of Ortiz's poems focus on the danger in the misuse of the
natural resources as well as of individual scientific knowledge. In the
poem, "Sometimes It's Better to Laugh 'Honest Injun'," Ortiz narrates his
conversation with a stranger at Chicago's O'Hare airport. The man
starts to complain about a piece of turquoise jewelry that he bought from
an "honest injun," but that turned out to be junk, and proceeds to talk
about his job. The man, who happens to be the president of the
Jackson Arms Corporation of Wyoming, is building a high frequency
sound machine that "can really destroy things, blow them apart just like
that." Proud of his work, the man says, "You ought to see the way it
works; it's neat" (99).
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But Ortiz's response understandably shows fear. He writes, "I nod
my head, but I'm not reassured, and I don't really want to see the way it
works, neatly" (99). When Ortiz tries to rationalize with the man's work,
his remark is ludicrous and almost nonsensical, in proportion with his
shock in seeing the man's joy about his invention. He writes:
I continue to drink my beer, wondering about this
weak-faced man who is conspiring with me, telling me his
horrible secret, this man whom an Indian sold a piece of junk
jewelry. Maybe that's why he's pissed off and he's working
on a weapon to recoup his foolish purchase and by his
revelation to include me in his conscience. (100)
In this poem, Ortiz cannot think of a rational explanation for the man's
enthusiasm about his line of work.
A similar lack of understanding informs "Man on the Moon," one
of the stories included in the 1978 collection, Howbah Indians. In the
story, Faustin, an old man, is given a television set for Father's Day; his
daughter and grandson help with the installation and adjustment. While
switching channels, Faustin is curious about the broadcast of an Apollo
mission and asks why scientists have sent men to the moon. His
grandson's response that the men are "trying to find out what's on the
moon" (Ortiz 13) only prompts a mocking reaction from Faustin who
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"wondered if the men had run out of places to look for knowledge on the
earth" (Ortiz 13). The grandfather is even more puzzled when he finds
out what the men brought back from the moon; Ortiz writes, "Rocks.
Faustin laughed quietly. The scientists went to search for knowledge on
the moon and they brought back rocks" (13). The old man's comment
reveals Ortiz's concern for the waste of positive energy onto projects
that should not be prioritized. Moreover the comment reveals the
deliberate ignorance of the positive lessons that can be learned from
science. Instead, scientists have developed the tendency to only seek
the kind of knowledge that can be harmful for humanity and results in
the destruction of the land such as gold, oil, and uranium extractions.
Several poems from Fiaht Back: For the Sake of the People. For
the Sake of the Land describe another environmental concern, namely
the mining of uranium in New Mexico. Ortiz is particularly sensitive to
the problem since he worked in one of the mines for many years and
witnessed the exploitation of Indian workers who received low wages.
Also, while working in the mines, Ortiz became aware of serious medical
problems affecting many of his co-workers that came to occur as a
direct result of exposure to the uranium. In addition, Ortiz shares with
Leslie Marmon Silko the resentment toward the mining of uranium and
its dangerous application to the manufacturing of weapons. Fear of
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nuclear testing in the Laguna area in the 1950's is clearly voiced in
several of his poems.
The poem "It Was That Indian" reveals the curse of the discovery
of uranium near Grants, New Mexico by an Indian named Martinez. The
poem presents two conflicting events: the initial publicity caused by the
discovery of uranium and later, the concern about the side effects of the
extraction of uranium. Martinez attracts everyone's attention when he
discovers uranium:
Tourist magazines did a couple of spreads
on him, photographed him in kodak color,
and the Chamber of Commerce celebrated
that Navajo man . . . (Ortiz 295)
But the poet does not want to dwell on Martinez's rise to fame; instead,
he sarcastically recalls how the Indian quickly became the scapegoat for
the government when uranium is linked to cancer. Martinez was singled
out again, but this time his discovery was blamed for the potential health
hazards. In the poems that follow, uranium extraction is shown as an
"Indian" thing since the men who needed to work found the opportunity
in Grants, Laguna and Acoma. Even the Indians who were in jail were
recruited to go to work. As Ortiz remarks in the title of another poem,
"Indians Sure Came in Handy" (296) and because they were hungry for
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money, they were also more likely to be taken advantage of. Indeed, in
"Starting at the Bottom," Ortiz recalls that those who came to work at
the Ambrosia Lake mines were told they needed to start at the bottom
and work their way up. In closing Ortiz does not forget to mention that
Almost thirty years later,
the Acoma men were at the bottom
of the underground mines at Ambrosia Lake,
they were still training, gaining experience,
and working their way up (298).
Ortiz condemns the exploitation of Native American workers by major
Anglo corporations interested in quick profits but not in human lives.
Thus, many of Ortiz's poems denote a deep sense of
disappointment and resentment when he describes what has become of
America, and he often longs to return to his Native America, his
Southwest to regain a sense of place. Humor is the vehicle for Ortiz's
emotions. It is a caustic humor designed to satirize the foolishness of
the Euroamericans; however, Ortiz does not antagonize and paint Native
Americans as a victimized people. Instead, Ortiz alternates poems that
point to an unpleasant reality and poems that celebrate the survival and
the continuance of the people despite the tendencies of many to regard
the Native Americans as museum pieces. Willard Gingerich argues that
148
"Ortiz is too astute not to see the intimate interconnections between
Indian survival and the sickness in the larger American community"
(Gingerich 28). Gingerich's statement points out that Ortiz is not using
that sickness to blame the dominant culture for all the Indian problems,
but instead to voice his hope that the sickness can be cured. Ortiz
ultimately believes that Indians, as a people, have survived and are alive
and well.
All the poems that fit in this category present an ironic duality of
point of view. On the one hand, the poems reveal that Euroamericans
have only a vague notion of the existence of Native Americans today,
and on the other hand, the poems oppose this lack of knowledge by
insisting that Native Americans are everywhere. These poems challenge
the phenomenon of invisibility that has contributed to the myth of the
"Vanishing American" and to the notion that Native Americans are a
people of the past.
In the second section of "Travels in the South" in the collection,
Going for the Rain. Ortiz claims, "Once, in a story, I wrote that Indians
are everywhere./ Goddamn right" (73). The triumphant claim of
existence is followed by the narration of an anecdote that the poet
recalls from one trip to Florida. Ortiz writes, "In "Pensacola, Florida,
some hotdog stand/ operator told me about Chief McGee./ 'I'm looking
149
Although it was improbable that he would find Indians in Pensacola,
Ortiz meets Chief Alvin, thus verifying his theory that "Indians are
everywhere" (73). Yet, the initial thrill of the unexpected meeting is
undercut by the remark of a state park ranger who informs the poet that,
'"This place is noted for the Indians/ that don't live here anymore.'/ He
didn't know who they used to be" (Ortiz 75). The park ranger's remark
serves to reveal that, for most people, Indians are extinct.
The beginning line of "I Told You I Like Indians," is another claim
to existence:
You meet Indians everywhere.
Once, I walked into this place—
Flager Beach, Florida,
you'd never expect it—
a bar. (107)
In this poem, Ortiz continues to emphasize his argument that Indians are
found everywhere, not only in reservations. Of course, the narrator's
remark is intended to mock the stereotype of the drunken Indian. In the
bar, the Indian attracts the curiosity of the owner who cannot resist to
ask the "usual question, of course, / 'You're Indian, aren't you?'" (107)
As it is to be expected, the owner gets what she deserves, '"Yes,
ma'am. I'm Indian alright. Wild, ignorant, savage!"' (107). The owner
150
ma'am. I'm Indian alright. Wild, ignorant, savage!"' (107). The owner
understands that her was question was inappropriate and tries to be nice
by telling him that she "likes Indians" and proceeds to tell him that
"There's an Indian around here" (Ortiz 107). The premeditated use of
the singular article "an" helps Ortiz underline the absurdity of the Anglo
mind to assume the presence of Native Americans as reduced to a few
people scattered here and there. Ortiz quickly recovers from the
woman's curiosity when a Sioux comes in and he greets him with these
words, "Crissake man, how's relocation, brother?" (107)
The best example of the syndrome of the Indian as an object of
curiosity is the poem "A New Story" that Ortiz includes in his latest
collection, Woven Stone. In the poem, Ortiz remembers a phone call
that he received while staying at the veteran's hospital. A woman from
Colorado who was arranging a Frontier Day parade was "looking for an
Indian" (363). The poem emphasizes the subconscious notion held by
Anglos that Indians are useful only as representation of the American
past. The woman explains that in order to do things right, she has to
find a "real" Indian. She explains that she can no longer use the "paper
mache Indians" that parade organizers used to make or even the real
people dressed as real Indians that replaced them. She complains about
the "lack of Indians" (364). Through the conversation Ortiz limits his
151
d6ja vu. The repetition of his answer throughout the poem builds
suspense and anticipates a change of attitude lurking at the corner of
every new line. Gradually, the narrator's initial indifference turns to
exasperation. This assumption is particularly strong when the woman in
the poem says:
We wanted to make it real, you understand,
put a real Indian on a float,
not just a paper mache dummy
or an Anglo dressed as an Indian
but a real Indian with feathers and paint. (Ortiz 364)
The woman is thrilled to learn that there is at least one Indian here.
Again, Ortiz delights in choosing the singular article which affords
him the sarcastic comment, "Yes, there are several of us here" (365).
His remark is as much a direct response to the woman's typical
assumption that there are only a few Indians left as it is a stab at the
Euroamerican community at large that too often fails to remember that
Native Americans too fought for this land during World War I and World
War II. The poem implies that the woman's request was granted, but
ends by stating that when she calls again, looking for more Indians to
help in the celebration of Sir Francis Drake who was going to land on the
coast of California in June, again, "the answer was, 'No"' (365).
152
Ortiz's poetry also stresses survival and continuance in other
poems that retell traditional tales about Coyote, the famous trickster
character of the Southwest. G6za R6heim explains how trickster in
North American mythology is "the representative of the Id as hero is a
counterbalance to social pressure" (193). Ortiz's poems about
Coyote/Trickster naturally fit in between poems about the everyday
scenes of Ortiz's other poems and challenge the reality of Indian life.
Coyote/Trickster is arrogant, daring, and not welcome when he
appears; but he is always determined. In her article "Canis latrans in the
Poetry of Simon Ortiz" Patricia C. Smith underlines the importance of
this characteristic. She writes:
Coyote always gets up and brushes himself off and trots
away within the narrative itself, perhaps not quite as new,
but alive, in motion, surviving" (Smith 3).
Smith's comment emphasizes the qualities of the surviving Indian;
Coyote is the role model for today's Indians because despite the
difficulties he faces, he fights on.
The first Coyote poem is also the opening poem of Ortiz's
anthology, Woven Stone. The poem is entitled "The Creation, According
to Coyote" and presents a version of the traditional Keres emergence
story. But the poem's value lies less in the retelling of the story than in
153
the establishment of the relationship between Coyote and the poet.
Indeed, Coyote is speaking directly to the narrator, explaining to him his
emergence from the earth. Ortiz shares with the reader his concern
about one of the well known characteristics of Coyote: his tendency to
brag makes him unreliable. Yet, Ortiz closes the poem by saying that he
believes Coyote's story; this belief proves to be a crucial factor in the
belief in survival.
Old Coyote in the poem "Telling About Coyote" offers a typical
lesson on survival. Ortiz stresses that "Coyote / is in the origin and all
the way / through...," (Ortiz 157) before he tells the story. Coyote gets
involved in a gambling party, "you know, pretty sure / of himself, you
like he is, / sure that he would win something," (158) but loses
everything, including his fur. He is rescued by some mice who happen
to come upon him and see him shivering. According to the story, they
"got together / just some scraps of fur / and glued them on Coyote with
pinon pitch. And he's had that motley fur ever since" (158). Ortiz
addresses Coyote directly and asks:
Coyote, old man, wanderer,
where are you going, man?
Look up and see the sun.
154
Scorned, an old raggy blanket
at the back of the closet nobody wants. (Ortiz 158)
The poet emphasizes the fact that Coyote is unwanted and always going
somewhere. He loses tracks of him only to find him again "between
Muskogee and Tulsa, / heading for Tulsy Town I guess, / just trucking
along," (160) but insists that no matter how many times Coyote seems
to disappear, he always surfaces again. The poem ends with the
reassuring statement that "he'll be back. Don't worry. / He'll be back"
(160). In Ortiz's mind, Coyote epitomizes the Native Americans who
survive despite the odds. Indeed, Coyote reappears in between the
other poems, quite unexpectedly, and always bragging and scheming,
but mainly surviving.
"And another one" is also characteristic of Coyote's way of life
and demonstrates his survival skills. Here Coyote, who is referred to as
Pehrru, tries to get himself invited by four men who are eating and do
not want to share their food with the newcomer. Pehrru begins to tell
the story of a cow who had given birth to five calves but had only four
nipples to feed them from. Of course, the meaning of the story is
quickly captured by the four men who finally invite Pehrru to share their
meal. The poem ends with this note, "When it was time to get a meal, /
Pehrru was known to be a shrewd man" (173).
155
Patricia C. Smith points out the essence of Ortiz's Coyote poems.
She writes:
Throughout the body of Ortiz's work the emphasis is
unremittingly on Coyote's survival. The old stories Ortiz
chooses to retell, and the new situations he records or
invents, all make Coyote's continuance far more prominent
than his foolhardiness. (3)
Indeed, Ortiz's Coyote is a metaphor for today's Indians; he is not
always sensible, but he manages to survive.
Ortiz's techniques are unique. He sprinkles his poems with
disturbing comments and creates instant images about the reality of
living in America from an Indian perspective. By using bittersweet humor
Ortiz is able to take stock of a land in which Native Americans and
non-Natives must cohabit. He concludes that what he calls Native
America has survived and is going on. His major concern for the
preservation of the land is a central theme in his works because it is
common to all and informs not only the survival of the Native Americans
but also the survival of all the others cultures represented in the country.
Rather than seeking to divide, Ortiz strives to unify; when he laughs at
the abuses he observes, it is with the hope that the wrongs can be
corrected. William Oandasan praises Ortiz's intentions and writes:
156
In a world where the rational mind has polluted the air,
health, and water with its technology, an early people's
awareness of their dependent relationship to the earth for
their survival has much to teach modern people about living
in harmony with the landscape (27).
Ortiz's black humor, a style of coping mechanism, sensitizes the
non-Native audiences and reveals the wish for continuance of the Native
people.
CHAPTER 7
CONCLUSION
"Dark red humor rakes the compost for Spring
renewal."
Kenneth Lincoln
The recognition of Native American literature as an important
component of the American literature canon results from the national
attention given to N. Scott Momaday's 1969 novel House Made of
Dawn. This ground breaking novel established two points: first, the
novel was proof that Native American literature existed; second, when
the novel received the Pulitzer Prize in 1969, it catapulted a Native
American writer to the rank already occupied by major mainstream
American writers.
As Louis Owens points out in Other Destinies, only a few novels
by American Indian authors had been published before 1969. They
include John Rollin Ridge's Joaauim Murieta in 1854; Simon Pakagon's
Queen of the Woods in 1899; Mourning Dove's Coaewea in 1927; John
Joseph Mathews' Sundown in 1934; and D'Arcy McNickle's The
157
158
Surrounded in 1936 and Runner in the Sun in 1954. (Owens 24) These
novels emphasize that Native Americans are alienated because they must
live between two opposing worlds: the Anglo world to which they must
be assimilated for their economic survival and the traditional Native
American world to which they belong and that they want to preserve
provides their psychological survival. N. Scott Momaday's House Made
of Dawn also focuses on the difficult quest for survival of the
protagonist Abel. Through the seventies, eighties, and nineties, survival
continues to be at the heart of Native American literature, be it fiction,
poetry, or drama. For Louis Owens, a Choctaw-Cherokee-lrish Professor
of literature, scholar, and novelist, the common thread in these novels as
well as in the other genres included in Native American literature reveals
a shared goal. Owens explains:
In spite of the fact that Indian authors write from diverse
tribal and cultural backgrounds, there is a remarkable degree
of shared consciousness and identifiable world view, a
consciousness and world view defined primarily by a quest
for identity: What does it mean to be "Indian" or mixed
blood in contemporary America? (20)
The "shared consciousness" that Owens describes informs not only the
novels written by Native American writers but also their short stories,
159
poems, and plays. N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmori Silko, James
Welch, Hanay Geiogamah, Louise Erdrich, and Simon Ortiz share a desire
to present to their audience, Indian or non-Indian, a renewed image of
Indians today.
Prior to 1969, Native American writers wrote about the agony of
the Indians who faced a life of suffering and submission to the white
dominant culture. The new generation of writers, inspired by the works
of N. Scott Momaday, give a new direction to Native American literature.
Although these writers continue to describe the effects of acculturation,
the alienated protagonist is no longer the end of the literature but
becomes the means through which a new theme is presented. Unlike
their predecessors who describe the near impossibility of survival,
contemporary Native American writers demonstrate that survival is
possible and provide their characters with the tools they need to achieve
it. These writers share in the conviction that Native Americans must
cease to see themselves as victims and take responsibility for their lives.
The new Native American literature celebrates Native Americans
by showing that, despite the many difficulties they face, they hold the
key to their survival and continuance. The essential element of survival
is the reaffirmation of faith in traditional beliefs and Indian world views
that centuries of Euroamerican dominance have eroded. Louis Owens
160
insists that "the recovering or rearticulation of an identity, a process
dependent upon a rediscovered sense of place as well as a sense of
community is at the center of Native American fiction" (Owens 5).
Momaday, Silko, and Welch confirm Owens' remark, but so do Erdrich,
Ortiz and Geiogamah and their respective genres.
Yet, a common mission and uniformity in theme does not
necessarily lead to uniformity in style. N. Scott Momaday and Leslie
Marmon Silko guide their protagonists to a regained sense of identity
that insures survival through a step-by-step reawakening to tribal
traditions, whereas Louise Erdrich, Simon Ortiz, and Hanay Geiogamah
present humor as the weapon Native Americans need to fight back and
survive.
N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn and The Ancient Child
and Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony are novels about coming home. In
House Made of Dawn and Ceremony the protagonists, Indian
servicemen, return to their reservation at the end of World War II and are
unable to adjust to civilian life. Moreover, Abel and Tayo have been
estranged from their tribal life for several years and cannot function
within their culture. Living among Euroamericans and fighting side by
side with them has given them what they thought to be a new identity.
During the war, they were United States soldiers defending their country
161
and contributing to world peace. But the recognition they receive only
lasts as long as the war lasts. At the end of the war, Abel and Tayo lose
the sense of self and place that serving their country had provided and
discover that they have also lost their Indian identity.
Momaday's The Ancient Child features a protagonist who has also
lost his sense of self as the result of his complete assimilation into the
dominant culture. He, too, has enjoyed the sweet taste of recognition
through the world-wide popularity of his art work, but success has
stripped away the memories of his Indian identity.
In these three novels, the protagonists embark on a painful voyage
that progressively reconstructs a sense of self and place for them. In
"Native American Novels: Homing In," William Bevis explains the
importance of such a voyage:
In Native American novels, coming home, staying put, even
what is called "regressing" to a place, a past where one has
been before, is not only the primary story, it is the primary
mode of knowledge and a primary good. (582)
Each of the three protagonists gradually acquire the knowledge of who
they are by reawakening to tribal life. Alone, Abel, Tayo, and Set are
failures; but tribalism, whose first tenet is a sense of community, helps
them to survive. Abel drinks, kills, goes to prison, becomes more and
162
more alienated until the death of his grandfather rekindles his interests in
traditions and forces him to realize where his place is. Abel prepares a
traditional burial for his grandfather and later, participates in the dawn
race, a tribal ritual of purification.
Tayo returns from the war a confused man. His memories of tribal
life are fading and he is pressured by other veterans to become an
agitator. Betonie, the Medicine Man, sends him on a search for his self.
Tayo recovers the good memories of his tribal past and is saved from the
life of debauchery in which the other servicemen indulge.
Set must choose between commercial art and art for art's sake. In
the midst of this dilemma, the unexpected news of his Indian
grandmother's death whom he has forgotten stirs memories of a tribal
past that is blurred in Set's mind. The professional crisis along with the
doubts about his cultural background lead Set to a gradual awakening to
his sense of self and to his final acceptance of his role in tribal life.
The nameless narrator in James Welch's Winter in the Blood also
suffers from an identity crisis which can only be resolved when he
decides to give up a life of meaningless events and turns to the
traditional Indian way of life. The narrator comes home at the end of the
novel with the desire to reconcile himself with his Indian identity.
163
William Bevis argues that the process of "homing in" that is
developed in these novels insures not only the recovery of "one's self"
but more important," a self that is transpersonal and includes a society,
a past, and a place" (Bevis 585). Bevis further posits that the recovery
of a sense of self is inseparable from the recovery of a sense of tribalism
which comprises two basic assumptions:
So the first assumption of tribalism is that the individual is
completed only in relation to others, and the group which
must complete his "being" is organized in some meaningful
way. That meaning is what has been lost. The second
component of tribalism is its respect for the past. The tribe,
which makes meaning possible, endures through time and
appeals to the past for authority. (587)
Abel, Tayo, Set, and the nameless narrator respond to the power of the
memories of a tribal past and ultimately return to tribal life.
Bevis' theory on tribalism in these novels also applies to Louise
Erdrich's novels, Simon Ortiz' poems, and Hanay Geiogamah's plays.
Erdrich insists that an individual's actions directly affect every one else
around; for that reason, life must be viewed as communal experience to
ensure the survival of the tribe or clan. Ortiz focuses on "homing in" by
proposing to leave America and to return to Native America. Finally,
164
Geiogamah's plays illustrate the two assumptions of tribalism that Bevis
defines.
But this is not to say that Louise Erdrich, Simon Ortiz, and Hanay
Geiogamah simply imitate their predecessors; survival as theme evolves
in the hands of these writers and relies on humor as its primary dynamic.
Arthur Power Dudden in his essay "American Humor" claims that
Mark Twain deserves the credit for the establishment of humor in
American literature. Mark Twain contributed to "establish the
importance of American humor permanently, and to help bring about the
emphasis on political, ethnic, and even feminist humor that has pervaded
America in the twentieth century" (Dudden 8). Mark Twain's humor
revealed societal's flaws and follies and helped to construct a realistic
image of nineteenth century America. Twain's style gave a new
direction to American literature that Dudden recognizes even in today's
literature. Dudden argues that "one gains from American humor's acidic
strain a sense of the nation's true history" (9).
"Indi'n" humor emulates American humor and shares its principal
tenets; it strives to reveal the flaws and follies in the tempestuous
relations between people; in this case, humor informs the relationship
between Indians and Euroamericans; it points to the flaws and follies
165
within a community: the Native American community; and it is the
vehicle for reform.
In Erdrich's novels humor results from the predicaments in which
some of the characters are trapped every time they seek personal
gratification and cease to look after the other members of their tribe.
Nector Kashpaw in Love Medicine. Pauline Pyuat in Tracks, and Zita
Koska in The Beet Queen fit into this category of characters. Erdrich
believes in the power of laughter as a coping mechanism that makes life
bearable. Although her novels describe the negative aspects of life for
Indians today, comedy provides the necessary outlet that supports the
characters in their struggle for survival. Erdrich's novels also illustrate
that togetherness insures survival.
Simon Ortiz's humor targets the excesses in the development of
the country in the name of progress and the myth of the vanishing
American. Ortiz mocks the foolishness of the land developers who do
not share in the Native American world view. Indians acknowledge the
communion between nature and human beings and therefore respect the
land they inhabit. Ortiz warns that the lack of respect for the land will
ultimately lead to the demise of the people. Ortiz also mocks the
stereotypical definition of Native Americans as victims by the dominant
166
Anglo culture and gives proof that Indians today are fighting back
centuries of misconceptions.
Hanay Geiogamah also mocks the misconceptions associated with
Native Americans that Euroamericans have created. Joseph Boskin and
Joseph Dorinson in "Ethnic Humor: Subversion and Survival" note that
"mocking the features ascribed to them by outsiders has become one of
the most effective ethnic infusions into national humor" (97). In Body
Indian and Foghorn Geiogamah uses dramatic irony to promote self
awareness and positive activism and offer a revision of the image of
Native Americans.
Boskin and Dorinson argue that humor "is the most effective and
vicious weapons in the repertory of the human mind" (81). Louise
Erdrich, Simon Ortiz, and Hanay Geiogamah demonstrate the power of
humor to transcend misconceptions, promote self criticism, and establish
a renewed sense of dignity that is necessary if Native Americans want to
survive. Self criticism in particular reveals their wrong doings to Native
Americans who have distanced themselves from tribalism in order to
pursue individualistic endeavors and allow them to reaffirm their
commitment to the traditions of their culture.
Although Erdrich, Ortiz, and Geiogamah write for non-Indians and
Indians alike, their works aspire to stir a revised Native American
167
consciousness. To fulfill their goal, they appeal to the universal need to
laugh and create situations in their fiction, poetry, and drama that
promote laughter. Through laughter these writers hope to heighten self
awareness and lead their Indian audience to self knowledge and present
their non-Indian audience with a realistic picture of contemporary Native
Americans. Boskin and Dorinson believe that "minority laughter affords
insights into the constant and often undignified struggle of upwardly
striving Americans to achieve positive definition and respectable status"
(97). Laughter is the energy at the heart of the works of the new
generation of Native American writers and the channel through which
entertainment and instruction take place.
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