Native American Religions

Native American Religions

  

I  INTRODUCTION 
Native American Religions, beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes of the indigenous peoples of North America concerning the spiritual forces of the cosmos. These beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes remained an integral part of indigenous North American cultures until the European settlement of North America was completed at the end of the 19th century. Beginning in the mid-20th century, Native American religions underwent a revival, particularly among the Plains peoples. (For additional information on Native American cultures, see Native Americans.)
II  ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT 
From their arrival on the continent at least 15,000 years ago until their encounter with Europeans, the indigenous peoples of North America lived primarily as hunters and gatherers. Until the end of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago, the peoples of North America shared a common culture with other Arctic peoples. They were, for the most part, nomadic hunters who tracked large mammals of the late Pleistocene Epoch and foraged for wild plant foods. As the ice caps retreated and the ecosystems of North America began to take on their present characteristics, indigenous peoples spread out across the continent and settled in various environmental niches. These groups established culture areas (geographic regions populated by peoples having more or less similar ways of life) adapted to their physical surroundings. Eventually, millions of people were living in kinship communities throughout North America, producing their own food, clothing, and shelter and developing their own religious forms. Even in communities where farming replaced hunting and gathering as a means of producing food, more ancient activities persisted, including traditional religious practices. See also Migration to the Americas.

The hundreds of tribal groups of North America maintained individual traditions that were adapted to their regional environments, although elements of these traditions were sometimes passed from one group to another through trade, migration, and intermarriage. The resilience of local tradition is especially apparent in the Native American communities of the Southeast and Southwest, where the cultural influence of Mexico can be seen in such institutions as social stratification, cities, temples, and burial cults. The archaeological evidence also points to substantial continuity within cultures over thousands of years. Each community maintained its characteristic worldview, passed down its own myths, conducted its own rituals, and acted according to its own fundamental values.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, when the first European explorers and missionaries began to document the religious patterns of indigenous North America, they were confronted with cultures that had remained unaffected by developments in the civilizations of Europe and Asia. In particular, certain archaic religious characteristics were prevalent among the peoples of North America—namely, a preoccupation with the cycles of nature; a belief in the animate quality of all beings; the use of various techniques believed to control cosmic powers for personal and communal benefit; an emphasis on kinship as the metaphor for religious relations; a reliance on shamans (religious specialists thought to be capable of ecstatic journeys of the soul taken on behalf of others); and a unified view of physical and spiritual sustenance expressed in an equivalence between economics and religion.
III  CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES
The indigenous peoples of North America perceived themselves as living in a cosmos pervaded by powerful, mysterious spiritual beings and forces that underlay and supported human life. Native Americans believed that in order to survive as individuals and communities, it was necessary to acknowledge these spiritual powers in every aspect of their lives—by addressing the powers in prayer and song, offering them gifts, establishing ritual relationships with them, and passing down knowledge about them to subsequent generations, primarily through myths (see Mythology).

A  The Spirit World

Native Americans lived in a world of spirits who made their presence known primarily through natural phenomena. Most Native Americans believed in a Great Mystery or Great Spirit that underlays the complexity of all existence, as well as in many other spiritual powers that influenced the whole of life. At times of crisis, Native Americans turned to powerful spirits to acknowledge their dependence on these spirits and to seek help. Such crises included drought and disease, the suspicion of witchcraft, and the failure to track and kill game. Each tribal group conceived of the spirit world in its own particular way, and there were variations of belief and ritual practice within each community.

A1  Gods

In no sense did the indigenous peoples of North America profess monotheism, or belief in the existence of one god only. Moreover, even a supreme being could be conceptualized in more than one way. Among the Sioux, Wakan Tanka (Great Mystery) was pictured both as a single entity and as an assemblage of deities—including Sun, Winds, Earth, and Rock. In practice, many Native Americans interacted less with a supreme being than with various subordinate powers believed to be useful in particular circumstances. For example, although the Iroquois worshiped orenda (the unified spiritual power innate in all things), their prayers were addressed to individual spirits with control over weather, war, health, and the growth of plants and creatures. The Ojibwa believed in Kitche Manitou (Great Spirit) but developed personal relations with guardian spirits who appeared to individuals in visions and dreams. The Hopi referred to Masau as their chief god, yet their ritual life focused on scores of kachinas, the spirits of ancestors and the forces of the environment that made fertility possible. The Navajo venerated the Sun and the Changing Woman, a figure who personified creative power, but there were also hundreds of monsters, Holy People (creators and cultural heroes), and other forces to be evoked or exorcised in blessings and curative chants.

A2  Guardian Spirits

Because Native Americans believed that supernatural powers were personal beings, they sought to establish relationships with benevolent guardian spirits. Such relationships existed across the North American continent, although they were not prominent in the Southwest. Most of the hunting and gathering peoples of North America hoped to enter intimate relationships with spirits and to win these spirits as their protectors. They also hoped to avoid spirits thought to be dangerous, harmful, or evil. Sometimes, as in the native cultures of the Pacific Northwest, guardians were handed down within families from one generation to the next. More often, as in the cultures of the Northeast, youths sought the guardians' pity and protection by means of lengthy fasts. Guardian spirits became like family members to individual Native Americans, assuring them health, long life, success in economic pursuits, and help in times of crisis. The Native Americans, in turn, were responsible to their guardians, providing them with tobacco and other offerings, singing their praises, and upholding their honor. Thus, whereas supreme beings seemed distant to daily concerns, guardian spirits took an immediate interest in an individual's welfare.

A3  Ghosts

In the worldview of most of the indigenous peoples of North America, there were also spiritual beings to be avoided. Native Americans of the Southwest in particular, such as the Navajo and Apache, dreaded contact with ghosts, who were believed to resent the living. These peoples disposed of the bodies of deceased relatives immediately and attempted to distance themselves from the spirits of the dead, avoiding their burial sites, never mentioning their names, and even abandoning the dwellings in which they had died. If a person were responsible for a death—for example, among the Papago of the Southwest, the death of an enemy warrior—it was necessary to adopt the dead person, keep his scalp, and appease his spirit continually with gifts and kind words.

A4  Medicine

In a world filled with both helpful and harmful forces, Native Americans tried to locate repositories of spiritual power. Uncanny phenomena such as geysers, trees struck by lightning, and deposits of rare minerals, as well as dangerous locales such as waterfalls and whirlpools, became sites of pilgrimage where indigenous peoples hoped to collect spiritual power. They gathered herbs and pollen, oddly shaped stones, and horns, bones, teeth, feathers, and other body parts of animals and placed them in medicine bundles, collections of objects believed to heal disease and to ward off ghosts, witches, foes, and destructive spirits. Most Native Americans kept these medicine bundles for personal, household, and community protection.

A5  Ritual

Native Americans engaged in a great variety of rituals. As a person passed through the stages of the life cycle—obtaining a name after birth, seeking a guardian spirit at puberty, setting off at death for the journey to the afterlife—rituals marked the passages. One of the basic elements of Native American ritual life was the sweat lodge—a purification ritual that originated in the polar regions—in which water was poured over heated stones to create a hot vapor bath. The rites, or ceremonial acts, of the sweat lodge were believed to wash away both moral and physical impurities. Sweat lodges were used for teaching, praying, and singing, often in preparation for other ceremonies.

A6  Prayer

Native Americans used gestures and words to communicate in prayer with the spiritual sources of life. Prayers were offered for a wide range of needs, including health, agricultural bounty, and success in the hunt. Prayers could take a variety of forms: songs and dances, as well as such acts as the sprinkling of corn meal, could function as prayers. Verbal prayers included expressions of thanksgiving, requests or pleas, and coercive formulas. There were cultural variations as well. For example, whereas Iroquois prayers emphasized an attitude of thanksgiving toward all things, Navajo prayers were calculated to exorcise evil and to erect a barrier of blessings against harm.

A7  Offerings

In order to make their prayers effective, Native Americans made offerings to the spirits. The most common offering was of native tobacco, either smoked in pipes, burned in fires, or deposited ceremonially. An Ojibwa, for example, having killed a bear, placed tobacco in the animal's nose to appease its spirit. An Ojibwa might also toss tobacco on the rapids as a prayer to ensure safe passage by canoe. When gathering herbs, indigenous peoples placed tobacco in the earth as an offering of appreciation. Such gifts were thought to seal and renew relations with the sources of life.

A8  Ceremonies

The cycle of the year was punctuated with ceremonial observances of prayer and thanksgiving. Such observances took place at critical points in the agricultural or hunting season—for example, upon the return of the first salmon from the ocean to the rivers; at the times of planting, ripening, and harvest; upon the appearance of sap in the maple trees; or at the summer and winter solstices. In some cases, as in the cultures of the Pacific Northwest, a whole season was devoted to ritual. Spirits were welcomed into the villages with song and dance, and the people shared their food and wealth with one another in elaborate feasts.

B  Mythology

Rituals were meant not only to communicate with spiritual beings but also to pass down tribal traditions. One of the most common rituals among Native Americans was the recounting of myths, which contained a wealth of religious knowledge. Myths provided communities with a cosmogony, a story of how the world came to have its present form; a worldview, a picture of how the various aspects of the world are related to one another; and an ethos, a code of behavior for human beings.

B1  Creation Myths

Through their oral traditions, Native Americans told how the processes of creation occurred, often through the transforming activities of creative deities, cultural heroes, and tricksters. These stories were not meant to be authoritative assertions about the origin of the world: A single people often recounted several different stories to explain the origin of the same phenomenon. Rather, these stories were means by which Native Americans examined the spiritual and physical conditions of their existence—the origins of humanity, the place of human beings in the cosmos, the sources of sustenance, the reasons for death, and social institutions such as marriage.

There were several recurring types of creation myths. In the widespread story of the earth diver, floods covered the primordial landscape, requiring animals to dive into the depths to retrieve a piece of earth from which to form the present earth. Many failed before one finally succeeded. In emergence stories, common throughout the Southwest, humans climbed up from the underworld, beset with problems of their own making, in order to find a place on the surface of the earth. There they received their languages, foods, and clan identities and ultimately migrated to their traditional homelands.

Various cultural regions had their own characteristic creation myths. In the Northeast, the Iroquois told of a woman who fell from the sky world. With the help of birds and other animals, the present land was formed on the back of a great turtle. The woman's grandsons—one good, one evil—created the various opposing forces, such as medicines and poisons, that affect human life. In the Northwest, the cultural heroes Star Child and Diaper Boy were said to have come into existence when two young women married stars and returned to earth. The heroes helped establish the rules of tribal life, including marriage customs. In the Arctic, the Inuit recounted how a young woman married a seabird. When her father tried to bring her back home in his kayak, the bird agitated the ocean. To save himself, the father threw his daughter overboard and cut off the joints of her fingers as she attempted to grasp the boat. From the joints came all the food sources necessary for human life, including seals, walruses, and whales.

B2  Trickster Myths

It was common for creation myths to be intertwined with other mythic themes. For example, emergence stories often included an earth-diver sequence, and young women who married stars in myths in many cases later fell from the sky to give birth to their heroic offspring. Tricksters played a prominent role in this body of lore. These figures were often depicted as solitary coyotes, hares, or ravens, and almost invariably they were male. They represented the chaotic elements within the cosmos, the pleasure-seeking instincts within the moral order.

One famous trickster is the figure of Coyote. In the Navajo story of creation, the Holy Persons methodically placed stars in the sky and plants on the earth. Coyote came along and scattered these elements about, creating the world as it exists today. Coyote also kidnapped the Water Monster's baby and caused a great flood, which brought human beings to the surface world. He seduced a virtuous maiden and taught her witchcraft. He caused disagreements and fights, and for every act he performed, he had a partially plausible justification. Coyote is also widely credited with ensuring the finality of death.

Despite their creative energy, Native American tricksters such as Coyote were regarded as negative examples. They were viewed as antisocial braggarts, bungling imitators, troublemakers, and buffoons. For instance, although the Ojibwa trickster Winabojo functioned partially as a cultural hero—stealing fire for human use, taming the dangerous winds, perfecting the strategies that made successful hunting possible—he also brought about the great flood by killing too many animals and thereby angering the spirits who were their protectors. Frequently, his helpful creativity was seen as an accident, such as when he dashed madly through the brambles but made nutritious berries from his blood.
IV  AFTER EUROPEAN CONTACT 
With the coming of Europeans to North America, Native Americans experienced a series of dislocations from which they are still struggling to recover. Foreign invaders overran their territories and claimed sovereignty over their communities, diseases ravaged their populations, and their environments were drastically altered. In many cases, Native Americans were forcibly removed from their aboriginal homelands and livelihoods, with the result that indigenous cultures underwent rapid change. In the midst of these crises, as Native Americans turned to their own religious traditions to understand and ease their plight, missionaries attempted to convert them from their traditional religions to Christianity.

A  Christianity

Tens of thousands of Native Americans now identify Christianity as their traditional religion. Their families have heard Christian stories, sung Christian hymns, seen Christian iconography, and received Christian sacraments for generations. In the mid-1990s, more than two-thirds of Native Americans characterized themselves at least nominally as Christians. Others have combined Christian beliefs and practices with their native religions or have practiced two faiths—Christian and native—side by side but separately. In many cases, Native Americans have reshaped Christianity, assimilating Jesus Christ as a cultural hero and interpreting Holy Communion as a medicine. In other cases, the forms of native religions have been retained while their contents have been thoroughly Christianized.

B  Native Movements

Contact with Christians proved traumatic for Native American religions, as both civil and religious authorities attempted to repress native spirituality and force conversion. Over the past three centuries, this attempt has provoked the rise of various native religious movements.

B1  Prophets and Messiahs

Movements of nativism (the assertion of traditional values in the face of foreign encroachment) and revitalization (the revival of traditional culture, often involving explicit rejection of European civilization) have arisen, led by Native American prophets who claimed to have received revelation from the aboriginal deities, often in dreams and visions. These prophets have frequently shown evidence of Christian influence in their moral codes, their missionary zeal, and their concern for personal redemption and social improvement. Sometimes their teachings have led to military advances against European invaders. For example, in the early 1760s the Delaware prophet Neolin helped inspire the rebellion of Ottawa warrior Pontiac against the British. Similarly, the preaching of Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa bolstered the military efforts of his brother Tecumseh against the United States Army between 1808 and 1813. The revivals of preachers such as the Iroquois Handsome Lake in 1799 and the Salish John Slocum in 1882 spawned new religions—part native, part Christian—that have endured in their respective communities to the present day.

One of the most prolonged Native American uprisings took place in the Southwest under the leadership of a Tewa medicine man named Pop, who in 1680 led the various indigenous peoples of present-day New Mexico in a rebellion against Spanish missionaries and conquistadors. The Native Americans drove the Spanish out and kept them at bay for more than a decade. During the Spanish reconquest, the Hopi burned one of their own villages and killed its converted inhabitants rather than allow the reestablishment of Christianity as the official religion. To this day the Hopi pueblos, or villages, resist the influence of Christian religions, although some Hopi have been attracted to the Mormon faith. In hundreds of other cases, indigenous peoples of North America have defied Christian control or endured its presence with only apparent compliance.

B2  Ghost Dance

New religious movements among Native Americans have at times taken on the character of crisis cults, which respond to cultural threat with emotional rituals. In 1889 a Paiute prophet named Wovoka foretold the imminent end of the current world order. Casting himself in a messianic role that seemed to be influenced by Christian imagery, Wovoka promised that if Native Americans would conduct a ceremony known as the Ghost Dance, depleted animal populations and deceased relatives would be restored. For several years, many indigenous peoples in the western part of North America performed the ceremony, even after United States Army troops massacred Sioux ghost dancers at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1890.

B3  Pan-Native American Movements

Pan-Native American initiatives have helped spread many of the new religions of indigenous peoples, as parochial tribal identities have broadened in the face of common oppression. For example, the Ghost Dance of the 1880s spread among a number of tribes that were all undergoing similar upheavals, and indigenous peoples of the Great Plains shared in each other's Sun Dances. The preeminent pan-Native American religious development, however, has been Peyotism, a religious movement centering on the sacramental ingestion of a mildly hallucinogenic cactus. Peyotism spread from Mexico to the southern Plains peoples in the 19th century. By the early 20th century, despite vigorous opposition by the United States government, the use of peyote was widely established throughout North America. In 1918, Peyotism was formally incorporated as the Native American Church. The group's status as a religious organization enabled members to seek legal protection for the ritual use of peyote. In the mid-1990s, membership in the Native American Church was estimated to be 250,000.
V  CONTEMPORARY TRENDS 
Between the 1880s and 1930s, the U.S. authorities attempted to ban Native American religious rituals, including the Ghost Dance, Sun Dance, and peyote cult. In Canada the same restrictive tendencies prevailed. In more recent years, however, governmental authorities have adopted a more supportive attitude toward the practice of native spirituality. In 1978 the Congress of the United States passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, an official expression of good will toward Native American spirituality. In the wake of this legislation, many religious practices once considered on the verge of disappearing were revived. These include pipe ceremonials, sweat lodges, vision quests, and Sun Dances. In an unforeseen consequence of the Native American religious revival, some non-Native American followers of the New Age Movement have adopted Native American beliefs and rituals. New Age enthusiasts have adopted such practices as sweat lodges, pipe ceremonies, and the use of crystals and other natural objects traditionally believed to be charged with spiritual power. While some Native Americans have resented such borrowing of indigenous rituals, others have been pleased to see non-Native Americans taking an interest in native spiritual traditions.

Native American Policy

Native American Policy

I

INTRODUCTION

Native American Policy, laws and procedures developed in the United States to define the relationship between the government and Native Americans. From the time of first contact, Europeans who came to North America noted vast differences between their cultures and those of the native peoples who already inhabited the New World. In their dealings with Native Americans, the Europeans adopted policies that were shaped by their own worldview and experience. When the United States became a nation, the new government built on this European foundation, but over time adapted its Native American policy to changing perspectives and needs. Over the course of 200 years, this policy has varied widely. At times, the federal government has recognized indigenous peoples as independent political communities with separate cultural identities. At other times, it has tried to force them to abandon their cultural identity, to give up their land base, and to assimilate into the American mainstream.

II

COLONIAL EXPERIENCE

The Europeans who established settlements in North America generally expected to dominate the Native Americans who already inhabited the continent (see Colonies and Colonialism). Each European nation developed its own procedures to oversee relationships with the native peoples. But substantial differences in attitudes toward native peoples emerged, attitudes that were often shaped by economic and cultural considerations. The Dutch, for example, who were primarily interested in trade, respected the sovereign or independent rights of Native Americans. The Dutch purchased land from the Native Americans in order to establish colonies and protect their commercial enterprises. The French generally showed respect for native peoples, but the Spanish developed a policy that was designed to Christianize and subjugate native populations. This policy resulted in a high loss of life among native peoples in areas under Spanish control.

In the 16th century, English monarchs gave explorers great freedom to claim territory with almost no regard for the rights of Native Americans. If indigenous people were considered at all, they were considered as subjects of the Crown. As the British colonies expanded, they often confiscated tribal lands through warfare, although in some areas royal charters mandated land purchase. The British justified their occupation of huge tracts of land with the argument that Native Americans were heathens who did not develop the land. Once territory was acquired, the British allowed the colonists to devise their own policies for dealing with Native Americans. Usually, the colonists imposed their own laws on Native Americans who lived within their jurisdiction.

By the early 18th century, however, the British colonists were competing with the Spanish and the French for land and trade. The British began to use the treaty-making process as their primary means of negotiating with Native Americans. These treaties were official written agreements that dealt with tribal groups as sovereign nations. They provided the basis for land cessions, trade, and other relationships between native peoples and the British government.

British relations with the Native American groups were threatened by colonial expansion following the French and Indian War (1754-1763). As a result of that war, France ceded its claim to all land east of the Mississippi River. The British colonists began to push settlement westward beyond the Appalachian Mountains more aggressively. In an attempt to control the situation, the British government issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763. This act established a boundary along the crest of the Appalachian Mountains and forbade settlement west of this line. However, the colonists were difficult to restrain, and the colonists’ victory over the British in the American Revolution put Native American policy completely under the colonists’ control.

III

RELATIONS BETWEEN INDEPENDENT NATIONS

During the Revolutionary War, Native Americans had the power to affect the fortunes of the newly independent United States. Many of the North American tribes were militarily powerful and possessed vast areas of land. They were also diplomatically astute and had enhanced their position by developing trade not only with the Americans but also with the British, French, and Spanish. The American patriots needed to maintain good relationships with native peoples to prevent hostilities and to encourage the transfer of land. Even before the Declaration of Independence was signed, the Continental Congress established a committee on Native American policy. The three appointed commissioners were to ensure that good relationships were maintained with various tribal groups. After colonists had achieved full independence, the Congress continued the British policy of negotiating treaties with Native Americans in most matters concerning land and settlement rights.

As part of the government’s Revolutionary War strategy, the Continental Congress concluded a treaty with the Delaware confederacy in 1778. This group of native peoples had migrated from the Delaware River into Ohio and western Pennsylvania as Europeans settled on their lands. The treaty established a military alliance between the newly formed American government and the Delaware. It also promised that Congress would accept the Delaware if they decided to form their own state and seek entry into the union. This offer indicated that members of the Continental Congress regarded Native Americans as independent peoples who were not directly under the government’s control.

A series of laws called the Trade and Intercourse Acts further defined the U.S. government’s relationship with native groups. These acts, passed between 1790 and 1834, established federal control over all relations with Native Americans. Federal control meant that only Congress, not states or private parties, could negotiate treaties, obtain lands, and trade with Native Americans. The government could also require special licenses for traders or passports for citizens entering Native American lands. This system allowed federal officials to monitor individual interaction with the tribes and to reduce the risk of misunderstandings and hostilities.

Despite these precautions, relationships deteriorated as the government increased pressure on Native Americans to cede their lands. American expansion continued westward across the Appalachian Mountains. Tecumseh, a respected leader of the Shawnee, formed an alliance of tribes to block the flood of newcomers. Fearing the impact of such a confederacy, an American militia unit under the command of Indiana Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison attacked Prophetstown, the movement’s headquarters on the Wabash River, in November 1811. In this bloody engagement, later called the Battle of Tippecanoe, Harrison’s army scattered the Shawnee and their allies, who were led by Tecumseh’s brother Tenskwatawa, known as the Prophet. This defeat effectively ended Tecumseh’s efforts to unify Native American resistance.

Harrison’s victory and continued American expansion only intensified the Native Americans’ resentment, causing many Indian nations to support the British during the War of 1812. Large numbers of Native Americans, including Tecumseh, fought beside British soldiers in Canada and the Great Lakes region. In the South, a group of young Creek warriors called the Red Sticks, using ammunition supplied by the Spanish, attacked Fort Mims, an American frontier fort. This attack resulted in the deaths of more than 250 settlers, prompting the United States to retaliate. The Creek were defeated by forces led by Tennessee militia commander Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. After this defeat, the Creek were forced to give up large sections of their land.

The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, included provisions that the United States would establish peaceful relations with the Native Americans who had allied with the British. New treaties were negotiated with these native peoples, but the treaties were difficult to enforce. Settlers who wanted land simply ignored them.

In the years after the war, the government faced difficult decisions about the direction of Native American policy. Some officials wanted to see the Native Americans assimilated into the larger society: They wanted the Native Americans to give up their cultural practices and to adopt American ones. Others felt that separating the two races was the only way to ease tensions. Although the government experimented with both approaches, negotiating treaties to remove Native Americans from the path of white settlement dominated policy during the second quarter of the 19th century.

IV

REMOVAL PERIOD

The idea of moving Native Americans to a different part of the country was not new. After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson had suggested that tracts of land in this vast new territory could be given to native peoples if they agreed to cede their lands in the eastern part of the country. Transfers occurred in a piecemeal way, but no consistent removal program developed until after the War of 1812.

A coherent policy began to take shape in 1824. At this time, Secretary of War John Caldwell Calhoun created an administrative office within the Department of War called the Bureau of Indian Affairs, more frequently referred to as the Office of Indian Affairs. Calhoun appointed an experienced administrator, Thomas L. McKenney, to supervise the work of this new agency. McKenney is usually considered the first commissioner of Indian affairs, although this position was not formalized by Congress until 1832. His primary responsibilities were to oversee existing treaty relations and to conduct negotiations for the removal of native groups. Initially, the bureau focused on indigenous peoples living in the Great Lakes region, then called the Northwest Territory, and also in the Southeast.

The main Native American peoples in the Southeast were the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Seminole, and Chickasaw. These groups were known collectively as the Five Civilized Tribes because they had rapidly adopted many elements of European life. They occupied rich agricultural land that was very attractive to potential settlers. When gold was discovered in Cherokee territory, whites demanded that the United States acquire huge tracts of land from Native Americans in the region. Angry over the Cherokees’ independence, the state of Georgia threatened to secede over the issue.

In 1830 Congress accommodated the settlers’ wishes by passing the Indian Removal Act (see Indian Wars: Native American Removal Policy). This legislation provided funds to cover the cost of treaty negotiations and the removal of eastern tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River. Native Americans, joined by a few white supporters from the North, lobbied strongly against the bill’s passage. Some native groups such as the Cherokee even passed laws forbidding their people, on penalty of death, to negotiate treaties ceding their aboriginal homelands.

Despite these efforts, the government removed a majority of the Native Americans from the Southeast to an area west of the Mississippi that became known as Indian Territory. Military power was often used to force unwilling groups to leave their lands. Tribal members who were made to relocate often faced devastating losses and even death on the trek westward. For example, the Cherokee's removal from Georgia to Indian Territory in 1838 and 1839 became known as the Trail of Tears because nearly 4000 out of more than 18,000 who were forced from their homes died in stockades or on the journey westward. By the end of the 1830s, the government had relocated more than 30 eastern tribes to the West. Although the government promised that Indian Territory would be a permanent home for these peoples, settlers soon demanded land in parts of Indian Territory as well. By 1907 the area once set aside for Native Americans as Indian Territory had become part of the state of Oklahoma.

V

RESERVATION PERIOD

The removal policy opened up much Native American land in the East for white settlement, but American expansion did not stop at the Mississippi River. Between 1830 and 1860, the United States doubled the amount of territory under its control with the addition of the Oregon country, California, Texas, and the borderlands of southern New Mexico and Arizona that were part of the Gadsden Purchase. These new territorial acquisitions coincided with the arrival of European and Asian immigrants who hoped to join the flood of Americans heading to the American West. The discovery of gold in California in 1849 (see Gold Rush of 1849) and the promise of land for cultivation and settlement presented attractive opportunities for those willing to journey westward.

The stream of migrants brought trouble to the highly diverse groups of Native Americans who already occupied these western lands. These newcomers not only traveled through Native Americans’ lands but also began to use the land for mining and agriculture, disrupting traditional Native American ways of life. To the peoples of the Northern Plains (see Native Americans: The Plains), for example, white settlement meant losing the buffalo herds they relied on for food and other needs; many soon faced starvation. Many native peoples had no immunity to smallpox, cholera, and even some of the more common illnesses, such as influenza, that the settlers brought with them. Some peoples, such as the Mandan in North Dakota, lost large percentages of their population to these diseases.

With so many people moving into the West, the government turned to a policy of restricting Native Americans to reservations, which were generally small areas of land within the group’s territory. This land was to be reserved exclusively for their use. These reservations (see Native American Reservations) kept native peoples separate from whites, thus reducing the potential for conflict. They were also supposed to provide the native peoples with sufficient land to develop new skills in agriculture and livestock management, skills considered necessary for "civilized" life. Since the government recognized Native Americans as semi-independent nations who retained the right to occupy their lands, it established the reservations by formal treaties. These treaties specified boundaries and established payment for lands that the tribes were asked to relinquish. In 1849 Congress transferred the Bureau of Indian Affairs from the War Department to a new agency, the Department of the Interior. The bureau’s responsibility to administer the government’s Native American policies remained the same.

One of the first of these treaties was the Treaty of Fort Laramie negotiated in 1851 (see Fort Laramie National Historic Site). The Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Assiniboine, Gros Ventre, Mandan, and Arikara who signed this document agreed to end hostilities among themselves and to accept specified reservations. In exchange, the government offered protection from attacks by white settlers and a yearly payment that would include money as well as food, household goods, livestock, and tools for agriculture. Similar treaties were made with other tribal groups throughout the West over the next two decades.

These agreements had many problems. Frequently the treaties did not take into account the cultural practices of the native peoples, and often the Native Americans did not fully understand what they were signing or the government misrepresented the conditions to them. A large number of treaties were never ratified by the United States Senate, leaving the status of certain Native American lands in question. In addition, the government agencies responsible for administering these agreements were plagued by corruption and mismanagement, and many treaty provisions were never carried out.

The Native American peoples in the West were frequently dissatisfied with the treaty process and resented the settlers’ continued demands for land. As they sought to protect their lands and to ensure their survival, more than 1000 skirmishes and battles erupted throughout the West between 1861 and 1891 (see Indian Wars). The government responded with costly military campaigns in an attempt to force Native Americans onto reservations and end the hostilities.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs attempted to eliminate corruption among the agents who administered policy on the reservations. As part of this effort, the bureau appointed Christian missionaries to supervisory positions on some reservations. Previously, many agents had been selected in return for political favors. All too often, these politically appointed agents used their position to enrich themselves. They secured government contracts to purchase goods or food promised to the tribes in their treaties and then sold these supplies to outsiders and kept the profits. The missionaries carried out government policies, but they also tried to Christianize native peoples and encouraged them to give up many of their own cultural practices.

Native American opposition continued, especially among Plains groups such as the Sioux or Lakota, who saw their way of life threatened. Some turned to new religions, such as the Ghost Dance (see Native American Religions: Ghost Dance) that promised a return to the old ways, but the government also found these movements threatening. In December 1890 the U.S. Cavalry killed as many as 350 followers of the Sioux leader Sitting Bull because they had practiced the Ghost Dance. After this confrontation near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, the Native American wars effectively came to an end.

VI

ALLOTMENT PERIOD

Since its beginnings, the United States government had treated Native Americans as sovereign peoples and used treaties as the legal basis for most of its relationships with them. Between 1778 and 1871, Congress had approved more than 370 treaties with Native American groups, while hundreds more were negotiated but never approved.

This policy changed after the Civil War. Reformers who were concerned about the plight of Native Americans and industrialists who wanted their land and resources decided that assimilating native peoples into American society was a preferable policy. In 1871 the federal government enacted a law stating that the United States would no longer treat Native American tribal groups as independent nations. This legislation signaled a fundamental shift in the government’s relationship with Native Americans. Congress would no longer regard tribal groups as nations outside of its jurisdictional control, but rather as wards of the federal government.

By making the native peoples wards of the government, Congress believed it would be better able to promote their assimilation into the cultural mainstream of white America. Corporate interests intent on developing the West and eastern reformers critical of the government’s past policies toward Native Americans all believed that assimilation was the most effective resolution to what they called the “Indian problem.” The new policy would bring Native Americans one step closer to the end of their tribal identity and the beginning of their existence as individuals under the control of the United States government.

The government’s policies of assimilation extended into all areas of Native American life—economic, political, cultural, and spiritual. For example, government regulations that remained in force until the 1930s sought to destroy the essence of Native American culture by forbidding the practice of traditional spiritual ceremonies. Reservation agents used such tactics as withholding rations and goods to encourage attendance at Christian churches. With government support, some of these churches established day schools and boarding schools where children were taught English and forbidden to speak their native tongues. Government or church-appointed superintendents settled disputes and dictated political and economic decisions, assuming roles that had formerly been filled by tribal leaders. The Major Crimes Act, enacted in 1885, gave the United States government criminal jurisdiction over native peoples who committed any of seven major crimes, including murder and burglary. Agents on more than two-thirds of the reservations established courts to enforce federal regulations that, in many cases, outlawed traditional cultural and spiritual practices.

In 1887 Congress passed the centerpiece of the assimilation program, the General Allotment Act, also known as the Dawes Act. The objective of this legislation was to “civilize” Native Americans by teaching them to become farmers and ranchers. Congress wanted to break up the reservations, which were communally owned, and give individual Native Americans their own plots of land. Heads of households received about 30 to 60 hectares (80 to 160 acres), depending on the suitability of the land for agriculture and ranching; their wives and children, as well as unmarried adults, received smaller plots, usually 20 to 30 hectares (40 to 80 acres).

The allotment process was not accepted willingly by most native peoples. For many, the land was the spiritual and cultural center of their lives. To treat the land as an economic commodity undermined their sense of identity and their values. The division of reservations into small parcels led to a rapid reduction in the amount of land owned by Native Americans. Within 30 years, tribes had lost two-thirds of the territory they had controlled in 1887. The government sold most of the land remaining after the allotment process to white settlers. Over the years, individual Native American landowners were often forced to sell their allotments to pay bills or to feed their families.

For the next several decades Native Americans lived under a policy that outlawed their traditional means of existence, yet failed to provide adequate resources to support educational, health, and economic programs necessary for a new life. In 1924 Congress extended American citizenship to all Native Americans, although by this time nearly two-thirds of native peoples were already citizens, including those who served in the United States military during World War I (1914-1918). The right of American citizenship did not replace Native American tribal membership, nor did it necessarily free native peoples from their position as wards of the government. Citizenship also did not offer significant improvement in living standards, and reformers continued to find fault with the government’s policy toward Native Americans. Many of their criticisms were confirmed by the Merriam Report, an independent study commissioned to review the administration of Native American affairs. The report, published in 1928, described the loss of tribal lands through the allotment process, the poor health and educational levels of Native Americans, and the lack of control native people had over their own lives.

VII

INDIAN REORGANIZATION PERIOD

In 1932 President Franklin Roosevelt appointed John Collier as commissioner of Indian Affairs. Collier, an outspoken critic of the Bureau of Indian Affairs during the allotment period, was both knowledgeable and respectful of Native American culture. As commissioner he was committed to reversing the government’s previous policies that were hostile to traditional Native American cultural practices. He also wanted to improve the health and welfare of Native Americans.

Collier immediately went to work to improve economic conditions among Native Americans. He brought to the reservations many of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, which were designed to counteract the economic problems of the Great Depression. In some cases, he established separate agencies, such as the Indian Civilian Conservation Corps, to employ Native Americans on conservation projects, and the Indian Arts and Crafts Board to promote sales of goods made by Native Americans. He also worked to withdraw all federal regulations forbidding the practice of Indian religious ceremonies and to end the sale of allotted lands.

Collier’s most wide-ranging effort was to return political, cultural, and economic authority to the tribes. He sought to accomplish this goal with the Indian Reorganization Act (see Native Americans: 20th-Century U.S. Policies). Collier’s original draft of the legislation proposed some revolutionary new measures for self-government and the revival of tribal control over Native American lands. The bill faced strong opposition from some lawmakers as well as a few Native American groups, and it was heavily amended before Congress finally passed it in 1934. In its final form, the Indian Reorganization Act established a process through which native peoples could adopt a constitution and establish tribal councils. It was designed to give Native Americans greater control over the political, social, and economic policies that affected their lives.

VIII

TERMINATION PERIOD

Interest in Native American culture and traditions flourished during the era of the Indian Reorganization Act, but this attention was short-lived. Victory in World War II gave Americans a new pride in mainstream American culture and ideals. Native Americans had shown their patriotism by volunteering for military service in record numbers, but the postwar emphasis on the superiority of the mainstream way of life translated into another change in the government’s attitudes toward Native Americans. Congress no longer supported policies encouraging a renewal of tribal culture and communities. In fact, Congress passed a series of bills designed to return to the policy of assimilation and to integrate Native Americans into the broader society as rapidly as possible.

The 1946 Indian Claims Commission Act served as a forerunner of this change in policy. The act was designed to resolve Native American land claims against the government and to ensure that no future claims would be filed. The Indian Claims Commission Act provided native peoples the opportunity to sue the federal government over the illegal transfer of tribal lands and to make other claims under the terms of the treaties that the government had negotiated with native groups. Several hundred petitions were filed, overwhelming the commission. Although tribes ultimately received more than $800 million in compensation for their losses, the settlements were not as high as some groups expected. More importantly, the act did not provide for the return of Native American lands. The commission’s original purpose of correcting past wrongs was overshadowed by the perception that it represented a step toward assimilation and the withdrawal of federal responsibility for Native American groups.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, Congress passed a number of additional bills designed to terminate the government’s relationship with Native Americans. House Concurrent Resolution 108 stated that the government would pursue a policy to end Native Americans’ status as wards of the government. Native peoples would become “subject to the same laws and entitled to the same privileges and responsibilities” as other United States citizens. Between 1954 and 1962 the federal government terminated its responsibility for services and benefits to at least 109 tribes, bands, and communities.

Responsibility for these groups was terminated based on an evaluation of the extent of the group’s adoption of white culture and its economic condition. Congress made the final determination of which groups to terminate, and the secretary of the interior set up the timetable for federal control to end. Their reservation lands were sold or allotted, and members of terminated tribes were no longer eligible for housing, health, education, and community development programs designed to help native people.

Another important piece of the government’s termination policy was Public Law 280, passed in 1953. This bill, passed without the consent of the tribes, transferred almost all civil and criminal jurisdiction over reservation lands in California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, and Wisconsin from the federal government to the states. During the 1950s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs also helped to establish a relocation program, which attempted to integrate Native Americans more fully by moving many from their rural reservations to large urban areas.

IX

SELF-DETERMINATION PERIOD

By the mid-1960s the climate of opinion began to change again. The civil rights movement, which prompted federal legislation to fight poverty and to promote equal rights, highlighted the needs of minority groups in the United States. Moreover, the protests in the 1960s showed how both nonviolent and violent public marches and demonstrations could focus attention on problems in American society. In 1968 several young Native American men formed the American Indian Movement (AIM). This group protested the government’s treatment of Native Americans and sought to protect their rights as they were spelled out in treaties. The movement soon attracted a significant following, especially among Native American youth. AIM promoted a variety of demonstrations for Native American rights that included sit-ins, building takeovers, and marches at sites around the country. Some of their most highly publicized activities included an attempt to establish Native American claims to Alcatraz by the occupation of that island from 1969 to 1971. In 1973 a protest over government policy took place at the battle site of Wounded Knee. It resulted in a 71-day siege and two deaths. These militant actions brought the plight of Native Americans before the American public and Congress.

In 1975 Congress responded to intense tribal lobbying efforts and the publicity generated by AIM. It passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which helped Native American groups to assume control over many of the federal programs supervised by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Other important laws, such as the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, gave Native Americans control over the adoption and foster care of Native American children.

Since 1975 Congress has generally followed a policy of allowing Native American groups to govern themselves. Despite continued budget cuts and insufficient funding, Native American peoples have increasingly taken control of the management of their schools, housing programs, health programs, economic ventures, and lands. In the last two decades of the 20th century, Native Americans also gained experience in presenting their opinions to Congress and in the federal courts. While not always successful, they won many landmark cases protecting their fishing, treaty, and land rights and expanding their sovereignty over issues of both economic and cultural significance. See also Native Americans of North America: Self-Determination.

Despite some improvement in the relationship between the United States government and Native Americans, conflicts over federal policy persist. Some tribes have charged the Bureau of Indian Affairs with mismanagement of Native American lands and waste of millions of dollars in trust funds. Government efforts to slash the federal budget have decreased the amount of funds allotted to Native American programs. Tribal people continue to have their religious rights denied. Social problems associated with alcohol use, including crimes and family violence, have risen steadily. While a number of tribes have started lucrative gambling casinos on tribal lands, others have failed to establish viable businesses or to provide sufficient employment opportunities for people on the reservations. In recent years the Supreme Court of the United States has denied tribes important governing powers over nonmembers within their reservation boundaries, making the enforcement of tribal law difficult. Other Native Americans are fighting to gain the government’s recognition of their tribal status in order to qualify for federal services and benefits.

At the heart of many of these conflicts between native peoples and the federal government is the issue of sovereignty, or the right of Native Americans to govern themselves. Increasing assertions of sovereignty have included, for example, attempts by Native Americans to exercise and manage hunting and fishing rights, to tax non-Native American users of reservation land, or to impose separate standards for environmental control of natural resources. These efforts have caused some backlash in Congress as well as local communities and resulted in attempts by nonnative peoples to limit new sources of tribal power.

In a March 1999 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of eight bands of Chippewa to hunt and fish without state regulation on lands ceded to the United States in an 1837 treaty. The Mille Lacs Chippewa filed the suit challenging Minnesota’s authority to impose hunting and fishing restrictions on tribal members. The ruling denied Minnesota’s claim that its admission as a state superceded earlier treaty provisions. Whether this decision signals new federal and legal support for tribal sovereignty remains unclear. What is clear is that the efforts of Native Americans to protect their lands as well as their rights to self-government, to religious identity and practices, and to inherent sovereignty at all levels will remain at the heart of Indian life in the 21st century just as it has in the last three centuries.

Native American Literature

Native American Literature

I

INTRODUCTION

Native American Literature, the literature of people of Native American descent. The dominant focus of Native American literature is on issues related to Native American culture, history, religion, and experiences.

Although native peoples live in every country in North America and South America, the term Native American literature, or alternately, American Indian literature, usually refers to works written by the indigenous people of the United States and Canada. In Canada, this literature is also called First Nations literature. Because more than 1,100 nations, or tribes, of Native Americans live in the United States and Canada, Native American literature encompasses many different social, cultural, historical, and spiritual perspectives.

Native American literature originates in the oral traditions of native peoples—the spoken words used to pass on information from generation to generation. Today, the oral tradition remains important to Native American life and literature, and ceremonies and religious rituals are often known solely through the spoken word. At the same time, written works offer the advantage of publishing ideas, stories, and thoughts to a wide audience. Native American literature has been published since the 1700s and has grown steadily since the 1960s.

For information on indigenous literature of Central America and South America, see Latin American Literature. For information on indigenous literature of the Caribbean region, see Caribbean Literature.

II

ORAL TRADITIONS

Oral traditions are an important part of Native American culture. Traditional Native American beliefs hold that thought and speech are tied to each another. Thoughts have creative power, and the spoken word, as the physical expression of thought, is sacred. Good thoughts and good words express positive energy, while bad thoughts and bad words express negative energy.

In addition to using writing systems, Native Americans in earlier times passed down tribal knowledge in spoken forms such as speeches, songs, stories, ceremonies, chants, and rituals. The first Native American works written in European languages were transcribed speeches and treaties with European colonists. These speeches and treaties date to the 1600s and 1700s. Today, Native American oral literature encompasses many literary forms, and of these forms, songs and stories are among the most important.

Songs are composed by individuals, groups, and supernatural sources. Traditional beliefs hold that songs can create harmony. Each tribe has its own songs, as well as songs that are shared among tribes, and songs can be categorized according to their use, such as for religious ceremonies or for social events. Drums and flutes are two of the most popular musical instruments. Songs are most often accompanied by dance.

Stories play a crucial role in defining what it means to be a member of a given tribe and how a person relates to the tribe’s past, present, and future. Although the details of stories found in different tribes may differ, the tales often have similar themes. One common theme is the creation of the world. Another is the theme of a people’s origins and migrations. In addition, most tribes have numerous stories about individual figures such as tricksters (figures who teach lessons through making mistakes) and mythical heroes. For example, the Ojibwa people tell stories about Nanabozho, their trickster figure. Likewise, Cherokee people are familiar with Kanati, the Perfect Hunter, and his wife Selu, or Corn.

Oral literature remained important in Native American life through the 20th century and will continue to be important in the 21st century. One of the most influential works of modern oral literature was the narrated autobiography of Black Elk (a Lakota). The book Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux (1932) was transcribed and edited by American poet John G. Neihardt. In addition, many modern written works show the influence of oral literature. The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969) by N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) and Storyteller (1981) by Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna) express the importance of the spoken word as it has been passed from generation to generation.

III

WRITTEN LITERATURE

Before Native Americans came into contact with Europeans, many tribes supplemented the spoken word with pictographs (symbols or pictures that represent words or ideas). Native Americans used pictographs to record important events and rituals. After Europeans began arriving in great numbers in the 1600s, many tribes used European writing systems to communicate with the colonizers. After seeing the usefulness of written language, a Cherokee named Sequoyah developed a written form of the Cherokee language. Sequoyah was the first individual to design a written language without using other languages as sources.

Extensive Native American writing began in the 18th century as an act of necessity, as Native Americans tried to save their nations, themselves, and their cultures from destruction by whites. Many of the early European colonizers of North America did not recognize Native Americans as human beings with their own cultures and histories, and much bloodshed resulted as Native Americans were displaced from their land. By writing about their experiences, Native American writers hoped to educate non-Native Americans about Native American cultures and beliefs, and about their rights as sovereign human beings. They believed that their written work (autobiographies, tribal histories, travel accounts, sermons, and protest literature) would help foster understanding between Native Americans and non-Native Americans.

While there was an extensive amount of Native American writing published in the 1800s, Native American literature did not receive much popular recognition until the second half of the 1900s. In 1968 N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) published the novel House Made of Dawn, which won the Pulitzer Prize. The acclaim Momaday received helped Native American literature attain wide public attention. Since the late 1960s hundreds of works by and about Native Americans have been published, and the period from the late 1960s to the present has been referred to as the Native American Literary Renaissance.

Many modern writers are motivated by a need to educate non-Native Americans about Native American people. They also write specifically for Native American audiences, celebrating their nations and the ability of their peoples to survive hundreds of years of colonization, prejudice, and assaults on their culture.

A

1700s and 1800s

Some of the earliest written works by Native Americans were religious sermons and protest works. Many Native Americans converted to Christianity as a result of contact with non-Native communities, and they argued against the poor treatment of their fellow Native Americans by showing how this treatment contradicted Christian values. For example, Samson Occom (Mohegan) and William Apess (Pequot) protested discrimination against Native Americans. Occom’s Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian (1772) discusses the damage that the introduction of alcohol had brought to native peoples, while Apess’s Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts, Relative to the Marshpee Tribe (1835) helped the Marshpee fight legal injustices that other tribes were also facing.

Many Native American writers of the 19th century wrote histories of their tribes. One tribal historian was David Cusick (Tuscarora), whose Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations (1827) was the first published tribal history. Tribal histories explained the deep ties that tribes had to their ancestral homelands. Beginning in the 18th century, these ties took on special meaning because the United States government began removing Native Americans from their traditional lands. These removals forced Native Americans to uproot their families and travel hundreds of miles to unfamiliar lands. Along with losing their possessions and their homelands, Native Americans suffered great casualties during these forced removals. Among the worst removals was the Trail of Tears of 1838 and 1839, when thousands of Cherokee were forced to journey from their homeland in the Southeast out to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Of the 18,000 Cherokee who traveled the Trail of Tears, about 4,000 died of starvation, exposure, disease, and despair.

One of the best-known early tribal historians was George Copway (Ojibwa), whose Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation (1850) emphasizes the importance of tribal oral history and explains the migrations, myths, religions, government, language, hunting, and games of his nation. Other Native Americans who wrote about their cultures and nations include Peter Dooyentate Clarke (Wyandot), with his Origin and Traditional History of the Wyandotts, and Sketches of Other Indian Tribes of North America (1870); Chief Elias Johnson (Tuscarora), with his Legends, Traditions and Laws, of the Iroquois (1881); and Chief Andrew J. Blackbird (Ottawa), with his History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan (1887).

The establishment of several Native American newspapers in the 19th century made an important contribution to Native American writing. Among these newspapers were the Cherokee Phoenix, first published in 1828, and the Cherokee Advocate, which began publication in 1844 after the Cherokee Nation was removed to Indian Territory. Other notable newspapers included Copway’s American Indian, the White Earth Progress, the White Earth Tomahawk, and Wassaja.

Among the prominent 19th-century Native American writers of fiction were John Rollin Ridge (Cherokee), who wrote at mid-century, and Emily Pauline Johnson (Mohawk), whose career lasted into the early 20th century. Ridge’s Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta (1854), the first novel published by a Native American, chronicles the adventures of a Mexican bandit during the California gold rush of 1849. In his depiction of American racial injustice, Ridge not only describes the fate of Mexicans but also of his fellow Native Americans.

Johnson was a Canadian Mohawk who spent a great deal of her time touring Canada, England, and the United States as an advocate for Native American people. Well known as a poet and as a performer of her poetry, she also wrote short stories for popular publications such as Mother’s Magazine and Boy’s World, which had large circulations. Johnson’s books of poetry include The White Wampum (1895), Canadian Born (1903), and Flint and Feather (1912). Her short stories are collected in Moccasin Maker (1913) and The Shagganappi (1913). Sarah Winnemucca (Paiute) was also a prominent lecturer, writer, and Native American advocate. Her Life Among the Paiutes, Their Wrongs and Claims (1883) was the first Native American autobiography written by a woman.

B

1900s and 2000s

Native American writers since 1900 have continued the traditions of their predecessors, but their styles and forms have evolved. The novel has become a popular Native American literary genre, along with poetry, the short story, and autobiography. At the same time, Native American scholars have begun investigating Native American history, sociology, ethnography, medicine, education, law, and literary criticism, among other fields. In the past, Native American writers and scholars sought primarily to educate non-Native American people about Native Americans, but today many Native Americans write for the benefit of Native American audiences.

Native American writing began to evolve new genres in part because of the influence of government-run boarding schools. For generations, many Native Americans learned English in mission schools (schools run by churches). But, beginning in 1879 with the establishment of a school for Native Americans at the U.S. Army’s Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania, many Native American children were forced to attend off-reservation schools.

While sometimes living hundreds of miles away from their homes, children attending the off-reservation schools were punished for speaking their native languages and were told that their traditional ways of life were inferior to those of non-Native Americans. The result was that many Native Americans were taught conventional American subjects, with special emphasis on reading and writing in traditional European literary genres. They were later able to employ these skills in new and innovative ways for their people’s own ends, but because they were also urged to view their own cultures as inferior, some of the students found themselves alienated from their own people when they returned home. Francis La Flesche of the Omaha wrote about his school experiences in The Middle Five, Indian Boys at School (1900).

B1

Stories and Novels

Native American literature of the 20th century was shaped by and helps shape political questions concerning Native American people. One of the most prominent voices of the early 20th century was Zitkala-Sa (Sioux), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin. Zitkala-Sa became a prominent voice for Native American rights. She published essays in the magazines The Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s, edited the American Indian Magazine in 1918 and 1919, and wrote two books, Old Indian Legends (1901) and American Indian Stories (1921).

Other political writers, such as Will Rogers (Cherokee) and Alexander Posey (Creek), used satire and humor to express their beliefs. Charles Eastman (Sioux) continued this tradition of educating through storytelling with the publication of books such as Wigwam Evenings: Folktales Retold (1909). In The Soul of the Indian (1911), Eastman explains the deeper ethical and moral underpinnings of some Lakota beliefs.

Two popular political writers of the first half of the 20th century were John Joseph Mathews (Osage) and D’Arcy McNickle (Cree and Salish). Matthews’ Sundown (1934) and McNickle’s The Surrounded (1936) argue that cultural survival depends upon fighting the assimilation of Native Americans into mainstream American society. Matthews and McNickle published their novels during the 1930s, a decade that saw the U.S. government loosen its assimilation policies regarding Native Americans.

Since the 1940s, anthologies have played an important role in Native American literature, primarily because they expose readers to different writers and styles. The Winged Serpent (1946), edited by Margot Astrov (a non-Native American), was the first anthology of Native American literature to gain mainstream popularity. The anthology form has been especially beneficial to Native American poetry. Some noteworthy anthologies are Carriers of the Dream Wheel: Contemporary Native American Poetry (1975), Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Native American Literature (1979), and That’s What She Said: Contemporary Poetry and Fiction by Native American Women (1984).

In the 1950s and early 1960s, little Native American literature was produced. One of the major reasons was that the political climate in North America was hostile to tribal traditions, making it difficult to publish works dealing with Native American life. But in the mid-1960s Native American writers began again to promote Native American culture. A major reason for this resurgence was the Red Power movement. While groups such as the Black Panthers and La Raza Unida fought for African American and Chicano rights, the Red Power movement energized Native Americans. The Red Power movement emphasized developing pride in one’s self, sustaining traditional Native American cultures and lands, and supporting Native American rights in the struggles of Native American communities with the government.

An important theme in Native American literature today is the issue of Native American identity—what it means to be Native American. Winter in the Blood (1974) by James Welch (Blackfoot and Gros Ventre) is an important work that deals with one man’s developing understanding of who he is. Welch’s main character comes to understand himself by piecing together his complex family history. Like many other characters in contemporary Native American fiction, Welch’s hero suffers problems that have affected many Native American people, such as alcoholism and alienation.

Another concern of Native American literature is the position of people of mixed Native American and non-Native American racial heritage. Many mixed-blood narratives draw their strength from showing multiple cultural perspectives. Some of the characters in these works seek to understand who they are as people of mixed heritage.

Cogewea, the Half-Blood (1927) by Mourning Dove (Colville), also known as Christine Quintasket, was one of the first novels written by a Native American woman. The book has as its theme the alienation experienced by a woman of mixed race. House Made of Dawn (1968) by N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) and Ceremony (1977) by Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna) explore how persons of mixed races may come to terms with their heritage. Louise Erdrich (Ojibwa) also takes on issues of cultural identity in her series of books set in North Dakota: Love Medicine (1984), The Beet Queen (1986), Tracks (1988), and The Bingo Palace (1994).

Other works of Native American literature concentrate on the dynamic aspect of Native American cultures—their ability to grow and change. Some writers who portray modern life in all its complexity are Joy Harjo (Creek), Gerald Vizenor (Ojibwa), and Ray A. Young Bear (Mesquakie).

Modern historical novels explore tribal histories in order to educate readers of today about complex tribal events. Fools Crow (1986) by James Welch (Blackfoot and Gros Ventre), Mean Spirit (1990) by Linda Hogan (Chickasaw), and Mountain Windsong (1992) by Robert J. Conley (Cherokee) seek to remind readers of important events of the past.

B2

Other Literary Forms

In the late 20th century Native American writers began publishing more works in genres other than fiction. In the 1970s, Native American social critics and scholars began to write studies from Native American perspectives. They wrote of how Native American people suffered physical and cultural genocide, and how they are still recovering from those atrocities today. They also showed the resiliency of Native American nations, marveling at how Native American people have survived 500 years of conquest.

Custer Died For Your Sins (1969) by Vine Deloria, Jr., (Lakota Sioux) is a classic work of Native American intellectualism and political analysis. Other noteworthy scholarly works include Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions (1986) by Paula Gunn Allen (Laguna and Sioux), Tribal Secrets: Recovering American Indian Intellectual Traditions (1994) by Robert Allen Warrior (Osage), Why I Can’t Read Wallace Stegner and Other Essays (1996) by Elizabeth Cook-Lynn (Dakota Sioux), Fugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence (1998) by Gerald Vizenor (Ojibwa), and Mixedblood Messages: Literature, Film, Family, Place (1998) by Louis Owens (Choctaw and Cherokee). One of the best introductions to Native American literature to date is American Indian Literatures: An Introduction, Bibliographic Review, and Selected Bibliography (1990) by A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff (a non-Native American).

Native American poetry is another strong genre. Well-known poets include Lance Henson (Northern Cheyenne), Roberta Hill (Oneida), Maurice Kenny (Mohawk), Simon J. Ortiz (Acoma), Wendy Rose (Hopi and Miwok), Luci Tapahonso (Navajo), Gail Tremblay (Onondaga and Mi’kmaq), and Elizabeth A. Woody (Navajo, Warm Springs, Wasco, and Yakama). Native American poetry often depicts the importance of land and nature in Native American belief systems. A major theme is how a respect and understanding of the earth can work to heal individuals and communities.

Periodicals continue to serve as a venue for consideration of social, political, and cultural issues. Nationally distributed Native American newspapers, such as News From Indian Country and Indian Country Today, and numerous tribal newspapers distribute valuable information to the Native American community.

B3

Recent Developments

New Native American writers are constantly emerging. Two of the most nationally well known are Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur d'Alene), who wrote The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), among other works, and Susan Power (Sioux), author of The Grass Dancer (1994). Both books have garnered popular success. Other writers include D. L. Birchfield (Choctaw), A. A. Carr (Navajo and Laguna), and Irvin Morris (Navajo), to name only a few.

Native American literature continues to evolve and change, but the characteristics that define Native American literature—its vital role in publicizing the concerns of Native American communities and nations, its contemplation of identity, its portrayal of complex tribal histories, and its steadfast belief in diverse Native American traditions—will assuredly be present in the future.