£ 7 ?

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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

12

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

16

"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

97

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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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

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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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