DIALOGUE TO DISCOURSE: ACTlVE LlSTENING AND

FIRST NATIONS LITERATURE

Heather J. Stretch

Subrnitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scoüa

September 1999

O Copyright by Heather J. Stretch, 1999

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This work is dedicated with love to my parents and to Lamont.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE "Who Do You Think You're Talking To? The Power of Silence in Love Medicinew

CHAPTER TVVO "Silent Listening, Silent Leaming: Models of Communication in Honour the Sun"

CHAPTER THREE "Students and Storytellers: Leaning to Listen in Keeper Nt Me and Stories of the Road Allowance People"

CONCLUSION

WORKS ClTED

VI

vii

3.

10

ABSTRACT

This thesis is an attempt to develop a mode! for the academic and cross-cultural

reading of Native literature. This mode1 depends on the idea of "active listening" and

proposes that readers position themselves as students in relation to the texts that they

approach. The Introduction outlines the curent state of Native literature in the

academy. and focuses on the dsks of appropriation, colonization, and

misunderstanding in the academic study of texts by Native writers. Chapters One and

Two explore the uses of silence in Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, and examine the

way that characters listen and leam in Honour the Sun by Ruby Slipperjack,

respectively. Each chapter tooks for ways that its conclusions are applicable to

academic discourse. Chapter Three traces the development and the role of the student

in Keeper N' Me, by Richard Wagamese, and compares its implied audience with the

implied audience of Mana Campbell's Stonés of the Road Allowance People. In the

Conclusion, the author presents The Book o f Jessica, by Linda Gnffths and Maria

Campbell, as a mode1 of crosscultural collaboration, and then refiects on her own

process in the wnting of the preceding chapters.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks to the wnters whose works I have studied. Their talents and courage

have challenged, inspired, and changed me. Thanks also to Renée Hulan whose

outstanding comrnittment and guidance have helped me Iisten and leam.

PREFACE

The study of Native literaturet has long appealed to me both because 1 enjoy the

work of so many Native writen and because it seems politically relevant to my üme

and place. For these reasons, I thought that its study must be important. When 1

began reading the works of Native critics and scholan in the field, I became aware of

some of the dangers and complexiües of studying Native literature. At its worst, the

study of Native Iiterature can be an act of appropriation, colonization, and/or

misunderstanding. Because my studying Native literature could potentially be

cornplicl with the dangers listed above, I had to rethink rny reasons for wanting to do

so. If Native literature grows out of diEerent cultural, linguistic, historical and

intellectual traditions than those of the academy, I reasoned, then perhaps the

literature should not be read from within an academic context where scholars can

becorne "intellectual peeping Toms and Tomasinas, prying into areas where [theyl

have no business" ( Littfefield 96). To embrace Native literature unquesüoningly,

however, is to ignore the complexrty of the situation: Native workls and academic

During my work on this pruject, one of the fiist decisions I had to make was what teminology I should use. The tenns "Native: "lndigenous," "AborÏginal." "First Nations," and "Indian" al[ have different resooances, and each one has both critics and adherents. I have attempted to use the terni prefened by the writer to whom I am refemng, when applicable, and elsewhere I use the terni "Naüve'because it is the word most cornmonly joined to "Meratureft to dernarcate a field of Literary Sudies-

1

worlds are not mutually exclusive. Because several prominent Native writers work in

the academy andlor address a mked audience either implicitiy or explicitly in their

works, it seems disingenuous to avoid the field as though it were none of my

business. To refuse to recognize Native literature is more likely to be seen as

ignoring it or implicitly judging it as inferior and unworthy of study than to be seen as

a respedul recognition of difference. 1 suspected that there must be potential

benefits that outweigh the dangers of studying Native literature, but that these

beneffis should not be taken for granted. It is important to examine ou? reasons for

including in the academy this previously negleded field of literature, because if we

know why we do what we do, and what we hope to accomplish, we are more likely to

do it well.

Native literature and its study a n be both personal and political. My

experience reading Native literature is similar to Andrew Suknaski's: "Suknaski feels

a 'vaguely divided . . . guilt for what happened to the lndian . . . and guilt [alsol

because to feel this guilt is a betrayal of what you ethnically are - the son of a

homesteader and his wife who must be righffully honoured in one's mythology'" (qtd.

in Fee. "Romantic Nationalism" 75-46). Naüve literature does not exist in a vacuum;

it is not only cultural and aesthetic, but also political, histoflcal, spiritual, and

emotional. It is objectionable to attempt to study Naüve literature on purely

intellectual or aesthetic grounds because such a project denies the richness of the

literature and the rnultiplicity of its social functians. instead we should strive to

develop reading pradices that can facilitate Ieaming on all the dRerent levels on

which a given text functions.

The way that the text functions depends not only on the words that are written,

but also on the reader who brings those words to Iife. 1 believe that reading or

studying works of literature is an interaction or collaboration between the individual

reader and the individual text. Where the reader cornes from affects the reading just

as much as where the writer cornes from. The background of the reader is al1 the

more important when she is reading cross-culturally. W hen a non-Native reader

reads a Native text, she may not understand cultural references within the text, and

she may not be able to identify with characten and situations in the way that she can

when she reads within her own culture. This is not to Say that we cannot productively

read this literature; this distance from the perspective of the author can be interesting

and productive. Helen Hoy writes of the challenge of reading Lee Maracle's

Ravensong, in which white characten are outsiders and often even 'bad guys'.

'Taking offence on the basis of my racial affiliation, responding defensively on behalf

of irnagined memben of that irnagined commun@, as a reader I enact the politics of

difference that the novel explores" ("Because You ArenY lndian" 54).

The 'poiiics of difference' that Hoy refen to depends on a conceptual division

of the world into 'people like mer and 'people unlike me' - a distinction between 'us'

and 'them.' In the followhg discussion I will sometimes tely on the binary of 'insider'

and 'outsider,' which I recognize is not without its problems. These are not discrete

or easily definable categories, and the critena by which they are to be judged are

much debated. 1 recognize that culture is lafgely perfomative, and that what

categorizes a person as 'Nativer is not as simple as a blood quotient 'Nativet and

'non-Natnrer are often maffers of seff-identification except in cases where these

identifications are challenged by either group. Although the designations are

pro b lematic, the categorïes of 'Native' and 'non-Nativem are function ing realities, and

insofar as one is functionally defined as one or the other, sihe is an 'insider' or

'outsider' accordingly. These distinctions must be decided on a case by case basis.

I fit unproblematically into the category of 'outsider' to Native culture and agree with

Kateri Damm's assertion in "Says Who: Colonialism, ldentity and Defining

Indigenous Literature" that it is not up to nonoNative people to judge who 'counts' as

'Native'. (1 1 )

Because my arguments rely in part on this questionable 'insider/outsider'

binary, I also use the contentious terni ''we." Throughout this thesis, I will use the

word W as a shorthand for nonHative scholars and academics working with Naüve

literature in English departments. In some cases, Native acadernics may grapple

with concems that I address, and I certainly do not intend to exclude them from my

project. However, people with different cultural, ethnic, social, historical, and

academic backgrounds will have different relationships to Native literature and

different positions within the discourse surrounding it I consider myself an 'insider'

within the discourse of English Studies, and an 'outsider' to Native North American

cultures, histories. and literary traditions. When attempting to read and study Native

literature within the academy, 1 am in a curious position of being simulaneously

inside and outside, and it is this position that causes my questions, dilemmas and

conœms when approaching Naüve texts. My 'we' Ricludes anyone who feels a

similar splt position.

It is tempting to use the terni 'white' as a convenient shorthand for the

nondative academics to whom 1 refer when I Say 'we.' Paula Gunn Allen argues

that the terni 'whiter does not signify only a race but more hportantly a way of seeing

and understanding the world, and that in this way we can Say that the acaderny is

characterized by 'tformalisrn, establishmentarianisrn, whiüsm - whatever it is called"

(1 34). According €0 her iogic, people of colour working in the acaderny are behaving

'white' insofar as they are funcüoning in the acceptable acadernic manner: "Western

literary thought is a strong feature of much of the academic criticism produced by

scholan of color" (170). Although her argument is compelling and draws attention

both to the historical biases of academia and to the challenges facing people of

non-European cultures working as academics, I think this rnodel has limited

usefulness and can be dangerous. The assertion that the academy is white has

different resonances when spoken by Gunn Allen, a reputable mixed-blood Laguna

Pueblo academic, than if it were spoken by a Canadian graduate student of English

and Scottish descent. For me to assert the 'whiteness' of the academy may be read

as an assertion of the hegemony of the mainstream and a denial of the diversity of

univenïty populations. Gunn Allen's description of the Amencan academy as

"particularly suited to certain kinds of understandings, methods, and concepts and

particularly unsuited to others" (132) is tnie also of the Canadian acaderny. While 1

acknowledge that the academy has grown out of a white, European culture and

history, and that this culture is stnl epistemically dominant, to use the shorthand that

the academy is white is ta ignore the many diverse people working m i n the

academy and the changes they are making.

My discussion of the acaderny relies on the assumption that the dominant and

systemically leg itimized thoug ht system descends fiom a western European tradition.

and rny use of the terni 'the academy' refiects mis assumption. l feel that the

structure of the academy is not changing as fast as the people within it, but that

change is occumng, and that people who are iniüating changes rnust now consider

what kinds of changes should be made, and just as importantly, why and how those

changes are to be made.

In this study I look at novels and stories by diverse authors. These writers

corne from dfierent Native cultures, are both male and fernale, and Iive in both

Canada and the United States. t have selected texts that stress the central role of

dialogue, and especially of listening. L have taken the liberty of including texts written

on both sides of the 49th parallel because 1 do not believe that that boundary is

essential in the understanding of Native literature. As Gemian Canadianist Hartmut

Lutz argues, both for people outside North America and for Native people within the

continent, the Canada - United States border is not alldefining: "It should be

remernbered that many Europeans still see North America as essentially lndian

country. The division of Turtle Island along the forty-ninth parallel is as artificial and

unnatural as the irnperial surveyor's grid systemn ("Nations Wthin" 95). In his

introduction to The Native in Uerafure, Thomas King comments on Native

perspectives on the border: "From Vie vantage point of Native experience, such

things as national boundades are artificial at best, and, withirt the collective mind of

contemporary tribes such as the iroquois confederacy in the east and the BlacMoot

confederacy in the west, the forty-ninth parallel is a figment of someone else's

imagination" (1 0).

I do not consider Native Merature to be a subset of Canadian literature or of

American literature, but a category of its own. The category o f 'Native Literature' is

imperfect in that it implicitly erases the diffierences between Native cultures;

nevertheless, 1 is a convenient delineation that reflects commonalities of experience

of Aboriginal peoples on this continent, especially a shared history of oppression.

The term may also reflect stylistic and thematic commonalities among texts by

diverse wriierç, as Thomas King explains in his Introduction to Al\ My Relations: An

Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Native Fiction: "the advent of wntten Native

literature has provided Native writers with common structures, themes, and

characters which can effecüvely express traditional and conternporary concems

about the woild and the condition of living things" (x). This is not to Say that the

analyses of my prirnary texts can be applied generally to 'Native rierature.'

When we use the terni 'Native literature,' we should be careful not to assume

that features in any given text are common to all texts by Native writers. King goes

on to explain in his Introduction how, in some cases, the dwerences between Native

writers may in fact outweigh the similarities between them. and how Naüve writen

may or rnay not also share thematic and stylistic concems with nowNative writers.

When proposing a definition of Native literature as "literature produced by Natives,"

King wntes:

This definition - on the basis of race - however, makes a rather large assumption. . . . M assumes that the matter of race imparts to the Native wnter a tribal understanding of the universe, access to a distinct culture, and a literary perspective that is mattainable by non-Naüves.

In our discussions of Naüve literature, we try to imagine that there is a racial denominator which full-bloods raised in cities, half-bloods raised on farms, quarter-bloods raised on resewations, Indians adopted and raised by white families, lndians who speak their tribal language, Indians who speak only English, tradiüonally educated Indians. university-trained lndians, lndians with little education, and the like al1 share. We know, of course, that there is not. (x-xi).

To assume thematic or stylistic commonalii between all Native texts is to lirnit the

range of perceptible differenœ behnreen them and is to hp ly that 'Nativeness' is the

primary determinant in the writing of a diverse group of writers. Throughout this

project l do assume that the cultures of the writer and the reader of a tex€ affect the

communication between them, but I attempt to approach each text on its own tens,

rernaining open ta the possibility that cultural difierences between writer and reader

may be significant while resisting the urge to guess the specific effects of those

differenœs. I attempt to look within each text to determine how the culture of each

writer informs her or his work.

In this thesis, I will explore the current state of Native literature in the academy

and review the benefits and dangers of non-Native ïnsûuctors and students studying

Naüve texts. 1 will go on to propose a model for reading wherein the reader positions

henelf as a Iistener in a dialogue with the text she approaches. I will then focus

primarily on three novels as examples of how to put this approach into practice. I

attempt to look within the texts themselveç to find the ternis by which they can be

studied. Acadernics who teach and study Native Iiterature work for change, as this is

an area that has previously been ignored, but we must never take our reading

pracüces for granted. I am not proposing a definitive 'solution' to the problerns of

crosscultural readings of Native texts but rather offering a way to remain open and

conscious of academic responsibility.

INTRODUCTION

Native scholars have called for the development of new models for the academic

reading of Native Iiterature. Kateri Damm outlines the responsibility of readers

to join this circle humbly, to listen actively, tu accept responsibility, to become more infocmed, to recognize our cornplacency, to face our pasts, to rernernber, to conf'ront the vestiges of imperialist thought which still cling to the edges of Our minds, and to create new opportunities for telling and dispelling through our audience. ("Dispelling and Telling" l 1 3)

Kimberly Blaeser focuses specifically on the cntical conte*

l have been alert for criticai rnethods and voices that seem to arise out of the Iiterature itsetf (this as opposed to cnücal approaches applied from an already established critical language or attempts to make the literature fit already established genres or categories of meaning). So far, l have uncovered only f ~ u l attempts to fashion this interpretive rnethod or to give voice to this new cnücal language. ("Native Literature" 53-54)

As yet, no one has taken up this challenge and detennined what 'active listenïng'

wouid be in practice. This is the projed l will undertake in this thesis, but before I

develop this model. 1 will look Rit0 the cunent situation of Native literary studies in the

academy. I will examine the potential benefts and dangers of studying Native

literature so as to demonstrate the need for a mode[ of reading that will minimke the

dangers of appropriation, intellectual colonkation, and misunderstanding.

11

The most immediately obvious reason to encourage the study of Native

Iiterature is to rectify its unjust and hamful exclusion from the Iiterary canon. This

exclusion contributes to the erasure of Native people and their historical and poliücal

experiences from the consciousness of the rnainstrearn and allows stereotypes to

fiourish unencumbered by representations created and presented by Native people

themseives. Several Native writers, including Daniel David Moses and Beth Brant

have commented on the healing potential of the wnting of experience and of seeing

one's experience refiected in cultural products. The study of Native literature can be

a way of fighting the racism of stereotyping when l encourages understanding. The

role of Native literature, according to Moses includes healing: "lt is part of our job as

Native artists to help people heaF ("Preface" xvii). Brant explains in Wrifing as

Witness that "Native women's writing is the Good Medicine that can heal us as a

hurnan people" (9). Janice Acoose also persuasively argues that Iiterary

representations help shape readers' ideas of people and cultures. and that. in the

case of the role of Native people in English literature, this representation has been

presented more often than not by nomNative wnters and has been negative andlor

of Iimited complexity. These representations have often contributeci to negative

stereotypes rather than to greater understanding. Discussing Native women in

parücular, Acoose writes: "ln much of canadian Iiterature, the images of lndigenous

women that are wnstruded perpetuate unrealistic and derogatory ideas, which

consequently foster cultural attitudes that legiüm~e rape and other kinds of violence

against us" (71). Paula Gunn Allen explains "how destructive of raüonal thought and

consciousness stereotyping is. lt is not only the target group mat is distorted and

dehumanized. The users of the stereotypes are greatly harmed psychically as well,

and they haven't any means of noticing or assessing the psychic damage done to

themselves because they lack any outside referenœ" (1 00). Native literature can act

as a corrective to stereotyping, as Native characters and cultures are often presented

more positively, more accurately. and with more complexity in texts by Native writers

than they have been in texts by non-Native wrïters.

The preservation of Native culture, the promotion of pride in Native identity,

and aie fight against racism by fostering greater understanding are al1 important

potential benefits of the study of Native texts, but if they are the sole focus of out

justification for the inclusion of new texts within the academy, we may end up

reinscribing a power imbalance. If non-Native academics decide tu start teaching

Native literature because they think that it is primarily of benefn to Native people,

then they may see their work as a sort of charitable concem. This is the charge that

Robert Allen Warrior levels against Arnold Krupat in his review of Krupat's The Voice

N, the Margin: Native Amencan Merature and the Canon:

Indeed, he goes so far as to suggest that work such as his does Indian people some good. Such suggestions regularly corne from Iiberal anthropologists. . . . Most Native Americanists will never change, but perhaps a few will get the message some day mat we need political solidarity and a cornmitment to sovereignty, not well-intentioned liberal sympathy. ("A Marginal Voice" 30)

If we focw only on the benefk of the study of Naüve literature for Native

people, we imply that we (nonoNative scholars) are in a position to help others and

are not in need of help ounelves. 1 will argue th& we need the 'help' of Native

literature both on a psychic leval to help us understand Canadian history and its

ramifications and on an academic level to help us question our definiüons of and

13

approaches to literature. If, as l have been convinœd by Roland Chrisjohn's

arguments in The CNcle Game, the treatment of Native peoples by the colonken of

North America amounts to genocide, then we need to take responsibility for this

crime. Hartmut Lutz argues in "Cultural Appropriation as a Process of Displacing

Peoples and History" that in North America, "something like a collective displacement

of the process of colonization, dispossession, partial genocide and continueci cultural

ethnocide has and is taking place" (1 74). While there may well be the need for

healing within Native communities. Chrisjohn argues that for non-Native people to

focus on this need exclusively is to pathologize Native people and to ignore their own

probiems. Chrisjohn builds on Emma LaRocquers insight into the way that

pathologization has played a part in the silencing of Native voices. She explains how

Native writers have been "psychologized as 'bitter.' which was equated with

emotional incapacitation" and their anger "exaggerated as 'militant and used as an

excuse not to hear [Native voiœs]. There was liie comprehension of an articulate

anger reflecting an awakening and a cal[ to liberation, not a psychological problem to

be defused in a therapist's room" (xvii). The descendants of the perpetrators of

genocide are in need of healing just as certain[y as its victims, and this need for

healing involves a need to face our histocy and to resist a colledive loss of memory.

Paula Gunn Allen links the psychic healing of acknowledging history with the

potential to leam Rom Native people. Although she is speaking specifically from the

Amencan conte* her words are also relevant to the Canadian context

America needs a way to understand how society and community can funcüon harmoniously and how a person c m ft meaningfully into the massive body of this century's Me. Above al(, Amedca needs a tradition that is relevant to this continent and the Iife upon it; Amerka needs a

sense of history, a sense of Amerka's place in etemal time, a way to use history as renewal, not as denial. To do this, America must absolve henelf of the historÏc guilt toward her predecessors and heal the split in her soul. . . . America has a ready way to find those rnodels so desperately needed. assurning Amerka intends to solve them. . . . The tribes today and throughout history provide brilliant and solid models that America could leam from and build on. (33-34)

One of the roles of fiction is to refiect culture and history, in a way that makes it

cornprehensible. Mainstream NoNi American culture has ignored Native people and

the interconnededness of our histories in a way that is unhealthy and dishonest.

The histories of non-Native North AmerÏcans are entwined with the histories of Native

people, and literature can be a way into understanding the connectedness of our

pasts. Moses describes this as the move from guilt to shame: 'Well, feeling guilty is

a fuzzy state of mind. You're aware of the problem but not really focusing on t . . .

to feel ashamed * . . is an active, public way of feeling guilty. . . . If you're ashamed of

your behaviour you might face up to it. To conquer your demons you have to face

them" ("Preface" miii).

The study of Native literature is of benefit not only psychically, as it helps us

both personally and collecüvely to acknowledge our histories, but it is also of benefit

academically. Native Iiterature has been excluded frorn the canonicai body of

English Literature, and so its study in the academy at least expands the canon, and

perhaps even destabilizes the notion of a hierarchy of Meratures in a codified canon.

When Native literatures (and other mhority Iiteratures) are included in the canon,

their difference from tradiüonally rewgnized great works of Iiterature illuminates the

cultural specificity of the canon. In this way the development of new canons,

especially when those canons contain explicitiy political works, as in the case of

15

Native literature, provide the opportunity to recognize the political ramifications of

canon formation. "Canadian literature is an ideological instrument." writes Acoose,

"As such. 1 promotes the cultures, philosophies, values, religion, politics, economics,

and social organization of the white, european, christian, canadian patriarchy. . . "

(34). When Iiteratures with different ideologies, cultures, philosophies, values,

religions, economics, and social organizations are studied alongside mainstream

literature, those elements becorne visible in both, and illusions of universality or

objectivity are exposed. The act of canon formation can then be seen to reflect

political ideologies and have political effectç.

One of the most important roles of Iiterature is to allow us to imagine things

that we have not experienced ounelves.' By limiting too narrowly what we consider

literature worthy of study, we are Iimiang the possible worlds we allow ounelves to

imagine. Gordon Johnson explains that "[a] way of subverting fictional expectations

is for the author to refer to another discipline or discoune as an alternative fom of

knowledge, so as to weaken the control of specifically literary structures such as

those of character and plot" (59). Once these structures are weakened, the realrn of

possibiliity is broadened. Not only can we see new possibilities of literary style and

content. but perhaps even of different sociallcultural funcüons of narrative. and

dmerent ways of living. ClHord E. Trafier describes this process through a story in

which Wolf is blind and Mouse lends Wolf his eyes; the two animais work together

and both survive. Trafier then explains the story:

Native Americans offer their eyes to the great Wolf through their storÏes. The Wolf in this case is the insütuüonaiked study of history,

See Martha Nussbaum's discussion of this idea in Poek Ju*ce: The Lifemry imagination and Public Me.

Iiterature, political science, sociology, biology, and many other disciplines. Like Mouse, Native people have been marginalized by the dominant society, particulariy that element foning colleges and universities, where the Wolf has wandered aimlessly in his understanding and representation of Native Americans. Oral narratives provide a vehicle through which the Wolf rnay see bette? and survive through fiiendship and cooperation with Mouse and his many brothen and sisters. (65)

Literature has the potential to show us where we are and where we have

corne from, and to help us imagine where we might go. Gunn Allen recognizes only

half of this potential: "Stories, whether narrative or argumentative in nature, tell us

not who we are, not who we are supposed to be, but instead describe and define the

constraints of the possible" (1 1). 1 think she is only partly right - narrative does

'define the constraints of the possible,' but it can atso tell us who we are and who we

are supposed to be. Narrative is about possibility, but it also has a mimetic function,

as it mirrors societies and individuals. Those of us in the rnainstrearn see ourselves

reflected back in many ways through Iiterature and other products of the dominant

culture, so we need to see other possibilities of existence. Dispossessed, siienced

and ignored people, on the other hand, are sunounded by the same products of

mainstream culture which let them know that there are ways of living that are

different from their own. They lack representations of themselves in the manistream

- representations that validate and amrm their lives. The publication and

dissemination of Iiterature of the dispossessed and silenced thus serves both needs,

as it questions the dominant and validates the oppressed.

The issue of canonicity raises the question of what we think Iiterature is and

where and why we draw the line between 'Iiterature' and hot-Merature.' "Indians"

have long had a place ni North American Merature, but as Thomas King explains,

17

their place was usually that of narrowly drawn characters in fiction by non-Natives.

Where they Wear the "masks" of "the dissipated savage, the barbarous savage. and

the heroic savage [these characteml should be familiar to any contemporary reader,

for they represent the full but limited range of lndian characters in literature* (Native

8), This passage points to the problematic nature of Literature from the perspective

of Native people as either readers or writers. If this has been the range of

possibilities of Natives in Literature, then Native Literature. insofar as it means

Literature written by Native people, is nearly a contradiction in teniis. Literature that

includes Native characters who do not Wear these masks expands the realm of

literary possibility and so calls into question 'literature' as it has previously been

defined. This questionhg can only be beneficial, as it encourages us to rethink our

criteria for defining literature. and in that process, to examine the reasons behind

these criteria.

Although I have been discussing the benefits of the inclusion of Native texts

in a mainstream canon, l do not mean to imply that these texts are valuable only

insofar as they contribute to the English studies canon. ln "Who Stole Native

Amencan Studies," Elizabeth Cook-Lynn reminds readers that Native Studies was

developed in the United States as a discipline whose "beneficiaries would be Indian

Nations" (1 0) and that there is a need '70 strive for the formation of a Native

Amencan lîterary canon, not for the reform of the Western canon" (32). While 1

acknowledge this need, I do not think that these projects are mutualIy exclusive.

Wthin Native Studies, the formation of a Native canon is important, but texts from

this canon can then contribute to beneficial revisions of the rnainstream Western

literary canon.

According to Barbara Riley, "The question tu ask is 'Whom does it serve?"'

(qtd. in Hoy "When You Admit" 33) This is a crucial question, and regarding the

study of Native literature by non-Native academics and students, I believe that for us

tu proceed, the answer must be that it benefits both Native people and non-Native

people. To believe that we are selfiessly helping Native people by studying 'their'

literature within 'ouf academy is to ignore our need for the literature and is to

reinscribe a power imbalance, whereas to focus solely on the beneft to the academy

is to ignore the intentions of the authors or to assume that they are writing primarily

for our benefit. This focus would irnplicitly place ourselves at the center of Native

literature rather than recognize our position as outsiders. "Native Iiterature,"

according to Thomas King, "has opened up new worlds of imagination for a

nomNative audience. It is not that we have consciously set out to do this"

("Introduction" xii). Beth Brant makes a similar point in stronger language when she

discusses the New Age fascination with Native religions:

As if we were placed on Earth to enrich white people's Iives!. . . We have enriched white people's [ives. Natives and peoples of colour have worked someone else's fams, have raised white babies, have coddled and cajoled white men, have made life easier for white women by providing domestic work, have cooked food for white stomachs white going hungry ourselves, have fought in their amies in their seemingly neverending wars. Yes, we have made their Iives richer, and continue to do so as they appropriate our spirituality. None of this waç gken. It was taken. (32-33)

Native literature is not wntten for the beneffi of nonoNative people, but non-Natives

c m benefit from reading and siudying L When an author does consciously address

19

a mked audience, slhe is not just doing the nomal or expected, because "ifs

strange enough to wnte for a culture that is not your own but it's even stranger to

wnte for it when it is the culture of those who have conquered you" ("Two Voices"

xix). When a Native peson writes, in part. for the dominant culture, s/he is offering a

gift? The understanding of a text as a gA can help critics respond to Kateri Damm's

imperative to "join the circle hurnbly" ("Dispelling and Telling" 1 1 3).

The process of examining one's position in relation to a given text and one's

motivations and methodologies when entering a discursive field may be difficult and

lengthy. It may seem that scholars of Native Literature have more work to do than

scholars who work in more stable, offÎcially sancüoned canonical fields, because they

have to spend more time justifyhg their projed before getüng down to the bulk of

their work. While this may be true, it is an opportunity rather than a hindrance. For

students of Native fiterature just as much as for creative writers, ''the truth is that you

'gotta know why you write steada just how'" (Monture Angus, "Native America 27).

The history and tradition of mainstream fields of English studies allow for invisibility

of method and motive. Academics are rarely asked to jusüfy why they study

Shakespeare, but scholars in many fields may benefa from spending more time

considering why they do what they do and how it is of use to people niside and

outside the academy.

Because the study of Native literature is not without its risks, scholars have to

examine their motives and goals for their work. There is potential for appropriation,

colonïzaüon, and misunderstanding in the cross-cultural andlor academic readings of

Native texts, so scholars must first decide if the benef~s are worth the risk before

The metaphor of literatuie as gift underlies Bruchac's colIection Retuming the G E

20

they decide how best to avoid the dangers. These dangers are not insurmountable,

nor should they prevent scholars from entering the field if they recognize that the

study of Native literature, if done carefully and respecffully, can benefit different

groups of people in difterent ways.

When they write about Native texts, nonoNative scholars flsk appropfiating

that which does not belong to thern, and there are many dmerent foms this

appropriation can take. If students irnply that Native texts exist primarily for their

benefit, or if their primary goal is exorcism of guik, they are appropriating the

literature. Similady, appropriation occurs if non-Natives take up al1 the 'space' in the

discursive field or set the standard either for critical discourse or for fictional

representation. Because of differences in cultural understandings of the role of

narrative, the act of writing from the imagined perspective of a different culture may

in itself be theft. The intentions as well as the actions of scholan affect the

consequences of their cnücal pracüce, so they appropriate texts if they engage in

public discussion of them solely for poliücal or personal gain.

Since the late 1980ts, there has been a great deal of talk about appropriation

of voice in the writing of fiction, as when non-Native writers write Native stories and

take up space that shoufd rightly be occupied by Native people. Greg Young-lng

writes of the pragmaüc realities of publishing in Canada and explains that there is a

limited market for books on Native subjects. and if this market is saturated by texts

by white wnters, Native writers cannot get published. From 1990 to 1993:

all books by Aboriginal peoples [hadl been published through srnail and independent presses. Not one Aboriginal author [hadj been published by a large Canadian publishing house; while over a hundred

books about Aboriginal peoples [hadl been published by large Canadian houses already in the 1900s. (1 85)

Lenore Keeshig-Tobias calls the wrïting of Native stories by nonNative people theft.

She asks:

why are Canadians so obsessed with native stories anyway? Why the urge to 'write Indian'?" and then answers her question, "Maybe Canadian stories about native people are some fonn of exorcism. Are they trying to atone for the homble reality of native-Canadian relations? Or maybe they just know a good story when they fÏnd one and are willing to take it, without permission, jus€ as archaeologists used to rob Our graves for museums. (73)

'Native stories' can potentially give nonoNative writers and audiences the offen

illusory comfort of understanding and c m provide a controlled, safe context through

which to exorcise liberal guilt-

In "Moving Over," Lee Maracle describes her challenge to Anne Cameron at

the "Women and Words" conference of 1983, which was an important moment in the

debate about voice appropriation. She describes the problern in ternis of space

when she writes "Anne [Cameron] is occupying the space that has no room for me.

So few Canadians want to read about us that there is little room for Native books.

There iç little space for Native wnters to trot their stuK If Anne takes up that space

there is not room for us at all" (10). She then explains how nonaNative writers should

exercise the option of 'moving over' to make room for other voices.

Questions of who can tell what stories are not only pragmatic and logistic, but

are ako cultural. Mana Campbell explains in an interview with Hartmut Loh that in

her cultural understanding of storytelling, not al1 subjects are avaiiable to al1 people:

But 1 couldn't te11 you your people's story. And I dont need you to tell the story of our people to other white people. How can somebody interpret or tell? H ow can a white person tell you, another white

person. about rny comrnunity and rny people, when fie's only corning from haif a place? He has to believe the other half, too. . . . Non-Native writers tell me that writers have to wnfe what's there. I think, maybe, that's a different kind of M e r . That's not the kind of storytelling place I corne fkorn. The bear doesntt try to tell the deer's story. . . . Il's a full-tirne job just Iooking after your own stuff. And if you look after your own stuff, then you can look after the world. You can't look after the wodd if you are being busy looking after everybody else's stuff. (Lutz 58)

By using the rnetaphor of different animal species, Campbell highlights difference

between people and resists universalism. At the same time, she points out

interconnectedness when she says that 'if you look after your own stuff, then you can

look after the world'.

When the most audible voices speaking of Native subjects are nonNative,

then 'outsiders' can end up setting the standards of the genreO3 Barbara Godard

relates the discussion of a group of Native women writets at "Women and Words:"

[they] talked about the danger that exists for thern if white women should decide to write about Native themes, This would create an 'image of the squaw' which would then becorne the literary nom against which al1 later creative productions woukl be measured. These native women writen were afraid that their own perceptions of themselves would thus be excluded. ("Listening" 134135)

There is a similar danger of appropriation in acadernic wrÏüng because, as Gunn

Allen argues, "critical essays - hdeed, 'nonfiction' writing in generaI - is simply

another way of tellhg a story" (1 0). If all of the academic 'space' is taken up by

non-Native academics who bewme 'experts' on Native literature, they will establish

the accepted discursive practices and so lime the ways that Native literature is read

and discussed? If this happens, the very people who may be attempüng €0 create

-- -

For further discussion of this idea, see Lynette Hunter's Oufsider Notes: FemMisL Approaches to Natfon Sfate ldeology.

See Margery Fee "Discourse convention^!^

audiences by encouraging interest in Native literature become the ones who define

the critical discourse of Native literature and so silence Native ~oices.~

This problem is not Iimited to Native literature, but is common to dl

cross-cultural literary study. In a discussion that focuses on the commonaliües of

experience of diverse writers, Godard quotes the guest editors of a special "Women

of Colour" issue of Fhweed on the narrow definition some feminists impose on

'literature':

Prabha [Khoslal: They have their own idea of what we should be saying and until we Say those things they pretend to be deaf. Himani [Bannerji]: So, if you dont ft into that, then as far as they're concemed, you're not saying anything. And, they have a particular way of deciding what they'll count as 'saying,' and that 'saying' is not how we speak. . . . But, 1 think the other question about even illiterate people is not that they dont Say things, it's how they say 1 There is only one way of 'saying' that counts. In that sense, they are forcing al1 the most middle class, the most male bourgeois ways of speaking and doing things on us. And if you dont do things that way, then you're not doing it, you're not 'saying' it right." (1 35)

Preconceived ideas of what writen from oppressed or dispossessed communities

'should' be saying limits the listenets ability to hear diverse voices. The criteria for

'saying it rightr are determined not only by class, race and gender, but also by the

conventions of different contexts. Writers of wlour, specifically Barbara Christian

and Gloria Anzaldiia,

have stated that, in concems and diction, Iiterary scholarship and literary scholars have removed themselves fumer and furllier from the texts and the voices, the intentions, the social conditions, and the histocy of authon - particularly authors of colour. Instead, critic now wntes to critic, scholar to scholar. Such ctiüasm is pertinent €0 non-Native approaches to Native Merature as well. lt is üme to stop and listen to the discourse of Natnre scholan. (Lutr, "Natbns Wthin" 89)

Helen Hoy productively grapples with these issues in "When you Admit You're a Thief, Then You Can Be Honourable?

The self-referentiality of academic discoune is not always or inevitably linked to the

race of the partkipating critics. Although I agree with Lutz that lit is time to. . . listen

to. . . Native critics,' we shoukl also Iisten to and encourage the work of those critics

who attempt to remain cunnected to 'the texts, the voices, the intentions, the social

conditions, and the history of authon. . . of colour.'

Like Christian and Anzatdlia, Gunn Allen criticires the lack of attention to the

texts themselves in much literary discourse:

Perhaps at this juncture we should recognize that criücal discourse is defined by boundaries set not by wnten but by cntics, and not by critics sirnply, but by elite white men in positions powerful enough to make them culture-brokers. We need to realize that we are not usually discussing literature when we engage in literary discourse, but rather critical standards set by predecessors whose thought may have been pertinent at one time or to one conversation, but which are manifestly inadequate given the nature of the task we are faced with as aie twentieth century moves to its close. (146)

By failing to Iisten carefully for utterances that may be different from what we

are accustomed to, we may not hear what is being said. and this failure to hear

functionally silences the speakerMriter6 For example, until recently, oral traditions

were not recognized as literature; nomNative people thought that Native people had

no literature 'until we taught #emt. What was perceived as a lack or a silence on the

part of Native people was actually a failure of perception on the part of non-Native

intellectuals. Emma LaRoque explains: 'The issue is not that Native people were

ever wordless but mat, in Canada, their words were literally and politically negated"

ln "Leaming 'The Language the Presidents Speak:" Knnberly Blaeser builds on the ideas of MikhaiI Bakhtin and Charles Schuster to explore the ways that, outside of one's "cornmunity of utterance" (233) one is rendered illiterate and voiceless.

(xv). This kind of negation must be prevented in critical discourse as well as in

creative production.

The last kind of appropriation that l will address can anse out of the best

intentions. As the possibility of intellectual objectÎvity has been increasingly called

into question, academics have begun examining their own subject positions. White it

is crucial that we remember that our own cultural backgrounds and subject positions

affect our work, if we spend too much time reflecüng on these influences we risk

appropriating Native literature for our own personal purposes. This can happen if the

content of our study is rnostly ourselves, and we are no longer actually focusing on

the literature itself. Elizabeth Cook-Lynn charges that 'too many scholan seem to be

intellectualizing their own personal traumas in search of recognition or integrity or,

perhaps, a tenured faculty position" ("Commentary" 1 04).

As the discussion between Prabha and Banne j i shows, debates around

appropriation are not exclusive to Native literary discourse but intenect with several

discourses, most notably those of post-colonial studies. Terry Goldie uses a

post-colonial framework as a point of departure from which to argue that there are

psychological reasons for the desire to incorporate or appropriate the Native aside

from political motivations:

Throughout his work, Frantz Fanon uses ternis such as 'Other' and 'Not-sep for the white view of blacks and for the resulting black view of themselves. The same also applies €0 the Indian, the Maori, and the AboriginaI in white Iiterature, bu€ with an important shiR To look at the Canadian example, the Indian is ûther and Not-self but also must become self. The white Canadian looks at the Indian, The Indian is m e t and aierefore alien. But the Indian is indigenous and therefore cannot be afen. So the Canadian must be alien- But how can the Canadian be alien within Canada? There are only two possible answets. The white culture can attempt to incorporate the mer. as in

superficial examples such as beaded moccasins and names Iike Mohawk Motors, or as in much more sophisücated efforts such as the novels of Rudy Wiebe. Or else the white culture might reject the indigene, by declaring that the country really began with the amval of the whites. (73)

This dilemma also exists in criticism. How can Native literature not be 'Canadian

Literature'? Until recently the answer has been to 'reject the indigene' and declare

that literature began in Canada with European arrival. Now we are beginning to

'incorporate the Other' as we include Native texts on course syllabuses. This will be

a triviaking move analogous to Goldie's 'beaded moccasins' if scholan fail to

change their approach and simply plug a text by a Native writer into survey courses,

treat it like every other text, and fail to question these practices.

Very closely related to the danger of appropriation is the danger of

colonization. When a critic takes a Native text as an objed of study, she can

re-enact a colonial encounter if she is not careful, because. to quote Margery Fee,

"Writing is, as much as railway building, an act of conquesf' ("Romantic Nationalism"

29). Fee writes this specifically about fiction. but it is at least as tnie of cnücism

where we often posit quantifiable, objective knowledge or understanding. We c lah

to 'know,' whereas the writer of fiction 'imagines,' so a lot of criticisrn is an attempt to

wntrol, or to show dominance or mastery over a given te*

This attempt at mastery is inappropriate when reading cross-culturally, not

only because the non-Native cntic is an 'outsider' to Native experÏence and Naüve

cultures, but also because of the historïcal power imbalances in North America.

David Littlefield, in 'rArnerican Indians, Amerkan Scholars and the AmerÏcan Literary

Canon," explains the resistanœ of Indian intellectuals (they) to the people and

pracüces of academic American lndian scholarship (we):

We have steadily refused, they argue, to recognize Indians as colonized peoples. They see the strain on our relations as 'a part of a woridwide phenornenon where tribal and other colonial people have challenged acadernic experts' role as interpreters of non-western culture' and they accuse us of 'lowering an ivory tower curtain atound the exploitaüon and injustice suffered by subject or colonial peoples.' Thus what we wnte has little to Say about the realities of Amerka as American Indians experience or have experienced them. (1 02)

Littlefield's metaphor of the ivory tower curtain is helpful because it emphasizes the

risk of a division between lived experience and academic analysis. ln refusing to

acknowfedge Indians as colonized people, acadernics ironically nin the nsk of

colonking that Iiterature if they bring B within an 'ivory tower' to do with 1 what they

will. On the other hand, fiction can become a slit in this curtain if academics are

aware of this danger and attempt to read each text on its own ternis, seeing it as a

living cteation of a person within a living culture, and interacüng with it in a dialogue.

Academiw must be open to the possibili@ that they will have to change how they

conduct academic discourse if they are to recognize dïftetence and leam from b Not

only will they have to broaden the range of te& that they study and teach, but will

have to question fundamental rnethodologies. Hartmut Lutz recognizes the

challenge that faces academics who attempt to respect and integrate difTerent world

views:

How will critical theory accommodate a Native elder's statement, as quoted by Maria Campbell, that English lost Ïts Mother a long time ago and that Campbell, as a modem Native writer, has to put the Mother back in the language. Unless such a comment is brushed aside as 'nonacadernict in a gesture of colonial arrogance andlor academic provincialism, it posits a serious challenge to contemporary academia." ("Nations Within" 89)

To respect Native literature is to respect not only diverse fictional styles but also the

diverse understandings of language and narrative out of which the fiction is written.

In part, to remain open to difference is to avoid developing one singular

reading practise for 'Native Lit.' Although many writers point out similanties across

the works of diverse Native writers, to study Native literature as if it were a single,

unified entity controts. contains and colonizes the works produced by diverse people

from diverse cultures. King describes how this containment echoes eariy colonial

Eady wnters. faced with the distinct identities and voices of the various tribes, attempted to capture the potential confusion and the potential power by trapping the genius in a comfortable generic term - the word lndian - much like catching a genie in a bottle. Twentieth-century terminology, for all its senslivities in other areas, has done no more than add a second comfortable generic t e n - Native - to our vocabulary, in an effort to suppose an organic unity for disparate peoples. fhese terms, 'lndian' and 'Native,' are historical and literary ternis much like 'continent' and 'narrative,' which seern to suggest specific, known quantlies but which hint at vast geographies and varïed voices, And, while some writers and acadernics have ventured behind the mask, behind the Indian, this wildemess has yet to be properly explored and charted. (King N a t h 9)

The very ternis we use contain more than they accuratety describe or communicate,

and when we use critical terms that contain and control a field in relation to which we

are 'outsiders.' we nsk participating in the colonizing act of defining, or of thinking we

have mastery over the cultural products of the 'other.' For this reason. scholars

should. as much as possible, describe people by the terms they themselves like to

use, and should be as specifc as possible. Wnters can be identified by their nations,

not just as 'Nativer, and scholan should take the time to leam the appropriate terms.

One of the ways that scholan colonize Native texts is by applying previously

established theofles to thern. When scholars do this, they read the texts by ternis

other than their own, or in contexts that may not be relevant. This is one of the ways

that texts are brought into the 'ivory tower', sometimes without regard for the political

ramifications (or irelevance) of the project. The problem of utilking dïfFerent

theoretical approaches does not necessarily lie in the specific approaches

thernselves, but in the focus of attention these approaches often entail. Students

reading literature through codified theodes c m end up focushg on the theory rather

than on the text The development and application of critical theory is fascinating

and useful, but it should not be seen as a means to a comprehensive or definlive

understanding of a texî, especially when that text cornes fiom a different discourse

than the theory through which it is being read.

In 'The Imposition of Western Defmitions of Literature on lndian Oral

Tradition." George Comell discusses the importance of contextual understanding of

Native literatures. His discussion is specifically focused on oral traditions, but his

ideas are also relevant to writlen literatures, which can serve some of the same

fu nctions:

lndian oral traditions are the respective histones of diverse Native peoples. They are theri record of what was impoitant, what happened over üme, what they believed. what they chenshed, what they despised, and what they feared. These histories belong to the people and must be preserved and nurtured, but they must not be usurped by Iiterary irnperialism. Native peoples cannot allow their traditions to be defined by scholan hip which chooses to interpret their oral record out of context For, if this occurs, they have lost control of their history, and al1 that was, and have becorne the products of another culturefs imagination. (176)

He goes on to assert that "evolving definitions of western Iiterature have been, and

continue to be. hposed on indigenous oral traditions" (178). 'Definitions of western

literature' have also been Riiposed on indigenous written Iiterature, and this

imposition is imperfect because difFerent cultures have difberent discourse

conventions. However, this situation is complicated by the complex cultural and

social histories and influences of Native wnten. As well as belonging to local,

national, and global communities. several Native wnters are of mixed heritage and

have acadernic training, and so are affected by multiple influences. That being said.

readen have to be open to the possibility that the texts they read corne frorn

discourse conventions that they rnay not understand or even recognize.

Margery Fee discusses the idea of differences in discourse conventions in

detail in "Discourse Conventions in Fourth-World Fiction in English." She argues that

al1 communication acts are "embedded in discourses, whole sets of cultural practices

that bear the belief systems of particular cultural groups" (42) and that academic

communicaüons are no exception. This discourse, this belief system, is very

different from those of Native literatures. Fee wntes that, "arguably, the more

abstracted our knowledge from society, the purer and therefore more intelleciually

valuable it becomes, at least in the eyes of the univenity" (44) and wams that:

the influence of standard English on indigenous wnters may be far from central and we, as iiterary readen, cannot rely on ouf knowledge of our own discourse conventions to see us through an interpretaüon of their work . . . . In ignorance of such conventions, we may read literary texts imperialisücally by assimilating them to our conventions of literary discourse. in al1 innocence, that is to Say ignorance, we rnay intend to praise books by showing how they fit our most chenshed and admired fictional and theoretical conventions; in doing so, however, we rnay well assimilate them to a convention against which they are fighting. (45-46)

CrÎücism that is primariiy concemed with cornparhg Native Iiterature and

canonical Western literature can be disconnected from Native authon' projeds'

because this cnticism may imply that Native literature is valuable or comprehensible

only insofar as 1 confoms to or resists Euro-American conventions. Cornparison

can then reinscribe the hegemony of Euro-American conventions if it fails to

recognke mat the given author may not be pdrnarily concemed with those

conventions at al[.

Even when students apply what seem to be politically relevant schools of

theory, including those concemed with cultural and historic specificity, the application

rnay not be appropriate. For example, as noted earlier, Native literature is often

discussed within the framework of post-colonial theory. This approach provides

some very useful ternis and conceptual frameworks, as when Godard cites the words

of diverse women writers of colour to illuminate the challenges facing Native writen,

but 'post-colonial' more accurately describes a reading practice than a groop of texts.

In "Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial," Thomas King outlines some of the reasons why

postcolonialism is inadequate to describe Native Ibrature. He argues that the term

'postcolonial' is part of a triumvirate that implies the categories of pre-colonial and

colonial, and goes on to Say that

the full complement of ternis - pre-colonial. colonial. and post-colonial - reek of unabashed ethnocentrism and welhmaning dismissal. and they point to a deep-seated assumption that is at the heart of most well-intentioned studies of Native Iiteratures. . . . the terni [post-colonialJ itself assumes that the starting point for that discussion is the advent of Europeans in North America. At the sarne time, the terni organues the Iiterature progressively, suggesting that there is both progress and improvement No Iess distressing, L also assumes that the stniggfe between guardian and ward is the catalyst for contemporary Native Iiterature. . . . And. worst of all, the idea of post-colonial w@ng

effectively cuts us off fiom our traditions, traditions which have come down to us through our cultures in spite of colonization, and it supposes that contemporary Native writing is largely a constnict of oppression. (1 1-12)

He goes on to propose the ternis 'Yribal," "interfusional," "polemical," and

"associational" to describe difFerent kinds of Native literature (12). HaNnut Lutz

challenges the designation of mainstrearn Canadian literature as postcolonial settier

literature when he wntes:

the postcolonial discourse may, in effed, tend and in some cases has tended to neglect and literarilylliterally silence the voices of indigenous cultures. The notion of overcoming one's own victimization as rnernbers of Euro-Canadian, anglophone. or francophone settler societies in effect displaces the lang uages and literatures of the Fourth World nations on whose territories the semer societies squat. ("Nations Wiihin" 95).

The post-colonial modal of the 'settler nation' can erase the cornplexitÏes of contact

from lndigenous perspectives, and mainstream postcolonial approaches can reduce

and simplify ditference and complexity in their attempts to develop totalking,

universally applicable reading models. Elizabeth Cook-Lynn argues that

post-colonial theory. " has always been defined b y Euro-American scholars as the

discourse that begins from the moment of what is called kdonial contact,' not from

the moment that imperial nations rejected colonizing as an illegal acüvity, because

that time has never come" (Who Store 13, her italics). Because of this error of

definition, the application of post-colonial models limits the role of Native literature in

the academy

English departmentsr postcoloniaGdriven interest in Native Amencan Studies has resulted in, for example the teaching of Native AmerÏcan Iiterature(s) in English as a way of subverting the Euro-Amencan canon. Its disastrous effect has been #at such interest has taken

precedence over the study of Native languages and tribally specific Native Iiterary theory and aesthetics. ('Who Stole1' 14)

I do not mean to irnply that the concept of rpost-coloniality' should be completely

rejected. Not al1 post-colonial work contains and limits dmerence; many scholars in

the field recognize complexity and contradiction and resist totalizing impulses. To do

a post-colonial reading of a Native text may be a useful exercise. but this should not

entail classifying the work as a 'post-colonial text'. To assume that a critical terni can

contain or define a text is to imply critical neutrality and mastery of the text.

The theoretical frarnework of the postmodem is also often used to inform

readings of Native texts. While there are elements within some Native te& that may

be classified as postmodem. to read the texts primarily through a postmodem lens is

problematic. In her search for reading strategies that can beneft marginalized

people, Nancy Hartsock describes the limitations of postmodern theory in relation to

pragmatic, political change:

postmodemism, despite its stated efforts to avoid the ptoblems of the European modemism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at best manages to cnücize these theorîes without putting anything in their place. For those of us who want to undentand the woild systematically in order to change it, postmodemist theories at their best give IiMe guidance. . . .At their worst, postmodemist theones merely recapitulate the effects of Enlightenment theories - theories that deny marginalized people the rïght to participate in defining the ternis of their interaction with people in the mainstream. (1 90-19 1 )

Fee also argues that the discourse of postmodemisrn is Riadequate to understand

Native Iiterature when she wntes that, "although deconstnicüon has valorized

difference, it has done so in such a way that such differenœ can be totalized." She

goes on to quote Christopher Miller:

'Suppose that we could no longer afford the mandarin detachment from messy ditferences in the plural; that the matter of difterence were simply too urgent to be glorified and homogenized as diRerance-with-an-A [...]. The challenge now is to practice a kind of knowledge that, while remaining conscious of the tessons of rhetodcal theory, recognizes European theory as a local phenomenon and attempts dialogue with other localized systems of discourse.' ("Discourse Conventions" 46)

Colonization occurs if the main project is to fit Native Iiterature into preestabished

theoretical frameworks. To apply the same theoretical frameworks to various

literatures is to focus on their commonalities rather than on their ditferences and to

imply a kind of universality.

Not only does reading Native texts as though they were the same as

mainstrearn Western texis do injustice to these texts, but it also reduces or

eliminates the beneffis of canon expansion. The potential of Native te& to

illuminate unfamiliar methodologies and episternologies is lost if the texts are used

only as examples through which to rehearse familiar reading strategies.

M. Annette Jaimes writes of a related concept from a different perspective

when she describes the call, by Native Amencan intellectuals, for

the articulation of Native Amenican perspectives vis-a-vis the content of various disciplines and without adherence tu the academic structures specific to those disciplines (e-g.. Native Amencan philosophy is philosophy in its own right, and not by virtue of a juxtaposition to the philosophy of PIato or Hegel). Further, it has been a cal! for the demand that soch articulation(s) be accepted in their own right wÎthin academe, rather than by way of measuring up to the standards of others. (18)

Jaimes is speaking here specifically within a Native Studies context rather than an

English Studies context, but this rejection of simple comparative models is equally

applicable to literary discourse.

The last, and perhaps the most obvious danger of the study of Native

literature that I wiil address briefly is the danger of misunderstanding.

Misunderstanding or ignorance underlie critical colonizaüon and appropriation

because it is misunderstanding that causes the failure to recognize or respect

different narrative or discourse conventions. Readers also risk misunderstanding the

content of individual texts. Narrative traditions Vary in different cultures, because in

each culture they corne out of different histories, serve different roles. and hold

different significanœs. If we recognize the possibility of fundamental differences

between literatures, as opposed to fundamental universality coated with superficial

difference, then 1 becomes possible that we might simply misunderstand what we

are reading. it may not be that we think Our understanding of fiction is objectively

better than other cultures' understandings of fiction, but rather that we are incapable,

because of Our necessarily limited world view, of conceiving fundamentally different

ways of seeing the rote and function of story.' The danger of misunderstanding

should make us cautious, but should not scare us away from the field entirely. Just

because we cannot understand another culture entirely does not mean that we are

incapable of any level of understanding, so cultures are different yet not

incommensurable. Linda Alcoff examines the fear of making errors: "errors are

unavoidable in theoretical inquiry as well as political stniggle, and moreoverthey

often make contributions. The desire to find an absolute means to avoid making

erron cornes perhaps not from a desire to advance collednle goals but a desire for

personal mastery" (22). As discussed earlier, mastery of a text is not necessary or

For an înteresting, if polemical, discussion of fundamentai difference see Stanley Fish's "Bouüque Multiculturalism, or Why Liberals Are incapable of Thniking about Hate Speech."

36

even desirable when one's goal is to leam from it and to engage in dialogue with 1

rather than to conquer it.

It is important for students to leam about the cultural contacts out of which

Native literatures are written so that we have a basic, if Rnperfect, frame of reference

for the works we read. During the course of this study, we should be aware of the

sources of Our information. We should. as much as possible, seek Native sources

so as to avoid becorning yet another degree removed from the people of the cultures

we are trying to understand.

It is also important to rernember that leaming about a culture is not the same

as learning a culture. No matter how many books we read, or no matter how many

people we talk to, we are still outsiders. We are still products of our own culture, and

thus our cnticism is a site of encounter between at least two cultures. We can only

partially enter the writer's discourse conventions. and we should try to avoid studying

the work as if it were part of Our (academic) cultural discourse conventions. lnstead,

we can apply a model of dialogue, where we see ourselves in conversation with, and

leaming frorn, a voice from another culture. If we see academic discourse as an

ongoing dialogue, we can be open to feedback - to being told that we have

misunderstood, in which case we can leam more, listen to cnücism, and try again.

It is easy to consider all these potentîal dangers and decide to stay out of the

field of Native literature altogether. An easy answer to the problem of non-Native

academics taking up too much space and harming andlor offending Native writers,

scholars and readers is to 'move ovef completely. Scholars can respond to the

concems of appropriation voiced by Maracle, Keeshig-Tobias. Limefield. and others

by rernaining silent on issues of Native Iiterahire. The majority of non-Native

academics are safe from the political dangers of this field because they do not

contribute to the field either way. The problem with this approach is that remaining

silent is generally not read as 'moving over' to make room for other voices in the

conversation, but rather is seen as ignoring them in the first place. Emma LaRocque

subtitles her preface to Wntng the Circe "Here Are Our Voices - Who WiII Hear?"

pointing to the problem of the lack of attention given to Native voices in Canada.

LaRocque is calling for greater recognition, and while this is important, it is not

enough. Part of hean'ng other voices is acknowledging, and to acknowledge is to

engage in a conversation that may change how the Iistener thinks and acts. Gayatri

Spivak discusses the unprodudive silence of people who plead cultural ignorance

when they refuse to enter into a cross-cultural or cross-gender conversation in ternis

of the refusal to do 'homework': 'When you take the position of not doing your

hornework - '1 will not criticize because of my accident of birth. the historical

accidentt - that is a much more pernicious position" ("Questions of Multiculturalism"

62). Linda Alcoff examines in some detail 'The Ptublem of Speaking for Others" in

her paper of that titie. After examining the dangers and problems in speaking about

andlor for others, she argues against the 'retreatt position:

We certahly want to encourage a more receptive listening on the part of the discursively privileged and discourage presumptuous and oppressive practices of speaking for. But a retreat from speaking wi-Il not result in an increase in receptive listening in ail cases; it may result merely in a retreat into a narcissisüc yuppy iifestyle in which a privileged penon takes no responsibiiii for her society whatsoever. (1 7)

38

She acknowledges that "opüng for the retreat response is not always a thinly veiled

excuse to avoid political work and indulge one's own desires" but she maintains ''the

major problem with such a retreat is that it significantly undercuts the possibility of

pollical eflecüvity" (1 7). S he argues further that "Even a complete retreat from

speech is of course not neutral since 1 allows the continued dominance of current

discourses and acts by omission to reinforce thek dominance" (21). in my

discussion of the beneffi of Native literature in helping us understand our history, I

argued that the Iives and experiences of Native people and of non-Native people are

not unrelated. We benefit from cross-cultural Iiterary discourse because of our

interconnectedness, and out interconnectedness also obliges us to take the

responsibility of engaging in this discourse.

After having spent some time discussing many potenifal dangers and

problems with studying Native literature in the academy, 1 will now turn rny attention

to a mode[ that rnay alleviate some of these dangers. If we accept my rather long

'what not to do' list of the hazards of studying Native literature, we are left with the

more difficult question of what exactfy we can or shoutd do. We cannot treat Native

literature the same as we do literatures of Western European traditions. nor can we

focus only on their difference. Because of the great divenity of both Native Meratures

and Western literatures, broad comparkons between the No can be reductive.

Furthemiore, I would argue that we cannot unproblematîcally even judge the quality

of Native literature without senously quesüoning the criteria that we are applying.

The criteria by which we judge literature 'goob and 'bad' have corne from traditions

and histories that may not be applicable ta Native te*. As a simple example, we

may, when reading English Iiterature, value complexiry and indeterminacy and judge

didacticism negatively. In Native literature, on the other hand. the author may intend

to teach thmugh literature, and may therefore value c lam and didactici~rn.~

We cannot, of course, corne to Native literature without preconceived notions.

We cannot pretend that we do not have pre-established reading practices, that we

have not been trained to read in certain ways. Furthemore, Ri order to respect the

literature in the acaderny, we must do something with it. That is to Say, we must find

ways into the literature so that we can engage in a discourse and contribute to the

scholanhip in the field. Several Native scholars have proposed that we develop

modeis for reading texts by Native writers by looking at the works themselves.

Kimberly Blaeser calls for the development of new theories that would Irarise out of

the literature itself" ("Native Literature" 53-54), and Paula Gunn Allen suggests that

"Pehaps the best course is to begin anew, to examine the literary output of

American wrïters of whatever stripe and derive critical principles based on what is

actually being rendered by the true experts, the writers themselves" (1 71).

My project involves attempting to read each text on its own ternis. In orderto

determine what these ternis are, my fnst step is a close and careful reading. Close

readings may not be the ultirnate goal of literary studies, but they are a necessary

first step. Unlike a New Critical approach, I propose dose reading as a means rather

than an end. Texts are not autonomous, but readen c m fnid within each text dues

to the kind of wnnecüons they should make with the world outside the text Before

I will address the importance of dîdacücism further in C hapter 3. For discussion on how and why several Native writers employ didacücism, see Godard, 'Talking About Ourselvestf and "Listening For the Silence," Rdo, "Why Native Literature," and Hulan "fntroduction."

moving on to the larger extra-textual ramifications and conclusions of their readings,

critics have to, as much as possible, understand what the author has writ€en.

The reason for the careful reading is to attempt, as much as possible. to

develop a critical agenda in dialogue with the given text. The critic will, of course,

notice those elements to which s/he is most attentive, but slhe can strive to be open

to perceive the unexpected. This is part of the process of recognizing ourselves, as

members and representatives of a hegemonic discourse, as peripheral to the texts

that we read. Nancy Hartsock responds to and reclaims Richard Rorty's prescription

'Yo be reactive, peripheral." She writes that "Becoming marginal is an important

strategy for those of us who are privileged by race, class, gender, or heterosexuality.

It is a strategy we should undertake. But to the extent that we have been constituted

as Other, it is important to insist as well on a vision of the world in which we are at

the center rather than at the periphery" (201).8

As long as Native writers are addressing a mixed audience, and as long as we

are reading their literature in the academy, we must tiy to engage in a discourse of

Native literature in a respectfiil way. In the following chapters. I will look within

specific texts by Native writers for instructions about how to Iisten with the goal of

developing a criti-cal model in which the critic engages in dialogue with the text. In

my examination of Love Medicinet I will focus on silence because I am looking for

ways to 'rnove over' - that is, to make room in critical discourse. The goal of making - -

' Kenneth Roemer outlines how this could work in practice when teaching nonoNative texts alongside mainstream texts. He struggles to find the balance that will allow "the articulation of fundamenta[ difterences between Native and mainstream texts; and the delineation of signifîcant ways that lndian and non-lndian te* can speak to one another" (8). He proposes "ushg Indian texts as central paradigms and as sources of important questions" that can then be asked of mahstream texts (IO).

41

room in a conversation seems to lead naturally to being silent, so I will explore the

many ways that silence functions. I will examine how and when characten indicate

airough their silence that they are Iistening, and when they indicate that they are not

listening or ignoring. I will then look for ways in which these indications can be

applied to critical discourse.

in my reading of Honour the Sun, I will analyse how silence and Iistening are

related. I will focus especially on how silence can teach and on how leaming can

occur silently. In the next chapter, I will discuss Keeper N' Me, a text which explores

the role of the student more explicitly and the importance of listening on the part of

the student. By iiluminating parallels between the reader and characters in the text, 1

will encourage a mode1 of reading in which the critic situates herself as a student in

relation to the text. In rny conclusion, I will briefiy present The Book of Jessica as a

case study of cross-cultural communication in which each party has a different

understanding of the goals and discourse conventions of their communication. I will

refiect on my own critical process while writing the body of this thesis and attempt to

identify ways Ri which 1 have succeed or faited as an 'active listerter.'

CHAPTER ONE

Who do You Think You're Talking to?

The Power of Silence in Love Medicine.

When 1 began this project, l intended to look for ways, in fiction, that silence

indicates either attentive listening or hostile ignoring. Wth this information, 1 would

be able to apply these standards to my critical practice. I could read in the way that

good fictional listeners listen, and leam how to invite other voices hto a conversation.

When I tumed my attention to Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine, I discovered that

'attentive Iistening' and 'hostile ignoring' are oversimplified categories and that there

are many other ways in which silence functions. Silence can not only signal

recepüon (or a rack thereof), but it c m also be an act of communication in %self, and

the range of things that 1 can communicate is numerous. Silence can also indicate

many different attributes in the character who chooses or is compelled to remain

silent Silence can indicate knowledge or ignorance. power or weakness, choice or

compulsion.

The uses of silence in Love Medicine are inseparable €rom interpersonal

power dynamics. BeWeen characters silence is someümes used as a defence and

someümes as a weapon. Silence can be a means of maintahing or consolidating

control, or it can simply indicate emotion. When characten choose to stop speaking

to one another, their silence can indicate or build connections between them, or 1

can signal the breakdown or absence of such connections. Silence can also indicate

the desire to Iisten and to leam. At a textual level, Erdrich employs the 'silence' of

imperfect or partial translation, and destabilizes the idea of a single, unified story

through the use of gaps or silences between the multiple perspectives through which

the stories are told.

In general, although there are many specific exceptions to this trend, my

discussion of Honourthe Sun in Chapter Two focuses on the benefits of silence and

my discussion of Love Medicine focuses on its dangers. This is not to Say that

Slipperjack and Erdrich have opposing views on silence. In both novels. silence has

the potential for either positive or negative effects. With some notable exceptions,

Erdrich reveals the potential of silence to hurt and to foster misunderstanding white

Slipperiack reveals the potential of silence to calm and to teach. The sniiplest level

at which silence functions is between characten in dialogue with each other within

each novel. An examination of these silences illuminates the characters and how

they relate to each other, and it also illuminates the ways that dialogue and listening

funcüon within the characters' cultural contexts. The Iistening skills of characters is a

starüng point from which to develop models for reading and Iistening within academic

discourse.

Of Louise Erdrich's four interrelated novek. Love Medicine, Tiacks. The Beet

Queen and The Bingo Palace, dialogue plays the largest role in Tiacks. Because

Tracks is stnictured a round storytelling , the role of the listener is important. I have

chosen to examine Love Medicine, however, because of the way that this novel's

structure complicates the role of listening in dialogue. The chapters are al1

interrelated, but each is also a self-contained story with its own point of view, its own

style, its own use of dialogue, and its own particular silences. In Love Medicine,

Erdrich demonstrates several models of communication through her use of multiple

points of view.

In Love Medicine, the changing perspectives in the diwerent chapters allow

multiple and cornplex silences. Not only do individual characters remain silent by

choice or by necessity in specific conversations, but at a textual level, each of the

chapters voices and silences different perspectives on the stories that are told.

Erdrich retums to stories from di€Ferent angles and diiRerent contexts in the different

chapters, so the reader gradually pieces stories together and cornes to realize the

imperfection of any individual perspective of events. In Ulis way, we gradually

become aware of silences in stories. A story that sounds complete and reasonable

in its first telling later gets filled out with more information, and in retrospect. we can

see the gaps that existed but were invisible in the first tellnig. What has not been

said only becomes apparent when the story is told from a different perspective, with

a different focus, or when the central events of one story are seen as peripheral

events in other stories.

Erdrich uses multiple points of view to repeat stories from different

perspectives that sometimes expand upon and sometimes contradict each other.

There is no single, united narrative voice, and through repetiüon and vanation she

destabilizes the overaII point of view expressed. When we are told things like

"[Indians are1 the smartest people on the earth" or "[Lulul loved [Nectorl since she

was a girl" (231). we have to question how Vue these statements are, and whether

they are true from the perspective of individual characters only. or if Erdrich herseif is

presenting them as true within the frame of the novel.

Erdrich employs both linguistic and cultural textual silences when she does

not completety translate words or events. In context. it seems that "Kaween onjidah"

(80) is an apology, but the reader who does not speak Ojibway cannot be sure that

s/he understands what is being said. It is not only words that are left untranslated,

but also contexts. The relationship behrveen Lulu and Moses has spiritua!

dimensions that are only partially explained. Lulu rernembers "1 was not immune,

and I would not leave undamaged" (82). She says that she spoke Moses' real name,

but she does not tell us what that name is. (82). This incomplete translation and

incomptete information shakes the non-Native reader's confidence in her ability to

master the text or to understand B completely.'

There are moments when the characten know more than they tell. In their

silence, they withhold information not only from other characters but also from the

reader. Lipsha relates part of his interaction with Gerry, his father, who has escaped

from jail. Lipsha addresses the reader directiy and says that he has asked Gerry

whethet or not he killed the state troopet, but then refuses to tell us the answet.

Here he draws us into the fictional world of the story by telling us t hat our reaction

could affect Gerry. This is a case where to speak could be dangerous. If he says

NonNative writers may also employ textual silences, but in a cross-cuffural readhg, the silence that the reader encounters rnay be a reçut of cultural difference as welI as a stylistic choice. I do not believe i t is possible to isolate or differentiate between the effects of the d e r ' s culture and his or her stylistic choices, as these are not distinct catego ries.

Gerry did 1, then he is betraying a tnist, but if he says Geiry did not do it, he fears we

will think either he or Geny is lying. The question then remains: if he cannot tell us

the answer to the question. why does he even tell us that he asked the question?

His silence or refusal to give us the information is itself a speech act. In this scene.

he reveals the danger of divulging too much information. and he also calls into

question concepts of honesty, trust, and a single, unified truth. Lipsha masks his

intention again when he says that he tells hhseif stories to pass the time (243).

Whiie this may be tme, when he repeats the content of these stories, they function

more broadly to entertain and infom the reader, whom he often addresses explicitly

as 'you'. When he uses the phrase "1 dont need to tell you" (244) he is addressing

the reader as an insider; he is assuming knowledge instead of ignorance, or at least

using this rhetoric to engage the implied reader. He goes so far in his implied

knowledge of this 'youf as to predict her response when he says "So now I guess you

will Say, 'Slap a malpiactice suit on Lipsha Mortisey"' (245). The text addresses us,

the readers, as Iisteners by its repeated use of "you".

Lulu also tells parts of her story self-consciously. She says of her affair with

Nector, "Nobody else ever knew of us. Nobody, if they dont read this, ever will. We

were cautious" (281). lronically, Lulu is wrong. By the üme Lulu wntes this, Marie

already knows of the affair, and soon many people including her son Lyman fhd out

This is another case of the multiple narrative voiœs illurninathg different

perspectives, but at the sarne time 1 is a moment that helps the reader feel intimately

connected with the characters of the text Lulu tells the reader secrets and Lipsha not

only addresses herlhim expliciüy, but implies that slhe has power to infiuence events

within the narrative.

There is a general relationship between power dynamics and the effects of

silence throughout the novel. When charaders are in positions of power, their

silence usually consolidates and reafims their power, as is most clearly the case

with Marie and Lulu. When a character lacks power in an interaction, his or her

silence can either indicate selfdefence. discomfort, or humility and a willingness to

listen and learn.

Erdrich first mentions silence explicitly in the first section of the novel. when it

is used as a form of selfdefence. The novel opens with June Kashpaw's

perspective on the last day of her Me. Because of the omniscient point of view. we

leam what she chooses not to Say to Andy. the mud engineer she meets. She is

feeling fragile and scared. and so tells hirn very little about herself. She does not tell

him how she is feeling, but rather she watches and waits to fom a judgement about

him, hopïng that he wiII be 'different' from other men she has met: "And he had a

good-natured slowness about him that seemed different. He could be difierent, she

thought!' (3). While waiüng to see what will happen and how he will behave, she

keeps her thoughts and feelings to heneif, speaking only of the things and in the

manner that is expected of her. Because she is not saying what is on her mind, and

because what she does choose to Say is almost meaningless, aieir interaction is

marked more by her silence than by her words. June asks "What's happening. . .

Where's the p a w These questions reveal litBe about her and defiect attention

away from her. Words, es pecially sincere expressions of thoug Ms and feelings,

open the speaker up and make her vulnerable to the Mener. When they feel

threatened, charaders who have previously been oppressed or betrayed. or who

have felt powerless, choose to remain silent

Later in the noveI, but earlier in the narrative time line, we see a similar lack of

communication between Alberthe Johnson and Henry Jr. June's niece, the 15 year

old Albertine. uns away from home and rneets Lulu's son Henry Jr. who has just

retumed from the Vietnam war. In this case, both parties are drunk and fragile, and

unlike the opening chapter, the reader is privy to the thoughts of both charaders.

They are not, however, privy to each other's thoughts. She says alrnost nothing, and

he talks mostly to himself (1 72-178). 60th are frig htened, he by what he has been

through, and she by what she has not been through. Henry Jr. has been damaged

by the war. He fears for his sanity, and he fears that he will reveal his Ïnstability to

Albertine. For her part, she is scared of him, and generally scared of her sluation,

as she is Young, inexperÏenced, atone. and without money or resources. Their fear

prevents them frorn communicaüng, and their silence functions as self-defence.

Henry's selfdefensive silence continues once he retums home, but it is

excessive, and becomes selfdestructive. His brother Lyman recognizes Henry Jr's

silence as both a symptom of damage mat has been done to him, and also as

damaging in itself, so he attempts to trick Henry Jr. out of his silence by damaghg

the car they owned and rnaintained together before Henry Jr. le€t for Vietnam.

Lyman thinks his plan has worked because they argue about the car and "[Lyman]

walk[sl out before [Henry] coukl realize [Lyman] knew herd stning together more than

sk words at once" (1 88).

Near the end of his life, Nector Kashpaw becomes senile and, often, silent.

Albertine wants to Ieam from him, but his mind only holds numbers and dates; as far

as she can tell, evecything else is gone fkm his memory. Albertine speculates that

his silence may be the result of a forrn of self-defenœ: "Perhaps his loss of memory

was a protection from the past, absolving him of whatever had happened. He had

lNed hard in his tirne" (20-21).

Erdrich demonstrates that the defensive potential of silence can function at a

cultural as well as an individual level. The prohibition against speaking the names of

the dead is a culturally specific example of the way that silence can protect. By

breaking this silence, the speaker leaves himlherself vulnetable to a visit from the

person whose name slhe has spoken. Juners husband Gordie is devastated by her

death. One night, alone and drunk, he calls her name aloud and is then seized by

terrible fear and panic that she will answer his dl. Ironically, after he has broken

this prohibition, he fean the silence; he feels the power and the danger of silence,

and so tums on appliances to make as much noise as he can (217). Erdfich

demonstrates the inverse of this silence when Lulu intentionally speaks the name of

her drowned son, Henry Jr. Because he has died of drowning, he cannot rest after

death, so Lulu intentionally breaks the rule prohibiting the speaking of the names of

the dead, because "EheI wanted him to know, if he heard, that he still had a home"

(295).

That the speaking of the names of the dead is ptohibited indicates the power

that utterances have, as they can call beings into existence. This is the reason that

Moses's communw and famify nevet speak his tnie name while he is a child.

Nanapush tells Lulu how "His people spoke past him" (75). for to withhold a name is

to fool the spirits. He does not exist if not named. and so he will not die of the

epidemic that is kiiling so many in his communm The silence that surrounds him

saves Moses, but it also changes him. This story reveals the power of words;

language calls people into existence and if you are not named, you do not exist,

Through their silence, the community actively and intenüonally ignores Moses, and

through this situation, Erdrich explores the power and the danger of ignoring.

Because he is ignored, Moses is saved, but he is greatly affected by this experience.

There is no way to avoid having an etfect That silence can be used as a defence

illustrates the power that words have and that, used properly, both words and

silences can have great impact on events. Because of their power, their misuse can

lead to great danger.

The two most central and most powerful women in the novel, Marie Kashpaw

and Lulu Lamartine, both recognize and learn how to manipulate the poweis of

words and of silences. Throughout the novel. MarÏe Kashpaw uses silence in various

ways. As a young woman. she uses silence as selfdefence when, in the convent,

she chooses to remain silent when she knows that she will not be believed. "1 knew

they wouldnY believe what [Leopolda] had done with the kettle. There was no

question. So I kept quiet!' (55). Marie's silence at the convent is cornplex. She uses

it as self-defence. but also to gain and consolidate power. Both MarÏe and Leopolda

demonstrate that the use of silence is not always passive, and that it can be used

aggressively as well as defensively. Both the girl and the woman use silence to

position themselves advantageously. Even when she is near death. Leopolda will

not show a crack in her defenœs: instead. she remains silent: "'lt's dark in hete,' l

said. She did not answer. 'I came to vis& you.' Still, silence" (151).

Lulu Lamartine is also a master of using silence strategically to maintain her

control. When delivering butter with Nector, just before their affair begins, Lufu

keeps Nector at her mercy by maintainhg her silence. She answers his questions as

briefiy as possible until fhally signalling her unwillingness to talk: "'My petunias,' she

tells [him] in a flat voice, 'are none of your business"' (130). Although she will not talk

to him, she extends their time together by driving to the lookout instead of dropping

him off. Even though they are not talking, they are certainly interacting, and she has

the advantage. That her domination of the interaction has been successful is clear

when he breaks the silence by asking, "Will you forgive me?" (1 32).

In a similar way, she maintains control of a later conversation by enforcing

Nector's silence. Lulu becomes pregnant white she is having an affair with Nector.

He wants to know the parentage of the child, but rather than refusing to answer the

question, Lulu controts the situation so carefully that she prevents Nector from ever

asking the question: "I felt the baby jump. She said nothing, only smiled. Her white

teeth glared in aie dark. She snapped at me in play like an animal. In mat way she

frightened me from asking if the baby was mine" (1 35). Their relationship ends

because Nector attempts to evict Lulu and then, she thinks, intentionally bums down

her house. Many years later. she refleds on the grudge that she has maintained,

and thinks, "Perhaps my gnidge against Nector reached the site it did because i

never spread the bad feeling around. Nobody would have guessed" (290). By

remaining silent and holding on to her perception of the incident, she has controlled

her feelings for decades, not allowing them to soften or alter.

When silence is used for its power to maintain control, and especially control

over others, it can become a weapon. Early in the novel, Albertine Johnson explains

how she and her mother Zelda engage in "Patient Abuse," that is, a kind of battie

that is "slow and tedious, requiring long periods of domancy" (7). This battle

involves the strategic use of silence, or the withholding of information, as when Zelda

infoms Albertine of her Aunt June's death: "'We knew you probably couldnY get

away from your studies for the funeral,' said the letter, 'so we never bothered to cal1

and disturb you"' (7). Albertine retaliates in silence too: "I was so mad at my rnother,

Zelda, that t didn't wfite or cal1 for almost two rnonths" (1 0). Zelda has corne by her

cornplex use of silence honestiy, for her mother Marie has long known that

"altemating tongue stoms and rock-hard silences was hard on a man" (238), or on a

woman for that matter*

Marie is a powerful, intelligent woman who uses both words and silence

creatively and effedively. She creates a tense, complicated silence when, after she

has found Nector's note saying that he is leaving her, she does not ever speak of the

subject or acknowledge that she has received the note. He had left the note on the

kitchen table under the sugarjar, but Marie puts it back under the sait cm. She

recalls her reason for making this minor change: "I did this for a reason. I would

never talk about this tetter but instead let him wonder, Sornetimes he's look at me,

Ri smile, and he'd think fo hirnseîf sait or sugar? But he would never be sure" (765).

Because silenœ is often an indicator of power stmggles. it can be very

uncornfortable, as when Lulu threatens to name publicly the fathers of all her boys in

a council meeting. The silence that follows her threat is a nenrous one. but she

shows a kind of mercy by maintaining her silence on the subject of her past affah.

This palpable, embarrasseci silence happens again when Lyman brings up the

subject of his parentage with his mother by saying, "you cal1 it art, I cal1 1

old-fashioned whoopee." Although "a cuvent of embarrassrnent rippled al1 around

the table." Lyman has underestimated Lulu's expertise at manipulating silences.

Lulu is not one to be shamed into submission: "Still they sat, steadfast, showing me

up, and right after that Lulu took her eyeglasses from her purse, steel-blue ovals of

plastic. When she perched them on her nose I knew I was in for it There was

always trouble when my mother put the world in focus" (305). Lulu1s ability to regain

control of silenœ leads to the question of power shifts.

Characters in the novel are not always successful in asserting control through

silence, because they may underestimate the strength of the other person. When

June and Gordie go on their honeymoon. they rent a cabin from a Mr. Johnson, who

mistakenly thinks he is in control of the situation:

The man waited, looking at June and Gordie with no expression. He was like a teacher, used to having his intentions read. June didntt know the rules, though. of being a student, and for that matter she didnt act much like she knew she was an Indian, either. She approached Johnson as though they were two regular people, as though there was nothing but the usual between them. Two strangers meeting. She introduœd henelf, and introduced Gordie as her new husband. (268)

Silence sometimes signifies simple emotions instead of cornplex interpersonal

power dynamics; Nector remembers that, "In one year, two dieci, a boy and a girl

baby. There was a long spell of quiet, awful quiet, before the babies showed up

everywhere again" (1 26). Characters fall into uneasy silence when emotionally

difficult subjects of conversation corne up. as when shortly after June's death Marie

and her daughters recall stories from her childhood. Albertine recalls: "Then they

were both uneasily silent. neilher of them willing to take up the slack and tell the story

I knew was about June" (21). Here the silence is full of the unspoken story, and so it

must be told. After 1 has been told, everyone laughs and can settle into a d m

silence as they "put the story to rest" (22).

Silences that are filled with knowledge or partial knowledge can also cause

discomfort. When one person has been kept ignorant of information that othen

have, that gap functions as a palpable silence. This is the case with Lipsha's

parentage. Albertine. through "sitting quietly around the aunts, from gathering

shreds of talk before they remembered [herr (30). has learned that June was

Lipsha's mother (39). After Lipsha himself finally learns this secret, he visits his

half-brother King and King's wife Lynette. When Lipsha mentions June, "They [get]

uncomfortable quiet and [give] each other a quick glance. That's when [Lipsha

k n o w they both knew the secret of who [his] mother was. They had al! along.

There were too many people who had known" (332). Everyone except Lipsha knew

who his mother was. This selecüve silence is hurtfut, for his background has

becorne something that is not discussed in polite company, as if it were shameful.

Lipsha's rejeaion by his mother is the stuff of scandal, and before he has al1 the

infomation, he can not forgive, and he hates his unknown mother. Once Lipsha

knows his history, he can face it and forgive. Aithough it is difficult to break the

silence, ït is necessary for healing to begin. It is LuIu who finally tells Lipsha who his

mother was, although he said he did not want to know (334-337), because Lulu

recognizes that people must be responsible not only for their words, but also for their

silences, for both hold power and both communicate. Withhoiding information or

choosing not to speak is as much an action as choosing to speak.

Part of the power of silences cornes from their capacity to hold implied words

or remembered words. Words often do not go away after they have been spoken.

Albertine recalls that when King insults his wife, even though she "shnig(s1 brïghtly

and bwshe[s] away King's rernark . . . it stay[s] at the table, as if it [has] opened a

door on something - some sad, ugly scene [they] could not help but enter" (31-32).

Here words are active agents, and their effect cames over into the silences that

follow. In this case, the silence is full of the words that have been spoken, but

silence can also be full of the anticipation of future words or actions.

Uneasy silences can signify a calm before a stom, as when the riot breaks

out in Lyman's factory: "Machines stopped champing, biting. and grommeting. It

was as if a hand of ice had gripped every man and woman, freezing them in

watchfulness" (318). This is a silence that is filled with what is about to happen,

rather than with the residue of what has happened. An entireiy different kind of calm

silence happens for Nector when the past and the Mure are balanced in a still

moment.

And then it was like the river pooled. . . . I was sitang on the steps, wning a pot of Mane's that had broken. when everythîng went still. The children stopped shouting, Marie stopped scolding, The babies slept The cows chewed. The dogs stretched full out in the heat Nothing moved. Not a leaf or a bel1 or a human, No sound- It was Iike the air

itself had caved in. In that stillness, I lifted my head and looked around. (1 27)

This moment of cairn silence lets Nector observe time passing, and it encourages

him to revaluate what he is doing wlh his Me. Although he tries later to recapture

this feeling, he never can (1 36). This is a moment when stopping becomes an

action; to pause and experience silence is to do something, and that action c m

sometimes be very important. In this case, it allows Nedor to change his IRe, and in

the case of Albertine, near the beginning of the novel, 1 allows her to accept June's

death. "1 did something that day. . . . I walked out there and lay down on that patch

of grass, above the ground, and I thought of Aunt June until I felt the right way for

her" (10). These are moments when silence is beneficial and even pedagogical as

characters grow and learn when they. to borrow a phrase that will recur in my

discussion of Honour the Sun, "listen to the silence."

Another beneficial effect of silence is that it can sometimes indicate or build

communication and connection between individuals. When Marie and Lulu finally, as

old wornen, reconcile and acknowledge one another, they do not have to speak

everything on their minds:

We feil to hearing the music again. She did not mention Nectoh funeral. We did not talk about Nector. He was aIready there. Too much might &art the fioodgates ffowing and our moment would be lost. It was enough just to SR there without words. We moumed him the same way together. That was the point. It was enough. For the first time I saw exactiy how another woman feM. and it gave me deep comfort, surprising. (297)

This moment of silent communication between two women who have used both

silence and words as tools, weapons, and demonstraüons of power is possible

because of their common experience. A less desirable fomr of this familianty occurs

between Lyman and Lulu. They know each other well enough to communicate

silently, but what they communicate is not loving or nurturing. "My mother held my

gaze, poker-straight. I looked right back at her, and with that look, I lied. 1 didntt use

words to fool her, 1 just smiled as if I was delighted to accept her considerations,

nodded to indicate that I would gladly put them into effect Her eyes glazed slightly.

She did not believe me. . ." (308).

Silent communication c m also occur between lovers who have paid close

enough attention to understand each other wordlessly. This kind of silence between

Geny and Dot embarrasses the observer, Albertine, and she "would have left had

[shel not been wedged f in ly behind his hip in one corner" (205). In a more serious

scene, Lulu tells us that when she has been with Moses on his island for several

months, they develop this kind of connection. 'We hardly talked except by signs.

We had no need of words" (83). Here the depth of their connection is signified by

their abandoning words. The irony of words is that while their purpose is to allow

people to communicate, that is, to forge connections, the imperfection of the

communication draws attention to the distance and difference between people. As

long as the connection is mediated by words, it is imperfect There is danger,

however, in abandoning words.

Communication without words c m only succeed if the communicators are

deeply connected. and when people overestimate their connection, serious

misunderstandings can occur. When Marie takes June into her home, June is quiet-

Marie recalls: "That is why, as things went on, I found myseC talking for hep (88).

Marie leams the painful lesson that she cannot accurately speak for June; June is

already 'speaking' through her silence. "At first, because I Iiked her so, I thought I

knew what she was thinking, but as it turned out I did not know what went through

her mind at ali" (88).

Much later, Marie herself is on the other side of this kind of interaction when

Lyman thinks he understands her thoughts. In this case, we are not given the other

side of the conversation, and Lyman does not refiect that he might have

rnisinterpreted it entirely. After the riot at his factory, Lyman talks with Marie in the

bar:

'Did he talk about me?' I got up the nerve to whisper, starhg at her from what seemed like far below. I thought her lips fonned around the word yes, but instead she frowned into the wavenng air between us. She was going to Say that her husband, my father, would have been proud or, better yet, jealous of what Itd attempted, that he would have understood the failure of this worthwhile project. She was going to tell me that change came about in slow measure and although my pain was bitter, it was not unnatural and therefore I could absorb it the way earth dnnks in rain. She was going to tell me that the drowned could stop wandering. go home. Marie Kashpaw was going to Say that I was of the outer and the inner, and though l whirled in the homeless suites and catered luncheons of convention life I coukl corne back, make my way down the narrow roads. She was going to tell me that I had a place. But, before she could speak, 1 notiœd she was holding out her hands and in refiex I held out my own hands to her. We rose together. (323)

In this 'conversation.' Lyman is filling in the responses to his own questions. He

himself is the speaker, but he is tricking himself into thinking that he is listening, and

we are never told what Marie is actually thinking. The reader can either believe

Lyman's guesses about her thoughts, can make up his/her own assumptions, or can

recognize that she is told almost nothing about Marie and is only leaming about

Lyman.

Lyman's father, Nector, makes similar assumptions with Lulu before Lyman's

birth. Nector reads Luluts shrug in great detail:

To her, Nector Kashpaw is a nuisance. She sees nothing of their youth. He's gone dull. Stiff. Hard to believe, she thinks, how he once cut the mg! Even his eyebrows have a little gray in them now. Hard to believe the girls once followed hirn around! But he is, afîer all, in need of her air conditioning, so what the heck? I read ail this in the shrug she gives me. (129)

As in the scene with Lyman and Marie. here we only hear one side of the interaction,

and have no textua[ evidence to support his reading of the situation. Because

Erdrich so often does give ditferent interpretations of events, and interpretations that

cal1 each other into question. she alerts the reader to the possibility that, in cases like

this, when slhe cannot hear another interpretation, slhe should süll question the one

slhe is given.

The interactions between Lulu and Moses on his island are full of significant

uses of silence and speech - uses that demonstrate the power of both speech and

silence, and the potential for either to hurt or to heai. As previously discussed,

Moses is surrounded by a kind of silence that has saved his He, but that has also

changed him and separated him from other people. Lulu stays with Moses and he

"fÏfinds his voice" (81). but as this story is told from Lulu's point of view, and since we

do not hear first hand how Moses feels before, during, or after their time together, 1

is also possible that she has stolen his silence as much as she has helped hirn M d

his voice. They gradually achieve silent communication (83), but this situation is

ternporary, and Lulu [eaves Moses again in soliiry silence.

Lulu is fmhtened and intrigueci by Moses's silence because she senses its

power- Part of this power is danger, as silence can be adively destructive or can

signal terrible danger. From his experienœ in the Vietnam war, Henry Jr. has

leamed that "silence wams" (176), and can signiw danger and unpredictability.

When he returns home, he becomes largely silent, but his silence signÎfÏes intemal

tumoil rather than calm (1 86)- When silence and peace do not coexist, then silence

is not healthy. It is in this context that noises or voices can protect, as when Gardie

makes as much noise as he can in his grief and fear after Junets death.

Because of all the multiple uses and potentialities of silence, the only

generalization that wn be confidently drawn about when to remain silent is that

silence always occurs within a context. and the important thing is to know when to

use silence and when to use words. In a humorous scene, Erdrich shows us how

Albertine leams effectively to use silence in a very context-specific way. Albertine

meets the quick-tempered Dot and is frustrated in her atternpts to use words to

defuse the tension between them. She leams that in this particular situation, words

will not work, and only silent action will be understood, so she throws c o f b at Dot

and runs like hell(197). Dot understands and respects this action, the lines of

communication between them open, and Albertine realizes that Dot is, in fact, a very

clear communicator who does not rely exclusively on verbal communication.

Lipsha Morrisey is a good example of a character who chooses to remain

silent Ri order to listen and to leam. I will now focus in some detail on his listening

skills, because I believe that of all the purposes to which silence can be put, listening

is the most productive for c ~ - c s . It is by applying the metaphor of listening to our

reading pracüce that we can imagine ourselves in dialogue with the texts that we

study. The first time we are introduced to Lipsha he is described as "more of a

listener than a talker" (29), and, although he irritates some other, more verbal

characters like King and Lyman, he is an appealing, positively presented character

who is taken in, taught by, and loved by the older, powerhil women of the

community. Marie even tells him, "you was always my favorite" (257). He is more

fully developed in Erdrich's later novel The Bhgo Palace, in which he is the central

character, but even in Love Medicine we see the beginnings of his learning through

careful Iistening. lt is his ability and tendency to Iisten that bothers his uncle Lyman,

who prefers to talk and to promote his own views than to listen and to learn. Lyman

describes Lipsha's quietness in unflattering terms:

Lipsha Morrissey bugged me from the first moment I stepped into the meeting . . . he looked pualed. People treated him special, as though he were important somehow, but I couldn't see it . . he acted bashful, bewildered, rarely spoke. Of course, he didnY have to. My mother, his great admirer, held the ffoor. (304)

In this passage, Lyman points to the traits such as humility, shyness, and curiosity -

ttaîts that he does not like, but that make Lipsha a good Iistener. endear hirn to other

characters in the novel, and contribute to his portraya1 as a sympathetic, attractive

character.

Lipsha's silence is not hostile or selfdefensive, and so t indicates that he is

open and listening to othen. Lipsha sometimes listens when others do not, as when

Nector explains why he yells in church: 'God dont hear me otherwïse." Although

Nector is senile and his behaviour is embarrassing to Lipsha, Lipsha sülI Mens and

thhks about Nector's explanation and decides that "this was perfectiy right'" (235).

He shows that he values silence and how he uses silence b think when he says

"Sornetimes ['Il throw up a srnokescreen to think behind" (232). Aithough he values

this silent time, he also takes the time to explain things in detail to his implied reader,

indicating that he recognizes the importance of explaining and understanding things

as fully as possible. This may be the reason why he listens not only to words, but

also to the silent communication of facial expression (254). Lipsha is a good Iistener

because he is sensitive to people and events around him, and this general sensitivity

is exhibited in his 'touch', or ability to heal. Because of the communication skills and

the openness that he has leamed through his careful Iistening, Lipsha not only

listens but also is listened to. When he tells Marie the story of the turkey hearts that

he has passed off as goose hearts, he says: "1 knew from then on she would be

listening to me the way l had listened to her before" (257).

Lipsha, and most other characters, understand that while silence is often a

choice, sometimes 1 is also a compulsion. There are social niles against talking

back to elders. When Marie is a young wife, her mother-in-law Rushes Bear cornes

to live with Marie. Rushes Bear is controlling and bad tempered, and Marie recalls

how "l'd almost tell at her to quit, but I had thrown off those old Lazane ways and

couldn't make rnyself treat her that low" (99). Lipsha respects these rutes, but

Lyman violates them when he speaks disrespectfully to Marie. She then shows her

dignity and power through her silence. She simultaneously shames him and shows

hirn mercy by remahing silent: "at that moment she showed me pity. She could have

taken me down, embanassed me, but Marie remained composed, eyes clouded.

Weary, knowing, she took a little napkin and patted her lips, then stared at me for an

endless moment" (315). Her ability to remain silent here consolidates her power

because she does not feel it necessary to defend her position verbally or to assert

her status by dressing him down,

Because silence functions in so many complicated ways, and because its

meaning ahnrays depends on its context, it is difficult to draw clear parallels for

models of communication within the discourse surrounding Native literature.

However, as I have discussed in relation to the (non)narning of Moses, words have

great power whether they are used or withheld, and to take no action is a choice with

consequences just as taking action is a choice with consequences. If our focus and

our investment is in academic discourse, then we are in positions of systemic power;

we are 'insiders' and the Native texts that we are reading are 'outsider. ln this case,

failing to listen to Native voices in English Studies reasserts our power and control of

the academic context. If, on the other hand, we approach Native texts as students, if

we place the text at the centre of our focus and conceive of ounelves as the

outsiders. we give up some of our power, or, more accurately, we see the

perspective from which we are not dominant. We can then silently Men until we feel

that we have a useful contribution to make to the conversation. Ultimately, it will be

up to the student to decide when she should begin to speak. but if she attempts to

explain and invite others into her leaming process rather than to dernonstrate her

mastery of the text, then the beginning of her speaking does not need to signal the

end of her listening. The change of individual acadernics' focus or rnethodology may

gradually lead to a more general systemic openness to diverse texts and

methodolog ies within Eng lis h studies.

At1 the models of communication that I have addressed thus far differ from the

types of communication in academic discourse in their informality and in their orality.

Academia privileges formal wdtnig over infomal speech, but these models are not

entirely distinct. Because the academy is made of individuals who are leaming and

sharing ideas, a model of informal, verbal communication can provide analogies for

academics' wntten communication. Furthemore, much of the academic process

happens in classrooms and conferences where verbal communication is used and

where informality is possible. Not only doeç Erdrich explore silences on the level of

communication between characters and silences in the fom of gaps at the textual

level, but she also addresses the 'silence' of written communication and the silencnig

that is the result of systemic oppression or invisibility. It is easier to apply these

silences to acadernic discourse.

Although most of the communication in Love Medicine is verbal and informal,

Erdrich also writes of situations in which written communication is used. In these

situations, the written word funcüons more as silence than as utterance, because

whenever the wntten word is used it faits to communicate and in fact Ieads to

unproductive silence. When Nector decides to leave Marie for Lulu, he writes notes

rather than talking to either woman. This plan bacMires as Marie refuses to

acknowledge the communicatÏon, and the note to Lulu lights the fire that bums her

house down and destroys her relationship with Nedor. In wnüng the note to Marie,

Nector tries to avoid a face to face confrontation, but he gives Marie the chance to

refuse the role of Mener. The other uses of the written word centre around Nector

or his son Lyman. Nector signs Lulurs eviction notice, which hurts her, shows

disrespect, and hams their relationship. When Nector retums from school, he

brings a copy of Moby Dick, which is a cultural referent that his mother cannot

understand, and so inhibits communication between them:

You're always reading that book,' my mother said once. What's in it?' The story of the great white whale.' She could not believe it. After a while, she said, 'What do they got to wail about, those whites?' I told her the whale was a fish as big as the church. She did not believe this either. Who would? (1 25)

The inability of Nector and his mother to communicate around Moby Dick calls

into question daims of the universality of 'great works of literaturetr and serves as a

reminder that different people know different texts, as well as difFerent cultural

contexts. Critics should either explain their references and the signifmnces of those

references, or at least recognize the narrowness of their intended audience.

When Lyman is planning his factory, he writes down the production plan in a list that

stands out from the rest of the text because it lacks narrative and stylistic beauty

(309-310). This plan, so carefully Risctibed Ri wnüng fails in grand style, finally

culminating in the not at the factory when Lyman's careful, linear organizatïon is

overülrown and complete chaos reigns.

Written communications in the academy can potentially faii for the same

reasons that they fail in Love Medicine. In the case of Nector's notes to Marie and

Lulu, he thinks that writtan communications are definitive and stable, and so he does

not make sure that they have been received and understood. Once wntten words

are released into the worfd, writars and critics cannot be sure of how they wilI be

received or underçtood. Verbal communication can also be fraught with

indeterminacy, but the immediacy of verbal contexts often facilitate questioning and

clarification. If the writeh or cnücrs goal is not onty indeteminacy or multiplicity of

meanings, sjhe has to seek feedback and keep Iines of communication open so that

slhe can c lam or at least becorne aware of the unforeseen effects of herihis ~ o r d s . ~

The problem with Lyman's 'perfect on paper' plan was that he underesümated

the complexity and unpredictability of people and events who cannot be contained by

words. Lyman learns the hard way that the people on his list are not just, or even

pnmarily 'workers' - they are brothen, sisters, mothers and cousins with different

desires. opinions, behaviours and personalities. Likewisa, wrïters, whether they are

creative writers or critics, are not contained or Iimited by their words. Academic

discourse is not only the interplay of ideas, but also of people and penonalities that

can change, grow, and contradict thernselves and each other.

The last level of silence addressed in Love Medicine is systemic silence. when

Lipsha relates the story of Gerry's trial (201-202). Here we learn of a kind of

systemic silencing of Native voices. Native witnesses are simply not recognized in

the court system in the way that white witnesses are. When the hegemonic

discourse of the legal system does not hear Native voices, they are made

functionally silent from the systemic perspective even when they are talking. There

is no indication in this scene that the individuats within the legal system are

selfconsciously racist or üiat the system officially discriminates against Native

people. 'Silencing' does not require an active decision on the part of the oppressor,

With the increasing availability of tetecornmunications technology, B is becoming more possible for writers to engage directiy in dialogues to clam their meanings or respond to cnticisms. However. because telecommunicaüons techndogy is far h m univenally accessible, t is important that its users do not rely on it exclusive[y, but aIso participate in public discussions, interviews, speaking engagements and written publications.

but is hstead a sin of omission. This systemic silencing is the textual example of

silence that is most directly applicable to academia, as it involves cross-cultural

interaction as well as interaction between individuals and an institution. This lack of

recognition and acceptance of Native witnesses in Gerry's trial is similar to what may

happen to Native literature and perhaps to cnücism by Native scholars in the

academy if the poçsibility and validity of different ways of telling and different ways of

knowing are not recognized. If the academy fails to recognize ditferent

epistemologies and methodologies. it will be unable to accommodate diverse

literatures. This is not to Say that Erdrich presents Native people as always

oppressed by, or incapable of dealing with. hegemonic systems; indeed, 1 is Lyman's

recognlion of his systemic existence in the form of BIA records and IRS accounts

that gives him the strength and courage to recover from the grief-induced drinking

binge he suffers after his brother Henry Jr.'s death (300).

In Love Medicine, the changing points of view and perspectives cause multiple

and complex silences. In each chapter, certain perspectives are silenced and certain

Ridividuals choose to remain silent. Erdrich retums to stories from many angles and

contexts, and the reader gradually pieces stories together and cornes to realke the

imperfection of any individual perspective of events. In this way, we gradually

become aware of silences in stories. A story that sounded complete and reasonable

later gets more infomiaüon added to it, and in tetrospect, we can see the gaps that

may have existed but were invisible in the first telling. What has not been said onIy

bernes apparent when the story is told from a different perspective, with a difrent

focus, or when the central events are seen as periphetal events in other stories.

As students, we can take this multiplicity of perspectives as a waming against

atternpting definiüve readings. The 'stories' that we create about this text are

necessarily imperfect and Iimited by our own perspectives. Rather than engaging in

an adversarial model of criticisrn that attempts to discredit previous writings and

encourages scholars to accept one reading by rejecting another, we can see cnücal

contributions as ditferent and complementary perspectives on, or pieœs of, the

everelusive Whole' story. Although it may be tempting to strive for a unified,

totalizing reading, this temptation is misleading, because 1 relies on the illusion of a

unified, stable, and autonomous 'text' independent of the reader.

Although the parallels are less direct. connections can also be drawn between

critical practices and Erdrich's charaders' uses of silence. The first such use of

silence 1 examined was selfdefence. The critical analogy of this use of silence for

personal selfdefence is indirect. If she has published a text, an author is clearly not

participating in.this kind of selfdefensive silence. She is making henelf vulnerable

to the unpredictable responses of the unknown readerfcritic. I am not implying that

Louise Erdrich herself is anything like June Kashpaw or Albertine Johnson. but that

because of the history of oppression and betrayal of Native people on this continent,

any utterancefpublication by a Native M e r intended partly or wholly for a non-Native

audience is an act of courage and trust. Because of our systernic pdvilege,

non-Native scholars of Native Iiterature have a responsibility to try at al1 costs to

avoîd inflicting damage with our responses to the texts we have been given. If we

colonize, appropriate, or grossly misunderstand a Native te* then we use it directly

or indirectly. to assert our own hegemony, we reaffimi Native literature's marginal

status in the academy, and we betray a trust.

The complex protection and h a n of the silence that surrounds Moses

illuminates the role of Native literature in the academy. If we do not acknowledge

Native literature, then it does not exist, academically speaking - it does not exist for

'us.' This Iimits the range of our iiterary experience, and may adversely affect Native

writers and their audiences. However, as invisibility saves Moses, so hvisibility may

Save Native Iiterature. If calling it into official, academic existence means bringing it

into a dangerous situation, then the dangers may outweigh the beneffis of the study.

If we must, by necessity colonize or appropriate the literature or the discourse, better

not to acknowledge it at all. This is why it is so important that, if we are going to

recognize Native Iiterature, we do so carefully, acknowledging the dangers of

recognition.

Erdrich's novel suggests that honest communication relies on explanation and

feedback. Through Lipsha's ignorance of his mother, Erdrich demonstrates that the

withholding of information is painful and inhibits healing. The novel is full of loaded

silences when what is unsaid fills a room and inhibits connections between people.

Until they are very intimately connected, whenever charaden assume they know

what another is thinking, they are mistaken and miss opportunities to communkate.

The cross-cultural reading of Native texts is bound to involve the confrontation of

difficuIt historical, political. social, and perhaps personal issues that critics may prefer

not to address directiy- To address contenüous issues or to dmw readers' attention

to the unpleasant or shameful situations necessitates takîng critical risks? In

j See Gayatri Spivak on the risks of criەcism in "Questions of Muitic~lturalism'~

Erdrich's novel we see that selfdefensive silence can be unproductive or even, in the

case of Henry Jr, selfdestructive. Furthemiore, that which is not said does not

cease to exist, so responsible critics, like responsible characten within the novel,

must assume responsibility not only for what they Say, but also for what they choose

not to Say.

CHAPTER TVVO

Silent Listening , Silent Leaming :

Models of Communication in Honour the Sun

Aiways listen to the silence. When you feel your emotions al! in turmoil

inside you, listen to the silence. (Honour the Sun 184)

Silence is an important element of Ruby Slipperjack's Honourthe Sun, and the

silences take many foms and funcüon on many different levels. White there are

times in the novel when, as in Love Medicine, silence indicates failed

communication. anger, or discornfort, in Honour the Sun silence usually indicates

respecthl listening. Silence is often peaceful and calm, and it is used to magnify the

noises or the words that are spoken.

In Honour the Sun, silence infoms character development, setting, and the

leaming process. As in Love Medicine, the most simple level at which silence

functions is the level of dialogue when characters choose not to speak. Silence is

also important to the setting of the novel and that setting is an important factor in the

development of Owl, the fictional giri whose diary is Honour Uie Sun. She is a

p roduct of her environ ments: familial, social, and p hysical. Because Honour the Sun

records the Fie and experiences of a young girl as she gtom up, education and

development figure prominently in the general progression of the story. Her silences

and the silences around her often elher initiate or refiect her education and g r h .

Owl learns from the people around her, especially her mother, known only as 'Mom,'

who maintain silence and let her leam through observation and experience. She is

often soothed and comforted by the silence and peacefulness of her physical

environment.

On a broader level. the Iimited perspective of the diary fom allows for gaps or

silences in the information that we are given as readers. Because of the limited point

of view of the novel, it is difficult to Say to what extent the communication patterns of

this family are indicative of its culture, but Owl gradually shows us how

communication works within her family. Since the entire novel takes place within this

limited community, the communication patterns within the family are the only ones

we leam of while reading the novel. It is this kind of communication then that we

learn from, and these silences that we can attempt to apply to our reading.

The textual silences of the novel are largely due to gaps in the information that

Owl gives us. These gaps are the result of her ignorance of the significance of some

of the events around her due to her age and limited experience.' When the teacher

holds and tickles Owl, she senses that something is wrong, but because she does

not understand his actions or their importance, she remains silent. "I slowly start

walking again. What was it that scared me? l should tell Morn. Tell Mom what? l

shrug. . . I don1t know" (126). She also does not understand, and so cannot explain,

some interactions between other people. This is the case when her mother sends

This is noted by Salat Ri "Other Words, Other Worlci" and Fee in "Discourse Conventions."

her away so she can talk to Jane about the 'old lady's son.' When Mom says "Go

and play for awhile but dont go far. Corne when I call you!" (132), Owl does so, and

does not think for long about the exchange between Jane and their mother.

Slipperjack hints to adult readers that the mother disapproves of a budding romance,

but Owl herself is silent on the subject

SIipperjack usually does not step in and fiIl these silences by giving us

information that Owl either is not pnvy to or that she does not understand. There is

nearly continuous narrative silence behind the voice of Owl; readers are not more

knowing than Owl herself. This lack of a narrative voice outside the frarne of the

diary serves several functions. The non-Anishnabe reader is leaming not only about

the specific characters in the novel, but also about a culture and a way of Iife. The

process of this leaming is observational rather than verbal. Citing anthropological

and linguisüc studies, Margery Fee asserts that Slipperjack's economy of verbal

explanation is not only a stylistic choice, but also has roots in her cultural

background: "verbal explanation is not a feature of traditional Native leaming where

the learner observes, often for a long time, in silence and then attempts the task

without help. We constantly intervene and explain. . . . ExplanatÏon and

interpretation is not a feature of [Honour the Sun] . . . events are described and left

unglossed" ("Discoune Conventions" 47). Just as Owl lems through observation,

so does the reader. lnsofar as this pedagogical technique is unfarniliar to the reader,

s/he leams not only the stories presented, but also how to leam. As Fee notes. this

learning requires patience and interpretive ability. The reader, like Owl, sometimes

lacks some of the information in a given situation, and from Owl, the reader can leam

to accept the validity of partial understanding.

Slipperjack's decision ta show rather than to interpret shows trust in the

interpretive abilities of her audience. Her control of the interpretation of her work is

limited by her stylistic choice to refrain from inserting frames of knowledge outside of

Owl's perception. As discussed in the previous chapter, the structure of Love

Medicine problematizes each perspective it presents and so prevents the reading of

any one character as representative of her or his culture or community. In Honour

the Son, on the other hand, only Owl's perspective is presented, so the limited point

of view suggests that the reader take Owl as representative.

Although there is an atmosphere of silence through much of Honourthe Sun,

Slippeqack does not present 'noise' and 'silence' as simple opposites, but rather as

relative and context-specific states. When there is a steady stream of chatter, it

ends up functioning the same way that silence often does, that is, as a calrn,

peaceful background. The novel begins with a passage that indicates that from

Owl's perspective, constant chatter is not particularly meaningful. "Rocking rny doll

back and forth and Iistening to Sarah's constant chatter, Irm drowsy" (9). Here the

meaning of Sarahrs words is lost in their excessiveness and in the enjoyrnent of the

experienœ of the day. and her speech is noise rather than rneaningful utterance.

This noise has the effect that silence might have: 1 puts the listener to sleep.

During M l ' s development through the üme that she relates in her diary, she

moves through three diflerent phases that are marked by dÏfferent uses of silence.

When she is a chiid, her silences are usually cafm and happy, but offen inattentive.

As an adolescent, she begins to use silence out of shyness or nervousness. This is

a time of emotional turmoil when she is surrounded by external noise more often

than she was during her childhood. By the end of the novel, Owl is moving toward

adulthood, and she is attempting to regain the peacefulness of silence. She h e m

the advice "listen to the silence and begins to leam a mature, reflective use of

silence.

As a child, Owl likes silence. The wind is completely gone now. I sit there

thinking we should all chew at the same time, so there'd be some silencet' (54). Owl

also notes that her rnother likes silence: "1 shall be the first one up again this

morning. Mom is very happy in the moming when everything is quiet. I like it best

when there are just the two of us by the fire" (17). This appreciation of quiet is

something that Owl is leaming from her mother, and she enjoys being with her

mother because they can enjoy the silence together.

When Owl is Young, her silence is offen an indication of her intense but

shifting focus. Sometimes this focus is so nanow that it excludes most of her

external surroundings. There are times when there are many people and much

activity around her when Owl either physically retreats into solitude or else she

rnentally retreats by shifting her focus ont0 somethhg small and silent. It îs her

intensity of focus that gives the noveI its feeling of silence. We can see this focus in

the following passage as she mentions calm. then noise, then gets lost in her

self-contained experienœ of her physical environment:

tt has gone very calm and peaceful. I hear a loon out there somewhere- The village seems so noisy in the evenîngç, dogs barking, kids laughing and squeallng over by the store. I can hear someone chopping wood over at the point. . . . A mosquito has just landed on my

am. He walks around on his long skinny legs, poking at my skin with his needle. tums and pokes again. Hey, hers pushing 1 in now. I don't feel anything. His belly is getting full. 1 squeeze the end of his full belly. He pulls out his needle. Whoops, I busted his belly! Yuck, blood. and my a m is itching now. I'd better go in. (15)

ln an immature, undeveloped way, Owl already knows how to 'listen to the silence'.

This is a skill that she will [ose as she becomes caught up in the noise around her

and then will have to releam in a more mature way later in her Ife. The shifting

intensity of focus serves a purpose çomewhat Iike the multiple perspectives of Love

Medicine. In that novel, the rnultiplicity of perspectives destabilizes the idea of a

singular truth by showing how the story depends on who is telling it. Here Slippe jack

too shows that it is the perspective of the observer that dictates what is seen.

Although Owl and her mother share a love of silence, Owl's silence is not

valued when it signals inattention. ln the canoe with her mother and some siblings,

Owl watches a seagull soaflng while she is lost in thought:

But if it flies across that Sun again, l'II have so many blobs in my eyes that l'II . . . Ouch! Mom taps me on the side of the head with her paddle. 'How many times do I have to talk to you before you hear me?' Water drips off my hair and into my ear. 'Now hand me my bag there in the box beside you!' Mom says in her high, angry voice. (57)

In this passage, her inattention makes her miss offers: "Wess is popping his gum

and Brian has just popped his bubblegum over his nose. l tum around to Morn and

ask, 'Hey! Where's mine?' She pauses to dig in her sweater pocket. sayhg, '1

offered you one but you didn't answer. I'm telling you, girl, your daydreaming wilI get

you into trouble one of these days!"' (59). An intense focus that Ieads ta inattention

to people is not desirable.

Although Owl is often distracted, she also has moments of attention and

perception. She sometimes studies other people as intently as she studies the

natural environment around her. On a family excursion, Tony is hit in the face by a

fiopping fish that Morn has caught When her siblings are laughing at Tony because

of his reaction and the fishy slime on his face, Owl watches the reactions of

everyone, not just those who are making noise: "I study Mom before 1 see. beneath

the straight face and calm voice. that her eyes are filling with swallowed laug hier.

Morn is wiping Tony's face with a wet cloth" (58). Here Owl teaches the reader to

listen not only to what is being said, but also to pay attention to the larger context.

because perhaps the most important person in a conversation may be the one who

remains siient

With her siblings and peen, Owl remains silent for different reasons. She

says nothing when she is teased and does not go to her mother for defence, or even

to cornplain. After her brother Wess has dipped her in a mud puddle, Owl cornes in

and cleans up without a word. "Mom watches me from the bed but doesn't Say

anything. The others are too busy gohg about their own business to ask how I've

gotten so muddy" (47). She explains this unwillingness to tell on her siblings or €0

ask for help later when Wess has left her on a small rock in the lake. Owl considers:

"Should I disgrace myself by yelling for help? Should I yell? l'II wait a litfie longer"

(52). To yell for help would be to show weakness; to rernain silent and calm is to be

dignified.

In Homur the Son, silence does not indicate a lack of important things to Say,

rather it indicah maturity and strength. That Owl often remanis silent instead of

chattering constantly or asking many questions indicates that she is growing up and

maturing. Although Owl is curious and intelligent, she does not behave in the way

that I expect curious and intelligent children to behave. That is. she does not ask

incessant questions or talk a lot When she does ask questions. the response she

receives is not encouraging. When she eats unfamiliar food fmn town, she asks

Vera about it:

'Mmm ... bey, Vera, what's this thin meat in here?' Glancing from the book she's reading, 'That's harn,' she says. After taking another bite, I ask, 'What's this orange stuff in here?' Looking up again, she says, 'Oh. that's cheese.' she's getting annoyed. Affer another mouthful. I ask. 'W hat's this creamy, white stuff in the green leaves?' 'Oh, be quiet! Don7 be so stupid,' she continues with her reading. I shnig and slowly eat my sandwich, thoroughly enjoying each bite. (80)

Likewise. although she and her mother communicate wcll and have a good

relationship, they do not communicate in the verbal manner that I have learned is

'good communication'. Because these characters communicate in a manner

unfamiliar to me, I have to put aside my preconceived ideas of how loving mothers

and daughten talk in order to begin to understand their relationship, and because

they are of a culture different from rny own, I have to acknowledge the possiblitity

that my unfamiliarity with their rnodel of communication is the result of a cultural

difference.

When Owl's silence does not indicate inattention to people around her, it

becomes a rnarker of maturity, strength and pride. In several scenes, OwI

contributes to the work of the family while quietly leaming from the adults around her.

She is content to listen to their talk and does not need to speak herself: "I sit down

beside Mom and string some beads for her. Aunty cornes in and sits down on the

bed. too. I give them some tea. white they sit talking" (46).

lmmediately after the first scene in the novel, Owl introduces her mother, and

in this first interaction Morn shows herself to be a quiet woman who uses her words

concisely. In this first interaction. Owl has chewed snuff and been sick as a result

Her mother says almost nothing about the incident, only "'Go lay down on the

bedding you put on the woodpile"' (1 0); later she asks "'Did you eat anything this

That Owl has leamed from her mother how and when to remain silent is clear

when she remambers funny situations where she could not laugh:

1 had learned how to keep from laughing when 1 had been caught in situations where I couldntt laugh. Like the time Our storekeeper served each customer with a srnile, despite the fact that one eye was almost swollen shut from a mosquito bite. For me, that was torture. Mom's expression never changed. . . . Then there was the time at church that John, one of the older men, was a littfe tipsy and he toppled over backwards, chair and ail, and went down with a mighty crash. All we could see were his feet sticking up. Oh, 1 would have died then, if l hadntt noticed that Mom was silently shaking with laughter. too. (22)

Not onfy does Owl leam about silence from her rnother, but her mother also uses

silence itself as a pedagogical technique in the way tftat Fee describes. All the times

that Morn is silent, Owl indicates that she is perceptive - she notices everything that

is going on around fier but does not offen choose to comment Owl communicates

this attentiveness by writing about Mom's actions; she records Mom's glances,

smiles, frowns, and physical gestures, and Mom's cornpetence is demonstrated not

only through her welkhosen words but also through her actions.

Mom's silence is balanced by her ability tu choose her words carefully so that

she says what needs to be said. Like Clifford Trafier does with his story of Wolf and

Mouse in "Spirit and Law in Native Amencan Narrative." Mom &en communicates

information in the form of a story. When Owl has dropped her bluebeny cup and

feels badly about it. Mom does not address the present situation directly but instead

tells a related story: "'Once. . . Wess could f i l his cup every two minutes, 'til one day,

he tripped in front of me and out rolfed a wad of rnoss he had been using to stuff his

cup over halfway full.' I start to laugh, and she turns away to continue with her

picking" (23). Mom's criteria of what needs ta be said seems to be what will benefit

others. not what will help her or make her look smart or powerful. She talks to tell

stories, occasionally to give her children guidance, and occasionally to comfort them.

She never relates her own knowledge simply for Vie sake of dernonstrathg that

knowledge. Owl's older brother Dave possesses another kind of silence, similar to

that of his rnother. "We've never seen hirn angry; we don? even rernember him ever

raising his voice. He gets attention wherever he goes" (37). Here, Dave's ability to

remain quiet is a due to his authonty and respectability.

Owl learns a lot from her mother, who uses silence to teach her and silence to

heighten the impact of the things that she chooses to Say. Owl can see that on a

physical, environmental lever, as well as on a persona! level, silence amplifies noise

and that noise amplifies silence: "lt is so quiet on the lake that we can still hear

noises from the village werre leaving behind" (19). Silence often becornes more

audible against background noise. Just as the sound of the village in the distance

makes more noticeable the quiet of the lake, so the chatter of children makes Morn's

quietness stand out. Because this silence is a characteristic of Mom, the mature,

kind. competent authority figure, 1 is shown as poslive and powerful. This is not to

Say that all respectable adults are quiet al1 the üme. When the community meets at

the store on grocery delivery day, "the store is packed with people; everyone is

talking and laughingt' (26). There is a time for chatter and laughter and a thne for

silence.

Not only does Owl's mother use silence to intensify the impact of the words

that she chooses to speak and to consolidate her authority, but she also uses it to

teach her children. When Owl retums from school one day to find the cabin locked.

she calls for her mother who does not answer; later, Owl finds her by the lake

tanning a moose hide. When they hear Brian calling from the cabin, Owl questions

her mother: "Grinning, I look at Mom and ask, 'If I was that loud, how corne you didntt

answer me?' She looks at me wlh a srnile, '1 figured I'd just see if that button nose of

yours works!"' (96). Here again, Mom has pedagogical reasons for her silence. She

is teaching Owl to figure things out and to act independently.

Because Mom chooses her words carefully and does not speak unless she

has something important to say, we can guess that her telling stories every night

before going to sleep is not just idle entertainment, but is an important tirne for the

family and for the passing on of knowledge: "Now the jokes and storÎes start.

Sornetimes, we tell old lndian fegends with some hilarious mistakes. When we know

them well enough, Mom tells us another and we keep repeating it again üII we can

teII it correctly. I like story tirne" (15). lt is in felling stories that Mom talks themost,

and so the value of these storÎes is heightened. Because Slipperjack shows her

characters teaching through stories, we can surmise that her narrative is also

instructive. She does not need to explain to us the ways of life of this community or

the effects of contact with the non-Native world because she is explaining it to us

through story.

Mom's silence does not always indicate that she is teaching or that she is

calm and serene; at other times it indicates her anger. Mom occasionally ignores

other characters to indicate that she is angry. as when Owl has borrowed and

destroyed a pair of Mom's stockings:

I drop my eyes and put my head down. It's getting hard to swallow. 1 murmur, 'No. They weren't my school stockings. I couldn't find them . . .' She continues to look at me, waiting for the rest. 'I found a pair in the box over there. They were your stockings.' Morn takes a deep breath, then totally ignores me. . . . The conversation starts again with Mom pretending l'm not even there. (86)

Owl herself leams this use of silence when she is still young. Silence becomes

neœssary for safety as the family hides on the island from the dangerously drunken

men in the village. Silence then becomes Owl's reaction to her anger at the

situation. The 'town bully' has shot their dog, and Owl writes: "Annie is still cuning

and swearing between each sob, but I sk in silence while the anger and hate settle

like a ton of cold cernent deep inside me" (36). Here Owl's silence does not have the

positive associations of peacefulness. attentiveness, maturity, or pride that it has had

before; rather, it indicates hostility. This is not to Say that her reaction is

inappropriate; she sees that she and her siblings are poweriess, and she chooses to

manitain a cold, angry silence rather than to express her feelings throug h words and

tears, as Annie does. S he cannot control her extemal circumstances, so s he tries

instead to contrai her reacüon and response: 'Very calmIy I get back Rito bed. It's

very dark in here now. For the first time, I lay down without fear. The man can corne

again and kill us all; I dont care. I'm not afraid" (36). The moming after this incident,

the family is unusually quiet: "Itfs quiet inside the cabin this momhg - no fights, no

arguments and no laughter" (36).

Owl leams an economy of verbal communication not only from her mother,

but also from the rest of her family. Many of the requests, favours. and other familial

negotiations happen wordlessly. Owl explains that when the family goes to "the big

portage," she usually walks. On the day of which she writes, however, "Vera srniles

at [her], 'Ail right, get in. ['II walk this time.' [She] glanœ[sj at Mom. She nods" (1 9).

Owl has not asked to ride in the canoe, but Vera knows that this is what she wants.

Owl then does not ask any questions, nor does she verbally thank Vera, but she

looks to her mother for silent confirmation that she may accept Vera's offer, as Mom

is the final authority.

Although the silence of family members usually communicates effectively,

there is one incident in the novel when Owl misinterprets silence. After blueberry

picking with Barbara and Vera, Owl is nearly hit by a train. and iç rescued by

Barbara, after which "Barbara fixes a strange look at [her] for a second before she

tums away without a word and walks through the bush towards [the] cabin" (138).

Owl thinks that Barbara and her mother are angry with her for spilling the blueberries

and for being careless around the train, but from the looks they give her and from

Wess's question - "You figure everyoners mad at you over there. now?" (138) - it seerns more likely that they are more frightened and wonied than angfy. Slipperjack

ieaves O w k misunderstanding implicit, and this is one of the very few moments in

the novel when we as readers have a better or at least different understanding than

Owl does.

The other way that silence can cause misunderstanding is when information is

withheld. Dave is unaware that the family has withheld information ftom hirn, and in

this way silence iç used to maintain an illusion that. while it rnay be intended for his

own good, still functions to isolate him from the rest of the family. "Maybe he's never

realized how much we have to Iive with here. All his visits have ahays been happy

family gatherings. We never tell him anything" (37).

Owl's increasing perceptiveness of the behaviours and interactions of the

people around her signals her developing maturity. As Owl enten adolescence, the

second phase of her development in the novel, she becomes less happy and calm,

and her silences are increasingly caused by newousness or shyness. Earlier in the

novel, Owl chooses not to speak because she is inattentive, listening, or maintaining

her pride, but now she sometimes feels unable to speak. This is the case when she

is talking to Freddie, whose father has just died. "I shnig and shuffk off towards the

cabin, not knowing what else to say" (143). As she finds henelf in new situations

and as she becornes more conscious of herself and how others see her, her silence

more often cornes from discornfort or indecision than from daydreaming or an

enjoyment of peace and quiet, as it did in her childhood. This change begins around

the same time as Barbara's comment: "You rnay be eleven years old but you sure

don? look it Just remernber that," about which Owl thinks 'Whab going on anyway?

What did E do wrong? What's she so mad about? She gone crazy or something?

And whatk my age got to do with anything, anyways? Oh shucks, forget k Mom is

sitting by the bed sewing with the beads, making such a nice pattern. Why doesntt

she Say something?" (145). Here, when she is aware that something is wrong or has

changed, her motheh silence is disconcerting rather than comforting.

During this time, as Owl gets older and more mischievous with "the outhouse

gang," silence acquires another purpose as she hides from adults. "We fall face

down qat on the ground, holding our breaths. Footsteps are approaching from up the

path, swift and even" (159). Here silence is put to the uses of secrecy and

deception. Although Slippe jack only wntes of relatively hamfess childish pranks,

this chapter does illustrate a potentially harmful application of silence. Owl is no

longer enjoying silence or finding peace and comfort in Ît.

Not only îs Owl's use of silence changing, but so is her mother's, and these

changes are related. Mom is beginning to drink, their relationship is sufiering, and

neither of them is as happy as she was. In Mom, this change is largely signalled by

the change in how and when she speaks and how and when she remains silent-

Although Mom has always been quiet, she has aiways told stories in the evening.

The time and place that she chooses to speak has been limited, and so the times

when she does speak at length have seemed important. Once several of her

siblings have gone and Owl is feeling lonely, she refiects. "Mom doesnlt even feel

like telling nighttime stories, anymore. Nothing's the sarne" (i70). This is a new kind

of silence - a sad and lonely kind which signifies a lack of enetgy and enthusiasm.

In the next chapter, Mom's decline is signalled by her speaking when before

she would have remained quiet. "Morn sighs. I look at her, slumped at the end of the

bench. She sighs again, looknig at me, then back to Brian. 'Don't you kids ever stop

arguing?' Brian whirls to look at her, totally punled and asks, 'Why for?' 1 look at

Mom. She shakes her head. 'Never mind- She takes a pot off the shelf and begins

supper. I sit down and try to figure out something here. But I'm hungry" (182). Kids

chatter and bicker in a way that adults do not. and usually adults do not interfere, so

BrÏan and Owl are surprised at Morn's comment. Again, Owl does not explain what

there is to 'figure out,' but instead points to her own confusion and discornfort with

the changes in her mother.

Owl also relates situations in which the changes in Mom's behaviour are more

obvious. When Owl returns frorn school to find the cabin locked, she finds her

mother at Sarah's cabin, drunk. "There's Morn. She's singing one of her favounte

church hymns quite loudly, swaying from side to side, a high-pitched voice, totally

oblivious to everything and everyone around her" (171). Through most of the novel

Mom has been very aware of 'everything and everyone around her'. and she has

been quiet. Now the opposite is true, and Owf even says to her "Shut upl" (171)

Ironically, it is when her mother is drunk that Owl can speak to her more freely, in a

way that is more like my conception of 'good communication'. Owl writes: "I feel su

much more free to talk to her about anything when she's dnink. This is a lot better

than talking to myself or maybe it's because I know she won? remember the

conversation in the moming" (172). Words c m be spoken more freely now because

they hold less importance. If words are used too freely. if they are not listened to or

not remembered, then they becorne less meaningful and less powerful. Ow! can talk

more freely to fier rnother now, but meir conversations mean less than they did when

they measured their words more carefully.

The only time that the subject of silence is explicitly addressed Ri Honour the

Sun is when Owl's mother can see that Owl is going through an emotionalIy difficult

perïod of her Ife. Mom gives Owl advice:

'Always listen to the silence. When you feel your emotions all in tumoil inside you. listen to the silence. . .' Softly, Mom's voice trails away, as if she were only thinking out loud. How do you listen to the silence when silence doesnrt have a noise? Or does it? I sit and listen. I can hear my heart beat, my breathing , a bird chirp from across the bay, Brian breaking branches somewhere, a slight wind overhead above the trees. a train corning, a dull hum in the air, and always rny heartbeats. I srnile at Mom. Yes, it is very calming. (1 84)

This moment marks the begittning of the final phase of Owl's development in Honour

the Sun. At this point, Owl is beginning to become an adult. From her mother's

simple advice, Owl leams to be attentive to the subtlety around her. She notices the

Iife around her and leams to be calm while listening to 1. This teaching opens up the

possibility of Iistening not only to utterances, but also to the gaps between. Owl is

not instmcted to ignore the noise. but rather to listen ta the silence.

Not only does Slippe jack explore her characters' relationships with and uses

of silence, but she also gestures toward the larger systemic silences of mutually

incomprehensible language systems. Slipperjack's presentation of the role of

English in this community inteisects with her presentation of 'official' education.

There are dues in the novel that wîthin the world of this comrnunity, the discourse of

academic education in English is not central. Very Iittle of Owl's diary is dedicated to

things that happen in school. When she does write about school she wntes about

Vie people and their interactions, not about the lessons. The learning that is most

relevant to Owl is not academic, and in fact she is not fi uent in English, ~e sole

ianguage of instruction Ri the school:

Later, I hear the dodor talking to Vera outside in the waiting room. Then he cornes in and checks me over. I realize that I didn't understand some of the things he said. My English isn't that good. I wouldn't dare talk English in school. l'd be embarrassed and teased to death if I dared to talk English in front of the whole classroom. So the most we ever Say is to answer shyly, 'Yes' or 'No' to the teacher's questions. Any English 1 know is only from what I read in my school books and by listening to the teacher talk. 1 would never dare try to talk to him. If only I saw him by myself, maybe i would try. I sometimes wish I could talk to the teacher easily like I talk Ojibway to Morn. But 1 wouldn't dare. I'd be too embarrassed. (77-78)

Owl's language silences her in school. and she is not alone in her discornfort in

English. 'The whole class roars with laughter. Of course, we al1 speak our own

language. so after surveying the class. Teacher raps a ruler on the desk and says,

'Joe, Ben. Save it till after school, eh?"' (95). As discussed earlier, Mom often

chooses to employ silence as an effective pedagogical technique, but in the

Euro-North American educational tradition, teaching usually invoives explanation

through words, both written and spoken. Silence can be an effective teaching tool in

Owl's home context, but in her schooI context silence indicates failed education.

Although Slipperjack does not comment explicitly on the relative significance

of English and Ojibway in Owl's life, she does implicitiy refer to the ramifications of

language and education. English is the sole language of instruction at the school,

and when students pass al1 the grades taught there, they must leave the village to go

to a residential school. This relationship between education and separation from

cornmun~ supports Kimberly Blaeser's argument in "Learning 'The Language the

Presidents Speak"' that: "Literacy purports to mean simple cornpetence in and the

ability to communkate through the reading and Wrifing of language. In actuality.

however, it is a much more complicated issue, one with a myrïad of poliücal. social,

cultural, and even moral implications" ("Leaming 'The Language"' 230): In this case,

Owl is in the complicated position of being literate but not fluent in English. The

teacher, on the other hand, presumably has a mastery of both spoken and wntten

English, but is illiterate and cannot speak Ojibway. As Blaeser writes. this:

establishment of the categories of Iiterate and illiterate not only creates value divisions but also serves to advance a political agenda. The privileged of society 'mnstnict the illiterate as other' just as Western cuiture views the Oriental as other. In each instance knowledge of 'the other' is presumed, resulüng in an appropriation of the other's identity. (231)

In this case. the situation is complex, because "many people may be 'literate at

home' but still 'illiterate in society at large"' (233). Within the novel, the teacher is

'literate at home' insofar as 'home' means his job as a teacher and his memory of life

in mainstream culture, but he is illiterate in the society of the village. Moving out one

more step he becomes literate again in the larger context of Canadian society. The

position of the non-Ojibway-speaking reader is similarly complex. The novel is

published in English. but once the reader notices that it is 'translated.' s/he is

reminded that, within the frame of the novel, slhe is illiterate and 'other'.

Althoug h such linguistic, cultural. social. and age ditferences could distance

nomNative readers from Owl, the diary fom of the novel and the intimacy of the style

serve to combat this distancing and to align the reader with Owl, who leams a great

deal through the course of the narrative Owl is a student in the school and, more

impoctantiy, she is a student of her mother and the other members of her community.

As a student. she Mens and observes much more than she speaks. As readen, we

can [eam from our alignment with her. and position ourselves as students.

Eigenbrod also addresses the politics of literacy in relation to Native literature, including Slipperjack's work.

By presenting occasions both of Owl's sucœssful and unsuccessful listening,

Slippe jack teaches the reader how to Iisten and leam effectively. When Owl pays

attention to those who are silent in a conversation, she demonstrates both the

potential for communication that silence holds and the importance of broad

attentiveness on the part of the listenerfobserver. This insight is particularly

important for critics of Native literature, because much of the Iiterature is connected

to social and political contexts in which power imbalances oppress and silence

people. For every Native writer there are many Native people who are not writing.

The Iives and experiences of the people who remain silent, from the perspective of

the academy - that is, those who do not attend non-Native educational institutions

and do not write and publish in English - are siient participants in our conversation.

In its conversation about Native Iiterature, the academy cannot hear the majonty of

Native people. Many of these people may be choosing to remain 'silent'. or rather,

choosing not to address non-Native academics in ways that we c m hear or choose

to hear. This decision not to participate should indicate to us not that they are

incapable of contributing, but rather that they have made a choice not to 'speak' in

the particular academically recognizable way. This choice is a kind of participation in

that we can leam from it At the least, those who are not speaking c m remind us

that our conversation is not the only kind of conversation. and that the importance of

our forum for discussion is contextual and relative. The acknowledgement of the

non-participation of so many others should at least teach us some hurnility and give

us some penpecüve on our own acüvities. Critics who focus only on the proie& at

hand and [ose sight of the larger context in which their work functions become like

Owl when she misses offers of gum.

Mom's advice to Owl to "listen to the silence" is a further reminder to be

attentive to context and to subtlety. Honourthe Sun encourages its reader to pause

and notice her or his surroundings. Although ais teaching is not directly applicable

to academic discourse, at least not in the way that 1 is intended by Morn in the novel,

students, like Owl, might benefit fiom paying attention to that which is usually not

noticed or else is taken for granted. This might mean listening to conversations and

debates that are out of the realrn of the academy, or attempting to notice what is not

being said, and who is not parücipating in the discoune. Listening to the silence

gives Owl perspective. Her own problems are less ovennrhelming when she pays

attention to the larger world around her - a world which seems 'silent' until it is given

attention. Similarly, we can gain perspective on our work if we pay attention to that

which is not normally seen as academically relevant.

Mom is a good listener and an effective communicator through most of

Honoor the Sun, but because she often chooses to remain silent, her communication

skills are revealed through her looks and physical gestures. The reader can leam

these techniques from the novel and apply them in his or her personal Ife, but the

application becomes mare diicult in the academy, where the only officially

recognized acts are utterances, and wntten utterances are privileged over oral. In

classrooms, seminan, and conferences, however, academks have the oppominity

ta listen silentiy, and also perhaps to teach silenüy by allowing othen to corne to their

own conclusions,

This model is more process- than productdriented and so rnay be tinte

consuming. As Fee observes, the process of leaming through observation can take

a long time, and so its academic equivalent may not facilitate prolific writing.

Although this slowness is contrary to the focus on cornpetition and production that

commonly characterizes 'success' in so much of contemporary public life, including

academic Me, it can have beneficial consequences. The idea that "noises seem to

amplify in the stillness" (89) is applicable at disciplinary or discursive levels.

The first articles to be published in the field of Native studies and the first

Iiterary texts to gain mainstream attention influenced the development of the field

greatly. When there was 'stillness' in the field, the first noises seemed louder. As

there are more and more voices speaking and more and more 'noise' being

produced around Native literature, the impact of most of the individual articles is

reduced, although the importance and recognition of the field as a whole may be

increasing. We should be careful that we do not then end up making louder noises

simply for the sake of being heard. Non-Native academics, since we have the

numerical majority and since we should not be the ones primarity setting the direction

of the field, must be careful not to add excess noise that will reduce the impact of

others' utterances. As Elizabeth Cook-Lynn reminds her readers. "non-Native

scholars still, at the close of the twentieth century, write most of the books about

Indians" ('Who Stolett 19), but this is not ta Say that non-Natives should never

contribute to the field. Cook-Lynn herself resists this assumption: "no thoughtful

Naüve scholar suggests that the primacy of the Native voice should exclude any

other" C'Who Stole" 21). lnstead of cernainhg entirely silent we c m , Iike 'Mom:

attempt to ascertain whether or not there is a need for our contribution to the

conversation at any given tirne. If we ask ounelves Barbara Riley's question "Whorn

does it serve" (qtd. in Hoy, 'When You Admit" 33). and find that the answer is

'myself.' then perhaps we should remain publicly siIent w M e we support and

encourage the efforts of others.

CHAPTER THREE

Students and Storytellers: Leaming to Listen

in Keeper N Me and

Stones o f the Road Allowance People

Richard Wagamese's Keeper N' Me is a novel that teaches by telling the story of a

student. The novel follows Gamet Raven on his joumey of self-discovery as he

leams about his personal history, his culture, and his role within his community.

Gamet is taken from his home as a young child, so until his retum as an adult, he is

wmpletely ignorant of what it means to be an Anishanabe man. When Gamet

retums to White Dog and is reunited with his family, he begins a journey that is

personally, spiritually, and culturally educational. He learns from al1 the people

around hh, both from what they Say and from how they behave. and especially from

Keeper, who assumes the role of his teacher. By Iistenhg to Gamet's story of his

joumey as a student the reader of Keeper N' Me can leam to approach the text itself

as a student

Both Keeper N' Me and Maria Campbell's Sfonés of the Road Alïuwance

People grow out of and refer to the tradition of oral storytelling. ln her introduction €0

Sfonies, Campbell explains her role as a storyteller, then she M e s the storÏes

themselves through the narrative voice of a storyteller to encourage reading them

aloud. Both writers employ dialed, and Richard Wagamese explicitly addresses

issues of storytelling through his protagonist Gamet Because both of these texts

are closely Iinked to oral literature, the role of the Iistener is especially important and

obvious. In both texts, the reader is addressed as a listener, which highlights the

responsibility and the importance of the active participation of the reader. The foie of

the listener is very important in the oral tradition, as the oral text is an event which

cannot be separated from its context. Barbara Godard explains how one can

"conceptualize oral literature as performance, [and how]. + . this approach to verbal

art conceives it as communication which distributes the emphasis equally between

text and context, between text and receiver" ("Talking About Ounelves" 9). Godard

also argues that written and oral literatures are not entirely different: "literature is in

fact a speech context, dependent on unspoken and culturally shared knowledge of

the niles, conventions and expectaüons in play in that particular conte* The

collaboration of readerlaudience in the constitution of the particular experience is of

fundamental importance" (20). The meaning of the stoiy is created in the interaction

between text and reader; the text is nota force which acts upon a passive reader.

Furthermore. the rules of this interaction are culturally determined. and so the

reading process is complicated by culturai difference between the writer and reader.

The reader haç to leam the conventions that govern haw to listen in order to

participate in the story of the text

in Keeper N' Me, the process of [earning the conventions of Iistening is

facilitafed by the structure of the novel. The novel follows Gamet's process as he

himself learns about the culture from which he has been taken. Through the course

of the novel, he moves from ignorance to understanding as he Iistens and leams,

and, by the end of the novel, takes on the role of storyteller himself. Keeper N' Me,

opens with a prologue in which Keeper gives some background to Anishanabe

culture and to Gamet's story. He says that he has encouraged Gamet ta "write ail of

this down. [toJ be a storytelier" (4). Both Keeper and Gamet address the reader

directiy as 'you', and neither assumes that the implied reader has a great amount of

knowledge about Anishanabe culture or reservaüon Me. Their 'yod includes a broad

potential auaience.

Both Keeper N' Me and Stones o f the Road Ailowance People are written

from, and refer to, traditions that value the spoken word and oral stories in ways

different from Western understandings of stories. The role of narrative is culturally

specific, and so. as Patricia Monture Angus explains, "fiction is probably not. . . a

good description of a lot of Native Amencan literature" ("Native Amerka" 39).

Wagamese's and Campbell's texts, by their references to orality, carry the

importance and authonty that the spoken word holds in the cultures of which and

from which they are written, and yet within non-Native contexts they also hold the

authority of the written, printed text. for that is the fom that these authors have

chosen. By combining these foms, these writers have already implicitly addressed a

double audience. Wagamese welcomes a mixed audience by writing in the Western

tradition of the novel, by publishing the text, and by giving background information

hto Anishanabe culure and history. Furthemore, he frames the novel wiai

assertions that imply aie possibilii of cross-cuffural understanding. Near the

beginning of the novel Keeper tells the reader to "listen hard and pay close attention.

[and] you'll see that they're your stories too. Our stories al! work like thatt' (4), and

Gamet ends his story saying, "Guess we're al1 Indians really" (214).

Once he has welcomed a mked audience and interpellated his reader as

listener, Wagamese includes within his text an exploration of the benefits of listening

and examples of how to listen well. Paradoxically, listening is easy but requires care

and concentration. ln Keeper's prologue, he says of the Anishanabe: "But us we

listen al1 the tirne. To old guys like me. Always talkin' anyway, might as well listen,

eh?" (20) He implies here that although listening is important, it is not necessarily

diffÏcult He then describes the more careful listening that is required if one is going

to become a teacher. He describes storytellers as "the ones who corne and listen ta

the old men and the old women when they talk. Listen hard, leam the stories, then

go tell everyone the same thing. That way the old days are never gone for us, see?"

(2) The pteceding passage both describes listening to stories as active leaming and

also explains one of the many reasons that listening is important. It is by passing on

stories that culture and history are presenred. Keeper tells Gamet about the loss of

collective knowledge that accompanies distraction: "See, you look too long at the

shiny an' your eyes go funny. . . . People didn't see that the ones who carried the

knowledge were startin' €0 die. No one was coming around to ask an' leam. Pretty

soon the old ones were all gone and mosta what they knew went with 'em" (69).

Part of the value of the transmission of oral information is its permanence.

Keeper explains to Gamet that after he walked away from his Midewewin teaching

he was unable to forget what he had leamed: "all that knowledge was inside me.

Ev'rythin' he gave me, all the things he taught me, ev'rythin' he put inside me stayed

rÏght there" (71). The idea of permanence in spoken words is unusual in the Western

Iiteiary tradiüun. where the written nature of te* is commonly understood to lend

them permanence. Keeper's focus, however. is on the location of knowledge.

Knowledge exists in people, not books. Keeper explains how the written word can

actually inhibit leaming and understanding, because it is not flexible enough to adapt

to different contexts. "Anyways. they came here with their Great Book. lookin'

strange at our ways, not takin' time to leam about it, not askin' for a guide, judgin'.

Guess when your truth's al1 spelled out for you you got no need to learn no more. 1

don? know" (75).

In KeeperN8 Me listening is not only a physical, auditory process: it also

indicates a general openness. "Sitting there, al1 quiet and watching, listening,

learning. That's how the magic seeps in. Anishanabe are pretty big on magic, she

says. . . . A common magic that teaches you how to live with each other. . . . Like

leaving the door to your insides unlocked" (8). Listening - being open to one's

physical sunoundings and comrnunity - is important personally as well as socially.

Gamet himself benefits greatly from his ability to listen. He fnst becomes interested

in learning about his culture from listening to his friend Lonnie's analysis of his need

for self-awareness. When Gamet first arrives at White Dog, the kind of

communication that is most immediately important to him is personal communication

within his family. Stanley, Jane, and his mother each talk atone with Gamet; they

assure him of their love, tell hirn of their Iives, and get to know hirn again. From this

penonal communication, Gamet feels welcomed and loved and gains the strength to

stay at White Dog and leam about his history and culture: "Thinking about my mother

being on her way towards me right that very minute was enough to get me anxious

and wanting to mn again. Maybe it was the fact that it was a long walk to town that

held me there, but even more it was the talk me'n Jane had" (52).

Because the sharing of and listening to the spoken word is so important, to

deny people the opportunity to communicate is very hamful. Garnet explains how

Native people have been prevented from communicating:

They put us on reserves telling us we could (ive the old way there, hunt and fish and trap, do al1 the things we used to do before the whiteman got here. Said it was for ouf own benefit But according to Keeper it was for their benef&, not ours- He says putting us on al1 these resenres kept us lndians from talking a lot to each other. (1 55)

Each generation has to Iisten to the preceding generations in order to leam history,

tradition, ceremony. and law. However, listening to eiders is socially important not

only because of the content of what is passed on, but also because of the rules for

intergenerational relations. One of the first things that Gamet lems when he returns

to White Dog is that "you gotta respect what the old folks either tell you or ask you to

do. Ws part of the way we are" (65). Keeper explains how storytellers are cared for

by those who listen to them: 'Young ones bringin' us fresh fish, fresh meat, driving us

here and there, doin' all kinda work around the place, hanging around ail the time"

(2). Through their help and gRs, young people 'eam' the stories they leam. In her

Introduction, Campbell explains a similar process: "1 have paid for the stories by

re-leaming and re-thinkhg my language and by being a helper or servant to the

teachers. I have also paid for the stories with gifts of blankets, tobacco and even a

prize Arab stallion" (2).

In addition to the 'official' storytelling of older people passing on knowledge to

younger people, many other forms of oral communication are also valued in Keeper

N' Me. One of the forms of communication that Wagamese addresses is gossip.

Gamet explains the "moccasin telegraph. . . all it takes is one whisper and pretty

soon everyone's in on the news" (192). Everyone on White Dog knows what

everyone else is doing, but this interest in each other's news is not presented as

harmful or rnalicious. Rather. it is a sign of caring and involvement

Gamet quickly leams that words can teach, can nurture, and can express

affection, and he gradually leams that words have the potential to help people

because they are powerful. The power that enables words to help also dictates that

words must be used carefully and respectfully. When Wally Red Sky announces his

plan to bring radio to White Dog, Keeper suspects that the idea has corne from

Gamet. He tells Gamet "You're feelin' [ost here again. I can tell you're wantin' some

of that fast livinr again. . . . I figure you were talking to Wally and tellin' him al1 about

how fast nt shiny that world can be. Kinda got him thinkin' about this radio. Right? ...

Youtll learn about that from whatrs cornni'. . . . Big lesson for you. Big lesson" (129).

Keeper implies here that Gamet has some responsibility for the way his words effect

othen. Because words are valuable and infiuential, the speaker has to be careful

who is listening to his or her words and how the listener might be affected by them.

Through Gamet, Wagamese teaches fessons about the uses and dangers of

words. Because of the genre of Keeper K Me as welf as its plot structure,

Wagamese can include within the text not only an extended exploration of the

importance and role of listening, but also a case study of a good listener and a good

student Gamet learns f m Keeper how to hone his Iistening skills; he learns how

listening functions in the Anishanabe context and how to be a careful, cntical listener.

From the time that he is a child, however, Gamet is a 'good listener' insofar as he

absorbs and internalizes what he hears. Unfortunately, for most of his life until he

retums to White Dog, what he has heard are racist stereotypes of what 'Indians' are.

Because he has no mernories or experiences to combat this influence, he does not

learn the skill of critical listening. He does not question these stereotypes and so

internalizes racism and denies his Native identity. In contrast to Gamet, Keeper was

a cntical listener even as a chiid. When he was in residential school, he was told that

if ha practised his religion or spoke his language he would bum in hell. Keeper did

not respond to this threat: "Me I figured I was already brown why not bum the rest of

the way, so I ran away" (36).

Gamet cannot resist in this way while he is growing up, because he is in an

impossible situation; he doesn't "know how to be an Indian" (1 3) and yet he is visibly

different from his White dassmates and foster families, He does not want to learn

how to 'be an Indian' because everything he has heard has indicated that to be an

Indian is not a desirable identity. His response to this impossible situation is to

become a kind of storyteller. He creates new racial identities for himself that are

supported by stories. As "Huey Kolahey," "Pancho Santilla," and the half-Chinese

son of Wing Fey he creates histones to support his fictional identities. During this

phase of his Iife, he is a stoiyteller of a sort, but his storïes are intended to hide the

truth rather than to reveal 8 This kind of storytelling is not an assertion of voice but a

silencing of self as he denies his identity and history. By lying, he does not take

responsibility for his words, and he does not respect his listeners. It is not until he

leams critical listening skills and invests Ume and effort into listening and leaming

from Keeper and his family that he can become a storyteller in the Anishanabe way

that Keeper has explained. Throughout the course of Keeper N' Me. Gamet learns

how to be a good Iistener - a skill that Keeper himself has had to leam before he can

becorne a teacher.

When Gamet arrives at White Dog he is already an observant listener. When

he sees the village for the first time he thinks, "Reminded me of what Lonnie

described the Detroit ghettos to be like" (33). Recalling previous conversations with

Lonnie and drawing parallels with his current sluation demonstrates that he has

intemalized what his friend has told him. Gamet's convenational flexibility also

makes him a good Iistener. On the first night he spends sitting on the hill with his

rnother, he says, "'Good to be out'" and she responds, "'Was it tough in there?"'

Gamet expiains that he had not been talking about prison: "l'd only meant 1 was

good to be outside," but because he is Iistening to her he is able to change the

subject and keep the communication open. He responds to her question: "'Kinda

. . . . You learn to just keep to yourself and no one bugs you"' (55).

When Gamet begins to leam how to live within his culture, he remains a good,

attentive listener, but now he also leams to sort through what he has previously

iistened to and believed. He becornes a more critical Iistener as he has to set aside

his pre-established assumptions to leam about Anishanabe cultural practices in their

own context When he first arrives. fie is resistant to Anishanabe spirituality because

of the stereotypes he has leamed in mainstream society:

Some of Our people called [Midewewin] medicine men and when I heard that l really wanted no part of 1. To me medicine men were large painted-up guys with the scary faces shaking rattles and srnall dead animais around people's heads and sending them off on the warpath . . . . Stanley tried to explain it all to me one night but it got to be so complicated that I just shut him off in my mind. (67)

By the time he recalls this incident. he has leamed that his assurnptions were

inapplicable, and he has leamed something about Midewewin.

Everyone around Gamet. especialIy Keeper, is eager to teach him about his

culture and his history because they can see that he has the interest and the

potential to leam. Gamet's intelligence is revealed by his silence rather than by his

words. Keeper tells him: "Ant I mn tell you got smarts by the way you're always

watchin' things go on around you. Never Say nothin', just watchin'. Learnin'. Tryin'

to see with diff'rent eyes. . . . Leamed lots already by bein' silent. S'good" (73).

Wlhin the Anishanabe culture of White Dog, silences also happen in the fom of

pauses within conversations. Although these silences are normal. natural, and

important in this context, Gamet realizes that this model of communication is

culturally specific. When in Toronto, Gamet lives with Lonnie Flower and his family.

The Flowers are good, supportive friends who are good listeners in a style very

different from Gamet's own family. Gamet notices this ditference when he observes:

"What with smoking their pipes and staring away across the sky like they do, there's

aiways huge holes in the Iine of talk. Not Iike black people who keep up the patter

nonstop. Indians stare at the sky lots between words. Waiüng for the words to fall, I

guess" (68). Gamet has leamed this convention by the time Keeper asks him to be

his student He pauses before answering. and then they "[sit] in silence the rest of

that long night" (74). Wagamese portrays this mode! of communication that includes

pauses and silences, but he is aware that it is not the only option.

When he first meets the Flowers, Gamet explains his history. Lonnie's brother

Truman indicates that he has been listening and that he sympathizes when he draws

a conclusion that is relevant to his own life. He says, "Damn. Sounds like lndians

are the niggers now" (22). Lonnie then shows that he has been listening not only to

Gamet's words, but also to their implications when he says, "Shit, man. Everybody

be needin' fam'ly!. . . You know, I hearda this guy ninnin' around tryin' to tell folks he

be Hawaiian? A man can't be his own person if the man don't know himself' (22).

Lonnie also shows sensitivity when he recognizes that he does not know what

Gamet needs. "Shit, man, I don? know. lndian stuff. What it's like out there Iivin'

Indian, man. Maybe the brothers came up the same as you or maybe they know

somethin' about it all you aint ever figured out. I don't know" (24). Lonnie realizes

that whatever Gamet needs to leam will be culturally specific and will corne through

listening and learning.

Gamet initially responds negatively to Lonnie's suggestion that he try to leam

about "lndian stuff': "1 dont know either, man. Ail 1 know is that l've been around this

town now about a year and a half which is longer'n I ever stayed anywhere and l

dontt wanna be anywhere else. I don't wanna be anywhere or anybody else, okay?"

(24). Gamet is fkightened because he knows nothing about his background. When

he anives at White Dog he has to leam about his family and his culture from the

beg inning . His ignorance facilitates crosscultural read ing of the novel, because

non-Native readers are gently guided along with Gamet through the process of

leaming about Me on an Anishanabe reserve.

From the perspective of the reader, it is important that the characters within

the novel listen to each other and have good verbal communication. The Iimited

omniscient point of view of Keeper N' Me heightens the importance of dialogue.

Because we only know what Gamet (and sometimes Keeper) sees. hears. and

thinks, we must rely on the conversations he relates to get a fuller understanding of

the community and the events of the novel. Gamet's ignorance of life on the

reservation when he first arrives makes him unable to understand everything that is

happening around him. He is a student, and most of what he leams he leams from

observing and listening to the people around him. so their interactions are crucial to

his character development, to the plot, and also to Our understanding of the life that

is illuminated in the novel. Because Gamet is inexperienced and ignorant when he

arrives on the reservation, 1 is easy for readers who have little or no experience of

reservation life to poslion themselves alongside him and to leam with him.

Gamet leams through diverse experiences and conversations, but his role as

a student is made explicit in his relationship with Keeper. Keeper asks h h : "So I

wanna spend tirne Mth you. Nothin' big. Just walkin' round talkin', lookin' at things.

You got questions you ask an' I'II try an' answer. That way we both help each other

find ourselves. Kinda be each othefs guides. Sound good?" (73) Gamet accepts

the offer and becomes a student Gamet successfully learns a great deal over the

course of the novel, so readers can leam not only the lessons, but alsa how to leam.

He successfully listens, so readers can learn from hnii how to Men. In order for

Gamet to become the storyteller that he is in the narrative present, as he's telling

readers his story, he has already had to Iisten very well and carefully. He has shifted

from the role of the listener to the role of the speaker. In the events that he relates,

he is usually the listener, but in the fkame of the story, he is the speaker sharing what

he has learned,

In both Keeper N' Me and Stones of the Road Allowance People, it is easier to

draw conclusions about the importance of the culture of the writer than it is in either

Love Medicine or Honour the Sun. Neither Erdrich nor Slippe jack step outside the

frame of their stories to make explicl statements about the cultures from which they

wrÎte. so it is impossible to distinguish which specific thematic and stylistic elements

are the result of, or refiect, their cultural backgrounds. On the other hand, Campbell

beghs her text with an introduction in which siie explains the role of storytelling in

Métis culture. and Wagamese makes explicit assertions about Anishanabe culture

through both Keeper and Garnet-

Although Wagarnese stresses the distinctiveness of Anishanabe culture, the

non-Anishanabe critic approaching KeeperNt Me can still take Gamet as a model

and leam how to 'listent to the text. By seeing myself in a posiüon analogous to that

of the listener, I am positing myself as a student rather than as an expert or aven a

'cnüc.' As a student, I am in no posiüon to 'criticize', if that means to put myself

above a work and ta judge its merit in any objective way. As a student, the only

'judgements' 1 can make are of a work's relevance for my own life. and of my ability

to leam from it As a student, I am in a position to leam and then perhaps to share

what I have leamed or to discuss rny learning process, as Gamet has shared his.

In this way he is analogous to the crlic. who must first readnisten carefully, and then

when she thinks she has listened well enough to have something of her own to Say,

s he writeslspeaks.

Wagamese's intemal reading instructions are most clear through his use of

humour. Humour is an integral element of both Keeper N' Me and Stones of the

Road Allowance People, and in both texts moments that are serious and important

are also funny. Much of Gamet's leaming process happens through these funny

situations, which are often physical or visual, as in the scene in which Wally Red Sky

unwittingly broadcasts over his radio system his amorous advances toward Audrey,

the daughter of the chief of a neighboring reserve. Chief Oscar chases Wally all over

White Dog with most of the resenre population in tow. Wagamese explicitly instnicts

the reader how to read and understand humour in a passage that explains the role of

humour in Anishanabe culture and how it has been misinterpreted:

The first thing most people notice about us lndians is how we're laughing most of the tirne. . . . Used to be that non-lndians thought we were just simple. You know, typical kinda goofy-gnnning lackeys riding out to get shot offa our horses by the wagon train folks. Or standing around on a corner in some city bumming smokes an' change but yukking it up anyway. But the more they stick around the more they realize that lndians have a real good sense of humor and it's that humor more than anything that's allowed them to survive al[ aie crap that history threw their way. . . . Most of the teaching legends are fÏlIed with humor on accounta Keeper says when people are Iaughing they're really listening hard to what you're saying. (40)

The numerous funny scenes in Keeper N' Me are not 'just' funny - they are not

diversions from the instructive function of the novel, but are part of the hstrucüon.

The Ritegrdon of humour into al[ elernents of I fe destabilizes the binary

described by Kate Vangen: "Because the Euro-Amencan divides the world into two

categories - the sacred and the profane - he can cordon off the sacred and market

al1 else" (1 99).' The description of the pow-wow and subsequent events is a good

example of the inappficability of the binary between the sacred and the profane. The

pow-wow itself combines both elements, as al1 the reserves in the area ''corne and

dance and celebrate the powers of nature" (Keeper 138) but at the same time

'Yhere's another part of pow-wow. . . . It's called snaggin' and it means that the

young people are al1 around on the lookout for that special someone to snuggle up

with" (139). After the pow-wow Chief Oscar is enraged when he hears his daughter

Audrey and Wally 'snuggling up'. Oscar chases Wally in a hilarious scene that also

integrates elements of the sacred as Oscar is mistaken for "a bad spint chasin' the

kids around" (143). Disaster is averted as eventually Oscar's sense of humour

prevails over his anger: "'Me'n you, a canoe . . . ah-hoo, ah-hoo-hoo-hoo!' he

laughed and started to climb into the cab of his truck. 'Funniest damn thing I ever

heard in my life. Ah-hoo-hoo-hoo!. . . Best damn pow-wow I bin to in a long time"'

(1 45).

Keeper N' Me is an obvious text through which to discuss issues of leaming

and pedagogy because it thematizes discovery and ieaming and also because of

Wagamese's didactic style. The tone throughout the novel is instructive, and, through

Gamet and Keeper, Wagamese explains history, politics, social conventions, and

cultural practices. I am not using the word 'didactic'to implya stylisücflaw, rathet,

the didacticisrn is integral to the functioning of the novel, which is in keeping with

Clif€ord Trafier's analysis of traditional purposes of narraüve: "The purpose of

While I agree with Vangenrs general argument, L do not believe that al[ Euro-Amencan cuituraI produ- function within this binary, and in fact many may resist, de~tabilize~ or reject L

traditional narratives was to infom and educate, to transmit to soccessive

generations the spirit and the law" (81). In "Talking About Ourselves," Barbara

Godard explains how didacücism is a choice for many Native writers, including

Jeannette Armstrong and Beth Cuthand:

Armstrong insisted she was writing to teach values while Cuthand emphasized the value of using the English langoage to communicate her tribal traditions with other native groups whose languages she could not speak. Such didactic intentions are at odds with the currently prevailing post-modernist theories of a literature of process and play. Such divergence is largely responsible for the devaluation of this native literature. As we can see, these intentions stem from differïng aesthetic traditions and notions of the communicative event. (16)

These diflering 'notions of the communicative eventr may include a sense of urgency

and a desire to communicate clearly because of the political and social contexts out

of which Native writers are working. For people writing within andlor about

oppressed communities, writing that is primarily concerned with 'process and play'

may seem like an unaffordable luxury. 'The relationship between spintuality and

survival . . . ground[s] [Native] Iiterature" (Hulan 12), and is the foundation that raises

the stakes of the communication process. Native literature. Armand Gamet Ruffo

writes, "is concerned neither with aestheüc play for the sake of episternological

experimentation, nor with the expression of individual postmodern angst" (qtd. in

Hulan t 3).

Keeper establishes the didactic purpose of the novel in his prologue when he

recalls the way that he encauraged Gamet to write: "Lots of people out there goffa

know what happened, how you found your way and what it takes to be an lndyun

these days" (4). Aithough the culturaI context of the noveI is crucial and Wagamese

does not minimize c u b a t diffecence, Keeper establishes that Gamet's story also

has the potential to teach cross-culturally: "I told the boy that we're al! tourists.

Everyone. Same thing. lndyun or not, we're all lookin' for a guide to help us fïnd our

way through" (2-3).

The role of didacticism in Keeper N' Me is complicated by Gametrs brother

Jackie's daim that it has "Always been our way to show the things we feel about

people instead of sayin' them" (1 96). Gamet repeatedly implies that within his

culture not only feelings but also instructi*ons and advice are shawn rather than

explained. This is in keeping with Maria Campbell's explanation in her Introduction to

M i the stories, I have had lifetimes of 'stufP put into rny memory. 1 am not even sure what it al1 is but the teachers Say, 'Don7 worry about it. just think that your brain is the computer you use and we are the people typing it in. When you need it, or you have had the expenence to understand it, your spirit will give it to you.' (2)

Slippe jack exercises this restraint through Honour the Sun, in which she shows

rather than explains her story. In Keeper N' Me, Gamet tells us that stories are left

unglossed so the listener can draw hisiher own conclusions, and he says that he

"leamed a whole lotta stuff about our people from just walking through the bush with

[Keeper] and letting him ramble on" (95). At the textual level, however, Wagamese

does not practise this technique but instead explains things clearly. For example,

Keeper tells Gamet that Gamet and his brother Jackie cannot connect with each

other because of a 'bear thing'. Although Gamet says that "lndians will lay

something out there like this 'bear thnig' and then not explain," he goes on to explain

to the reader what Keeper means.

I I I

Wagamese's tendency to explain could be a resuit of his wntaig for a mixed

audience. He cannot count on a commonaiity of experience in his audience so

through his explanations he can reduce the risk of misunderstanding. Keeper

explains the importance of conventions of preparation and serving of feasts and then

says that "nobody gets up'n talks about all this" (200). Gamet has already explained

that his learning process has been slow; in order to understand Iife on White Dog he

has had to watch, listen, and Iive there for an extended period of üme. Reading a

novel about a place is not the same as living there, so perhaps in order to present

the lessonç that he has leamed quickly and concisely, he chooses to explain them

through words. Part of the role of the teacher is to know what the student needs.

Keeper explains why he has taught Gamet €0 make a tobacco offering: "Me I knew

that he was ready. . . . That's the way we been teachin' young people for long, long

time. Stick with 'em and know when they're ready for more leamin' and ready for

findin' their own way too" (1 80). lnsofar as the reader is the student of the text.

Wagamese is the teacher, but he cannot gain the knowledge of his student that

Keeper has. Because he cannot know al1 of his students personally, he explains

processes more fully than Keeper explains them to Gamet

One of the lessons that Wagamese teaches more subtly is that the student

should not try to decide for himlhenelf what lessons slhe will leam. Gamet, the

good student, explains how he leams just from spending üme with Keeper and

Iistening to him 'ramble' about any number of things. The 'Americans,' on the other

hand, affempt to dictate the terms of their leamhg. The toudsts who corne to the

reserve üihk mat they c m buy stories with money Ristead of tirne and cornmitment

Keeper explains how the stories they hear are not the stories he would tell within his

own comrnunity: "1 dont talk so rornantic anymore 'less some of them nch Americans

are ready to dish out cash to hear a real lndyun talk 'bout the old days" (2). Rather

than being open to what is going on around them al1 the time, the tourists ask a lot of

questions, and "the first thing they wanna know is the cuss words. . . . Anyway, they

ask about everything and we get a lotta laughs outta teaching thern wrong and then

watching them trying to do what we told them" (83). The distinction between the

Americans who want a product - whether it be fish or cuss words or a "sacred

Ojibway Indian blessing" (83) - and Gamet who respects the process. encourages

the reader to atternpt to corne to the text open to leam whatever the text has to

teach, and to have the patience to enjoy and leam from the proœss of reading.

In Keeper Nt Me, the instructions on how to Iisten are presented within the

frame of the narrative; as Gamet leams how to listen, we witness this process and so

leam along with him. In Stones of the Road Allowance People, on the other hand,

Campbell does not explain the significance of eventç within the stories. She

discusses the roles of storytelling and of listening in her Introduction. and explains

why it is not necessary for the Iistener to understand everything that slhe hears:

"When you need it, or you have the experience to understand 1, your spirit will give it

to you" (2). She then proceeds with the telling of the stories Ri a way that assumes

that the Iistenerfreader is an insider. This approach relegates the non-Native reader

to the position of eavesdropper rather than addressee.

There are immediately obvious simiianües and fierences between Keeper N'

Me and Stonés of the Road Allowance People. Both texts employ dialect and in both

the narrator is explicitly identified as a storyteller, in the tradition of Anishanabe and

Métis storytelling, respectively. The most obvious dHerence between the texts is

that one is a novel and the other is a collection of stories. Wagamese adheres to a

Western literary genre while Campbell creates a work that defies simple

categorization. These stories are not 'short stories' in the Western European literary

sense. They look like poetry on the page. but they read more like stories than

poerns. Most importantly, they do not have a singular author. Campbell is the

translator of these stories, not their creator. The stories in this text are part of her

cultural tradition; they have been told before by other tellers, and while they can be

owned, traded, given, and sold, they do not have authors. Campbell's decision to

translate storîes instead of authoring stories is a decolonizing move. Arnold Krupat

explains how Western European literary tradition values authorship highly, and so

texts without authors have been dismissed: "Amencan lndian discourse, until very

recently, has been notoriously lacking in its possession of named auaiors, and this

has assuredly contributed to Euramericm neglect of it" (Krupat, "An Approach" 328).

Campbell has explicitly stated that her pnmary goal for writing is helping her Métis

community, but when her text is read outside that community it serves an additional

function. From the mainstrearn perspective, Campbell's choice to translate rather

than to author a text calls into question the English literary tradition that values

individual genius over collective creation. Ironically, it is partly the power and

authorîty that Campbell has gained as a respected writer, teacher and community

worker that provides €ter with the audience and the means to produce a text that

destabilizes dominant literary noms. Campbell's role as translator is a cornplex one,

as she not only translates between languages, but perhaps more importantly

between cultures and between discourse conventions, ln an interview with Hartmut

Lutz , Campbell explains her relationship with English:

I've been working with dialect for about 10 years, and a lot of my writing now is very broken English. 1 find that I can express myself better that way. l can't write in our language, because who would understand it? So I've been using the way that I spoke when I was at home, rather than the way I speak today. And the way I spoke when I was at home was what linguists cal! 'village English' - you know, very broken English. It's very beautiful. but it took me a long time to realize that Very lyrical. and I can express myself much better. I can also express my community better than I can in 'good' English. Ifs more like oral tradition, and I am able to work as a storyteller with that. (48)

Ron Marken, in the Forward to Campbell's text, discusses Campbell's use of English

in Stones of the Road Aibwance People: 'These stories have come a long joumey to

be with us from Mitchif through literal translations through the Queen's Imperia1

English and back to the earth in village English" (5). This is one of the levels of

translation that Campbell has performed. She has also translated between an oral

culture and a pnnt culture, and while doing so has been careful to retain the sound of

the stories. Marken reminds the reader that "Book culture is eye culture. Most of

us imagine through our eyes. Of course, we should feast on these stories with Our

eyes, but it is essential that we read them with Our earç fnst Say them aloud. Listen

to them with our friends" (4-5).

The use of dialect in both Wagamesers and Campbell's texts. but especially in

Campbell's, is a mark of pride, control, and authority, which is to say that it is a move

toward decolonkation. The non-Métis reader is compelled to meet the text halfway,

as she must alter her reading practise to accommodate new sounds, new rtiythrns

and new gramrnar.2 This destabilizes the hegemony of standard English, as the

assumption implicit even in the word 'standard' is that people who speak diifferent

kinds of English will, when they Mite for broad audiences, shiR to standard English.

That is to Say, they will alter their language usage to accommodate the mainstream

reader. By this mode[, the non-mainstrearn writer is travelling to the mainstrearn

reader's linguistic house, rather than inviting the reader to her own linguistic house.

By writing in dialect, then, not only does the writer decolonize English, but she also

makes a gesture of generosity and welcome as she invites strangers into her

language. Campbell tells these stories the way they sound in "a wami kitchen on a

stomy winter night. . . [when she is] sitting on the fioor with [her] Cheechum and the

old ladies" (Introduction 2). The glimpse of her culture that Campbell gives the

reader is more intimate than it would be if she had written in 'standard' English.

Although Campbell's use of dialect sets a tone of infomality and even

intimacy, the content of the stories keeps the non-Native reader at a distance. The

role of the reader is different in Stones of the Road Allowance People than in Keeper

Nt Me. Here the unnamed nanator is again identified as a storyteller, but the 'you'

that he - I use the male pronoun for the unnamed narrator because in the stories

where a gender is implied, he is male - addresses is usually a knowing Iistener. The

listener is always addressed as a cultural 'insider.' but the amount of implied

knowledge of the listener shifts. As a non-Native reader. I feel more like an

eavesdropper than a listener to these stories. "Dah Song of Dah Crow" opens wîth

the nanator addressing the reader: "I'm gonna teII you about dis man called Crow"

Susan Gingell discusses Campbell's "lhguisüc, stylisüc, and thematic métissage" (457) Ri 'When X Equak Zero: The Politics of Voice in First Peoples Poetry by Women."

(1 4). This line could be addressed to any Iistener who understands English. because

it does not imply any prior knowledge or understanding, but soon thereafter the

narrator begins to assume a knowing listener: "Hees a good man one of dem

peoples dat belong in dah ole days you know dah kine 1 mean." He then narrows his

implied Iistener further when he says, "Me I was scared we was tuming white" (14,

my italics). Because of the intimacy established by the direct address of 'you,' the

'we' of this sentence seems to include the listener and so implies a Native listener.

By making me feel like an eavesdropper, Campbell 'marginalizes' the

standard-English speaker and centralizes those whose language usage has in part

been a sign, a symptom. and a justification for their oppression. Just because I am

not addressed as the primary audience in the text does not mean that I feel

unwelcome. On the contrary, because these words are a manifestation of a largely

unfamiliar culture presented in a familiar format - a published book - I feel I have

been invited to obsewe and Iisten to the interactions in the crowded kitchen that

Campbell describes in her introduction.

Campbell's use of dialect in creative writing is analogous to the use of informal

or personal styles of writing in the academy. Just as there are good reasons not to

use standard English in fiction, so there may be important reasons to avoid standard

academic style or methodology in cnücisrn. Most simply and obviously, this

difierence alerts the reader to a different critical approach and destabilizes the notion

of one dominant intellectual style, epistemo logy, or methodolog y.

By and large, acadernic language attempts to divorce the intelledual from the

ernotional, the spiritual and the physical. Thb division is contrary to the movement of

much Native literature, where these etements are united. Furthemore, this desire to

divide the effects and the motivations of wnting cornes out of a place of privilege

where the writer has the luxury of playing in one realm at a time. When a writer is

working out of a community that is concemed with cultural, emotional. spiritual, and

physical sunrival, she may not think it important or possible to treat 'the intellectual'

as though it were a realm separate from the cultural, the emotional, the spiritual, or

the physical.

Paula Gunn Allen explains how the type of language that a writer uses can

categorize communication acts: "Phrased thus analytically, the query eradicates

much of the heated emotionality to which the fact of women's spiritual movements

give risen (84). There may well be a place for analytical language and for the

strategic decision to attempt to set aside emotion temporarily, but analytical

language is neither 'neutral,' nor objectively more effective than other styles of

language, and it is not the only option available for expressing complex ideas.

Whatever stylistic or methodological choices a critic makes, these decisions will

effect the political and social functioning of her or his work. Barbara Godard refiects

back on her process near the end of "Listening for the Silence":

Research methods, models, and metaphors virtually shape the matenal to what can be perceived through their grids. In setting out to wi€e an academic paper, I have opted for an analyüco-referenü model which marks its differenœ from the penormance mode1 of the text of ritual. For, whereas meaning is coteminous with event in this latter, in my text everything is quotable and repeatable, ahvays trace with no orighating moment. (1 54)

Accuracy, tnith. veracity, and the ability to trace documented sources are al[ of

great concem in the academy. Much of what we do is a search for tBith or tniths,

even if the tmth we find is that there is no singular tnRh. In this search, we cannot

just make things up. We need to be able to explain where we have acquired our

information and support our claims for its veracity. In several ways. Campbell's text

demonstrates a different and cornplex understanding of the concept of trt~th. On the

most basic level, Campbell does not (or cannot) explain where these stories corne

from in ternis that satisfy an academic style o f referencing. These stories are

apparentiy without singular, definable origin, or else their orïgin is unimportant They

are not presented as either fiction or non-fiction, but as 'stories.' Because their

sources are not specifically cited, their veracity cannot be established. Some of

them are, from my perspective, more likely 'fictional' and others are more 'realistic'

and therefore more likely 'tnier, but instead of encouraging the reader to decide what

is and is not 'true,' Campbell destabilizes the distinction bebveen these categories.

When 1 look within the text to try to leam new understandings of tmth and fiction, I

only encounter more complexity. In "Dah Song of Dah Crow" the narrator

establishes his credibility, presents the story as 'tme' and implies that he values

veracity when he says of Crow's ability to talk to eagles, "Dat's true! An me I believe

on it cause dah man dat tole me dat he never tell lies" (1 5). By holding up the

example of the man who 'never tell lies', the narrator Rnplies that this is an admirable

characteristic. However, shoctiy thereafier the nanator complicates the value of truth

when he says, "Dah stones dere not bad you know jus crazy. Nobody knows for

shore what hees me. I don tink nobody he care eeder" (19). In a story al[ about the

transformation of a woman into the wolf-like Rou Garou. the nanator quesüons his

own beliefs in the existence of these creatures and the source of his beliefs: "Dey

was bad tings from dah dark side of dah eart lees I tink dey was from dah dark side.

Maybe I tink dat cause dats what dah Prees he tell us" (29). His fear of the Rou

Garous is real - "1 never seed one an l shore never wan to eeder" (29) - but he also

respects his motheh opinion: "my rnudder ha Say 1 was gonna end up stupid if I

listen to dem kine of stories. . . . My mudder you know he was a good woman an he

have dah seeing. But me i don know. i jus never know who hees right my Mudder

or dah mans an dah Prees" (49).

Throughout this passage. and throughout the text, Campbell uses only the

male pronoun. While her decision may have been motivated prirnarily by a desire to

adhere to her linguistic roots, it also "signals the way in which the gender politics of

English imperial culture have overturned the balance of male and female principles

central to First Peoples cosmologies and healthy society" (Gingell460).

The biurring of the boundanes between tnith and fiction, or rather, the refusal

to work within that binary, and the resistance to 'standardr pronoun usage contribute

to Campbell's assertion of the validity of Métis narrative conventions and world views.

By consistently refusing to write within, or even with reference to, Western traditions,

Campbell calls into question Western reading techniques while sharing a beautiful

piece of her culture. Although this te& is wnttan in English, published in book fom

and includes an introduction explaining some background, it complicates the rather

clear mode1 for cross-ailtural reading that Keeper N' Me allows.

Whereas Keeper N' Me provides an accessible model of listening and the role

of the student that is largely transtatable and applicable to other contexts, Stones of

the Road Allowance PeopEe cornplkates the very notion of the broad applicability of

communication models. Campbell's text destabilizes more than it teaches easily

summarized [essons. Her textls tesistance to attempts at 'rnasteryl is more

instructive than the content of the stot-ies themselves. lnsofar as she is addressing a

non-Native reader, she is teaching openness to different forms, conventions, styles,

and conceptions of narrative. of history, and of truth. lnsofar as she is addressing a

Métis reader, she is affirrning the validity, and beauty of her or his culture and literary

traditions.

CONCLUSION

From the very beginning of this project. one of my goals, and pehaps my central

goal, has been to apply the ideas that 1 develop to rny own reading and critical

practices. I want to attempt to judge rny own work by the same criteria that I judge

other cntics, and I even hope to be honest in facing my own shortcornings and

failures. This goal has led ta some rather convoluted and complicated thought

processes. In the preceding chapten 1 have called for readings of texis by First

Nations writen that rely on intemal evidence rather than on preconceived ideas. I

want to learn how to read a particular text by being attentive to the ches within the

text itself rather than assuming that I already know what I wilI find and how I can

understand it This is not to Say that the text is a self-contained universe; intemal

clues may well suggest readings that look outward at targer socio-political or literary

contexts, but this process should begin with and be driven by the words of the

author. Keeping this goal in mind. I have often caught myself making assumptions

mat 1 have developed over many yean - assumptions that have grown out of

countiess sources rang ing from the racist stereotypes of the mainstream to cnücism

and history W e n by Native people. I have found myself thinking. "Yes, this is to be

expected, because Native people are . . . " or "This surpriseskonfuses me, because

know that l am judging characters

particular Native author, but on rny

Native people are not . . . " Whenever I do this, I

or authorial choices based not on the work of the

limited and Iimiting ideas of what "Native" is.

i

Although I set out to develop a model of reading that l could apply anew to

each text that I encountered, I find myself making generalizaüons. My goal is to look

at each text for instructions about how to read that particular text, but each time I

leam something, my inclination is to apply that knowledge to Native Literature in

general. By doing this I do not respect the differences between Aboriginal cultures,

let alone the ditferences between individual writers and their works. i find it more

diffïcult than I anticipated to give up my search for definitive and universally

applicable models.

To attempt to approach each text on its own tems is a slower, more tentative

process than to apply a pre-established theory. In a product-otfented academy, the

patience required by this approach is difficult to foster, but if I have leamed anything

in this process, it is the necessity of slowing down and thinking more carefully before

I make the shift from listenerfreader to speakerhriter.

[t woufd be neither possible nor desirable to begin each text with an entireiy

new approach, as though I had never read any Native litetature. Certainly I want to

appIy what I have leamed and gain cumulative knowledge. However, assurning that

any knowledge would apply to al1 te& by Native Mers Iirnits my openness to

difference, as I am more likely to see what 1 am looking for, and it shifts the focus of

my reading practrCce from the text to my own predetemined mode[ or approach. My

reading then becomes a proœss of slotting a new text into an old theory rather than

eamestly ûying to leam from the new text.

A model of dialogue wherein the reader understands herseif as a student of

the text she reads encourages openness and resists the desire for mastery. In this

model, the academic reading of a Native text by a non-Native critic is Iike a

cross-cultural collaboration because the meaning of the text is created a€ the

moment of reading. It is in the mind of the reader that the words live, and what the

reader then does with the text is detemined both by her interests and by the words

of the writer. I will now briefly examine The Book ofJessica as a model of

cross-cultural collaboration in which frustration, pain, and failure to communicate are

the result of a diffetence in expectations and communication models of the two

collaborators. This reading will be informed by Maria Campbell's autobiography

Haifbreed, which addresses a mixed audience and so also acts as a site of

cross-cultural encounter. The Book of Jessica includes the play script of Jessica

and a revisiting of the process of the 'collective creation' behind the play.

Jessica is a play created through the improvisation of Linda GrÏffÏÏs, directed

by Paul Thompson, in consultation with Maria Campbell. on whose life the play is

based. The process was very difficult for both women involved, and although a

successful play was created. the process was not al1 'successful,' as Campbell later

tells HaNnut Lutz "1 worked with a non-Native wnter, and l'Il never do it again. . . .

And ifs been very painful. There was no respect for the place that I came from"

(Contemporary Challenges 57). 1 will argue that Campbell and Griffrths have

different expectations of the process and the product because they are workhg from

different conventions. Griffis works to create within the mode1 of the 'feminist

confession,' but Campbell, perhaps because of her awareness of the danger of

vulnerability when addressing a mixed audience, resists the level of exposure that

this mode1 necessitates.

In Beyond Feminist Aesthetics, Rita Felski identifies and describes the

'feminist confession' as an autobiographical genre. She introduces her discussion

with this brief definition:

I focus on the confession, a distinctive subgenre of autobiography which has become prominent in recent yean, and whose importance in the context of feminism is cfearly related to the exemplary model of consciousness-raising. . . . I use 'confession' simply to specify a type of autobiographical wriüng which signals its intention to foreground the most penonal and Rithate details of the author's life. Francis Hart writes: "Confession' is personal history that seeks to communicate or express the essential nature, the truth, of the self. (87)

She goes on to describe the common elements of many texts of this genre:

"Although a number of differences exist among these texts both fomally and

ideologically, they share an explicitly rhetorical foregrounding of the relations hip

between a female author and a female reader and an emphasis upon the referential

and denotative dimension of textual comrnunicaüon rather than its formai specificity

One of the primary tenets of the feminist confession, and one that it shares

with both The Book of Jessica and Campbell's autobiography Haifireed îs an

emphasis on how the personal is political. The day to day realities of pnvate

individuals reflect systemic oppression and most be acknowledged publicly. Another

obvious similanty is in language usage, as "the feminist confession tends to avoid

selfconsciously literary language* (100). In Hahbreed, Campbell is more concemed

with being heard and understood than with demonstrating her literary skill. She says,

"wriüng is just one of the tools that I use in my work as an organizer" (Lutz,

Contempomy Challenges 4 1 ) .

Although Campbell's language usage is similar to that of the ferninist

confession, she is not working from the social position that underlies that genre. The

temi 'confessionr as Felski uses it is based on a development of the meaning of that

term Ri bourgeois society:

As the enforcernent of confession through religious faw incwasingly gives way to voluntary affirmations of faith and of the self, so the confession cornes increasing ly to symbolize a private assertion of freedom which may challenge rather than simply conform to existing social noms. Literary confession since the eig hteenth century is primarily concerned not with the admission of guilt and the appeal to a higher authority, but rather with the affirmation and exploration of free subjecüvity. (1 04)

It becornes clear through Halfbreed that the privilege of bourgeois society is a

prerequisite for this concept of confession to function. lmplicit in this mode1 of

confession is either the lack of a higher authority. or the guaranteed benevolence of

that higher authority. Confession (oses its chan without the promise of absolution.

'Often confession is less concemed with making an explicit political point than

in 'telling all,' with the catharüc release which accompanies speaking about that

which has been kept hidden and silent" (Felski 116). When she is a child, Mariat

leams that she must defend heneff and not show vulnerability. "l always triecf to

keep my head up and defend my friends and cousins in front of those white kids,

even when I knew we were wrongn (51). Even as a child, Maria seoses that to admit

you are wrong, to make yoursetf vulnerable, you have to be able to trust that you will

I use 'Campbell' or 'Mana Campbelr to Ïndicate the author of Haltbreed and of The Book of Jesska and 'MariaF to indicate the autobiographical protagonist in each text

not be hurt Confidence in the safety of confession cornes from living with privilege.

In The Book of Jessica. Campbell and Griffiths have strained and imperfect

communication, and at one point Campbell expresses her frustration with Grif۔th's

smiling, innocent niceness. Griffiths explains, "I protected myself the way

middle-class women do. You can't fight that, you can't hit L Why would you punch

me?" to which Campbell responds, "Well ... people love to punch me. To punch you

would be like hitting a cloud" (76).

Throughout the project, Grifihs attempts to work within the conventions of the

feminist confession, and she does not understand Campbell's resistance to this

mode. Griffiths thinks it very important that they reveal the most shocking parts of

Campbell's Iife. She recalls: "1 wanted to get to the 'street' part, but 1 didnt know how

to broach the subject. Suddenly I was polite in a way I hadn't been in years. I

couldnrt find a way to Say, 'So how did you start hooking?' or 'Whatk 1 like to be

stning out on smack?' At least not to a strangef (24). That Campbell is not

interested in the level of exposure expected in this genre is clear by her discornfort

with explicit content.

Maria: My reason for doing anything, is that it's for rny cornmunity. l am a community worker, the work has to be useful to the community, has to be healing ..... Ifs about the swearing, the blatant sexuality, al1 that stuff. You and I are really difterent in how we see that Healing - and for me thafs theatre, writing - is that you try to find ... yotr fmd what's beautiful, the essence, and thatk what you give back You know what I mean? That's community work. Some of those scenes in Jesska make my haïr stand up on end. I dont understand why we have to be so explicit . . Linda: Yes, Maria: L know there has to be ..- Linda: ... a story with a truth. (69)

Griffiths is so immersed in her expectations of confession that she thinks intimate

exposure is the only way to achieve Wuth.'

From Griffiths's position of privilege, she cannot see the dangers of exposure

that Campbell can see. Maria's reticence is analogous to the selfdefensive silence

used by sevetal characters in Love Medicine. In Halfbreed Maria attempts a tnisting

confession once, when she is in the hospital: "The doctor only made one more visit

He told me that i had to tell David the truth and make a clean break. David had been

to the hospital nearly every day. I talked to David that night and told him everything.

All he said was, 'I've been blaming myself for your breakdown. I guess I can stop

now.' Then he left" (165).

Campbell describes how exposure not only can leave one vulnerable to

betrayal but also can establish or reinforce a power imbalance that can exacerbate

social inequal Ries:

But if you sit across the table from me, and you Say, 'You poor thing, you've been oppressed. You live under colonkation,' and everything else. What you do is, you cop out from what your people came from. And we're no longer equa1 sitong across the table from each other. What happens then is, I becorne the poor oppressed perron, and you have power over me. But if both of us acknowledge that our grandfathers and grandmothers came through great stnigg les, then we c m talk to one another. (Lutz, Contemporary Challenges 59-60)

ln Halfbreed, Campbell does not dwell on shocking incidents in her life, nor does she

tell her story in an overtly emotive style. "There is no need for elaborate display of

emotions; in fa& emotion is rarely expressed because events speak for themselves.

But though remarkable for i€s understatement, Halfbreed is a book choking with

emotion" (Grant 126). 1 betieve Campbell's reserve in HaHbreed is due to her

inability to trust her intended audience, and that this inability to trust is partially

responsible for her desire for resewe in Jessica.

Campbell's intended audienœ marks perhaps the most significant departure

from Felski's model of the ferninist confessional. Much of the efiect of the feminist

confessional depends on its reception, because "the feminist confession . . . encodes

an audience. It self-consciously addresses a community of female readers rather

than an undifferenüated general public. This sense of communality is accentuated

through a tone of intimacy, shared allusions, and unexplained references with which

the reader is assumed to be familiar" (99). Many of the ways that Halfbreed

diverges from the ferninist confessional grow out of Campbell's distance from her

intended audience. Campbell's intended audienœ are the very people who have

either directly oppressed her or have enabled her oppression through their ignorance

of and blindness to social injustice. I do not mean to imply that HalAbreed does not

also appeal to a Métis and a Native audience, only that it is a non-Native audience

that Campbell directly addresses when she writes, "I write this for al1 of you, to tell

you what it is like to be a Halfbreed woman in our country. I want to tell you about

the joys and sorrows, the oppressing poverty, the fmstrations and the dreams" (2). It

is in part her prediction of a nonoNative audience that causes Campbell to write with

teserve. In the case of Jessica, cross-cultural trust is also at issue. Campbell's

stated motivation for creating the play is helpïng M&k people by taking "this kind of

power to the communlties" (Book 16), but the process itself is one of cross-cultural

collaboration because GMiths is non-Native.

Campbeli's rejecüon of the 'feminist confessional' model of author - reader

intimacy in favour of distance that still pemits understanding, CO-operation, and

respect has roots in histories of colonial power. One of the most destructive

tendencies of the colonial project is its consumption of that which it encounters. The

danger of consumption is real and extrerne in autobiographical genres where the

distancing safety of fictionalkation has been removed. Jenn fer Andrews describes

how Campbell experiences a fom of consumption when she shares her life story

with Linda Griffiths in the process that is recorded in The Book of Jessica: "Clearly,

GriffÏth's insistence on being a 'self-effacing vessel' becornes 'the ultimate gesture of

ingestion' or consumption of the other" (309): Campbell's response to the

appropriative dangers of intimacy is to wnte Halfbreed in a reserved tone. and to

remind her audience that they are ignorant of her situation. HaMbreed is not "a cry

for loven as Felski observes the confessional is, (Felski 11 O), but rather a cry for

understanding, respect, and recognition.

Non-Native scholars can 'recognize' Native literature simply by including 1 on

syllabuses and writing papers about it, but this does not neœssan'ly lead to

understandhg and respect. The study of Native literature can becorne a repetition or

symbolic reenactrnent of a colonial encounter îf academics assume a false neutrality

and assume objectivity in relation to the texts they study. By doing this, we place

ourselves above the lîterature and lose sight of our own subject positions.

1 recognîze that my suggestions that we publish less and that we abandon the

attempt to 'master' our subject matter are contrary to the general pradices and

In her discussion Andrews refen to Helen Hoy's interesthg artide "When You Admit You're a Thief, Then You Can Be Honourabler: NativeiNon-Naüve Collaboration in 'The Book of Jessica."'

philosophies of the academy, but the respectful, mutually beneficial. anti-colonial

study of Native Literature by nomNative academics requires not just minor changes

in focus or research methods, but a major shift in the way we conceptualize what we

do. Elizabeth Cook-Lynn points toward the broad scope of the changes that will

accompany a movement to study Native texts on their own ternis:

The reason for this lack of nurtufing is not that Native American Studies lacks disciplinary mechanisms, as has often been suggested by social scientists in anthropology and psychology. Rather, the reason is that the quintessential question of Western culture, "'how does it fit it?' is still the unanswered question that no one who is concerned about the crisis of the contemporary American academy wants to examine. The tnith is that Native American Studies does not 'ft,,' nor can 1, nor should it Rather, its meaningfulness stems from the fact that R challenges almost everything mat America has to offer in education and society. ("Who Stole" 25)

I am certainly not suggesting that we should or could unproblematicalIy apply Native

epistemologies to our academic practices, because we cannot pretend that we are

looking from the perspectives of cultures other than our own. We can recognize,

however, that our field does intersect with cultures that have not histodcally been

invited to participate in the formation of academic culture and practice. In order,

then, to engage in a field of study with different cultures, we rnust be prepared to

shift radically Our ways of thinking.

In The Book o f Jessica, Griffiths tells the story of a collaboration between

people who are not prepared to make radical shifts in their ways of thinking. and so

their communication is often unsuccessful. From the beginning. Gnmhs and

Campbeil have different visions of the project Griffith§ says, "Paul and Maria

wanted the project to deal directiy with the spintual world," to which Maria responds,

'What is she talking about anyway? This was not supposed to be a play about

spiritual worlds, it was supposed to be a play about a woman struggling with two

cultures, and how she got them balanced" (17). In the process of creating Jessica,

Griffiths studies Campbell and then improvises a character based on Campbell's

penonality and experiences. Through this process, Griffïths reads Campbell like a

text, and much of the failure to communicate is the result of her preconceived ideas

of her 'text,' and what kind of reading she wants to perfom. Furthemore, through

her attempt to be a "self-effacing vessel" (48), Griffiths denies her active role in the

creative process of reading .

Through the course of this proiect I have grappled with my own reading

process and have simultaneous[y tried to acknowledge my role in setting a 'reading

agenda' white attempting to ensure that the content of the texts themselves

contribute significantly to the setting of my agenda. I have tried to allow the content

and style of my texts to dictate how l will read them, but have also tried to see when I

fail to do this and am guided by my expectations. Although I have tried to leam from

the te& that I am studying, l see myself picking and choosing the lessons that I will

leam. This is in itçelf contrary to what I see at work in my prirnary texts, especially in

KeeperN' Me, in which Garnet must allow his teacher to determine what he is to

leam. Although l propose reading each text difberently, l apply the same reading

strategy to all the texts that I approach. That is to Say, although I noted that Love

Medicine advocates careful explanation and Honour the Sun advocates

demonstration and observation over explanation, I analysed both texts in a similar

manner. I did not explain my process more carefully when discusshg Love Medicine

and leave more to the interpretation of my reader when discussing Honour the Sun.

In al1 three of the novels I explore, especialiy Keeper N' Me and Honour the

Sun. patience is shown to be important l have written o f the importance of taking

time to Men and to make sure one's contribution is important before joining in the

conversation, and yet ! am producing this work for a deadline and to be awarded a

degree. Furthemore, I have read about humility and gratitude that is due to

teachers, and I have proposed that we should attempt to read texts in the spirit in

which they are offered. I believe we, as students, should leam as much as possible

about the cultures out of which the texts we study are written, and that academic

sources are not the only important or valid sources that c m teach us about the

cultures or the texts. All of these ideas lead me to think that in order to have followed

my own advice closely or to have put into practice my own theory, I would have to

have at least attempted to consutt with the authors of my primary texts, both to ask

for feedback and to thank thern for their words. Because I am advocating the

broadening of accepted sources of knowledge, because many discussions of Native

literature and politics cite experience as an important basis of authonty, and because

l propose a move toward more open, conversational models of leaming, direct

consultation would have been a fMhg contribution to my leaming process. l also

should have spent more time leaming about the cultures of the authon and the

characters, and should have consulted both academic and non-academic sources to

attempt to gain a more comptete understanding from more than one systern of

knowfedge. That I have only done some of these thnigs reminds me that my

understanding is seriously limited and that my conclusions are provisional and

im perfect

Although in all these ways 1 have faiIed to apply my own reading model, this

project has been fascinating and has taught me a great deal. 1 have re-examined my

assumptions about the functions that literature can serve, the reasons for engaging

in English studieç and rny criteria for judging what is and is not 'literature.' 1 have

encountered diverse narrative traditions, discourse conventions, and models of

interpersonal communication. and l hope that this exposure has made me a better

listener. I am aware that I asserted in my introduction that students shouM ask

'whom does it serve,' yet in my conclusion I can state with confidence only that 1 have

benefHed from my own work. Like Susan Gingell, I realize that:

In such a context, the question anses whether 1, as a beneficiary of resources and power my people appropriated, can now speak my words of appreciation for writers whose work is important for my people as well as thein to hear without simply continuing the tradition of sending more White words into the world and drowning our First Peoples words in the process. Knowing that First Nations, Métis, and Inuit voices are the ones that may need to be heard at this the, can 1 yet find a way to speak without adding to what Marilyn Dumont in "lt Crosses My Mind" calls 'white noise'? (449)

And, like Gingell, I am unable to answer definitively.

One of the centra t instructions to my people is to practise quietness, to listen, and speak only if you know the full rneaning of what you Say. It is said that you cannot cal1 your words back once they are uttered, and so you are responsible for the results from your words. lt is said that. for those reasons, it is best to prepare very serïously and carefully to make public contributions. (Jeannette Armstrong quoted by Young-lng 7 79)

At its worst, academic discourse may be a place where, to succeed, one must speak

qoickly and loudly, and when challenged, defend one's position al1 the more ardently

rather than listen openly and carefulIy to the critique. At its best, however, academic

discourse should resemble this Aboriginal model of word usage. The responsible

academic thinks and researches very carefully, and Iistens openly for a long time

before producing his or her own words on a subject, and then when slhe does, slhe

chooses those words specifically and carefully. After slhe has released her words.

s/he continues to engage in dialogue by explaining, clarifying, and attempting to leam

from criticism that s/he receives.

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