English 766
Dr. Kenneth Sherwood
September 7, 2005

Leon Stennis' Response

In the introduction to his anthology, Brian Swann has provided a good review on how Native American languages and literatures have been treated by non-Native Americans over the centuries. He also brings us up to date on how these languages and literatures are being treated today.

I have no doubt that most Americans would be surprised to hear that at one time there were over 500 languages spoken in the U.S. and Canada, mostly native American, and there are still about 200 spoken today. "Just as there has been what has been called a 'Native American renaissance' in the arts during the last twenty or thirty years, so there has been a renaissance in the study and translation of Native languates and literatures," says Swann (xiv). That is in itself good news because Native Americans over time have endured some of the worst oppression that human beings can face. A renewal of public interest in their language, history, and culture is a plus for both Native Americans and Americans in general.

Swan does a good job of outlining the injustices to Native Americans, injustices that have resulted in the loss of some of their language, writing, songs, artifacts, etc. "In the name of 'progress' in the nineteenth century and into the twentieth languages and cultures were ruthlessly assaulted by missionaries and missionary schools and in off-reservation manual-labor boarding schools..." he notes (xvi). "There are many other reasons for language decline and the dangers facing oral tradition, as Vine Deloria Jr. has pointed out, not the least is that instead of gathering around the elders in the evening to hear stories of the tribal past, the children today rent a video tape and watch 'Star Wars' or borrow films." All cultures, especially in the United States, face similar fates in the hands of the young today, but this situation seems especially tragic for Native Americans since their population has been delpleted so much.

Swan says we can only guess at how many Native American stories, songs, and ceremonies have been lost forever as languages have died and cultures have been destroyed isnce contact with the Europeans (xvil,xx). He also notes some of the problems in studying Native American literature. "One of the problems in studying Native American literature (although it has not alwlays been regarded as a problem) has been the creation of a criticial vocabulary and a mode of presentation," he says (xxvi). "At first the structural model simply used the form of the English lyric or narrative poem for presentation, and the critical stance also relied on what lay at hand." Now, says Swann, there is evidence from the present volume of literature on Native Americans that contributors have faced up to the issues that present obstacles to a fair representation of the literature. This is certainly encouraging. Things like this cannot undo all of the injustice that Native Americans have endured or the poverty that many of them suffer but it can restore some of the dignity that has been lost over the centuries.

In the preface to his book Interpreting the Indian: Twentieth-Century Poets and the Native Americans, Michael Castro addresses the new sensitivity and understanding that a number of 20th century American poets began giving Native Americans in their poetry. "As the sixties flowed into the seventies and the war (in Viewnam) ended, we dewelt more on the spiritual aspect of this 'revolutionary' consciousness. Contributing to this process, for many of us was the availability of literature by and about Native Americans and other tribal people," he says (xix). "This literature helped us to see revolution as a cyclical process involving a return to understanding values once widely held by people in America." This approach to dealing with Native American literature by these 20th century poets is a plus and it is likely to have the empathy of a lot of other people who have empathy for the plight of Native Americans.

In his forward to his book, Kenneth Lincoln identifies George W. Cronyn's 1918 anthology The Path on the Rainbow as the first major collection of literature about Native Americans to "make headlines." Daniel Brinton's "Aboriginal American Authors and ethnomusicology in the Indians' Book of 1907 got far less press," he says (xvi). Lincoln details the progress, or in some cases the lack of progress, in publishing literature about Native Americans, through the 1960s. "By the end of the 1960s, Indian anthologies were popping up like wildflowers," he notes (xxvi). The fact that Native American literature is beginning to get the attention that it rightfully deserves is definitely a step in the right direction for the media and the literary world. But it is only one step. Many other steps in many other areas will have to be made before we can say theundeserved stigma of third class citizenship is be removed from America's earliest inhabitants.