Lost Tribes?

LOSTTRIBES? Mary DoughertyBartlett, ed. ~he N_ewNative America~z \'ore!:Worksin Progress. University of the New Mexico Press.1986.viii+ 132pp. RalphT. Coe. Lost and Fo~md !raditions: !'lative American Art 1965-1985. University of Washington Press, 1986288 pp. Illus., & maps. Laurence M. Hauptman et al. Onondaga: Portrait of aNattvePeople. Syracuse University Press, I986. vi + 110 pp. Illus. LaurenceM. Hauptman. The Iroquois Struggle for Su11'1ral: World War /I to Red Power. Syracuse University Prrn. 1986.xiii + 328 pp. Illus. Kerry M. Abel Oneof the most enduring "fads" of the last twenty-five years in North America hasbeen a fascination with Indians. "My favorite hobby is Indians," wrote thirdgrader Tom Boylan, his words immortalized in a painting by Mohawk artist RichardGlazer Daney. Tom's hobby has been adopted by a variety of groups. Indiancultural values are offered as an alternative to industrial capitalism. The Indian is presented as a victim by the promoters of cultural pluralism and opponents of imperialism. And in a fascinating revision of the cult of the Noble Savage, the Indian is presented as the original ecologist or environmentalist. Stimulated by this renewed interest among Americans and encouraged by the culturalupheaval of the I960s, Indian communities have been responding. There hasbeen a flowering of the arts, widespread political activism and considerable experimentation with new forms of community expression such as the ''survival ~chool" movement. Both social scientists and lay people have observed these developments with mterestand concluded that they represent a renaissance or cultural revival for the North American Indian. According to popular belief, Indians once were a demoralized and dying race, but now they are searching for personal and collective identity by reviving ''traditional" folk ways which had all but been eradicatedby centuries of oppression. Such an interpretation builds on the work of .t previous generation of anthropologists who wrote about the Indian as if he e,isted outside of history in a timeless ''ethnographic baseline.'' According to 408 Kerry M.Abe] these studies, the Indian had only one past - a traditional phase - andpopular culture today has incorporated that assumption. Hence the current activity in Indian communities is interpreted as a search for and a revival of that traditional past. Such a view is, of course, quite ahistorical. Change is a universal human experience. During some periods, change may occur more rapidly than during others, but it occurs nonetheless. Besides the fact that American Indianshav; been dealing with Europeans for more than five hundred years, there arethousands of years of pre-contact history which must be taken into account, makino the concept of "traditional" culture a meaningless generalization. Neverthelest it is obvious that something important is going on in Native communitiesacross the continent. Any examination of these events must deal with the questions of persistence and change both in the tangible aspects of material culture andinthe intangibles of world-view, symbol and myth. The four books consideredinthis review are, in part, a product of our generation's fascination with the Indian,but they also represent attempts to deal with difficult questions about humansocieties which have been raised because of that fascination. When the 1969Pulitzer Prize was awarded to N. Scott Momeday for hisnovel House Made of Dawn, the American literary establishment recognized notonly the skill of a talented writer, but also the fact that Native Americanshad something to say to society at large. There has since been considerable interest in writers who explore their Indian heritage or experience through fiction. InThe New Native American Novel, editor Mary Bartlett selects excerpts from works in progress by Indian writers. Some of the selections are explicit examinationsofthe Native experience, while others are more evocative of place and time ratherthan of a specific culture. Some are straightforward linear narratives, while othersare more experimental in form. Taken as a whole, however, the collection is not particularly successful. Excerpts from novels seldom stand alone satisfactorily: the short story and the novel are two very different literary forms. Thereisno explanation of the context for each selection and, in the very brief preface,the editor does little to explain the rationale for her choices. As a result, some important questions remain. Are these authors' 'Indian writers'' or simplywriters who happen to be Indian? What does the...