Tribal Theory in Native American Literature: Dakota and Haudenosaunee Writing and Indigenous Worldviews

Introduction: Indigenous Knowledge as Tribal Theory

Language lies at the core of the study of all literatures,and Indigenous languages—whether visibly present or no—influence the composition and worldviews of all tribal texts. Historian Angela Cavender Wilson observes that “our language and the stories perpetuated within that language are not only about telling stories that have some historical data, they are about the perpetuation of a worldview that has its own distinct theories about the past and its signi ficance to the Dakota of today and tomorrow. . . . Language, stories, and epistemology are connected to who we are and where we will go in the future.”Underpinning these languages are unique tribal knowledges, epistemology, and philosophy, and Indigenous writers repeatedly and mindfully invoke and deploy these tribal worldviews in their English, French, Spanish, and tribal language publications.1 These worldviews and their theoretical bases become vehicles for Indigenous resurgence, resistance, and survival; they are tribal theory. In her 1992 novel Almanac of the Dead, Laguna Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko places the story of a book, an almanac in the tradition of the Mayan codices, its prophecies, and its tribal Introduction Indigenous Knowledge as Tribal Theory caretakers, at the heart of the narrative’s movement. The almanac predicts nearly every event in the unfolding of the novel, although the book itself is ageless, literally undatable. The almanac and its hieroglyphic writing, as well as the translation that the twin sisters Lecha and Zeta undertake, rest upon Mayan traditions of writing, record, and book fashioning.2 While current research indicates that Almanac may be read as having postmodern sympathies and affinities with European narrative, much more might be revealed in a reading of Silko’s masterpiece by considering,for instance,the Grolier Codex. This Codex is the fragmentary remain of a much larger Mayan huun and bears a strong resemblance to Silko’s almanac in its incomplete state and its containing of a list of dates that might stand in for the prophecies in the novel’s narrative.3 Also noteworthy in a consideration of the novel are the only three Mayan codices that exist intact: the Paris, the Madrid, and the Dresden codices. By reflecting upon the specific tradition of Mayan bookmaking and epistemic record and situating Almanac within that tribal literary inheritance, an understanding of Silko’s novel is achieved that is only possible with such tribally grounded criticism. In fact, by closely considering Mayan hieroglyphs and codices and their creators and surrounding culture vis-à-vis Almanac of the Dead, a novel whose very existence is predicated upon these Mesoamerican written traditions, we as readers are practicing tribal theory by allowing the tribal foundation of the text to emerge and motivate our theoretical praxis. Over the last two decades as more Native Americans gained doctorates in literature and some non-Native scholars have grown disenchanted with piecemeal methods of interpretation,a number of critical voices have emerged in Native American literature calling for a set of critical frameworks appropriate to this unique body of texts.4 For many years the most politically accountable approach has been that advocated by a few historical materialist critics who called for a literary critical practice grounded in the history, biography , and specific tribal culture of an individual writer; however, most of these practitioners barely scratched the surface of deeper 2 | introduction Indigenous knowledges.For example,an article on Simon Pokagon might acknowledge his Potawatomi identity and yet fail to read his distribution of “The Red Man’s Rebuke” as birchbark-bound pamphlets at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago within the context of eastern woodlands method of recordkeeping and within their epistemic function.As a graduate student,with the exception of GeraldVizenor’s continental-inspired trickster theory, I often found that this historical materialism was simply the best approach available for practicing a criticism that was responsible to tribal peoples in its potential to approximate an Indigenous perspective. Vizenor’s introduction of key concepts such as “survivance ,”“postindian,” and “tribal striptease” represents a critical first step in the evolution of Indigenous literary frameworks, however one that is notably dated by its reliance on postmodern and poststructuralist theory.Kimberly Blaeser’s landmark study of Vizenor, Writing in the Oral Tradition (1996), praises Wordarrows (1978), Earthdivers (1981), The People Named the Chippewa (1984), and Dead Voices (1992) for their promotion of Anishinaabe oral tradition and knowledges (and rightly so). Although Vizenor succeeds in...