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63 TORTURED SKINS, BEARS, AND OUR RESPONSIBILITIES narrative tapestry Tortured Skins and Other Short Fictions. Separately, and together, Kenny’s allegorical bear tales take Haudenosaunee teachings about human kinship with and responsibilities to the natural world and transform them into an ecologically grounded message accessible to all of his reading audiences. Consequently, in era when human-induced global warming has the potential to jeopardize the survival of humans and nonhumans alike, Kenny’s ecologically grounded, Haudenosaunee-contextualized message about acknowledging our kinship with the natural world, have just as meaning for readers of environmental and world literatures as it does for the readers of Indigenous literatures. The tapestry of Maurice Kenny’s Tortured Skins and Other Short Fictions is but one example of a literary genius that has contributed and will continue to contribute to a wide variety of literary canons, including the Haudenosaunee, Indigenous, world and environmental literary canons. “I came only for a glass of water. I was dusty and thirsty. You good people gave me water and cold soup. You quenched my thirst and added the surprise of the soup and the bread with the honey and butter. No one else on this road welcomed me in for drink or food. . . . How could I not come in and accept the glass of water, the bowl of soup, and this bread? It was my duty, as it was your duty to have these things and to offer a taste of your labors and harvest to me.” —“Visitation,” from Tortured Skins and Other Short Fictions “What’s your name, Not-so-much-Indian?” He didn’t stop to hear my reply. “My Maud was the one who said I talked too much. If I worked the way I talked, I’d get the work done. Why hell, damn. I don’t want to know your name. You got a name now: Not-so-much-Indian. I only wanna know if you’ll share these blackberries when you buy this house. Share with the birds, an’ the others.” —“Blue Jacket,” from Tortured Skins and Other Short Fictions NOTES 1. In his essay, “Theorizing American Indian Literature: Applying Oral Concepts to Written Traditions,” Cherokee literary critic Chris Teuton points out 64 NICHOLLE DRAGONE that there is great potential for indigenous literary critics and writers to “develop alternative strategies and critical terms from reading Native literature through the lens of oral traditional paradigms” (209–214). 2. Teuton’s approach looks at the way alternative methodological strategies and critical terms can be drawn out of indigenous literatures that are contextualized within oral tradition paradigms from which the literature has grown. My approach, in this chapter, looks at Kenny’s discussion of bears as being allegorical in nature, “bears as nature” if you will. As Teuton does with the alternative strategies and critical terms he draws out of Indigenous Literature, I too am contextualizing Kenny’s allegorical bears within the Haudenosaunee oral tradition paradigms they grew out of. 3. As alluded to previously, before undertaking such a culturally based interpretation of Maurice Kenny’s Tortured Skins, it is important to acknowledge that although I have had the great good fortune not only to grow up near Haudenosaunee communities, but also to mature under the guidance of several Haudenosaunee elders, I am writing this chapter standing outside Haudenosaunee culture looking in. I am of Dakota/Lakota descent but am not enrolled in any of the Dakota/Lakota communities in the United States or Canada. Therefore, I am not a citizen of the Great Sioux Nation or any other First Nations community. Additionally, it must also be acknowledged that by engaging with and critiquing Kenny’s text as a cultural outsider, I was working solely with transcribed versions of Haudenosaunee traditional teachings, including the Thanksgiving Address, Creation, and oral narratives regarding bears. Thus, in keeping with the philosophy of the Thanksgiving Address, which tells us that, “we must always remember that we are not perfect, that we can and will make mistakes . . . we must acknowledge these errors for they reflect our responsibilities to the” the people and the natural world—I take the opportunity here, to do just that. Any mistakes I have made in interpreting Haudenosaunee traditional teachings are my own. Furthermore, it also is important here, for me as literary critic, to acknowledge that I have a responsibility to those peoples whose literary works with which I am critically engaged. That said, it is my sincere desire that this chapter not only honor those...

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