Wisconsin Indian Literature: Anthology of Native Voices (review)

In the 1980s anti-Indianism in Wisconsin manifested in overt and violent ways in response to renewed Ojibwe spearfishing. Kathleen Tigerman's Wisconsin Indian Literature: Anthology of Native Voices is partly a reaction to this anti-Indian sentiment by answering the subsequent mandate (Wisconsin Senate Act 31) for more education and resources about the Native Nations in Wisconsin (4). The authors of the anthology are in conversation with one another about the issues that are important to them—with fellow members of their respective Nations, with other Native people, with non-Natives. With her sources, Tigerman complicates assumptions about the limits of what constitutes Native American literature. It is a good resource for educators and students and those interested in learning more the Native Nations included.

In an insightful foreword, Jim Ottery (Brothertown) reminds the reader that rather than merely survive, with their words the authors also contest efforts to assimilate, erase, and otherwise annihilate Native cultures (xv). The authors come from a variety of backgrounds and time periods. The text covers seven Native Nations in Wisconsin: Menominee, Ho-Chunk, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Oneida, Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican, and the Brothertown Nation. There are too many insightful, provocative, humorous, and affirming selections to identify them all. A few appear to be published for the first time, such as the poem "Ancestral Voices," by Cathy J. Caldwell (Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican) (258–59). The book is organized by Nation, listed in succession by time of origin or length of residence in Wisconsin. The selections are then arranged somewhat chronologically, organized around topics that provide an introduction to the different Native communities and the events that have shaped their collective histories. Often beginning with an overview of the Nation's creation story, the selections move from historical accounts such as journal entries and newspaper stories, to political discourse, fiction and poetry, drama, interviews, and reminiscences.

It's not always easy to identify common themes or threads of analysis specific to each tribe, although some can certainly be identified: termination and the ultimately successful restoration for the Menominee; court decisions upholding the right to spearfish and subsequent increased environmental activism for the Ojibwe; the emphasis on migrations and removals contrasted with a sense of place and the feeling of being aboriginal for the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican; and the importance of the historical continuity and ideas of nationhood for the Brothertown (especially when contrasted with the last selection in the book—an excerpt from their Petition for Federal Acknowledgment) (362).

Themes of colonialism and the survival of Native people appear frequently. Tigerman positions Native people as not mere victims, but as having agency and indeed the tenacity to endure, as in "Creation Story" by Edward Benton-Banai (Lac Courte Oreille Ojibwe). The story of how the Original Man became the A-nish-i-na-be people is followed immediately by "Spearfishing" by Walt Bresette (Red Cliff Chippewa), an account of the transformative power of the struggle after the Tribble brothers of Lac Courte Oreille asserted their rights to spearfish, men who Bresette says, "unwittingly led the others of us on a journey of identity and of historical place" (101). Such stories mark the text as one potential site for the work of decolonization, one of Tigerman's aims (3).

Many of the authors give a critique of contemporary American society and the difficulties (impossibilities?) of cross-cultural communication. "Avian Messiah and Mistress Media" by Andrew Connors (Bad River Ojibwe), is a short story about a Native man named Cloud who becomes the unwitting symbol of a general American dissatisfaction with technology and a parallel hunger for connections—to each other, to nature, to a solid sense of who they are and where they come from. While Cloud is at first oblivious to all the hoopla around him, at the end of the story, a multitude of protestors have made him the face of an impromptu, multicultural, environmental protest. Ultimately, the crowd cannot identify and therefore solve any issues of consequence, while...