Abstract

“Speaking Chinook: Adaptation, Indigeneity, and Pauline Johnson’s British Columbia Stories” argues against criticisms of this Mohawk writer/performer as insufficiently Indian. Recent scholarship on Johnson, critical frameworks provided by Philip Deloria (Dakota), Robert Warrior (Osage), and Chadwick Allen (Cherokee), and close readings of sentimental texts that seem aimed to please a white audience demonstrate Johnson’s subtle resistance. The essay argues that like the Chinook Jargon, Johnson provides an example of adaptability to modern circumstances that promotes survival of indigenous identity, and it urges readers to examine related assumptions about groups excluded from modernity or denied historical agency.

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