Our War Paint Is Writers' Ink , livre ebook

Our War Paint Is Writers’ Ink
SUNY series, Native Traces

Jace Weaver and Scott Richard Lyons, editors
Our War Paint Is Writers’ Ink
Anishinaabe Literary Transnationalism
Adam Spry
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2018 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
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Production, Ryan Morris
Marketing, Kate R. Seburyamo
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Spry, Adam, 1984– author.
Title: Our war paint is writers’ ink : Anishinaabe literary transnationalism / Adam Spry.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017017031 (print) | LCCN 2017031160 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438468839 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438468815 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Ojibwa literature—History and criticism. | Ojibwa language. | Ojibwa Indians—Government relations.
Classification: LCC PM853.5 (ebook) | LCC PM853.5 .S67 2018 (print) | DDC 897/.333—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017017031
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my father, who taught me the meaning of nibwaakaawin, and my mother, who taught me the meaning of sisu
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Miigwech
Ozhibii’ige
Introduction: Whence These Legends and Traditions?
1. Revolutionary in Character: Translating Anishinaabe Place and Time in the Progress
2. Englishman, Your Color Is Deceitful: Unsettling the North Woods in Janet Lewis’s The Invasion
3. What Is This I Promise You?: The Translation of Anishinaabe Song in the Twentieth Century
4. A Tribe of Pressed Trees: Representations of the State in the Fiction of Louise Erdrich
Conclusion
Notes
Index
Illustrations
Figure 1.1 Front page of the Progress , December 17, 1887.
Figure 2.1 Mort de Montcalm by Moret, after original by Desfontaines.
Figure 3.1 Score and translation of “No. 64 ‘Initiation Song’ ” as it appears in Densmore’s Chippewa Music.
Figure 3.2 Detail of Mide pictograph from “No. 64 ‘Initiation Song.’ ”
Figure 3.3 “Initiation Song” as reexpressed by Gerald Vizenor in Summer in the Spring (1993).
Acknowledgments
Figure 3.3 : Verse originally published in Summer in the Spring: Anishinaabe Lyric Poems and Stories , by Gerald Vizenor. Reprinted by permission of the University of Oklahoma Press. All rights reserved.
Portions of chapters 1 and 2 appeared in a much different form in an essay titled, “ ‘It may be revolutionary in character …’ The Progress, A New Tribal Hermeneutics, and the Literary Reexpression of the Anishinaabe Oral Tradition in Summer in the Spring,” from Gerald Vizenor: Poetry and Poetics , ed. Deborah Madsen. © 2012 University of New Mexico Press, 2012.
Miigwech
T HE FIRST WORD OF A NISHINAABEMOWIN my father ever taught me was “miigwech”—“thank you”—because it is the most important. I have had many opportunities to use the word over the course of writing this book, but I would be remiss if I didn’t take the time to say it once again in recognition of all of those who have helped to make this work possible.
This book has benefited immeasurably from the insightful comments of a huge number of people, including those affectionately known to me as “the cohort.” Alastair Morrison, John Hay, Tim Donahue, Gania Barlow, Nijah Cunningham, Emily Cersonsky, Jessica Teague, Lindsay Van Tine, Deborah Aschkenes, and Oliver Batham are all amazing friends and accomplished scholars who have patiently listened to me talk about this project for more than a decade. During my time at Yale, I was lucky to workshop a section of this book with the Yale Group for the Study of Native America—an remarkable group of students and faculty led by the brilliant and tireless Ned Blackhawk. While at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), I received incredible support and encouragement from my colleagues Eric Berlatsky, Sika Dagbovie-Mullins, Taylor Hagood, Warren Kelly, Elena Machado, Mark Scroggins, and most especially Adam Bradford. Many students, both graduate and undergraduate, helped me to refine the ideas in this work. Special thanks to the graduate students in my “Transnational Native American Literature” seminar at FAU for stimulating conversation and brilliant insight into the work of early Anishinaabe writers.
Finally, I must thank my mentors, both formal and informal, for all of their advice and guidance. Karl Kroeber was the first to take me under his wing at Columbia, and although our time together was all too brief, he remains an important influence on me to this day. Rachel Adams gave me incredibly generous feedback and help in shaping the comparative approach of this project. John Gamber has been a kind, supportive, and tenacious advocate and friend, and I benefited greatly from his capacious knowledge of Native literature. Bruce Robbins helped guide my thinking on a number of important issues regarding transnationalism, the state, and structure. At the beginning of my studies, Frances Negrón-Muntaner gave me important advice on how to be a politically engaged scholar. After great effort on his part, Michael Golston finally made me understand the critical importance of poetry to this project, and for that I will be forever in his debt. Last, but certainly not least, is Scott Richard Lyons, who has not only been a model of scholarship for me, but perhaps one of the most generous and committed mentors a young scholar could hope for—miigwech. Every page of this work bears the traces of their influence.
Several organizations generously supported this project throughout its long development. Thanks to both the Council of Independent Colleges and the anonymous donors who underwrote the American Graduate Fellowship, which supported me during the early part of my graduate studies, as well as gave me a grant to study Anishinaabemowin. The Department of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration at Yale University was my home away from home during the last year of graduate school, where I produced the first draft of this work as a dissertation during my time as the Henry Roe Cloud Dissertation Writing Fellow. I also benefited immensely from the time to write provided by a McKnight Junior Faculty Fellowship from the Florida Education Fund. Everyone at SUNY Press has been incredibly helpful and supportive in getting this book to print, especially Amanda Lanne-Camilli, whose patience and guidance kept me afloat. And I must thank Native Traces series editors Jace Weaver and Scott Lyons for believing in my project, even when it was little more than a disseration.
All those Anishinaabeg of White Earth who have tirelessly worked to improve their people’s lives have my deepest gratitude, and must be recognized here. My thanks to Winona LaDuke for access to the amazing collection of Anishinaabe literature housed at the offices of the White Earth Land Recovery Project (and for turning a blind eye to my reading while I should’ve been writing grants); and to Erma Vizenor and Jill Doerfler for their efforts—still ongoing—to ensure that all the Anishinaabe at White Earth can participate in the civic life of their community. Finally, I must thank Gerald Vizenor for his brilliance, generosity, and humor—his vision of survivance has guided this work from its conception.
Of course, my family has been my greatest source of strength and inspiration. This book is as much a product of their efforts as my own. To Kageet, for tail wags and gentleness. I am forever in debt to my brother-in-arms, Dru Söderlund, for coming up with the portmanteau “Finnishinaabe.” Gunalchéesh ho ho to Laurie and Rob Hoyt and ax káani, Ken Neish Hoyt, for being a constant source of wisdom—and for remembering my name. My sisters, Hannah and Emily, and nieces, Marley and Mia, have shown me what true courage and fortitude is, as only Anishinaabekweg could. To my parents, Michael and Melinda Spry, who instilled in me a respect for others (both human and other-than-human), pride in my complicated heritage, and a lifelong love of books—this is for you. And to my partner, Katie Shaax Hoyt: thank you, Kiddo, for your endless patience, compassion, and love. Chi-miigwech.
Ozhibii’ige
The word [Ojibwe] is very loaded and bears a host of meanings and interpretations and theories. I’ve heard that Ojibwe refers to the puckering of the seams traditional moccasins, or makazinan. Or that the Ojibwe roasted their enemies “until they puckered up.” Gruesome. I’ve heard that Anishinaabe means “from whence is lowered the male of the species,” but I don’t like that one very much. And then there is the more mystical Spontaneous Beings. The meaning that I like best of course is Ojibwe from the verb Ozhibii’ige, which is “to write.”
—Louise Erdrich
I N 1842, THE A NISHINAABE HISTORIAN William Warren was allowed to examine a plate of native copper, wh