Thursday, April 23, 2009

Slapin's review of Rourke's NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY & CULTURE ENCYCLOPEDIA

Read Slapin's review below, AND make sure to read her work of satire, How to Write a Children's Encyclopedia of Native American History (for fun and profit.)


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[Note: This review may not be published elsewhere without written permission from its author, Beverly Slapin. Copyright 2008 by Beverly Slapin. All rights reserved.]


Lundgren, Julie K. (vols. 2, 4, 6, 8) and Sandy Sepehri (vols. 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10), Rourke’s Native American History & Culture Encyclopedia. Rourke, 2009, 10 volumes, grades 4-7


Despite the economic downturn and because of the dilemmas of harried librarians trying to accommodate report-driven children, the relentless and mindless production line manufacturing of these kinds of encyclopedia-like commodities continues unabated. With a total page count for the ten volumes of 640, including lots of recycled powwow and Curtis photos, 12-point type, identical covers, back matter, and introductions (in which the first two words are, no kidding, “In 1492…”), this overpriced cookie-cutter production is typical of the problem.


The last ten pages of each volume are nearly identical, containing the same quote from Luther Standing Bear, a map of the “culture areas” of North America, a list of tribes organized by these areas, and an index and pronunciation guide for the volume. There is no bibliography or list of references, so students and their teachers will be unable to check the source of any research that may have gone into this series. Each volume also contains an “adapted legend” (read stolen and mutilated beyond recognition) from a particular Indian nation. There is no author cited for any of these “legends,” and they are all illustrated by Charles Reasoner, whose work appeared in the atrocious “Native American Legend” series, also from Rourke.


The final volume is reserved for a 7-page timeline, a 10-page alphabetical listing of tribes and tribal groups, a 12-page glossary, a 16-page index, and a bunch of cockamamie projects, such as constructing an igloo out of frozen dough and finding one’s “animal totem.” Although Mark J. Johnston and Scott Lyons are cited as project consultants for volumes 6, 7, and 9; and Lyons for volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8; there is no consultant cited for volume 10.


Here and there, one can find a smattering of relatively accurate entries describing historical and contemporary artists, political individuals and organizations, and issues such as water rights and the Trail of Broken Treaties. Some of the entries, particularly those about Ojibwe people and events, are informative and well written. One suspects that Lyons, who is Leech Lake Ojibwe, had something to do with these. But even here, Roberta Hill Whiteman’s name is spelled “Whitman,” Sarah Winnemucca’s nation is spelled “Pauite,” Black Hawk, the 19th Century Sauk and Fox leader, is described as a “Sioux war chief,” and Vi Hilbert, who passed away in 2004, is written about in the present tense: “Now that she is an elder herself…”


Although the series lists only two authors, the entries are apparently written by a bunch of different individuals, which might account for the opposite accounts of the same persons or events. For instance, “Meet Geronimo” is relatively accurate, ending with this: “Geronimo remains a hero, and his deep responsibility to protect his people has become legendary.” Yet, the entry about “tiswin,” a traditional fermented beverage, describes Geronimo’s leading his band back to their homeland as motivated solely by his fondness for this alcoholic drink.


Similarly, the purpose of the General Allotment Act of 1887 (also known as the Dawes Severalty Act), is described in one entry as beneficent, “to encourage Native Americans to become farmers,” yet its result, as described in another entry, was “to strip Native Americans of much of their land and ruin them financially.” In fact, the purpose of the Dawes Act was to break up Native lands held in common, and open those lands up for resettlement. The result of this massive government land grab was the further impoverishment of the tribes and Native individuals as well.


As in many children’s encyclopedias, important information is omitted. In the entry for the “Minnesota Uprising,” for instance, in which Little Crow’s Dakota band rose up against a myriad of injustices perpetrated by whites in the Minnesota River Valley, the final sentence says: “Though a military court sentenced more than 300 Dakota Sioux to death, President Lincoln reviewed the trials and pardoned all but 38.” What is left out is that the hanging of the 38 young Lakota men in 1862, memorialized every year in Mankato, Minnesota, is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest mass execution in U.S. history.


The entry about “Bosque Redondo” says that “[o]ver 200 people died on the difficult march, known as the Long Walk of the Navajo.” On this death march of hundreds of miles, more than 3,000 died of cold and starvation—or were killed by soldiers who shot pregnant women, elders and all others who couldn’t keep up. All of this is documented, both in oral and written history.


About the “Carlisle Indian School,” there is this caption: “In the Carlisle School’s tin shop, students learned practical skills.” The assumption here (which was the assumption of the school’s founder) is that the Indian children did not learn, or were incapable of learning, practical skills at home in their own communities. And tinsmithing was not a “practical skill” for the students to take back to their peoples; rather, it was one of many industrial wage labor skills taught to Carlisle students. The entries on “Carlisle School,” “Hampton Institute,” and “Indian boarding schools,” are for the most part, positive descriptions of a theory and practice that devastated—and whose repercussions continue to devastate—Indian communities throughout North America.


The entry for “Rosebud Reservation” says, “Rosebud Reservation is in south-central Dakota and is home to the Sicangu Oyate, the Upper Brule Sioux Nations, and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. As of 2005, their population is about 25,000.” The implication here is that the 25,000 persons are citizens of three separate Native nations occupying Rosebud. Actually, these are different names for the same people.


Then, there are the little, really annoying, things that a good copyeditor could have eliminated. For instance, an entry about Dallas Chief Eagle II, a well-known hoop dancer and storyteller, is inexplicably cross-referenced to Chief Joseph. And then, there’s this: “Some diners say eel tastes a little fishy, with firm and fatty flesh.” Well, um, eel is a kind of fish. Is it supposed to taste like chicken?


Full of dreary writing, sloppy scholarship, disjointed “facts,” pejorative terminology, and language that condescends to children and euphemizes, sensationalizes and trivializes Indian peoples, this series is to be seriously avoided.—Beverly Slapin



Tuesday, April 21, 2009

News about Cynthia Leitich Smith's JINGLE DANCER






















Jingle Dancer, one of my favorite picture books is in its 18th printing!

Congratulations, Cyn!

Here's some links:

Jingle Dancer Curriculum Guide

Read Cynthia's story behind the story about Jingle Dancer.

And buy a copy! Let's buy up all copies in the 18th printing so it'll move to a 19th, and a 20th, and a 21st......


Monday, April 20, 2009

Native musician: Darryl Tonemah

Take a listen to Darryl Tonemah! The clip is from a performance he gave at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, August 2008. If you're interested in learning more about him, read An Interview with Dr. Darryl Tonemah. He is Kiowa/Comanche/Tuscarora. He is not involved with children's literature, as far as I know, so that's not the reason I'm sharing this video. It is here because I like his music. This song makes me smile.



Also take a look at this clip. I don't know how to insert it.
"I Know" - from the Kennedy Center Performance. Before singing the song, he tells about a woman who questioned his identity, saying that Indians should play flute or drum and sing about eagles and buffaloes. He goes on to talk about oppression, and internalized oppression.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Books by and about American Indians: 2008


The Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison publishes CCBC Choices each year. It includes statistical data about numbers of books written by authors of color.

The information I share below is from "Thoughts on Publishing in 2008" by Kathleen T. Horning, Merri V. Lindgren, Tessa Michaelson, and Megan Schliesman. It was originally published in CCBC Choices 2009. I encourage you to become a Friend of the CCBC, which includes a copy of Choices.

In 2008, CCBC received 40 books that featured American Indian themes, topics, or characters. Of those 40, nine were created by American Indian authors and/or illustrators.


Here's two paragraphs from the essay, in the section titled "Multicultural Writing (and Illustrating, Too!)":

Louise Erdrich continued her chronicle of nineteenth-century American Indian experience in The Porcupine Year, which picks up the story of the Ojibwe girl Omakayas, last seen in The Game of Silence (HarperCollins, 2005). Now forced to leave their home, Omakayas’s family is on the move in a story based in part on Erdrich’s own family history. Joseph Bruchac, the most prolific Native author for children and teens, was inspired by family history to research and write what became March Toward the Thunder, about an Abenaki boy serving in the Union army during the Civil WarUpdate on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki? Nicola Campbell’s picture book Shin-chi’s Canoe looks at Native boarding schools through the a story of a boy enduring his first year away from home.

Horning, Lindgren, Michaelson and Schliesman note that few new picture books that show contemporary children of color were published. They write:
In fact, the only 2008 picture book featuring a contemporary American Indian child that we documented here at the CCBC was Niwechihaw=I Help, a bilingual (Cree/English) book published by Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press. The Littlest Sled Dog (Orca) features a dog rather than a child or children but does offer a glimpse of a contemporary Inuit village. And The Drum Calls Softly (Red Deer Press) is a bilingual (Cree/English) picture book in the voice of a child who might be contemporary or from the past, although the stunning illustrations by Native artist Jim Poitras (Cree, Salteaux, and Métis) have a historical sensibility.



On October 24, 2008, I posted a table of data from CCBC specific to books by and about American Indians. It covered 2002 through 2007. I'm reposting that table here, adding 2008 statistics to the table.

Year---Number of bks---About Amer Ind---By Native writer
2002--------3,150--------------------64-----------------------6---------------
2003--------3,200--------------------95----------------------11--------------
2004--------2,800--------------------33-----------------------7--------------
2005--------2,800--------------------34-----------------------4--------------
2006--------3,000--------------------41----------------------14-------------
2007--------3,000--------------------44-----------------------6--------------
2008--------3,000---------------------40----------------------9--------------




Thursday, April 16, 2009

Boston Tea Party and 2009 Tea Party

The Boston Tea Party. There is one that happened yesterday, April 15, 2009, and there is one that happened way back when... When colonists threw tea into Boston Harbor in 1773...

That event in 1773 is widely depicted with colonists dressed as Indians who are shown wearing feathers, fringe and face paint. Here's the most famous image, an 1846 lithograph by Nathaniel Currier.


And here's one from a children's picture book, The Boston Tea Party, published in 2001, written by Pamela Duncan Edwards, illustrations by Henry Cole:



In fact, the colonists did not wear feathers
They colored their faces with ash and charcoal 
and draped blankets on their shoulders.* 


Given the multiple misrepresentations of that moment, I wondered if it would be echoed in yesterday's "tea party" events. Watching Jon Stewart's coverage of it, I had my answer (see lower right image):



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UPDATE, 6:45 PM, April 16, 2009
Jeremy Cote, Phoenix, AZ, posted (to Flickr) "On warpath against more taxes!" In it are two women and two children, wearing tan-colored shirts, feathers in their hair. The children have signs taped to their shirts that say:
"Paleface taxes no good."
"Let little brave keep wampum."

UPDATE, 6:56 PM, April 19, 2009
A few minutes ago, a reader submitted a comment, pointing to a photograph in the NY Times. It accompanies a story titled "Tax Day is Met with Tea Parties." There is no reference in the article to the photograph, which shows a boy in a headdress.


UPDATE, 8:10 AM, December 16, 2014
For writing about how the colonists were dressed, see:


UPDATE, 9:20 AM, December 16, 2014

Here's the cover of The Boston Tea Party, December 1773, "text" by Josephine Pollard, "drawn" by H. W. McVickar (used quotations marks around text/drawn because those are the words on the title page). Published in 1882 by Dodd, Mead & Company, it has been digitized. Don't buy it from Amazon. You can read the entire book, free, online 


Here's a page from inside:



The text on the left page is: "Like sons of the forest, a poor imitation." The phrase "son of the forest" stood out to me because it is the title William Apes's book, published in 1829

And here's McVickar's drawing of "a Chinaman":



Some of McVickar's cartoons appeared in Harpers Magazine. Josephine Pollard wrote many books for children. 

An (Incomplete) List of Illustrators that Got it Wrong with Feathers and Colored Face Paint:

1882: H. W. McVickar got it wrong in The Boston Tea Party, December 1773 (by Josephine Pollard)

2001: Henry Cole got it wrong in Boston Tea Party (by Pamela Duncan Edwards)

2013: Lauren Mortimer got it wrong in What Was the Boston Tea Party? (by Kathleen Krull)

2013: Peter Malone got it wrong in The Boston Tea Party (by Russell Freedman)

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Reflections, Observations: "After the Mayflower" - WE SHALL REMAIN

I watched "After the Mayflower" on Monday night. It was the national broadcast of the first film in the We Shall Remain series on PBS. My thoughts here are not about the film. They're about the context of my viewing.

Without a doubt, it is informative in ways that most people have not seen before. It provides a lot of thought provoking material. It isn't blood thirsty savage Indians, nor is it tragic and noble warriors. There's an honesty to it, of emotion and fact.

When it was over, I stayed in my chair, TV still on the PBS channel. I was going to turn off the set when I heard the lead-in to the next program... "A story of savagery and survival... Handed down through seven generations..." And, "the Lively Family Massacre."

I glanced up at the screen. I was shocked and stunned with what I saw. Clips of what was to be shown in the next hour or so.... A white family, their cabin behind them, tending to their yard... Indian men in the trees watching, then, attacking, killing.

For the next half hour, viewers in central Illinois who watch WILL-TV (housed at the University of Illinois), were given a savage-bloodthirsty-Indians-story that We Shall Remain is challenging with its Native voice and viewpoint. The Lively Family Massacre is a documentary of a woman in Illinois seeking her family roots. A documentary of genealogy research that goes back to the 1800s when the Lively family set up a homestead. A professor is interviewed. He says that we don't know why the Kickapoos attacked that family. Maybe they were retaliating for something that was done to them, the professor said, "we don't know." The woman said the Lively family was scalped and one of them was beheaded.

Then there's an article about a high school teacher in Illinois who is working on a book about Geronimo. He's also involved in the episode of We Shall Remain that will focus on Geronimo. The opening sentence includes this:

"...passionately teaches his students about the 19th century Apache Indian who slaughtered countless Americans in order to ensure the survival of his tribe."

That is not a quote from the teacher. It's the reporter's words.

I'm pointing to the local PBS scheduling decision, and the reporter's words because they offer a glimpse into un-critical, maybe biased, maybe racist thinking in Illinois. It is weighing on me because of damage done last week to the public art exhibit we're sponsoring on the UIUC campus.

Intended or not, efforts to educate the public about past and present day American Indians takes place in contexts that are so negative. I'm hoping the local PBS station would have a 'doh!' response if this juxtaposition was pointed out to them. And I think that reporter would say "oh" if someone engaged him a conversation about biased writing, but I don't know what the individual(s) who damaged the public art would say. "I was just messing around, I didn't mean it?" or, "I'm sorry."

Grumpy today, thinking about context.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Bruchac reading from SKELETON MAN

Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

One of my favorite books by Joseph Bruchac is Skeleton Man. Click here to hear him read from the book.

Cassie Edwards Plagiarized THE WAY TO RAINY MOUNTAIN

Some of you may recall that Cassie Edwards, author of romance novels (including the "SAVAGE" Indian series) was caught plagiarizing last year. The site "Smart Bitches" catalogued a lot of the plagiarized passages.

I didn't follow all of it carefully last year, and missed this:

Edwards plagiarized from N. Scott Momaday's The Way To Rainy Mountain. The novel is read in a lot of high school English/Lit courses, which makes me think that teachers who teach it might want to add a segment on plagiarism to their unit.

Cassie Edwards, Savage Whispers is a passage-by-passage comparison of Edwards' novel and Momaday's writings. It is astounding. It's on a LiveJournal that belongs to "wombat" dated Feb. 29, 2008. (Note: I've got an LJ, too, under my name, Debbie Reese. When you click on the hyperlink, you might get an "Are you 14?" page. If that happens answer the question and you'll then go to the correct page. At that point, I'm not sure how the page will look on your screen. My computer defaults to my LJ, and it plops wombat's analysis on my page. Maybe if you do not have an LJ, you'll go right to wombat's LJ.)

Here's wombat's opening paragraph, followed by the paragraph where she says what was plagiarized, followed by one example. Do go to wombat's page and read the entire thing. Wombat writes:

This is one of Edwards' older books, and it shows: presumably she wasn't yet able to coast on her reputation (and was twenty years younger), so the prose actually has some description and flow, and the plot is noticeably more complex-- compared to her recent routine, it's almost mindbogglingly frenetic.

...

Edwards makes extensive use of Momaday's book (abbreviated below as WRM), as well as his article/essay "A First American Views His Land", first published with various photos as pp 13-19 National Geographic, Vol. 150 No.1, July 1976, and later reprinted (text-only) in his anthology The Man Made of Words, McMillan 1998 (abbreviated below as FAVL; page #s are via antho MMW or magazine NG).

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SW p 2 (author's note):
After a bloody fight at Palo Duro Canyon, the Kiowa came in, a few at a time, to surrender at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. Their horses and weapons were confiscated and they were imprisoned. In a field just west of the post, the Indian ponies were destroyed. Nearly eight hundred horses were killed outright. Two thousand more were sold, stolen, and given away.

Momaday, WRM p. 67:
After the fight at Palo Duro Canyon, the Kiowas came in, a few at a time, to surrender at Fort Sill. Their horses and weapons were confiscated, and they were imprisoned. In a field just west of the post, the Indian ponies were destroyed. Nearly 800 horses were killed outright; two thousand more were sold, stolen, given away.

I'm grateful to wombat for doing this analysis and letting me know about it. Momaday and the UNM Press have been informed. If there's any news on action, I'll let you know.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

We the People 2009

Last night I learned that Louise Erdrich's Birchbark House was on the 2009 "We the People" bookshelf. I mentioned that books on that shelf in previous years had been disappointing. This morning, JPM submitted an excellent comment to that post, so I'm reposting it here:

This is an interesting "first" from a group that so far seems to have focused its selections on perpetuating the dominant narrative of "American history". I'm curious about some of their other choices this year. Am not familiar with Kathleen Krull's book on Cesar Chavez (illustrated by award-winner Yuyi Morales), but I see that she also wrote something titled Pocahontas: Princess of the New World (illustrated by David Diaz, whose cover "princess" has a romanticized look) which according to the author's Web site is "fascinating birth-to-death account of this true American princess."

A Chavez book that would have been VERY interesting to see on the list is Rudolfo Anaya's Elegy on the Death of Cesar Chavez. Though "too old" for the age group NEH has chosen for the Krull bio, Elegy is a straight-from-the-heart look at what Cesar Chavez meant to many, many Mexican-Americans and countless others who observed, took part in, and/or benefited from his tireless activism. AND the dust jacket is this amazing time-line poster, perfect for teachers. Illustrator Gaspar Enriquez did some remarkable work. So I am curious about the decision-making process for that "Picturing America" option.

Two other WTP selections raise questions for me regarding representations of indigenous people in this year's "Bookshelf". For example, what does The Captain's Dog have to say about the Lewis and Clark project, especially about the Native people encountered encountered by the expedition? And Freedman's Life and Death of Crazy Horse I read years ago - but what might have been the reason to choose it over a biography by someone of indigenous background? Insider perspectives continue to be a problematic absence for the WTP bookshelves; let's hope that the inclusion of Birchbark House signals the beginning of a trend.

Also noted: this year's shelf has a repeat -- a version of the Paul Revere "midnight ride" story was also part of the 2005-06 Bookshelf on "Freedom". Wonder if the committee/s had any conversation about choosing David Hackett Fischer's Paul Revere's Ride instead (for older readers) which unlike the Longfellow poem, focuses on historical accuracy.


And if you want to read past posts on this discussion, here they are:

June 7, 2007: "We" the People?

April 4, 2009: BIRCHBARK HOUSE is on "We the People" Bookshelf, 2009