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Annotated Native American Literature

 Bibliography

This bibliography contains information from a variety of sources. Participants in Lawana Trout's 1993 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute offered many helpful suggestions and annotations. Dr. Trout's handouts and institute comments about various books have also found their way into this bibliography. A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff's work, especially her indispensable book, American Indian Literatures: An Introduction, Bibliographic Review, and Selected Bibliography (New York: Modern Language Association, 1990), has been especially valuable as has Louis Owens' Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel (Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1992). I have also added information from my own reading and research.

Guide to Reading Levels:  1--primary through elementary, 2--middle school through sophomore, 3--sophomore through senior, 4--senior or above

American Indian Authors--Fiction, nonfiction, autobiography, and poetry

Narrated life histories are designated by *; for these works the name of the author is given first followed by the name(s) of the collaborator(s).

Allen, Paula Gunn (Laguna/Sioux, b. 1939). Grandmothers of the Light: A Medicine Woman's Source Book. Boston: Beacon, 1991. Allen's reinterpretations of traditional narratives.  3

______. The Woman Who Owned the Shadows. 1983. One of only two novels since Mourning Dove's Cogewea (1927) to be both by and about American Indian women. (See Hale, Janet Campbell) The novel features a mixed-blood protagonist at odds with her surroundings and self. Protagonist puts the pieces of her identity back together  through discovery of her Indian self. Fiction.  4

Apess, William (Pequot, b. 1798). On Our Own Ground: The Complete Writings of William Apess. Ed. Barry O'Connell. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1992. The first autobiography to be published was A Son of the Forest (1829) [might be available as a separate volume],  by Apess. Apess, who claimed to be descended from King Philip, was one-quarter white. In Son he gives a moving account of the abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of his alcoholic grandparents. He uses the experience to introduce an attack on Indian alcoholism, a condition for which he holds whites responsible. After a severe beating, Apess was taken in by a white family and bound out from age five to a series of masters, a common practice in dealing with orphans and foster children. He was one of the most forceful Indian protest writers of the early nineteenth century. Apess converted to Methodism, ran away to join the army during the War of 1812, and was ordained in 1829. He describes his perilous journey to salvation, fall from grace, and subsequent rededication to Christianity. He also strongly criticizes whites' treatment of Indians. The whites with whom Apess lived as a child taught him to be terrified of his own people.  3

*Black Elk (Sioux). John G. Neihardt. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. 1932. Introduction, Vine Deloria, Jr. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1979. This book is a powerful, moving expression of the substance that under girded Plains Indian religious beliefs. As Deloria writes in the introduction, "If any great religious classic has emerged in this century or on this continent, it must be judged in the company of Black Elk Speaks." [For background reading see DeMallie, Raymond J., ed. The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt. Foreword Hilda Neihardt Petri. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1984, and Rice, Julian. Black Elk's Story: Distinguishing its Lakota Purpose. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1991.] Autobiography.  4

*Black Hawk (Sauk). Antoine Le Claire and John B. Patterson. Black Hawk, an Autobiography. 1833. Ed. with a new introduction by Donald Jackson. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1955. Autobiography.  2

*Chona, Maria (Papago). Ruth Murray Underhill. The Autobiography of a Papago Woman. 1936. New York: Holt, 1979. Autobiography.  2

Conley, Robert (Cherokee). Windsong. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1992. An historical novel focusing on the love story of a couple separated by the Trail of Tears.  3

Cook-Lynn, Elizabeth (Sioux). From the River's Edge. New York: Arcade, 1991. Chronicles the attempts by a Dakota cattleman to reconcile the unavenged thefts of culture and honor, his traditional way of life and his cattle, and his relationship with his wife. Powerful evocation of the dilemmas faced by contemporary Sioux. Fiction.  4

Deloria, Ella C. (Sioux). Waterlily. Biography by Agnes Picotte. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1988. Deloria's only novel, completed in draft form by 1944 but not published until 1988. An invaluable portrayal of nineteenth-century Sioux life told from a woman's perspective. Traces the life of a girl from childhood through womanhood. The reader is introduced to Dakota camp life, rituals, kinship systems, and customs. Fiction.  2

Dorris, Michael A. (Modoc). A Yellow Raft on Blue Water. New York: Holt, 1987. New York: Warner, 1988. What does it mean to be Indian--or mixed blood--in contemporary America? This novel helps to define and expand this literature, introducing the first dual-minority protagonist in the person of Rayona, his half-Indian and half-African American protagonist. Fiction.  3

Eastman, Charles A. (Sioux, 1858-1939). From the Deep Woods to Civilization. 1916. Introduction by Raymond Wilson. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1977. This was Eastman's second autobiography. It describes his experiences in the white world. His writings inspired other Sioux writers, such as Luther Standing Bear and Zitala-Sa, to write their personal narratives. Eastman was the most influential and widely read Indian autobiographer from the 1890s to the early part of the twentieth century.  He was one of the first Indian doctors. He met Matthew Arnold, Longfellow, Emerson, Francis Parkman, and Theodore Roosevelt. Until he was fifteen, Eastman led the life of a traditional Santee Sioux boy, isolated from contacts with whites. He attended Dartmouth College (class of 1887) and Boston University Medical School. Married Elaine Goodale, a Massachusetts writer and teacher on the Great Sioux Reservation. In 1939, after a teepee fire, he suffered smoke inhalation and later contracted both pneumonia and a heart condition, which killed him. Autobiography.  3

_____. Indian Boyhood. 1902. In this book Eastman chronicled his life as a Santee Sioux from childhood to age fifteen. He depicts the traditional life of the Sioux before the reservation period. The opening lines express the spirit Eastman hoped to transmit to his readers: "What boy would not be an Indian for a while when he thinks of the freest life in the world? This life was mine. Every day there was a real hunt. There was real game." Autobiography.  3

Erdrich, Louise (Ojibwa). Tracks. 1988. New York: Harper, 1989. This novel is set in 1912-1919 in North Dakota when the Chippewas were coping with the effects of allotment. (The General Allotment Act --1887, sponsored by Senator Dawes. The Act established a way for dividing reservations into individual homesteads and assigning these to tribal members. Following receipt of allotments Indians would become citizens. This policy was part of a larger attempt to assimilate Indians into the dominant white culture. The unfortunate reality, however, was that Indian homesteaders fell into poverty and economic dependency. For an excellent essay see Frederick Hoxie's "The Curious Story of Reformers and the American Indians" in Indians in American History: An Introduction.) Focuses on Fleur Pillager, who seems to possess shamanistic powers and is fiercely tied to the land; Nanapush, an old man of lusty wit named after that tribe's culture hero and trickster; and Pauline, a jealous, venal mixed-blood. Fiction.  4

Hale, Janet Campbell (Coeur d'Alene/Kootenai, b. 1947). The Jailing of Cecelia Capture. 1985. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1987. One of only two novels since Mourning Dove's Cogewea (1927) to be both by and about American Indian women. The protagonist attempts to define her identity as a woman and mixed-blood while combating alcoholism and separation from her husband and children. Fiction.  4

_____. Owl's Song. 1974. New York: Avon, 1976. Hero is an adolescent Indian boy who must deal with reservation alcoholism and teenage suicide. One of the few books to deal with Indians on the reservation and in the city. Fiction.  2

Harjo, Joy (Creek, b. 1951). She Had Some Horses. New York: Thunder's Mouth P, 1983. One of the most important poets writing today. Poetry.  3+

_____. In Mad Love and War. Hanover: Wesleyan U P, 1990. Beautiful, moving...primarily prose poems including many eulogies to the victims of racial injustice. Poetry.  3+

Maria De Jesus, Carolina. Child of the Dark. New York: New American Library, Inc., (Signet) 1960. Translated by David St. Clair. Poignant account written on scraps of paper found in a trash can. Autobiography.  2+

McNickle, D'Arcy (Cree/Salish, 1904-77). The Surrounded. 1936. Afterword by William Towner. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1978. McNickle was sent to Indian boarding school in Oregon, attended the University of Montana but left just short of graduation. He served as the first Director of the Center for the History of the American Indian, Newberry Library, Chicago. The protagonist of this fast-paced novel, Archilde Leon, is a young man, half Spanish, half Salish. He returns to the reservation for what he expects will be a brief stay only to find himself forced to confront the complex issues of life there and the fact that his Indian mother and Spanish father have grown so distant from each other that they live in separate homes. A difficult book to put down. Fiction.  3+

_____. Runner in the Sun. 1954. This novel is written for middle school readers. Set in the pre-contact Southwest, this story evokes the life, customs, and beliefs of the ancient cliff dwellers of Chaco Canyon in what is now northwestern New Mexico, as they battle the forces of nature and society that threaten to destroy them. Fiction.  2

Menchu, Rigoberta. I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. Ed. Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. New York: Verso, 1983. The Noble Prize (1992) winning author's life has been threatened and members of her family killed for disagreeing with government policies. This is a powerful, at times violent book by a person reared in the peasant class who has become an important voice for her people. Autobiography.  4+

Momaday, N. Scott (Kiowa). House Made of Dawn. New York: Harper & Row, 1968. This important novel won the Pulitzer Prize and received more critical acclaim than any previous Indian novel. In fact, only nine novels by American Indians had been published before this one--the first was John Rollin Ridge's Joaquin Murieta in 1854. Momeday portrays a mixed-blood's quest for a sense of place, tribe, and self. The protagonist is a returning World War II veteran, Abel, trying to find his place in relation to the land and his home community, Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico. (See the attached Teacher Guide for more background information.) Complex narrative structuring. Fiction.  4+

_____. The Way to Rainy Mountain. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1969. In this book Momeday weaves together story, myths, history and personal remembrance as he recounts his own journey to understand the historic journey of the Kiowa people. A particularly fine book rich in examples for students who might want to write about and uncover meanings in their own lives. For background reading see James Mooney's Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians, Mildred Mayhall's The Kiowas, Alice Marriott's The Ten Grandmother's: Epic of the Kiowas, Approaches to Teaching Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain edited by Kenneth M. Roemer, or Maurice Boyd's Kiowa Voices: Ceremonial Dance, Ritual and Song (volume I). Autobiography, myth, history.  3

Mourning Dove [Cristal Quintasket] (Colville, 1888-1936). Cogewea, the Half Blood: A Depiction of the Great Montana Cattle Range. With notes and biographical sketch by Lucullus Virgil McWorter. 1927. Introduction by Dexter Fisher. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1981.  First novel by an Indian woman. Focuses on the identity problems of a mixed-blood heroine who initially rejects and then accepts her tribal heritage. Stresses the importance of oral tradition. Fiction.  3

Occom, Samson (Mohegan, 1723-92). A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian. New London: T. Green. 1772. Written and preached at the request of Paul, a friend of Occom's. The sermon so impressed the audience that after it was published, it became the first Indian bestseller. Occom was a Methodist missionary to the Indians and pupil of the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, who sent him to England from 1765 to 1768 to raise money for his Indian Charity School in Hanover, NH, which became Dartmouth College. Nonfiction.  4

Ridge, John Rollin (Cherokee, 1827-67). The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murietta, the Celebrated California Bandit. 1854. Introduction by Joseph Henry Jackson. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1977. This is the first novel by a Native American. It portrays the famous bandit who turns to crime after he is victimized by white miners. A fast-pace story. Fiction.  3

*Sekaquaptewa, Helen (Hopi). Louise Udall. Me and Mine: the Life Story of Helen Sekaquaptewa. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 1969. Autobiography.  2

Silko, Leslie Marmon (Laguna, b. 1948). Ceremony. 1977. New York: Penguin, 1986. This novel describes the ritual journey of Tayo, a mixed-blood, to wholeness after he suffers battle fatique during World War II. Fiction.  4+

_____. Storyteller. 1981. New York: Arcade, 1989. Poetry and short fiction, interspersed with personal commentary.  3

*Standing Bear, Luther (Sioux). Land of the Spotted Eagle. 1933. Foreword by Richard N. Ellis. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1978. Autobiography.  2

Walters, Anna Lee (Otoe/Pawnee, b.1946). Ghost Singer. Flagstaff: Northland, 1988.  A novel that blends mystery and history that focuses on Navajo-white relations and on whites' inhumane practice of storing Indian skeletons and body parts in museums. Indian ghosts emerge in a museum to rage against the storage and display of artifacts that prevent their souls from resting. Fiction.  4

Welch, James (Blackfeet/Gros Ventre, b. 1940). Fools Crow. New York: Viking, 1986. Historical novel about the Blackfeet before the reservation period. Powerful evocation and vivid description of the impact of white settlement on a Montana band in 1870. A sampling of reviews from 1986: "The novel is like finding a lifestyle preserved for a century and reanimated for our benefit and education."  "The most significant event in the development of Native American Literature. In telling the story of one Blackfoot warrior Welch has evoked the total culture of a tribe." Writer and scholar Louis Owens writes of Fools Crow that it is the first novel to "grant privilege and authority to an Indian discourse by demanding that the reader adapt to, or assimilate, a Blackfoot world-view." As the novel opens the Blackfeet have regained their strength from two smallpox epidemics--in 1781, when over half the population died, and again in 1837 when two-thirds perished. They are a powerful and confident people. White Man's Dog, as the protagonist is at first called, is a member of the Lone Eaters band of the Pikuni tribe. Two major sources of historical background information can be found in John C. Ewers' The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains and George Bird Grinnell's Blackfeet Lodge Tales: The Story of a Prairie People. Fiction.  3+

Winnemucca, Sarah [Hopkins] (Paiute, 1844-91). Life Among the Piutes. Ed. Mrs. Horace Mann. 1883. Bishop, CA: Chalfant, 1969. The first two chapters are powerful accounts of her childhood and of customs pertaining to the rearing of boys and girls as well as the roles of men and women. Later chapters chronicle her activities as a liaison between the Paiutes and whites during the period 1844-1883. Winnemucca was the only Indian woman writer of personal and tribal history during most of the nineteenth century. Born near the Sink of the Humbolt River in Nevada, she was the granddaughter of Truckee, who she claimed was chief of all the Paiutes. Autobiography and nonfiction.  3

Young Bear, Ray A. (Mesquakie). Black Eagle Child: The Face Paint Narratives. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1992. A powerful and moving fictionalized autobiography.  3