X-Marks

Writing as both a literary critic and a member of the Leech Lake Ojibwe Reservation, whose heritage is a mix of Ojibwe, Dakota, and white, Scott Richard Lyons addresses the interrelated issues of American Indian identity, traditionalism, tribalism, and nationalism as they are constructed and contested today. He draws on the analysis of language, borrows from history and the social sciences, and is guided by his study of Ojibwe history and culture to produce a refreshingly new perspective on difficult issues that, far from abstract, directly affect daily life for American Indian people. Lyons's prose is engaging, personal, informal, and witty, reminiscent of that of Vine Deloria Jr. and Gerald Vizenor. The central trope of his study is the “x-mark,” referring originally to American Indian leaders “touching the pen” when signing treaties with the United States government: “An x-mark is a sign of consent in a context of coercion; it is the agreement one makes when there seems to be little choice in the matter” (p. 1). Lyons argues that nineteenth-century leaders made their x-marks in good faith to commit their people to change and that rather than being considered dupes of the white men, their decisions should be respected. In broader context, he uses the x-mark to symbolize any form of American Indian assent “that, while not necessarily traditional in origin, can sometimes turn out all right and occasionally even good” (p. 3). Such an analysis attributes agency to Indians who commit to creating their own version of modernity. Lyons writes that his call for “more modernization is simultaneously a demand for greater nationalization” (p. 12). “The very idea of an Indian nation is,” he writes, “an x-mark,” and by signing treaties Indian leaders “committed themselves to national status” (pp. 20, 123

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