American Indian Autobiographies

Although anthropologists and folklorists have long shown a professional interest in American Indian literature, literary scholars have seldom explored the possibilities of this rich field. Perhaps the scientific approach of the anthropologists and the idea that folklore and literature are mutually exclusive have blinded us to the recognition of literary creativity in American Indian peoples. Whatever the reasons, our cultural myopia has unnecessarily limited the canon of American literature. We can begin to correct this deficiency by applying critical approaches to American Indian works. The most explicitly literary approach is to examine the types of American Indian literature. Traditionally, these were oral productions and consisted basically of three kinds: narratives (myths, tales, and legends), song-poetry, and oratory. In modern times, these oral forms have been adapted to the written forms of fiction, poetry, and essay. Another form, transitional between the oral and written types, has developed also--autobiography. This transitional form, in many ways the most complex aesthetically, will be explored in detail here through a study of nine representative works. Our exploration will differ from previous work on this subject in three significant ways. First, the works selected are based on a more aesthetically precise definition of autobiography as verbal expressions, whether oral or written, of their lives by American Indians. Since we are discussing American Indian autobiography as a literary form, we must remember that the word is the essential medium of literature. Pictography relies on the picture, not the word, as its primary means of communication; it is art rather than literature and belongs in a different type of discussion about Indian creativity. Second, I have attempted to show through these nine works the diversity and sophistication of form in American Indian autobiographies. It is tempting to present only a few patterns of form revolving around certain obvious cultural actions, such as raids and vision quests. As we will see, however, such a limited presentation would be misleading. The two southwestern Apache autobiographies compared here will show, for instance, how different the forms of works

History · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Indigenous Studies and Ecology

• Demarcation and Preservation of Indigenous Knowledge and Culture. A Deconstructive Study of Mad Bear

  Open Access•Sanniya Sara Batool, Shahbaz Khalid et al.•Global Social Sciences Review•2021

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• Zitkala-Sa's Autobiographical Writings

  Martha J Cutter•MELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of…•1994

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• Pre-Literate Native American Autobiography

  Hertha D Sweet Wong, Hertha D Wong•MELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of…•1987

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