Indigenous Authors in the Mainstream: The Subversion of Tradition and Authenticity in Literary Genres
"Storytelling in the 21st Century," 2023 Sidney Warhaft Memorial Lecture, Drew Hayden Taylor
Written by Lydia Gork (Indigenous Studies), UMIH Undergraduate Intern
On January 19th, 2023, Ojibwe author, poet, and playwright Drew Hayden Taylor from Curve Lake First Nation delivered the Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media’s Sidney Warhaft Memorial Lecture at the University of Manitoba titled “Storytelling in the 21st Century.” Among the topics discussed, Taylor encouraged Indigenous authors to explore and infiltrate mainstream literary genres, such as science fiction, horror, and comedy. During the question and answer period, when prompted to discuss further why it is important for Indigenous authors to intervene in mainstream genres, Hayden responded that Indigenous cultures have been appropriated by white-settler society, so why don’t we appropriate white cultural forms, too?
There exists a long and problematic tradition of non-Indigenous authors appropriating Indigenous tropes in their literature. Not only has Indigenous material culture been appropriated in Western economies, such as the mass production of dream catchers, but the Indigenous body and experiences, too, have been used in literary works by non-Indigenous authors and have reproduced harmful understandings of Indigeneity. Often being slotted under the categories of “Canadian literature” or “fiction,” non-Indigenous authored works such as Windflower (Gabrielle Roy 1970) have represented Indigenous being as synonymous with pre-coloniality, where Indigeneity is interrupted by the intrusions of white settlers, making it difficult for readers to imagine the persistence of Indigenous peoples in contemporary times. Cree-Métis scholar Emma LaRocque notes in her book, When the Other is Me (2010), that the effect of misrepresentations of Indigeneity is the creation of a civilized/savage binary that is used to negate Indigenous existence and justify settlers’ discrimination toward Indigenous peoples. In creating narratives of Indigenous life removed from lived realities, non-Indigenous authors’ appropriation of Indigenous cultures in their literary works, without experiential knowledge as an Indigenous person, has had very damaging consequences on understandings of Indigeneity as well as the way those understandings have become refracted into everyday life.
Indigenous peoples in Canada have been telling their own stories long before the onset of colonization and have continued to do so throughout time. While some of the oldest Indigenous stories were told orally or visually, such as through petroforms like those at the Whiteshell Provincial Park in Manitoba, we may also witness the continuity of published literature written by Indigenous peoples, dating back to as early as 1895 when Mohawk woman E. Pauline Johnson’s collection of poetry, The White Wampum, was published. Much important work has followed by Indigenous authors to produce life stories grounded in Indigenous subjectivities—Halfbreed (Maria Campbell 1973), A Really Good Brown Girl (Marylin Dumont 1996), From the Ashes (Jesse Thistle 2019) and The Strangers (Katherena Vermette 2021) are but a few examples. Thanks to the work of these authors and many more, readers need look no further for Indigenous life stories grounded in the author’s subjectivity as an Indigenous person.
“Indigenous life stories have many reiterative effects among challenging pre-existing, and often misinformed, narratives.”
With the abundance and accessibility of life stories by Indigenous authors, the work of Indigenous authors has not escaped criticism. Labeled as “trauma porn” (Drew Hayden Taylor 2023) or being criticized for romanticizing hardships many Indigenous people have faced as a shared experience, Indigenous life stories have many reiterative effects among challenging pre-existing, and often misinformed, narratives. Having asserted our knowledge of self and demonstrated our rich and vast understanding about the complexity of Indigeneity through these life stories, Indigenous authors may now feel more inclined to write beyond the topic of Indigenous suffering to demonstrate what Métis scholar Chris Andersen calls Indigenous “density.”
In an article titled “Critical Indigenous Studies: From Difference to Density,” Andersen argues that Indigenous knowledges expand beyond a narrow settler definition of Indigeneity to also include Indigenous knowledge about whiteness. In this sense, Indigeneity exceeds settler colonialism, to the extent that it can offer critiques of it. Drawing from African American Studies scholar Robin Kelley, Andersen describes the phenomenon as Indigenous epistemological “density,” to capture the diversity of knowledges Indigenous peoples hold, especially our role as “knowers of whiteness.” In discussing Kelley’s theorization of the density of Blackness, Andersen describes how “[t]his density is constituted through the numerous subject positions which [B]lackness occupies in modernity” (92). In light of Indigenous peoples’ lived experiences in settler colonial society, our subjectivities as Indigenous peoples allow us to exist beyond settler colonialism and observe how whiteness operates within our everyday lives.
LaRocque, Emma. 2010. When The Other is Me: Native Resistance Discourse 1850-1990. University of Manitoba Press.
For decades, anthropologists and ethnographers have attempted to “know” Indigeneity and these supposed knowledges have been refracted into mainstream literature to equate Indigenous existence with the pre-historic, culturally “pure” and “traditional” past (LaRocque 2010). Much heavy lifting was, and still is, required to overcome these reproductions of Indigeneity (Andersen 2014). But, when Taylor responded that “they did it to us,” as in, they appropriated our cultures so we should do it to them, it was not meant in a retaliatory or vengeful sense. Rather, I believe Taylor encourages Indigenous authors to show that they too can study and write about whiteness and white cultural forms. We are not confined to writing about Indigenous heritage, as an aspect of our Indigenous knowledge is our knowledge of whiteness, as we have experienced it as Indigenous peoples. One way to demonstrate our density is by illustrating our knowledge of white dominated literary genres and how they operate.
For example, in his collection of poetry, Scars & Stars (2022), Cree-Métis author Jesse Thistle demonstrates his knowledge of Western canonical culture by using Greek myths as a literary device throughout his poetry, as Greek mythology is often assumed to be the pinnacle of European tradition. By doing so, Thistle subverts ideas of “traditional knowledge” and “traditional languages” that are so often the core subjects of concern surrounding Indigenous peoples and our authenticity. In addition to references to “traditional Indigenous knowledge,” such as drawings of sacred medicines and themes of ceremony and kinship as seen in “Fasting Ceremony” (111-3) or “Berry Picking” (74), Thistle shows Indigenous peoples’ capacity to also be knowers of European traditional knowledges, such as Greek mythology. His piece “Hellenistic Lucie” explicitly draws from Greek myth, addressing a romantic partner as “hyacinth” (72). Thistle writes, “Last I saw you / ten thousand ships launched to Troy / and I watched, lovesick” (72). By incorporating both Indigenous and European “traditional” knowledges in his creative works, Thistle demonstrates that our knowledge of Indigeneity and whiteness can coexist without tampering our authenticity as Indigenous peoples.
“a post colonial aboriginal epistemology necessarily entails deconstruction and reconstruction. For Aboriginal scholars, it has meant, among other things, dismantling stereotypes and uncovering the covert but dominant narrative in western scholarship”
Moreover, with Greek mythology being an ancient form of European knowledge, Thistle challenges white readers’ knowledge of whiteness and understanding of “tradition.” Thistle shows expertise in an area of European knowledge as an Indigenous man that many European descendants themselves may be unfamiliar with. In this sense, Thistle subverts what it means to have “traditional knowledge,” making readers aware that traditional knowledge does not authenticate one’s identity. Indigenous peoples’ identities have long been scrutinized based on their knowledge or lack thereof of “traditional,” or pre-colonial, Indigenous cultures, languages, and teachings. Why must Indigenous peoples obtain a certain threshold of traditional Indigenous knowledge to be considered authentically Indigenous, when the same standard is often not held to people of European descent with respect to their ancient knowledges? Thistle challenges the conflation of Indigenous authenticity with traditional knowledge through his extensive engagement with Greek mythology in his poetry, demonstrating that Indigenous peoples’ epistemological density extends beyond our knowledge of Indigenous traditions to include our intelligibility of whiteness and how it functions to privilege certain understandings of authenticity over others.
In an article titled “From the Land to the Classroom: Broadening Epistemology,” Emma LaRocque put out a call to action for Indigenous academics: “a post colonial Aboriginal epistemology necessarily entails deconstruction and reconstruction. For Aboriginal scholars, it has meant, among other things, dismantling stereotypes and uncovering the covert but dominant narrative in western scholarship” (68). During his lecture, Drew Hayden Taylor’s encouragement to Indigenous writers to insert themselves into dominant literary genres provided one avenue through which Indigenous authors can begin the process of deconstruction and reconstruction, and Jesse Thistle’s poetry is evidence of the ongoing progress Indigenous scholars have made through this route over the two decades since LaRocque’s call in 2001. Following Taylor’s lecture, a reception was held at the university. Bottles of wine, hors-d’oeuvres and chatter filled the room. Whether sitting on a couch, observing, standing with peers, or conversing, it is in these everyday moments within the ivory tower that has long attempted to “know” us that Indigenous peoples gather our Indigenous knowledges on whiteness.
References
Andersen, Chris. 2009. Critical Indigenous Studies: From Difference to Density. Cultural Studies Review, 15(2).
LaRocque, Emma. 2001. From the Land to the Classroom: Broadening Epistemology. Pushing the Margins: Native and Northern Studies, edited by J. Oakes, R. Riewe, M. Bennett, & B. Chisholm, 62-75. University of Manitoba.
LaRocque, Emma. 2010. When The Other is Me: Native Resistance Discourse 1850-1990. University of Manitoba Press.
Taylor, Drew Hayden. 2023. “Storytelling in the 21st Century.” Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media’s Sidney Warhaft Memorial Lecture. University of Manitoba, 19 January 2023.
Thistle, Jesse. 2022. Scars & Stars. McClelland & Stewart.