This article re-stories the navigation of one White female student, Abby, enrolled in a 12th grade ethnic studies course titled Native American literature. Abby reveals tensions, disruptions, and self-discoveries within a course that recentered Indigenous histories and literacies while, concurrently, decentered dominant knowledge systems. Her…

Native American storytelling has become a very vital issue in education. It preserves Native American history for the next generation and teaches them important lessons about the Native American culture. It also conveys moral meanings, knowledge and social values of the Native American people to the universe. More importantly, Native American…

Relying on the intersections of Indigenous Research Methodologies and Humanizing Research, the authors of this article argue that by re-centering relationships through critical listening and storying, we are better suited to co-construct our shared truths and realities in the space between the telling and hearing of stories. As we do so, we move…

In Native American literary studies today there is a gap between the variety of criticism being produced and the metacritical debate about what Native literary criticism should look like. A review of recent issues of "Studies in American Indian Literatures", for example, will discover a wide variety of approaches, some relating literary…

The author's two main arguments in her discussion include: teaching and researching Native literatures within the disciplinary context of Native Studies enhances the understanding of these texts; vice versa, Native writers address topics that are intrinsic components in epistemological processes of decolonization promoted in a Native Studies…

In this article, the author explains what he sees as the ironically disabling impact of some critical postures characterized by careful, self-reflexive distance undertaken by non-Native critics and then suggests a possible alternative direction for future critical interventions. The article presents the most popular strategies of ethical…

In the novel Ceremony, Tayo suffers from flawed psychological vision, mainly as a result of being contaminated by certain preconceptions that he, like most Americans, has acquired from the social environment. In the beginning of the novel, Tayo suffers from physiological eyestrain.

Leslie Marmon Silko physically locates the climax of the novel, Ceremony at Canoncito, southeast of the Jackpile Uranium Mine, and so metaphorically correlates this site with witchery. The novel is ultimately the story of Tayo, and how he must restore harmony between the land and his people.

In Leslie Marmon Silko's novel "Ceremony", Rocky appears as Tayo's childhood friend and "brother" and also as a major part of Tayo's prisoner-of-war experiences in the Pacific during World War II. The interpretation of the novel presents both Rocky and Tayo as two men destroyed by the war, the former physically and the latter spiritually.

"Arrest Sitting Bull," a novel written by Douglas C. Jones that relates the personal stories of individuals involved in the military and the political domination of the Sioux Indian during the period leading to the Sitting Bull killing is described. The incessant quest to establish and maintain control and the integral roles played by fear and…

Describes the problems inherent in teaching native Canadian Indian literature selections and explores the problems in finding high quality native literature to use in classes with increasing numbers of native Indians enrolled. (CRH)

The cautionary figure of windigo has lurked at the edges of Louise Erdrich's writing since her first collection of poems in 1984. In "The Antelope Wife" it finally emerges into full view. A windigo is defined as a cannibalistic monster set loose by human greed, envy, and jealousy. Traditional Ojibwe windigo stories usually focus on the starving…

Non-Native scholarly interpretations of The Three Bears--a traditional story of the Nlha7kapmx Nation--focus on mythology as simplistic science to explain the physical world. In contrast, a Nlha7kapmx interpretation illuminates connections of land to people. Such stories reinforce cultural identity and teach young people about the spiritual power…

Summarizes the stereotypes of Plains Indians and then surveys the realities of that culture, emphasizing the physical and spiritual role of the horse. Reviews two children's books by writer-artist Paul Goble, pointing out their accurate depiction of the material and spiritual nature of the traditional Plains Indian culture. (JHZ)