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 this article the author starts from the premise that, although there were no renowned Indian poets at Carlisle and other Indian boarding schools in the United States, students in federal boarding schools read and wrote poetry. She argues that the rhetorically bold Carlisle poems--along with the letters and articles published in the Carlisle…

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, a former English teacher and school counselor, is an award-winning author, best known for her children's books about the Rosebud Sioux life and culture, which combines history and legend to create culturally rich and authentic Native American stories. In this article, the authors share their conversations with Virginia…

As a reflection on pedagogy, this essay seeks to provide strategic tools for teaching Native American literature and culture to non-native students. My teaching philosophy is informed by the indigenous-centered, decolonial methodologies as defined by Devon Mihesuah who calls for "indigenizing" the academy by challenging the status quo…

This essay derives from a course called ‘"The Rhetoric of Native America,’" which is a historical-critical survey of Native American primary texts. The course examines the rhetoric employed by Natives to enact social change and to build community in the face of exigencies. The main goal of exploring a native text (particularly, Simon…

In the spring of 2008, university students enrolled in courses at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), and the University of Cyprus (UCY) participated in a cross-cultural e-learning project in which they studied American Indian literature and history. All students followed the same six-week syllabus, which included shared readings and…

At the close of Sherman Alexie's "Indian Killer," in a final chapter titled "Creation Story," a killer carries a backpack containing, among other things, "dozens of owl feathers, a scrapbook, and two bloody scalps in a plastic bag." Readers schooled in the psychopathologies of real and fictional serial killers will be familiar with the detail:…

One of the first Native American authors, Samson Occom, a Mohegan Indian, began writing in the 18th century. His writings included an ethnographic essay on the Montauk Tribe, an autobiographical sketch of his educational experiences and missionary activities, and his first publication, "Sermon at the Execution of Moses Paul." (ERB)

William Apess is among a number of Native intellectuals from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to whom scholars have paid increasing attention over the past decade and more. Apess was raised in the crucible of Native New England, had been abused in various ways in it, and spent his adulthood giving voice to those who experienced the…

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.

A classic, purportedly authentic, account of the origins of Lenape (Delaware) Indians was exposed as a scholarly hoax perpetrated by Constantine Rafinesque in the 1830s. Rafinesque sought to reconcile American Indian origins with Biblical teachings and promoted the "Bering Strait theory" of Indian origins. Describes involvement of a…

The literature of the Native Peoples of North America is gaining interest with an increasing number of persons; however, recent articles fail to view this literature holistically and within a realistic cultural, historical, and social context. A history of Native American literature and the impact of colonialism is included. (JMM)

Reprints two Latin texts written by Harvard American Indian students in the seventeenth century with approximate English translations as well as observations on the form, structure, and grammar of the texts and their background in literary tradition. The "Honoratissimi Benefactores" is a letter of gratitude to the benefactors of Caleb…

Discusses the enrichment of understanding about American Indians due to the development of new materials and approaches to the history of Indians in American society. Cites specific examples of books that characterize different stages in the development of literature on North American Indians. (AEM)

Explores aspects of "The Way to Rainy Mountain," through which Momaday incorporates Native American oral narrative modes into Euro-American written autobiography, and blends mythical, historical, and personal narratives of the Kiowa migration and Momaday's own journey from Montana to Oklahoma. Contains 36 references. (SV)