Creating a Literature of Native Presence

Card-playing
Native
American
bets deed to
tribal land.
See reference page

Gerald Vizenor, like Professor Alter, confronts the problems of translation, but in quite a different realm. The country's most prolific Native American author, Vizenor's writing and teaching challenge the depiction of Native Americans found throughout literature, history, and popular culture.

Vizenor, a former journalist, is a professor of Native American literature and American studies who has published 25 works of fiction, memoirs, history, literary criticism, and poetry, including seven novels and six books of haiku. His work does no less than bring native people and their culture alive. In print and in the classroom, Vizenor creates a vibrant, multidimensional presence of a people whose history has been distorted; when they are depicted at all, they typically are romanticized as victims or fugitives.

"Natives are 'storiers' of humor and courage, not closure and victimry," says Vizenor. "The romantic tragedies that seem to burden natives are promoted both by the cruelty and kindness of dominance. . . . My interests are to deconstruct the simulated absence of natives and create a literature of native presence everywhere in the world -- an active, diverse, political, and tricky presence."

One of the first lessons in a class taught by Vizenor concerns translation -- in particular, the ways in which many historians and writers have failed at translating Native American stories. These are visionary stories that originally were told orally, in a group setting, and to translate them into writing is "unbelievably complicated," says Vizenor. "What happens is a reduction, not a translation from sound to silence. Much of what has been translated by social scientists about natives has traduced -- traduced the creative energy of oral stories -- because of a failure of trust, perception, and humor."

Vizenor's fiction as well as nonfiction might be viewed as translations that peel back and examine the layers of interpretations that have shaped society's understanding of Native Americans. Native people, he notes, have been interpreted in different ways at different times to serve varying political and ideological interests; contemporary portrayals, for example, serve the interests of environmentalists by focusing on Native Americans as natural ecologists. Vizenor's literature questions these interpretations and puts forth narratives and commentaries that reveal what he believes are more honest and complicated retellings of native experiences.

Vizenor's style can be ironic and playful, in spite of the serious subject matter, and his satires -- or "word arrows," as he sometimes calls them -- often take aim at the academic establishment.

Vizenor grew up with an appreciation for storytelling -- the oral, visual, and visionary kind -- passed down from his grandmother and great uncle on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. "To become a writer is not natural, in my view, but to be around so many good 'storiers' was a natural introduction and inspiration to become a writer," he says. The son of a Chippewa house painter and a Swedish-American mother, Vizenor is a "crossblood" whose writing often addresses the complexities of mixed heritage.

What is perhaps most refreshing for the student or reader of Vizenor is his use of humor. His style can be ironic and playful, in spite of the serious subject matter, and his satires -- or "word arrows," as he sometimes calls them -- often take aim at the academic establishment. As a reviewer of his 1988 novel The Trickster of Liberty noted, "These stories could be dogmatic in a lesser writer's hands, but Vizenor imbues ethnic commentaries with humor."

Key to his humor is the trickster, a figurative character who takes many forms in Native American storytelling and appears throughout Vizenor's work. The exploits and irony of this character -- who might be a raven, coyote, stone, or tree, sometimes part human -- challenge stereotypes and expectations of Native Americans.

For example, in Griever: An American Monkey King in China, which won the 1988 American Book Award, both the protagonist and his sidekick are tricksters. The novel is a somewhat autobiographical tale about a comic teacher named Griever de Hocus from the White Earth Reservation, who winds up in China. Griever joins forces with Matteo Ricci, a wise rooster he liberates at a street market, and together they subvert the communist government and outwit corrupt authorities. The story was inspired by Vizenor's experience teaching English and American literature for a semester at Tianjin University in China in the early 1980s.

"Trickster stories confront the political and racial categories that define natives," explains Vizenor. "I take pleasure in the tease of language, the play of transformations. People have expectations of what 'Indians' are, and a trickster story can create a much more imaginative and complex character."

A reviewer of Vizenor's 1992 novel Dead Voices noted, "Indians, Vizenor holds, have been effectively deadened by the printed word, captured and dehumanized in stereotypes. . . . [Vizenor's work] calls for our liberation from all invented Indian stereotypes."

Vizenor's stories and his deconstruction of other texts demonstrate the extraordinary power of literature to inform -- and transform -- society's consciousness and treatment of others. His work, and the writing and criticism produced by other faculty featured here, also speak to the enduring power of narratives.

Why have humans always told or written stories, and why do we continue to desire and create them? The answers are many, but they no doubt involve the complex social and psychological functions that narratives serve. They enable us to explore and understand our world, and they play a crucial role both in affirming and criticizing a culture's practices and ideology. They challenge non-philosophers to consider fundamental philosophical questions. And they entertain. Simply put, narratives are an integral part of our humanity, which is reason enough to appreciate scholarship that involves their creation and study.

Next: Chapter 4, Practicing the Arts and Producing Knowledge

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Card-playing Native American bets deed to tribal land. See reference page	Gerald Vizenor, like Professor Alter, confronts the problems of translation, but in quite a different realm. The country's most prolific Native American author, Vizenor's writing and teaching challenge the depiction of Native Americans found throughout literature, history, and popular culture. Vizenor, a former journalist, is a professor of Native American literature and American studies who has published 25 works of fiction, memoirs, history, literary criticism, and poetry, including seven novels and six books of haiku. His work does no less than bring native people and their culture alive. In print and in the classroom, Vizenor creates a vibrant, multidimensional presence of a people whose history has been distorted; when they are depicted at all, they typically are romanticized as victims or fugitives. "Natives are 'storiers' of humor and courage, not closure and victimry," says Vizenor. "The romantic tragedies that seem to burden natives are promoted both by the cruelty and kindness of dominance. . . . My interests are to deconstruct the simulated absence of natives and create a literature of native presence everywhere in the world -- an active, diverse, political, and tricky presence."

	One of the first lessons in a class taught by Vizenor concerns translation -- in particular, the ways in which many historians and writers have failed at translating Native American stories. These are visionary stories that originally were told orally, in a group setting, and to translate them into writing is "unbelievably complicated," says Vizenor. "What happens is a reduction, not a translation from sound to silence. Much of what has been translated by social scientists about natives has traduced -- traduced the creative energy of oral stories -- because of a failure of trust, perception, and humor." Vizenor's fiction as well as nonfiction might be viewed as translations that peel back and examine the layers of interpretations that have shaped society's understanding of Native Americans. Native people, he notes, have been interpreted in different ways at different times to serve varying political and ideological interests; contemporary portrayals, for example, serve the interests of environmentalists by focusing on Native Americans as natural ecologists. Vizenor's literature questions these interpretations and puts forth narratives and commentaries that reveal what he believes are more honest and complicated retellings of native experiences.
Vizenor's style can be ironic and playful, in spite of the serious subject matter, and his satires -- or "word arrows," as he sometimes calls them -- often take aim at the academic establishment.	Vizenor grew up with an appreciation for storytelling -- the oral, visual, and visionary kind -- passed down from his grandmother and great uncle on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. "To become a writer is not natural, in my view, but to be around so many good 'storiers' was a natural introduction and inspiration to become a writer," he says. The son of a Chippewa house painter and a Swedish-American mother, Vizenor is a "crossblood" whose writing often addresses the complexities of mixed heritage. What is perhaps most refreshing for the student or reader of Vizenor is his use of humor. His style can be ironic and playful, in spite of the serious subject matter, and his satires -- or "word arrows," as he sometimes calls them -- often take aim at the academic establishment. As a reviewer of his 1988 novel The Trickster of Liberty noted, "These stories could be dogmatic in a lesser writer's hands, but Vizenor imbues ethnic commentaries with humor." Key to his humor is the trickster, a figurative character who takes many forms in Native American storytelling and appears throughout Vizenor's work. The exploits and irony of this character -- who might be a raven, coyote, stone, or tree, sometimes part human -- challenge stereotypes and expectations of Native Americans. For example, in Griever: An American Monkey King in China, which won the 1988 American Book Award, both the protagonist and his sidekick are tricksters. The novel is a somewhat autobiographical tale about a comic teacher named Griever de Hocus from the White Earth Reservation, who winds up in China. Griever joins forces with Matteo Ricci, a wise rooster he liberates at a street market, and together they subvert the communist government and outwit corrupt authorities. The story was inspired by Vizenor's experience teaching English and American literature for a semester at Tianjin University in China in the early 1980s. "Trickster stories confront the political and racial categories that define natives," explains Vizenor. "I take pleasure in the tease of language, the play of transformations. People have expectations of what 'Indians' are, and a trickster story can create a much more imaginative and complex character." A reviewer of Vizenor's 1992 novel Dead Voices noted, "Indians, Vizenor holds, have been effectively deadened by the printed word, captured and dehumanized in stereotypes. . . . [Vizenor's work] calls for our liberation from all invented Indian stereotypes." Vizenor's stories and his deconstruction of other texts demonstrate the extraordinary power of literature to inform -- and transform -- society's consciousness and treatment of others. His work, and the writing and criticism produced by other faculty featured here, also speak to the enduring power of narratives. Why have humans always told or written stories, and why do we continue to desire and create them? The answers are many, but they no doubt involve the complex social and psychological functions that narratives serve. They enable us to explore and understand our world, and they play a crucial role both in affirming and criticizing a culture's practices and ideology. They challenge non-philosophers to consider fundamental philosophical questions. And they entertain. Simply put, narratives are an integral part of our humanity, which is reason enough to appreciate scholarship that involves their creation and study.