And although they may be poor, Not a man shall be a slave,

And we'll fill our vacant ranks with A million free men more,

It’s important because over the past 30 years we have not acted with foresight relative to the science on climate change or the knowledge that oil and water are finite resources

Why should we leave it to Harper & Brothers and Redding & Co. to select our reading?

It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written

The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line,

For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life—I wrote this some years ago—that were worth the postage.

The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.

season

King Tchingthang

but was merely a defence against the rain

To enjoy these advantages I was ready to carry it on; like Atlas, to take the world on my shoulders—I never heard what compensation he received for that

his wife—every man has such a wife—changed her mind and wished to keep it,

Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed.

hideously marred about the face – at least to my taste – his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable.

But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition state – neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner.

For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal. What’s all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself – the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

However, I had never been in the South Seas; and perhaps the sun there produced these extraordinary effects upon the skin.

But be easy, be easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin’ you of has just arrived from the south seas, where he bought up a lot of ‘balmed New Zealand heads (great curios, you know), and he’s sold all on ’em but one, and that one he’s trying to sell to-night, cause to-morrow’s Sunday, and it would not do to be sellin’ human heads about the streets when folks is goin’ to churches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was goin’ out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all the airth like a string of inions.”

But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling

it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off

“This is God’s curse on slavery!—a bitter, bitter, most accursed thing!—a curse to the master and a curse to the slave! I was a fool to think I could make anything good out of such a deadly evil. It is a sin to hold a slave under laws like ours,—I always felt it was,—I always thought so when I was a girl,—I thought so still more after I joined the church; but I thought I could gild it over,—I thought, by kindness, and care, and instruction, I could make the condition of mine better than freedom—fool that I was!”

The evening meal at the house is over, and Aunt Chloe, who presided over its preparation as head cook, has left to inferior officers in the kitchen the business of clearing away and washing dishes, and come out into her own snug territories, to “get her ole man’s supper”; therefore, doubt not that it is her you see by the fire, presiding with anxious interest over certain frizzling items in a stew-pan, and anon with grave consideration lifting the cover of a bake-kettle, from whence steam forth indubitable intimations of “something good.”

“Well, it is dreadful,” said Eliza; “but, after all, he is your master, you know.” “My master! and who made him my master? That’s what I think of—what right has he to me? I’m a man as much as he is. I’m a better man than he is. I know more about business than he does; I am a better manager than he is; I can read better than he can; I can write a better hand,—and I’ve learned it all myself, and no thanks to him,—I’ve learned it in spite of him; and now what right has he to make a dray-horse of me?—to take me from things I can do, and do better than he can, and put me to work that any horse can do? He tries to do it; he says he’ll bring me down and humble me, and he puts me to just the hardest, meanest and dirtiest work, on purpose!”

It’s a free country, sir; the man’s mine,

George had stood like one transfixed, at hearing his doom thus suddenly pronounced by a power that he knew was irresistible. He folded his arms, tightly pressed in his lips, but a whole volcano of bitter feelings burned in his bosom, and sent streams of fire through his veins. He breathed short, and his large dark eyes flashed like live coals; and he might have broken out into some dangerous ebullition, had not the kindly manufacturer touched him on the arm, and said, in a low tone, “Give way, George; go with him for the present. We’ll try to help you, yet.” The tyrant observed the whisper, and conjectured its import, though he could not hear what was said; and he inwardly strengthened himself in his determination to keep the power he possessed over his victim.

Perhaps the mildest form of the system of slavery is to be seen in the State of Kentucky.

critters

Now, Jim, show this gentleman how you can dance and sing.”

For convenience sake, we have said, hitherto, two gentlemen. One of the parties, however, when critically examined, did not seem, strictly speaking, to come under the species.

For masochism, as Deleuze argues, is, “A phenomenon of the senses (ie., a certain combination of pain and pleasure); in its moral aspects it is a function of feeling or sentiment. But beyond all superpersonal elements that animates the masochist: this is the story in which he relates the triumph of the oral mother, the abolition of the father’s likeness and the consequent birth of the new man

Masochism, like sadism, is the assumption of guilt

Yet the opposition between law, expressed by the uniform, and the contract, expressed by Lucia, is prominent here

Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch novels, the novels from which the term masochism originates.

Had Rampling’s character been developed beyond simply a tool for Max’s own discovery of the self, there might have been a genuine comment made of the loss of dignity and salvation.

not navigable in the common law sense of the term

I think the verdict is both against law and evidence, and that a new trial ought to begranted

One of thewitnesses testified that before the defendants' dam was built, the plaintiffs might bring into their dam from one hundredto one hundred and fifty logs at a time, whereas at present they cannot more than twenty-five, and that logs arefrequently lost in getting them over, or past the upper dam; that by reason thereof, within four years past, he supposedthe plaintiffs had lost[**19]as much as four hundred logs, worth from thirty-five to forty pounds per hundred.

I concur in the result of the opinions delivered

ic utere tuo ut alienum non loedas

It is not pretended that the water is diverted, or that less business can be now done atthe plaintiffs' mill than formerly, but they are obliged to bring their logs a very little farther round in the river (in orderto get them into the dam), which is the principal, if not only inconvenience they are exposed to by the defendants'conduct.

or if the Legislature have declared such riversas the Conhocton, the Unadilla, the east branch of the Chenango, and the great variety of other inland waters, publichighways, as necessary to the public convenience, it must have been taken for granted that the Hudson River wasalready a public highway,

If there is any true cause of fear respecting independence, it is because no plan is yet laid down. Men do not see their way out

No man was a warmer wisher for reconciliation than myself, before the fatal nineteenth of April 1775, but the moment the event of that day was made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen tempered Pharaoh of England for ever; and disdain the wretch, that with the pretended title of FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE, can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul.

Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument. We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty.

Educationcanneverbewhatitiscapableofbeing,unlesstheteachercancommandtimetobecomefamiliarwitheachindividualmindunderhiscare,andtoadapthismodeofteachingtoitspeculiarities.Toinstructonlyinmasses,andtoapplythesamemethodsofinstructiontoall,islikethrowingthedrugsofanapothecary'sshopintoonegreatcaldron—stirringthemtogether,andgivingeverypatientinthehospitalaportionofthemixture.

Thechildren,therefore,receivedintothisinstitution,areoftenoftheveryworstandmosthopelesscharacter.Notonlyaretheirmindsmostthoroughlydepraved,buttheirverysensesandbodilyorganizationseemtopartakeintheviciousnessanddegradationoftheirhearts.Theirappetitesaresoperverted,thatsometimesthemostloathsomeanddisgustingsubstancesarepreferredtowholesomefood.TheSuperintendent,Mr.Wichern,states,thatthoughplentifullysuppliedwithprovisions,yetwhenfirstreceived,someofthemwillstealandeatsoap,rancidgreasethathasbeenlaidasideforthepurposeofgreasingshoes

ardlaborandfrugallivingareeverywheretheindispensableconditionstoateacher'slife,andImustsay,thatIhavenoparticularwishthatitshouldbeotherwise;foritisonlythosewhoarewillingtoworkhardandlivefrugally,thateverdomuchgoodinsuchaworldasthis.

pensatedbygovernment,andtheirfamiliesprovidedfor,ifnecessary.Theimportanceoffemaleteachersisrecognized,andeveryencouragementisheldouttoyoungladiestoengageinthiswork.Privateteachersaresubjecttothesamerules,andthesamestrictinspection,astheteachersofpublicschools;and,whatisanimprovementonthePrussianplan,iftheteacherofaprivateschoolbecomessuperannuated,ordies,intheservice,hisfam

commonschoolsarenewintheRussianEmpire,andasschool-housesaretobebuiltinererypartofit,thegovernment,knowingtheimportanceofhavingthesehouseswellplannedandputup,hasappointedanarchitect,withasalaryof1000rublesayear,foreveryacademicdistrict,whosewholebusinessitistosuperintendtheerectingandfittingupofthedistrictschool-housesinhisparticularprovince.Whenwerecollecthowmanyoftheevilsofourdistrictschoolsresultfromthebadconstructionandwretchedfurnitureofourschool-houses,howcompletely,bythesedefects,theeffortsofthebestteachersmaybenullified,andthemindsandhealthofchildren,aswellastheircomfort,destroyed,wecannotbutacknowledgethistobe,foracountrywhereeverythingistobebegunfromitsfoundation,amostjudiciousarrangement.

The fact that this story is called The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and not just “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” raises a lot of questions as to why maybe the title plays a role in this story being considered an american literature text.

It is important that this novel is anthologized because it is a first-person narrative which gives a biased and one-sided view of the story.

Herman Melville, Jules Verne and many more credited American authors.

many critics and scholars have shared their very different views on this gothic novel.

the Penguin

that was finished and published

The essence of plausibility within the novel holds a certain level of danger for the reader, as they know the events are not beyond possibility.

The psychological aspect of American Gothic literature illustrated at the beginning of the voyage is also a rich example. Arthur Pym is forced to hide beneath the ship in a hold with the rest of the storage. While confined to a crate for over two weeks, Pym is left to combat his own psychological obstacles. At times, due to both physical and mental duress, he teeters on the brink of a psychological unhinging. With a lack of sufficient food and water to nourish his body and no human contact to assuage his anxious mind, Pym wonders if he has been forgotten or abandoned completely. As with any other Poe work, or even any American Gothic work, the dark and malignant side of the human psyche is used as a tool to impart readers with the same discomfort as the characters.

According to Teen Ink, “Gothic literature was generally mysterious and ominous, filled with death and terror, used omens and foreshadowing, and showed the dark side of human nature.” All of these components are used within the novel. To name a few instances, the text is chock full of murderous executions, dismal weather, and even a note written in blood.

the exploitation of the fear and paranoia of the human psyche

He ended up dropping out of the university,

His parents died in 1812 when he was a toddler

They argue that subtle variations in the sun's brightness helped trigger a drastic climate change, and that, in turn, played a role in the downfall of a whole civilization

The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake; stumbling—leaping—slipping—springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone—her stockings cut from her feet—while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank.

Now, I jest give yer warning,” said Haley, “I know yer; yer won’t get me to turn off this road, with all yer fussin’—so you shet up!” “Mas’r will go his own way!” said Sam, with rueful submission, at the same time winking most portentously to Andy, whose delight was now very near the explosive point.

Sam tumbled up accordingly, dexterously contriving to tickle Andy as he did so, which occasioned Andy to split out into a laugh, greatly to Haley’s indignation, who made a cut at him with his riding-whip. “I ‘s ‘stonished at yer, Andy,” said Sam, with awful gravity. “This yer’s a seris bisness, Andy. Yer mustn’t be a makin’ game. This yer an’t no way to help Mas’r.”

“Chil’en!” he said, “I’m afeard you don’t know what ye’re sayin’. Forever is a dre’ful word, chil’en; it’s awful to think on ‘t. You oughtenter wish that ar to any human crittur.”

Here we must take our leave of her for the present, to follow the course of her pursuers.

As she was also so white as not to be known as of colored lineage, without a critical survey, and her child was white also, it was much easier for her to pass on unsuspected.

If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning,—if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o’clock till morning to make good your escape,—how fast could you walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom,—the little sleepy head on your shoulder,—the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?

she strained him to her bosom with a convulsive grasp

“O, George, for my sake, do be careful! Don’t do anything wicked; don’t lay hands on yourself, or anybody else! You are tempted too much—too much; but don’t—go you must—but go carefully, prudently; pray God to help you.”

“Well,” said Eliza, mournfully, “I always thought that I must obey my master and mistress, or I couldn’t be a Christian.” “There is some sense in it, in your case; they have brought you up like a child, fed you, clothed you, indulged you, and taught you, so that you have a good education; that is some reason why they should claim you. But I have been kicked and cuffed and sworn at, and at the best only let alone; and what do I owe? I’ve paid for all my keeping a hundred times over. I won’t bear it. No, I won’t!” he said, clenching his hand with a fierce frown.

It’s a free country, sir; the man’s mine,

isn’t the man mine?”

He was waited upon over the factory, shown the machinery by George, who, in high spirits, talked so fluently, held himself so erect, looked so handsome and manly, that his master began to feel an uneasy consciousness of inferiority. What business had his slave to be marching round the country, inventing machines, and holding up his head among gentlemen? He’d soon put a stop to it. He’d take him back, and put him to hoeing and digging, and “see if he’d step about so smart.” Accordingly, the manufacturer and all hands concerned were astounded when he suddenly demanded George’s wages, and announced his intention of taking him home.

Still she thought she heard the trader make an offer for her boy;—could she be mistaken? Her heart swelled and throbbed, and she involuntarily strained him so tight that the little fellow looked up into her face in astonishment.

Your wife might get her some ear-rings, or a new gown, or some such truck, to make up with her.”

the fact is, sir, I’m a humane man, and I hate to take the boy from his mother, sir.”

Hulloa, Jim Crow!” said Mr. Shelby, whistling, and snapping a bunch of raisins towards him, “pick that up, now!” The child scampered, with all his little strength, after the prize, while his master laughed. “Come here, Jim Crow,” said he. The child came up, and the master patted the curly head, and chucked him under the chin. “Now, Jim, show this gentleman how you can dance and sing.”

I realized six hundred on him. Yes, I consider religion a valeyable thing in a nigger, when it’s the genuine article, and no mistake.”

You mean honest, as niggers go,” said Haley, helping himself to a glass of brandy. “No; I mean, really, Tom is a good, steady, sensible, pious fellow.

One of the parties, however, when critically examined, did not seem, strictly speaking, to come under the species.

Books were the most accessible form of entertainment.

northern abolitionists

Do what you want, screw everything else.”

Uncle Tom’s Cabin reads like a beach-read. No, it isn’t 54 pages of vague, homoerotic freestyle (“Song of Myself”).

I just think it’s an interesting thing for an abolitionist to do. Although, I can’t say I’d do the same if I freed someone and they made the brash decision to walk right on back into the claws of danger

(brave?)

We see a dubious nature to how the slaves in “Benito Cereno” behave which clue us into the intentions of the “bad guys” (in quotes because point of view matters, but that’s a story for another time)

like everything I do in life, let’s take a ride down confusion lane, shall we?

He has not one chance, but a hundred chances.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

hobgoblin

Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it

every heart vibrates to that iron string.

demonstrate how this was clearly a story meant for European or colonialist eyes.

motivated by the pursuit of a man.

It doesn’t even pass the bechdel test!

This over-romanticized tale of star-crossed lovers from opposite sides of the world could not reek more of predictability and cliche.

Princess Unca

those in positions of power see bursts of violence from minorities as unjust or unnecessary while those carrying the weight of oppression see them as battle cries for equality and freedom

This is not to say that Rowlandson’s depiction of the colonial encounter isn’t valid or worth the empathy it so easily conjures up for readers. The problem is not that Mary Rowlandson wrote about her captivity. The problem, rather, is that she—and society as a whole—deemed the context of her captivity unimportant. It did not matter that her dreadful experience was a result of a last-ditch effort by the Native Americans to cease a genocide caused by people like her. Nor did it matter that her captors did what many U.S. citizens proudly claim they would do should an invasion happen today. All that mattered was that a white woman was hurt by a group of non-white people, and that there was seemingly no viable reason for it other than inherent brutality.

overdose of sorrow, disillusionment and hypocrisy to the unsuspecting reader

If trouble from smaller matters begin to arise in me, I have something at hand to check myself with, and say, why am I troubled? It was but the other day that if I had had the world, I would have given it for my freedom, or to have been a servant to a Christian. I have learned to look beyond present and smaller troubles, and to be quieted under them.

Our family being now gathered together (those of us that were living)

My sister’s son was redeemed for four pounds,

Mr. Hoar,

In my travels an Indian came to me and told me, if I were willing, he and his squaw would run away, and go home along with me.

some asked me to send them some bread, others some tobacco

They would eat horse’s guts, and ears

the slowness, and dullness of the English army,

I told them, they had as good knock me in head as starve me to death.

Being very hungry I had quickly eat up mine, but the child could not bite it, it was so tough and sinewy, but lay sucking, gnawing, chewing and slabbering of it in the mouth and hand. Then I took it of the child, and eat it myself, and savory it was to my taste.

By which I certainly understood (though I suspected it before) that whatsoever the Indians told me respecting him was vanity and lies. Some of them told me he was dead, and they had killed him; some said he was married again, and that the Governor wished him to marry; and told him he should have his choice, and that all persuaded I was dead. So like were these barbarous creatures to him who was a liar from the beginning.

A squaw moved it down again, at which I looked up, and she threw a handful of ashes in mine eyes.

I had not seen my son a pretty while, and here was an Indian of whom I made inquiry after him, and asked him when he saw him. He answered me that such a time his master roasted him, and that himself did eat a piece of him, as big as his two fingers, and that he was very good meat. But the Lord upheld my Spirit, under this discouragement; and I considered their horrible addictedness to lying, and that there is not one of them that makes the least conscience of speaking of truth.

this rude fellow,

my master being gone, who seemed to me the best friend that I had of an Indian,

I complained it was too heavy, whereupon she gave me a slap in the face

I lifted up my heart to God, hoping the redemption was not far off; and the rather because their insolency grew worse and worse.

was gone to the burial of a papoose

He answered me “Nux,” which did much rejoice my spirit.

I desired them that they would carry me to Albany upon one of those horses, and sell me for powder: for so they had sometimes discoursed.

For though I had formerly used tobacco, yet I had left it ever since I was first taken. It seems to be a bait the devil lays to make men lose their precious time. I remember with shame how formerly, when I had taken two or three pipes, I was presently ready for another, such a bewitching thing it is. But I thank God, He has now given me power over it; surely there are many who may be better employed than to lie sucking a stinking tobacco-pipe.

As I sat amongst them, musing of things past, my son Joseph unexpectedly came to me.

King Philip

The first week of my being among them I hardly ate any thing; the second week I found my stomach grow very faint for want of something; and yet it was very hard to get down their filthy trash; but the third week, though I could think how formerly my stomach would turn against this or that, and I could starve and die before I could eat such things, yet they were sweet and savory to my taste.

(as I thought)

There were now besides myself nine English captives in this place (all of them children, except one woman)

One of the Indians that came from Medfield fight, had brought some plunder, came to me, and asked me, if I would have a Bible, he had got one in his basket. I was glad of it, and asked him, whether he thought the Indians would let me read? He answered, yes. So I took the Bible,

they had destroyed (which was at that time twenty-three)

my son came to me, and asked me how I did. I had not seen him before, since the destruction of the town, and I knew not where he was, till I was informed by himself, that he was amongst a smaller parcel of Indians, whose place was about six miles off.

Then they went and showed me where it was, where I saw the ground was newly digged, and there they told me they had buried it.

God having taken away this dear child, I went to see my daughter Mary, who was at this same Indian town, at a wigwam not very far off, though we had little liberty or opportunity to see one another. She was about ten years old, and taken from the door at first by a Praying Ind. and afterward sold for a gun.

by my master in this writing, must be understood Quinnapin, who was a Sagamore, and married King Philip’s wife’s sister; not that he first took me, but I was sold to him by another Narragansett Indian, who took me when first I came out of the garrison

I must and could lie down by my dead babe, side by side all the night after.

your master will quickly knock your child in the head

sometimes one Indian would come and tell me one hour that “your master will knock your child in the head,” and then a second, and then a third, “your master will quickly knock your child in the head.” This was the comfort I had from them, miserable comforters are ye all, as he said.

This day there came to me one Robert Pepper (a man belonging to Roxbury) who was taken in Captain Beers’s fight

I then remembered how careless I had been of God’s holy time; how many Sabbaths I had lost and misspent, and how evilly I had walked in God’s sight; which lay so close unto my spirit, that it was easy for me to see how righteous it was with God to cut off the thread of my life and cast me out of His presence forever

Indian town, called Wenimesset, northward of Quabaug

what with my own wound, and my child’s being so exceeding sick, and in a lamentable condition with her wound

One of the Indians carried my poor wounded babe upon a horse; it went moaning all along, “I shall die, I shall die.” I went on foot after it, with sorrow that cannot be expressed. At length I took it off the horse, and carried it in my arms till my strength failed, and I fell down with it. Then they set me upon a horse with my wounded child in my lap, and there being no furniture upon the horse’s back, as we were going down a steep hill we both fell over the horse’s head, at which they, like inhumane creatures, laughed,

and having no Christian friend near me, either to comfort or help me

My own wound also growing so stiff

I must turn my back upon the town, and travel with them

This was the dolefulest night that ever my eyes saw. Oh the roaring, and singing and dancing, and yelling of those black creatures in the night, which made the place a lively resemblance of hell. And as miserable was the waste that was there made of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, calves, lambs, roasting pigs, and fowl (which they had plundered in the town), some roasting, some lying and burning, and some boiling to feed our merciless enemies; who were joyful enough, though we were disconsolate. To add to the dolefulness of the former day, and the dismalness of the present night, my thoughts ran upon my losses and sad bereaved condition. All was gone, my husband gone (at least separated from me, he being in the Bay; and to add to my grief, the Indians told me they would kill him as he came homeward), my children gone, my relations and friends gone, our house and home and all our comforts—within door and without—all was gone (except my life), and I knew not but the next moment that might go too. There remained nothing to me but one poor wounded babe, and it seemed at present worse than death that it was in such a pitiful condition, bespeaking compassion, and I had no refreshing for it, nor suitable things to revive it.

Now away we must go with those barbarous creatures, with our bodies wounded and bleeding, and our hearts no less than our bodies

If the study appears easy, something is wrong-for it is truly difficult to cross the boundaries of culture and time and class and language and see the world through another's eyes.

Native American cultures and their respective literatures are not ornamental and historical artifacts of America's past, but are both ancient and on-going-and as complicated as those of any other of the world's peoples.

Slim Girl might well have paraphrased the famous nineteenth-century pronouncement in concluding that, for her, the only way to be a good Indian was to be a dead one.

By far the greatest volume of fiction pertaining to Native Americans has been written about them by non-Natives. Such works have enjoyed wide and consistent popularity among the Euro-American readership for at least the past three hundred years and have spawned such diverse offshoots as Wild West Shows, cowboy and Indian movies, boy scout ceremonies, and cigar-selling statues. Disregarding the obvious propagandists for an exaggerated image of Native Americans (either savage or unearthly noble), many serious authors have attempted to cope literarily with the existence and complexity of the "Redman." Rousseau and Shakespeare (let us not forget Caliban), Fenimore Cooper and Helen Hunt Jackson (her mournful Ramona has been translated into film more times than any other novel), Faulkner and Barth have all developed, marvelled over, and almost always eventually killed off Native American characters. Still other novelists have virtually built their careers on books about "the Indian world" and how to understand it. Novels of continuing sales popularity, such as Frank Waters' The Man Who Killed the Deer (1942) wherein Hopis oft appear to be telepathic as well as paranoid regarding the outside world, Oliver LaFarge's Laughing Boy (1929), Hal Borland's When the Legends Die (1963), and Edwin Corle's Fig Tree John (1971) give testimony to the abiding fascination Euro-Americans seem to have with "their" Indians. The basic storyline of these books and of their hundreds of less successful imitators is highly formalized.

A course which attempts to unite "Native American literature's greatest hits" tends to become a vain search for commonalities which logically should not be there. In the process, the individual beauties, insights, and styles of the particular litera- tures are ignored or become oversimplified, and the resulting amalgam is often a dreary and sparkless mediocrity. By presenting the breadth of indigenous literatures superficially, each one of them is done a severe disservice.

It seems simply to have been assumed that because: a) all natives of North America lived in North America, and b) none of them were Euro- peans, then therefore c) they must all be the same. And to carry this fascinating logic a step further, to its obvious conclusion: d) because Europeans thought they were heading towards the Asian Indies when they collided with America, and e) since Europeans were never wrong, then f) these all-the-same people must of course be INDIANS! Thus was born in the myopic minds of a few culturally traumatized and geographically disoriented individuals a new ethnic group.

The stage was therefore set for a perplexing and, for some, traumatic, encounter when trans-Atlantic contacts became protracted and formalized. Native Americans, quite familiar and at ease with the realities of cultural pluralism, were in a sense pre-adapted to regard the sudden appearance of "new" people with equanimity, and the historical record testifies that initially they did just that. Early-arriving Euro- peans were hosted and fed and sheltered and studied; they were regarded as neither gods nor demons, and their appearance probably did not seem more than a mildly interesting event to the ordinary Native American citizen. To the European ventur- ing for the first time beyond the cocoon of cultural similitude, however, the "discov- ery" of "Indians" in the Americas was a major event indeed. Almost invariably the explorers' first reaction was one of irrational denial. Surely these quintessentially un-European creatures (no clothes, no crosses, etc.) could not be human. Perhaps they were a new species of ape; perhaps manifested devils . . . but certainly not souls!

If there had ever been a North American language called "Indian," the mode of communication within a society called "Indian," then there would undoubtedly be something appropriately labeled "Indian literature."

"A cat! a cat!" cried other mice as they scrambled out of holes both large and snug. Noiseless they ran away into the dark.

The Iktomi children hurried away from the creek, crying and calling for their water-dead father.

Gazing full into the black bear's face, he said: "I come to do justice. You have returned only a knife to my poor father. Now return to him his dwelling." His voice was deep and powerful. In his black eyes burned a steady fire. The long strong teeth of the bear rattled against each other, and his shaggy body shook with fear. "Ahow!" cried he, as if he had been shot. Running into the dwelling he gasped, breathless and trembling, "Come out, all of you! This is the badger's dwelling. We must flee to the forest for fear of the avenger who carries the magic arrow." Out they hurried, all the bears, and disappeared into the woods. Singing and laughing, the badgers returned to their own dwelling. Then the avenger left them. "I go," said he in parting, "over the earth."

Thus with his own hands he aids in making his grave.

The muskrat stood smiling. On his lips hung a ready "Yes, my friend," when Iktomi would ask, "My friend, will you sit down beside me and share my food?" That was the custom of the plains people. Yet Iktomi sat silent. He hummed an old dance-song and beat gently on the edge of the pot with his buffalo-horn spoon. The muskrat began to feel awkward before such lack of hospitality and wished himself under water.

Then his blunted sense will surprise you, little reader; for instead of being grieved that he had taken back his blanket, he cried aloud, "Hin-hin-hin! If only I had eaten the venison before going for my blanket!"

He had seen the prairie put on a snow-white blanket and then change it for a bright green robe more than a thousand times.

While sitting a prisoner on the tree he spied, through his tears, a pack of gray wolves roaming over the level lands. Waving his hands toward them, he called in his loudest voice, "He! Gray wolves! Don't you come here! I'm caught fast in the tree so that my duck feast is getting cold. Don't you come to eat up my meal." The leader of the pack upon hearing Iktomi's words turned to his comrades and said: "Ah! hear the foolish fellow! He says he has a duck feast to be eaten! Let us hurry there for our share!" Away bounded the wolves toward Iktomi's lodge. From the tree Iktomi watched the hungry wolves eat up his nicely browned fat ducks. His foot pained him more and more. He heard them crack the small round bones with their strong long teeth and eat out the oily marrow. Now severe pains shot up from his foot through his whole body. "Hin-hin-hin!" sobbed Iktomi. Real tears washed brown streaks across his red-painted cheeks. Smacking their lips, the wolves began to leave the place, when Iktomi cried out like a pouting child, "At least you have left my baking under the ashes!" "Ho! Po!" shouted the mischievous wolves; "he says more ducks are to be found under the ashes! Come! Let us have our fill this once!"

aborigine

Iktomi is a wily fellow. His hands are always kept in mischief. He prefers to spread a snare rather than to earn the smallest thing with honest hunting. Why! he laughs outright with wide open mouth when some simple folk are caught in a trap, sure and fast. He never dreams another lives so bright as he. Often his own conceit leads him hard against the common sense of simpler people.