Demons and Dilemmas: American (Indian) Studies and the Persistence of the Tribal

Abstract

E S S A Y R E V IE W S George de Forest Brush. THE PICTURE WRITER’SSTORY. Ca. 1884- Oil on can­ vas. 24" x 36". Courtesy of the Anschutz Collection. Photo: William J. O’Connor. D E M O N S A N D D IL E M M A S : A m e r i c a n ( I n d i a n ) S t u d i e s a n d t h e P e r s i s t e n c e o f t h e T r i b a l C h a d w i c k A l l e n W o r k s R e v i e w e d Beilin, Joshua David. The Demon of the Continent: Indians and the Shaping of American Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. 274 pages, $49.95/$24-95. Huhndorf, Shari M. Going Native: Indians in theAmerican Cultural Imagination. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001. 234 pages, $16.95. Schmitz, Neil. White Robe’ s Dilemma: Tribal History in American Literature. Amherst: UniversityofMassachusetts Press, 2001. 224 pages, $40.00/$17.95. Smith, Sherry L. Reimagining Indians: Native Americans through Anglo Eyes, 1880-1940. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.282 pages, £31.50. C h a d w ick A l l e n 4 8 1 Passamaquoddy n. A tribe of Algonquian-speaking North American Indians, formerly inhabiting Maine and New Brunswick, Canada (emphasis added). — American Heritage Dictionary, 2nd College Edition The Passamaquoddy Indians live where their forebears have lived and thus have a strong identification with the land and the waterways through it. — Brochure for Waponahki Museum and Resource Center, Pleasant Point Reservation, Perry, Maine We have faced opposition for so many Centuries. We need to remem­ ber where we were and in what direction we are going. — Handout titled “Interpretation of Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy’s Tribal Logo,” Waponahki Museum and Resource Center In June 2000,1attended public events at the annual meeting of the Wabanaki Confederacy— Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Micmac, and Maliseet Nations— held at Indian Township near Princeton, Maine. My friend Annette Kolodny was researching a new book project titled In Search of First Contacts, and she thought I might find the Confederacy pertinent to my own research interests in the contempo­ rary construction of indigenous identity; I didn’t need to be asked twice. Kolodny wanted to know if the Wabanaki oral tradition remem­ bers the earliest known encounters between Native North Americans and Europeans, when, as recorded in the Icelandic Vinland Sagas around the year 1,000, Viking men and women attempted to establish a colony at least as far south as what is today New Brunswick, Canada, and explored the North American coast at least as far south as what is today Maine.1 The Sagas describe both violent and nonviolent encounters with indigenous “Skraslings,” who are likely the ancestors of the Wabanaki. For Kolodny, representations of Viking-Wabanaki contact begin the story of “American” literature five hundred years before Columbus entered the Caribbean; access to a Wabanaki oral tradition would make it possible to contemplate the experiences and views of those events from both sides. Fascinating questions abound. We possess a dense archive of what the Vikings’ failed attempts did and did not mean to Europeans, to later explorers and colonists in North America, and to U.S. citizens. But we have not considered how the Wabanaki might have con­ structed narratives of their encounters with Vikings. Kolodny is asking what roles such stories might have played in ongoing Wabanaki cul­ tures— a thousand years ago, or three hundred, or fifty. What role might they play today? 4 8 2 WAL 3 7 . 4 W in te r 2 0 0 3 With the sounds of the powwow drum and children playing and gossip all around us, we huddled under the shade of a marquee just outside the dance arena in a small circle of conversation. Donald Soctomah (Passamaquoddy), one of two tribal representatives to the Maine state legislature, explained that during his official visits to the capitol in Augusta, he has been conducting archival research...