How to Tell a Story about Indians and Empire

Abstract

Joshua Piker. The Four Deaths of Acorn Whistler: Telling Stories in Colonial America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013. 320 pp. Map, notes, and index. $29.95. In his essay How to Tell Story (1895), Mark Twain wrote that there are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind—the humorous. According to Twain, this uniquely American form of story is different from comic which is English, and the which is French. Whereas the humorous story depends upon manner of the telling, comic and witty stories depend upon matter. The first is strictly work of art—high and delicate art—and only an artist can tell it, but no art is necessary to tell the other two—anybody can do In The Four Deaths of Acorn Whistler: Telling Stories in Colonial America, Joshua Piker offers his own insights into how to tell an American story, often with dash of humor. Like Twain, he is interested in the way story is told, its effects on listeners, and the aims its teller might have in telling it. Indeed, he notes that Twain is his favorite storyteller and cites his address On the Decay of the Art of Lying (1882) to distinguish stories from lies—both of which are abundant in the tales Piker covers (p. 12). As writer, Piker enjoys puns, alliteration, repetition, and colloquialism; and he punctuates his narrative with punchy phrasing, rhetorical questions, and author's asides. His book is about powerful stories, and he wants to tell one of his own, too. Piker has many stories to tell. At the core of the book are four sets of stories from the mid-eighteenth century about single individual, Acorn Whistler, who is first introduced to the reader as a head warrior from the Creek town of Little Okfuskee (p. 4). Piker admits that these accounts would not seem, at face value, to be worth the price of admission. Their subject is simply too obscure—Acorn Whistler's death is not particularly important topic. Yet he argues that the imperial, national, local, and subtexts for these stories were very important (pp. 26-27). These branching, spreading histori- cal narratives about British imperialism, Creek nationalism, Native cultural understandings, and colonial insecurities are Piker's true focus. By exploring the consequences of a very specific event at very particular place with