Native American Self Narration and Autobiography Theory

Abstract

Abstract Of the few literary scholars involved in the study of Native American autobiography, most have avoided pre-contact Native American autobio-graphical modes, choosing instead to discuss the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century oral life histories that were solicited, translated, recorded, and edited by Euro-American amanuenses. William Blood worth distinguishes “anthropological” (often referred to as “as-told to”)1 autobiography from what he regards as “authentic” Native American autobiography, which’ ‘springs from the desires of Native Americans to tell the stories of their individual lives’’ rather than from the wishes of a Euro-American anthropologist. In contradistinction to Bloodworth, Kathleen Mullen Sands writes that ‘‘the most distinctive characteristic’’ of American Indian autobiography is the ‘‘collaboration of the narrator and recorder editor.” Likewise, H. David Brumble refers to Native American autobiographies as ‘‘ bicultural documents’’ that are interesting because of the questions raised by the collaboration between the subject and the collector, and because they record the transition from a preliterate to a literate people in 150 short years. Arnold Krupat, who offers the most comprehensive and theoretical discussion of Native American life histories, states that “the principle constituting the Indian autobiography as a genre [is] the principle of original bicultural composite composition.” Indian autobiography, he concludes, is ‘‘ a ground on which two cultures meet,” “the textual equivalent of the frontier. “