or too many non-Native scholars, the only genuine Indian literature is oral myths. Literature ceases to be Indian when it employs Western forms such as the short story or the novel. Yet, is this really true, or does something about the literature remain somehow Indian despite its form? What real difference is there between the rant and roll poetry of John Trudell (Santee Dakota), the theo-political writings of Vine Deloria Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux), the postmodernist novels of Gerald Vizenor, or the Broadway theatricals of Lynn Riggs (Cherokee) if they speak to and for Indian peoples and reflect and shape them as persons? Indians have written books about Oliver La Farge, an Amer-European s Native Americanist, and E. W. Marland, oil tycoon and governor of ; Oklahoma. Why were the authors drawn to these topics? What makes these writings Indian literature-if they are at all? One is tempted, with Thomas King, to say that perhaps our simple definition that Nao tive literature is literature produced by Natives will suffice for the while providing we resist the temptation of trying to define a Native.2 Is In47 dian literature simply any writing produced by an American Indian? Thus, is Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park, which deals with a KGB investigation of murders in Moscow, American Indian literature simply because its author is a Senecu del Sur/Yaqui Indian? Does the fact that Robbie Robertson, musician and songwriter with the folk-rock group