Native Americans in Children’s Literature
By
Jennifer Porter
Just over a year ago, my then fifth grade homeschooled daughter said to me, in the midst of reading historical fiction aloud with her, “I am sick and tired of these books about the so-called terrible Indians when it was the white people who stole their land. Aren’t there any books told by the Indians?”
I answered, “I don’t know. But you’re right, these books have not told the truth.” And we talked about how our ancestors were both the Europeans that came to America and stole the land and also the Native Americans that fought back against the invasion. I promised to find her books that would honor our American Indian ancestors, and by telling the truth, also honor our European ancestors.
After reading countless books and researching this issue, I was left with some conclusions. One, there is a plethora of offensive children’s books about Native Americans and two, it is an enormous undertaking to write about Native Americans. And it seems lately, that there is an opening in our culture to begin an earnest discussion about the history of the American Indian. For years I have been researching the tribes my American Indian ancestors came from, and it is possible now through advanced DNA testing to get some answers. It has become popular to find our ancestors. There are genealogy shows about celebrities on television and there are popular websites devoted to family history, such as ancestry.com.
Recently, PBS ran a series of American history shows from the perspective and viewpoint of the American Indian. And last October, President Obama declared November 2009 as Native American Heritage Month. Native American Heritage Month has come off and on to our country since 1990 and has its own website: http://nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov.
President Obama wrote in his declaration, “During National Native American Heritage Month, we recognize their many accomplishments, contributions, and sacrifices, and we pay tribute to their participation in all aspects of American society.”
Our society needs children’s books about the American Indians. Books about what happened in the past, biographies of American Indians, and all the ways American Indians contribute now.
But the last thing I think any children’s author would want is to have their story listed as a book that is not recommended and is deemed harmful to the well-being of children, including American Indian children. According to a 2008 article on the Poverty & Race Research Council site, there are today in these United States, 560 federally recognized American Indian tribes, approximately four million people, and 42% of these American Indians are under the age of nineteen. These numbers do not include what must be in the tens of thousands, people such as myself of Native American descent but raised within another culture and not belonging to a tribe.
The Oyate organization defines itself, according to their website (www.oyate.org), as “a Native organization working to see that our lives and histories are portrayed honestly, and so that all people will know our stories belong to us.” Oyate conducts critical evaluations of books and curricula that contain “Indian themes” and it also conducts workshops, has a reference library and distributes materials, especially that written by Native people. Oyate is the Dakota word for ‘people’, says the website. Oyate maintains a list of not recommended children’s books.
Eight of the twenty-eight worst books on Oyate’s books to avoid list were published in 2005 and after. Among the authors on the list of twenty-eight books: Janet Heller, Ann Rinaldi, Cynthia Rylant and Kathy Jo Wargin. Among the titles: I Am Apache, Touching Spirit Bear, and D is for Drum: A Native American Alphabet.
Debbie Reese, tribally enrolled in the Nambe Pueblo and a professor in the American Indian Studies program at University of Illinois at
Marion E. Gridley was born in 1906. In 1939, she edited Indian Legends of American Scenes and in 2008, I found a first edition of Indian Legends in a small bookstore in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Until 1973 Gridley wrote about Native Americans — Maria Tallchief, Pocohontas, Hiawatha and many of the Indian Nations series. Marion’s husband Chief Whirling Thunder of the Winnebago illustrated the initial letters in the Indian Legends book. Chief Whirling Thunder was a teacher of Indian lore.
What is amazing about this book Indian Legends from 1939 is how respectful it is of Native Americans. The book is divided into 27 sections that cover different locations amongst them: Indians of Alabama, Indians of Colorado, Indians of Michigan, Indians of New York, Indians of North Carolina, Indians of Canada. Prior to the stories in each section Gridley wrote introductions to the tribes of the area and their history, not mincing any words about the forced removals, mistreatment and general violent oppression whites put upon the American Indian.
I was disappointed that not a single story or mention was made in the book of the Shawnee.
She generally includes in each introduction American Indians of note and their activities and location as of the time of writing. No where does the reader get the sense the Indian disappeared or is no more or did not survive. No where is the Indian spoken about using deragatory language or romanticized language or any kind of stereotype.
I was delightfully surprised. The stories themselves are wonderfully edited and read with the same thought as was put into the introductions. Not to mention the fact that the stories are fascinating. One of the Michigan stories is about White Lake. My family and I had a reunion on the shores of this lake on the western side of Michigan.
My only concern is that the stories in Indian Legends were used without permission. Before an author uses any kind of Native American story in any way, they should secure permission from the tribe to use the story. The story having been published already does not connotate permission to use it. Many American Indian stories are considered sacred and permission is needed to use the story.
Four Ancestors – Stories, Songs, and Poems from Native America as told by Joseph Bruchac and illustrated by S.S. Burrus, Jeffrey Chapman, Murv Jacob and Duke Sine is a good read aloud for ages six and up. I say age six because some of the stories run on the long side.
Told by Joseph Bruchac is a most apt description as the writing is such that it flows perfectly in the form of oral storytelling. This is definitely a read-aloud.
The four ancestors are: fire, earth, water and air. They are viewed as living beings within the Native American cultures, and the four elements were used in the creation of people.
There are no stories from the Shawnee in this book, as is the usual. Other than a very old book by CC Trowbridge and one picture book, I have been unable to find anthologies that include tales from the Shawnee.
Tribes represented in Four Ancestors include: Wampanoag, Mohawk, Pawnee, Seneca, Chippewa, Cheyenne, Navajo (several), Lakota, Abenaki, Cherokee, Inuit and other lesser known tribes such as Muliseet, Micmac, Cochiti Pueblo amongst others.
The stories did not stand out as much to me as in the anthology The Girl Who Married the Moon, but some of them are rather amusing and humorous. In particular, “How Saynday Tried To Marry Whirlwind Girl” and “The Bird Whose Wings Made the Wind” both in the Air section. I particularly learned from “Clay Old Woman and Clay Old Man” a Cochiti Pueblo story about how the people learned to use clay to make pots and a Pawnee tale “The Moon Basket” in which First Girl and First Boy meet Moon Woman and she teaches them important things, like how to make a lodge, how to make baskets, how to dance and sing, how to grow corn.
The poems and songs are a delight to read. From How Songs Are Made an Inuit poem:
Songs are born in that stillness
when everyone tries
to think of nothing but beautiful things.
Four Ancestors ends with an Abenaki tale “The Gift of Stories, The Gift of Breath” which every storyteller and writer should read. Grampa Obomsawin tells his granddaughter, “Long ago, our Creator made the world, and He filled it with stories. Those stories are a gift to us, just like the gift of breath.” Grampa goes on to teach Cecile how stories are inside of us, but we must listen for them.
JRR Tolkien author of Lord of the Rings did not see a dichotomy in the creation of his stories and his faith in God. After all, we are formed in His image and He took great pleasure in the act of creation. God created an entirely new world as does an author. It is part of us to find a story.
Four Ancestors was published in 1996 by Bridge Water Books and has 31 tales, poems and songs.
The Girl Who Married the Moon — Tales from Native North America is a delightful MG book about the time in a girl’s life when she becomes a woman. About her moontime. The book is told by Joseph Bruchac and Gayle Ross with wonderful ink illustrations by S.S. Burrus. Joseph Bruchac is a prolific children’s book author and of Abenaki heritage and Gayle Ross is a direct descendant of the Cherokee Principal Chief John Ross. 
The book is divided into four regions of the United States and each section has four stories. The stories are about empowered girls, capable girls, intelligent and clever and very brave girls and the challenges girls face growing into womanhood. The stories also show the respect for tradition.
The Northeast section has tales from the Penobscot, Seneca, Passamaquoddy, and Mohegan. My favorite from this section is the Passamaquoddy tale The Girl and the Chenoo. Little Listener has braggard brothers and while they hunt each day, she remains behind, caring for camp. A Chenoo comes to her camp ; he is a “great cannibal monster in the shape of a man” and reminded me somewhat of a Sasquatch. Little Listener invites the Chenoo in, feeds him, allows him to rest and convinces him that she and her brothers are his family. He hunts for them and then asks for her help to not be frightening to others. And she melts his icy heart with her kindness.
The Southeast section has tales from the Cherokee, Muskogee, Piankeshaw, and Caddo.
I most enjoyed the Cherokee tale Stonecoat. 
Stonecoat is a powerful cannibal with a skin of solid rock. But women in their moontime are more powerful, the power to create life is most evident then, and so women in their moontime line up along the path to camp, oldest to youngest. As Stonecoat passes each one, he becomes more and more defeated and the most powerful woman is the girl with her first moon. Stonecoat is defeated.
Santa Clara Pueblo, Cochiti Pueblo, Dine (Navajo) and Apache tales make up the Southwest section.
The Beauty Way — The Ceremony of White-Painted Woman tells how the Apache honor a girl’s entrance into womanhood through the Beauty Way Ceremony.
She spends four days in a sacred lodge and an elder woman, Spirit Mother, teaches her about womanhood. The family hosts feasts for all who attend the four days, and the Crown Dancers, the mountain spirits who dance to shield the people, dance in firelight to drums. It sounds like a truly beautiful ceremony.
The Northwest section has tales from the Lake Miowak, Cheyenne, Okanagan, and Alutiiq. My favorite is the Cheyenne tale Where the Girl Rescued HerBrother. This is the story, that I take to be true, about a Cheyenne girl who rescued her brother during what whites refer to as the Battle of Rosebud Creek. This battle occurred just days before Custer was defeated at Little Bighorn.
Buffalo Calf Road Woman is a member of the Society of Quilters, the very bravest of women. She watches the battle at Rosebud Creek from atop a hill and when her brother becomes surrounded by Crow scouts and his death is inevitable, she charges down the hill on her horse and swoops him up and carries him to safety. It is because of her heroic deed, that the Cheyenee refer to this battle as Where the Girl Rescued Her Brother. I love this story. I know how she feels about her brother and I admire her courage and adept skills.
The Girl Who Married the Moon was published by Bridgewater Books in 1994. I do want to point out that the authors cited as a source the book American Indian Myths and Legends, edited by Richard Edoes and Alfonso Ortiz and published by Pantheon Books in 1994. It is in this cited source that I found several tales of the moon and sun in adversarial relationships, including one in which the moon rapes his sister sun. I bring this up because there is a harsh review of Janet Heller’s book How the Moon Regained Her Shape and the reviewer claims that there are no such American Indian tales in which the moon and sun have an adversarial relationship. When I brought this book to their attention, the book was dismissed, but it appears it has some credibility if used by both Joseph Bruchac and Gayle Ross.
May the stories we tell always be a joy and encouragement to those who hear them. God has given us the ability to be creative and reflect His creativity. May we use that to His glory.
Good stuff.
~Luke