Early Native Literacies in New England: A Documentary and Critical Anthology / Edition 1

by Kristina Bross

Overview

Designed as a corrective to colonial literary histories that have excluded Native voices, this anthology brings together a variety of primary texts produced by the Algonquian peoples of New England during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and very early nineteenth centuries. Included among these written materials and objects are letters, signatures, journals, baskets, pictographs, confessions, wills, and petitions, each of which represents a form of authorship. Together they demonstrate the continuing use of traditional forms of memory and communication and the lively engagement of Native peoples with alphabetic literacy during the colonial period. Each primary text is accompanied by an essay that places it in context and explores its significance. Written by leading scholars in the field, these readings draw on recent trends in literary analysis, history, and anthropology to provide an excellent overview of the field of early Native studies. They are also intended to provoke discussion and open avenues for further exploration by students and other interested readers. Above all, the texts and commentaries gathered in this volume provide an opportunity to see Native American literature as a continuity of expression that reflects choices made long before contact and colonization, rather than as a nineteenth—or even twentieth-century invention.Contributors include Heidi Bohaker, Heather Bouwman, Joanna Brooks, Kristina Bross, Stephanie Fitzgerald, Sandra Gustafson, Laura Arnold Leibman, Kevin McBride, David Murray, Laura Murray, Jean O'Brien, Ann Marie Plane, Philip Round, Jodi Schorb, David Silverman, and Hilary E. Wyss.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2901558496483
Publisher:	University of Massachusetts Press
Publication date:	05/28/2008
Series:	Native Americans of the Northeast
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Kristina Bross is associate professor of English and American studies at Purdue University and author of Dry Bones and Indian Sermons: Praying Indians in Colonial America. Hilary E. Wyss is associate professor of English at Auburn University and author of Writing Indians: Literacy, Christianity, and Native Community in Early America (University of Massachusetts Press, 2000).

Table of Contents

Illustrations     ix
Acknowledgments     xi
Introduction     1
The Mohegans     15
"Letter of Instruction from Oanhekoe, Sachem of the Mohegan Indians in New England, 14 July 1703"   Oweneco     19
"Letter of Instruction from Oanhekoe, Sachem of the Mohegan Indians, 14 July 1703"   David Murray     21
"Diary, 1773"   Joseph Johnson     28
"Joseph Johnson's Diary, Farmington, Connecticut, 18 November 1772 to 1 February 1773"   Laura J. Murray     42
"Mohegan Wood-Splint Basket"     51
"The Cultural Work of a Mohegan Painted Basket"   Stephanie Fitzgerald     52
"Temperance and Morality Sermon"   Samson Occom     57
"Samson Occom and the Sermonic Tradition"   Heather Bouwman     63
"Title Pages from Samson Occom's Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul"     72
"Samson Occom and Native Print Literacy"   Phillip H. Round     75
The Narragansetts     84
"The Case of Sarah Pharaoh"   Sarah Pharaoh     86
"The Dreadful Case of Sarah Pharaoh: Finding Native Women's Voices in an Eighteenth-Century Infanticide Case"   Ann Marie Plane     88
"Letter to Eleazer Wheelock,1769"   Sarah Simon     93
"Writing Back to Wheelock: One Young Woman's Response to Colonial Christianity"   Hilary E. Wyss     96
Natick     105
"Confession Narrative, 1656"   Samuel Ponampam     108
"Temptation in the Wilderness: Ponampam's Confession"   Kristina Bross     110
"Natick Indian Petition, 1748"     119
"'Our Old and Valluable Liberty': A Natick Indian Petition in Defense of Their Fishing Rights, 1748"   Jean O'Brien     123
The Pequots     130
"Pequot Medicine Bundle"     132
"Bundles, Bears, and Bibles: Interpreting Seventeenth-Century Native 'Texts'"   Kevin A. McBride     132
"The Confession and Dying Warning of Katherine Garret"     142
"Seeing Other Wise: Reading a Pequot Execution Narrative"   Jodi Schorb     148
The Wampanoags     162
"Mittark's Will, 1681/1703"     164
"'We Chief Men Say This': Wampanoag Memory, English Authority, and the Contest over Mittark's Will"   David J. Silverman     166
"The Hannit Family, in Experience Mayhew's Indian Converts"     174
"Tradition and Innovation in a Colonial Wampanoag Family from Martha's Vineyard"   Laura Arnold Leibman      191
Intertribal Conversations     198
"Pictograph Image on a 1725 Treaty" (Wabanaki)     201
"Reading Expressions of Identity on a 1725 Peace and Friendship Treaty"   Heidi Bohaker     201
"Montaukett Petition, 1788"     213
"'This Indian World': A Petition/Origin Story from Samson Occom (Mohegan) and the Montaukett Tribe"   Joanna Brooks     215
Hendrick Aupaumut (Mahican/Stockbridge), A Short narration of my last Journey to the western Contry     223
"Historical Introduction to Hendrick Aupaumut's Short Narration"   Sandra M. Gustafson     237
"Hendrick Aupaumut and the Cultural Middle Ground"   Sandra M. Gustafson     242
Bibliography     251
Contributors     269
Index     273

Editorial Reviews

"A vivid picture of the complexities, contradictions, and challenges inherent both in early Native literacies and in the scholarly reconstruction of these textual encounters."—New England Quarterly

"It will appeal to a wide audience, including those interested in Native American studies, anthropology, religious studies, American colonial history, and the study of complex iconography.. . . . This is a well-written and informative addition to a wide range of interests. . . . I highly recommend this anthology to a wide body of readers. Even the price makes it an attractive choice for an instructor. The chapters provide a variety of perspectives and interpretations of primary American Indian colonial texts that are well grounded and designed to introduce these texts to a wide range of readers, from introductory university classes to anyone who is interested in colonial America or American Indian histories."—American Indian Quarterly

"The book presents a series of Native textual objects edited according to scholarly conventions with interpretive essays that explains the artifacts' production and subsequent archival history. Together, the essays in these collections represent some of the best work being done in this field."—Early American Literature

From the Publisher

The book presents a series of Native textual objects edited according to scholarly conventions with interpretive essays that explains the artifacts' production and subsequent archival history. Together, the essays in these collections represent some of the best work being done in this field.

Early American Literature

It will appeal to a wide audience, including those interested in Native American studies, anthropology, religious studies, American colonial history, and the study of complex iconography..... This is a well-written and informative addition to a wide range of interests.... I highly recommend this anthology to a wide body of readers. Even the price makes it an attractive choice for an instructor. The chapters provide a variety of perspectives and interpretations of primary American Indian colonial texts that are well grounded and designed to introduce these texts to a wide range of readers, from introductory university classes to anyone who is interested in colonial America or American Indian histories.

American Indian Quarterly

A vivid picture of the complexities, contradictions, and challenges inherent both in early Native literacies and in the scholarly reconstruction of these textual encounters.

New England Quarterly