Native American Literature

Native American literature: Definition

Native American literature is literature written by and about Native Americans and their heritage, traditions, and modern-day experiences. It’s important to remember that it is not a singular type of literature. There are many different cultures, Tribes, and traditions within the American Indigenous population, so Native American literature encompasses the diverse Native American experience. Native American literature helps readers understand that Native American people are not historical but active participants in the country’s cultural mosaic today.

The historical context of Native American literature

Before coming into contact with Europeans, Native American cultures had rich oral storytelling traditions. These traditions included folktales, myths, and oral histories. When Native American peoples were forced to assimilate to Christianity and European missionary culture, members of Native American Tribes learned to read and write in English. This ushered in a new method of telling stories.

The early Native American writers in the 18th and 19th centuries wrote mostly autobiographical accounts, which was a departure from their oral storytelling traditions. Many wrote personal stories and political texts to advocate for proper treatment and rights for Native American peoples at the time. Zitkala-Sa (1876–1938), one of the most famous early Native American writers, wrote in American Indian Stories (1921) about her struggles with intersectionality—the pull between her Yankton Dakota reservation heritage and her European white formal education. This intersectionality would become a common theme in modern-day Native American literature.

Indian Boarding School in Pipestone, Minnesota, Wikimedia.org

Beginning in the 1960s and lasting through the 1970s, Native American literature experienced a renaissance. White readers became interested in reading about the lives and cultures of Native Americans, and Native American authors became activists for Native American sovereignty and rights. This first wave of Native American literature sparked Native American Studies programs at universities across the nation and brought Native American authors into the mainstream.

Examples of Native American literature

While it is problematic to highlight only a few books to represent Native American literature, the following texts have been chosen because they are the recipients of numerous awards.

Native American Literature: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday

The book that brought Native American literature into the mainstream was N. Scott Momaday’s novel House Made of Dawn (1968), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969. Abel, the novel’s protagonist, returns from World War II to his reservation in New Mexico. As a stranger in a familiar land, he faces tragedy and ultimately redemption as he navigates the debilitating effects of war and cultural separation. In the decades since it was published, House Made of Dawn has received praise for its rich and authentic depictions of the Native American experience.

Native American Literature: Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

Another key novel in the Native American Renaissance of the ’60s and ’70s was Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony (1977). Like Momaday’s book House Made of Dawn, Silko’s novel features a young man who returns home to Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico after World War II. Tayo, the protagonist dealing with “battle fatigue” (called post-traumatic stress disorder today), relearns his Pueblo tribal ceremonies to heal his trauma and his land from its current drought. Regarded as an inspiration to Indigenous people, it has become an exemplary story of how a return to one’s roots can be healing.

Native American Literature: The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich’s novel The Night Watchman (2020) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2021. Set in the 1950s, it is about one man’s resistance to a new U.S. bill that would force the termination and displacement of his Ojibwe Tribe. It also tells the story of young Patrice Paranteau, who attempts to balance the different worlds of her native Tribe and modern America as she searches for her long-lost sister in Minneapolis. Louise Erdrich has become a prolific writer and is cited as a significant writer of the Second Wave of the Native American Renaissance.

The characteristics and themes of Native American literature

Themes of being caught between two worlds, identity crises, reverence for the natural world, and the use of traditional texts are commonplace throughout many Native American literary works.

Native American Literature: Caught between two worlds

Often in Native American literature, a character will experience tension between two different worlds. Usually, this is the pull between the traditional life on the reservation and the modern life in urban America. The tension that arises creates conflict and complexity for the character, who, as a result, undergoes a journey of self-discovery. Often, the resolution of this conflict is an embrace of the character’s intersectionality, as seen in House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday.

Native American Literature: Identity

In many Native American literature texts, the protagonist experiences an identity crisis, usually as a result of the tension they feel between their competing worlds. This search for an identity drives the story and its character development. Through rituals, ceremonies, meeting with elders, and other traditional acts, the protagonist can garner a renewed sense of self. One prime example of this is the narrator in James Welch’s 1974 novel Winter in the Blood. The unnamed narrator wrestles with his identity and turns to alcohol for coping but later finds redemption when he embraces his fragmented identity.

Native American Literature: Use of traditional texts

Native American literature often contains traditional texts, such as oral histories, folktales, creation myths, songs, hieroglyphics, and pictographs. These serve to inform the reader about the particular Native American culture represented in the book. They also help to draw out themes of identity and relation to one’s heritage. Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko uses the parallel narratives of the mythical world and the modern-day world to achieve these effects.

Native American Literature: Reverence for the natural world

Because Native American people have been displaced from their lands since European colonization in 1492, the natural world and its landscape play a significant role in many works of Native American literature. Characters who flee from their native land struggle, wrestling with their identities and fate, whereas those who stay—or return—find freedom. In Louise Erdrich’s novel Love Medicine (1984), the tribal land is tied to the characters’ identity. Uncle Eli, for example, maintains a deep connection to this land and, therefore, is healthy in his old age. His brother Nector, however, who grew up off the reservation, is now senile.

Popular Native American poets and authors

Joy Harjo, Simon J. Ortiz, and Sherman Alexie are three Native American writers who have garnered many literary awards for their writing.

Portrait of Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate (2019), Wikimedia.org

Native American Literature: Joy Harjo

In 2019, Joy Harjo was the first Native American to become the United States Poet Laureate, the official poet of the United States. In her role as Poet Laureate, she seeks to raise awareness about poetry, especially among Native writers. A member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Harjo focuses much of her poetic work on identity and social justice.

Native American Literature: Simon J. Ortiz

Another leading figure in bringing Native American authors to the mainstream is Simon J. Ortiz, a poet and short-fiction writer. His writing centers on themes of alienation, the wisdom of ancestral spirits, and reverence for natural landscapes.

Native American Literature: Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie is a short story writer, novelist, and poet from the Spokane Indian Reservation. His best-known novel is The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven (1993). His semi-autobiographical young adult-fiction novel The Absolutely True Diaries of a Part-Time Indian (2007) won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Both novels explore themes of cultural and personal trauma, poverty, and the tensions between hope and loss.