E. Pauline Johnson: Poetry E. Pauline Johnson

Early life

E. Pauline Johnson was born at her family home Chiefswood at the Six Nations reserve outside Brantford, Ontario. She was the youngest of four children of Emily Susanna Howells Johnson (1824–1898), an English immigrant, and George Henry Martin Johnson (1816–1884), a Mohawk hereditary clan chief. Because George Johnson worked as an interpreter and cultural negotiator among the Mohawk, British, and representatives of the government of Canada, the Johnsons were seen as part of Canadian high society. They were visited by distinguished intellectual and political guests of the time, including The Marquess of Lorne, Princess Louise, Prince Arthur, inventor Alexander Graham Bell, painter Homer Watson, anthropologist Horatio Hale, and the third Governor General of Canada, Lord Dufferin.[8]

Johnson's mother emphasized refinement and decorum in raising her children, cultivating an "aloof dignity" that she felt would earn them respect in their adulthood. Pauline Johnson's elegant manners and aristocratic air owed much to this background and training. George Johnson encouraged their four children to respect and learn about both their Mohawk and English heritage. Because George Johnson had partial Mohawk ancestry, his children were, by British law, legally considered Mohawk and wards of the British Crown. But, according to the Mohawk matrilineal kinship system, children are considered born into the mother's family, and take their status from her. Thus the Johnson children were considered to belong to no Mohawk family or clan, and were excluded from important aspects of the tribe's matrilineal culture.[9]

Early education

A sickly child, Johnson did not attend Brantford's Mohawk Institute, a residential school established in 1834. Her education was mostly at home and informal, derived from her mother, a series of non-Native governesses, a few years at the small school on the reserve, and self-guided reading in her family's expansive library. She read deeply in the works of Byron, Tennyson, Keats, Browning and Milton, and enjoyed reading tales about Indigenous people such as Longfellow's epic poem The Song of Hiawatha and John Richardson's Wacousta. These informed her own literary and theatrical work.[10]

Despite growing up in a time when racism against Indigenous people was normalized and common, Johnson and her siblings were encouraged to appreciate their Mohawk ancestry and culture. Her paternal grandfather John Smoke Johnson was a respected authority figure for her and her siblings. He educated them by traditional Indigenous oral storytelling before his death in 1886.[9] Johnson taught his life lessons and stories in Mohawk; the children understood it but were not fluent in speaking it.[8] Smoke Johnson's dramatic talents as a storyteller were absorbed by Pauline, who became known for her talent for elocution and her stage performances. She wore artifacts passed onto her by her Mohawk grandparents, such as a bear claw necklace, wampum belts, and various masks. Later in her life, Pauline Johnson expressed regret for not learning more of her grandfather's Mohawk heritage and language.[11]

At the age of 14, Johnson went to Brantford Central Collegiate with her brother Allen. She graduated in 1877. A fellow schoolmate was Sara Jeannette Duncan, who eventually developed her own journalistic and literary career.

Romantic life

Pauline Johnson attracted many potential suitors, and her sister recalled more than half a dozen marriage proposals from Euro-Canadians in her lifetime. Though the number of official romantic interests remains unknown, two later romances were identified as Charles R. L. Drayton in 1890 and Charles Wuerz in 1900.[12] But, Johnson never married nor remained in relationships for very long. She was said to have flirted with boys in Grand River. Later she wrote what was described as "intensely erotic poetry." Due to her career, she was unwilling to set aside her racial heritage and adapt to placate partners or in-laws.[12] Despite everything, Johnson consistently had a strong network of supportive female friends and attested to the importance they had in her life.

Johnson said:

Women are fonder of me than men are. I have had none fail me, and I hope I have failed none. It is a keen pleasure for me to meet a congenial woman, one that I feel will understand me, and will in turn let me peep into her own life- having confidence in me, that is one of the dearest things between friends, strangers, acquaintances, or kindred.[12]