American Indian Stories: Legends and Other Writings, by Zitkala-Ša, was published in 1921 but is comprised of a wide selection of works tracing back to the turn of the century. The subtitle only hints at the content which covers a broad range of topics and takes the forms of both fiction and non-fiction. The book is separated into four sections: “Old Indian Legends,” “American Indian Stories,” “Selections from American Indian Magazine,” and “Poetry, Pamphlets, Essays and Speeches.”
This broad range indicates the abilities of the author. Actually, the two sections which made it into the title of the book are the least interesting examples of her literary talent. As far as the “Old Indian Legends” go, this is most likely because they are not entirely original productions. As anyone who has watched a movie about Native American life, legends passed along through the oral tradition trace way back into history. One of the most interesting things about the fourteen legends making up this section is the revelation that they are not really stories intended to be read as written down.
Despite the author’s inarguable talent, the narratives contained therein gradually reveal themselves as lacking some indefinite quality. This is particularly noteworthy since the very first line of the very first legend is “Inktomi is a spider fairy.” That is a terrific opening line if only because it fuses distinct concepts not normally thought to go together in the non-Native world. Spiders are generally reserved for the darkness of literature while fairies generally occupy the light side.
This opening entry in the legends section is titled “Inktomi and the Ducks” and is written as a straightforward account of the strange events of the narrative. While there is nothing obviously wrong with the storytelling, one is left feeling as though something has been left out. It is only after reading a few more of the legends that the “something” becomes less abstract. What is missing is all those elements of oral storytelling. The writing is solid with effective use of imagery and description, but while reading them, one can imagine them being told while sitting around a campfire. Shifts in tone are absent as well as, for lack of a better, gesturing. The written word cannot adequately convey the narrative qualities of someone telling a story rather than merely standing up and reading it.
Things get better with the next section, “American Indian Stories” in which the author writes what is effectively an autobiography structured as individual episodes. In fact, it is this episodic nature of storytelling that lends this section its power. Reading the selections here are akin to binge-watching a miniseries. The opening entry is titled “My Mother” and this is an effective strategy because the rest of the contents of this section will have the presence of the author’s mother hanging over the proceedings. It is a family story specifically, but also thematically because the entirety of the stories combined together portrays Native American life as a community dependent upon each other like a family. This balance is upset forever and irrefutably altered the day that strangers with white faces enter. This intrusion of Americanized European society into the efficient world of the indigenous people has the effect of completely transforming not just this section of the book, but everything that comes after. Without the arrival of the white-faced strangers, none of the other writings would have been necessary. And that becomes the central thematic point of the book as a whole.
It is those final two sections of the book where the writing becomes more intense and powerful and, especially, personal. Non-fiction writing comes to dominate the narrative and reveals the difference between merely repurposing stories invented by others and writing with an urgent purpose. The purpose of the selections comprising both “Selections from American Magazine” and the pamphlets, essays, and speeches are immediately obvious: a request for respect from the original inhabitants of the country that strangers came to call America and a demand for equality. This section is also a history lesson that the textbooks used in white American schools did not see fit to include.
The selection titled “The California Indians of Today” is limited to just Chapter III which begins with the jaw-dropping line, “The California Indians dwindled from 210,000 to 20,000 during the siege of seventy cruel winters, repeated evictions and the spread of the white man’s diseases among them. They were unable to get away far enough to escape deadly epidemics.” This assertion may make it seem as though the final two sections of the book are nothing but attacks upon America. The extraordinary truth is just the opposite. The author uses her superior gift for writing non-fiction to call the American government to account for their mistreatment of millions of indigenous peoples while also reaching out and demanding the survivors be treated as Americans. For every two mentions of the genocidal regime of the American government throughout the 19th century, there is also the call for inclusion. This seemingly paradoxical desire to become part of the horrific system which has brutalized them is encapsulated in the book’s single most memorable quote: “We insist upon our recognition by America as really normal and quite worthwhile human beings.”
This line appears in “Bureaucracy Versus Democracy” and is immediately followed by “We want American citizenship for every Indian born within the territorial limits of the United States.” For all the systemic dismissal of Native Americans throughout most of the 20th century as “savages,” these two lines from just one piece succinctly demonstrate the depth of intellectual understanding of the situation. In order to get anything from American society, one must manipulate the system from the inside out. These two lines represent nothing less than the Native American version of “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” without the attendant hypocrisy.
