Teaching American Indian Literatures in the South

Selected Bibliography

University Centers and Programs

UNC Chapel Hill, American Indian Center: http://americanindiancenter.unc.edu/

U of Ga., Institute of Native American Studies: http://www.instituteofnativeamericanstudies.com/

UNC Pembroke, American Indian Studies: http://www.uncp.edu/ais/

Lumbee River Fund : http://www.uncp.edu/lumbeeriverfund/

UNC Wilmington, Native American Studies Program: http://www.uncwil.edu/nas/

Eastern Carolina, Indigenous Peoples of the American Minor: www.ecu.edu/

Va. Tech, American Indian Studies: http://www.idst.vt.edu/AINS/

West Va. University, Native American Studies: http://www.wvu.edu/~nas

Western Carolina, Cherokee Studies: http://www.wcu.edu/Cherokeestudies/

Resources: General

Anderson, Eric Gary. “Rethinking Indigenous Southern Communities.” In "The U.S. South in Global Contexts: A Collection of Position Statements." Special Issue on "Global Contexts, Local Literature: The New Southern Studies." Eds. Kathryn McKee and Annette Trefzer. American Literature 78: 4 (2006): 730-732.

---. “On Native Ground: Indigenous Presences and Countercolonial Strategies in Southern Narratives of Captivity, Removal, and Repossession.” Southern Spaces (2007). http://www.southernspaces.org/contents/2007/anderson/1a.htm.

---. On Native Southern Ground. Athens: U of Georgia P, under contract.

Arnold, Ellen L. and Wm. Joseph Thomas, eds. Special Issue on American Indian Literatures and Cultures in the South. Mississippi Quarterly (60.2), in press.

Benson, Melanie. Disturbing Calculations: The Economics of Identity in Postcolonial Southern Literature, 1912-2002. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2008.

Leustig, Jack, dir. 500 Nations. 6 DVD set. Warner, 2004. [Released for the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian.]

Littlefield, Daniel F. and James W. Parins, ed. Native American Writing in the Native Southeast: An Anthology, 1875-1935. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1995.

Hobson, Geary. The Last of the Ofos. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2000. (Novel by Quapaw/Cherokee writer about the last surviving member of the Mosopelea Tribe of the Mississippi Delta.)

---, Janet McAdams, and Kathryn Walkiewicz, eds. The People Who Stayed: Southeastern Indian Writing after the Removal. Norman: U of Okla. P, Forthcoming 2009.

Miles, Tiya and Sharon P. Holland, eds. Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds: The African Diaspora in Indian Country. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2006.

Rosenberg, Roberta. "Native American Literature." The Companion to Southern Literature: Themes, Genres, Places, People, Movements, and Motifs. Eds. Joseph M. Flora and Lucinda MacKethan. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2002. 526-530.

Tingle, Tim. Spirits Dark and Light: Supernatural Tales from the Five Civilized Tribes. Atlanta, GA: August House, 2006.

Trefzer, Annette. Disturbing Indians: The Archeology of Southern Fiction. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2006.

Eastern Cherokee

Awiakta, Marilou. Abiding Applachia: Where Mountain and Atom Meet. (Poems.) 2^nd ed. Blacksburg, VA: Pocahontas P: 2006.

---. Selu: Seeking the Corn Mother’s Wisdom. New ed. Golden, CO: Fulcrum: 2006.

Carney, Virginia Moore. Eastern Band Cherokee Women: Cultural Persistence in Their Letters and Speeches. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 2005.

Conley, Robert. The Real People Series. (Historical Novels)

Duncan, Barbara R. Living Stories of the Cherokee. Chapel Hill, U NC P: 1998.

Glancy, Diane. Pushing the Bear: A Novel of the Trail of Tears. NY: Harcourt Brace, 1996.

Hedge Coke, Allison Adelle. Dog Road Woman. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Coffee House, 1997.

---. Off-Season City Pipe. Minneapolis, Minn.: Coffee House, 2005.

---. Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2004.

---. “Seeds.” Speaking for the Generations: Native Writers on Writing. Ed. Simon J. Ortiz. Sun Tracks. 35. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 1998. 92-117.

Howe, LeAnne. Dir. Carol Cornsilk. Indian Country Diaries: Spiral of Fire. PBS, 2005.

Viewer’s Guide at: http://indiancountrydiaries.org/ViewersGuideWeb.pdf

Available from: http://www.visionmaker.org/

Justice, Daniel Heath. Our Fire Survives the Storm: A Cherokee Literary History. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2006.

---. Kynship: The Way of Thorn and Thunder, Book One. Wialton, ON: Kegedonce P, 2005.

---. Wyrwood: The Way of Thorn and Thunder, Book Two. Wialton, ON: Kegedonce P, 2006.

---. Dreyd: The Way of Thorn and Thunder, Book Three. Wialton, ON: Kegedonce P, 2007.

McKinney, Karen J. "’There's Always a Story to Tell’: Creating Tradition on Qualla Boundary.” North Carolina Literary Review 13 (2004):25-40.

Mooney, James. Myths of the Cherokees. (From 19th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology 1897-98, Part I. [1900]). http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/cher/motc/.

Pettigrew, Dawn Karima. The Way We Make Sense. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute, 2002.

---. The Marriage of Saints: A Novel. Norman: U of Okla. P, 2006.

Choctaw

Hollrah, Patrice. “Decolonizing the Choctaws: Teaching LeAnne Howe’s Shell Shaker.” American Indian Quarterly 28.1-2 (2004): 73-85.(Full text avail. through J-Stor.)

Howe, LeAnne. Shell Shaker. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute, 2001.

---. Evidence of Red: Poems and Prose. Cambridge, UK: Salt, 2005.

---. “Tribalography: The Power of Native Stories.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 14:1 (1999):117-25.

Owens, Louis. The Sharpest Sight: A Novel. Norman: U of Okla. P: 2005.

---.Bone Game: A Novel. Norman: U of Okla. P: 2006. (Sequel to The Sharpest Sight; both novels feature returns to Mississippi Choctaw homeland.) [Cushman, H.G. History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians. NY: Russell and Russell, 1972. Cited by characters in Owens’ novels as source for remaking themselves as “real” Choctaws; lots of useful information about history, cultural heritage, and oral narrative traditions.]

Tingle, Tim. Walking the Choctaw Road: Stories from Red People Memory. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos, 2005. (Numerous volumes of Choctaw and other Southern Native stories.)

Chickasaw

Hogan, Linda. Power: A Novel. NY: W.W. Norton, 1999. (Chickasaw author writing about a fictional Florida tribe loosely based on Miccosukee and Seminole people and issues.)

Anderson, Eric Gary. “Native American Literature, Ecocriticism, and the South: The Inaccessible Worlds of Linda Hogan’s Power.” Suzanne W. Jones, Sharon Monteith, and Richard Gray, eds. South to a New Place: Region, Literature, Culture. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State UP, 2002. 165-83.

Creek

Harjo, Joy. She Had Some Horses. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1983.

---. In Mad Love and War. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 1990.

McAdams, Janet. The Island of Lost Luggage. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2000.

---. Feral. Cambridge, UK: Salt, 2007.

Womack, Craig S. Red on Red: Native American Literary Separatism. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1999.

---. Drowning in Fire.Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2001.

Lumbee (and other NC Tribes)

Cummings, Delano. Moon Dash Warrior: The Story of an American Indian in Vietnam, a Marine from the Land of the Lumbee. Signal Tree, 1998. (Memoir)

Humphreys, Josephine. Nowhere Else on Earth. NY: Penguin, 2001. (Non-native author writing about Lumbee hero Henry Berry Lowry.)

Indian by Birth: The Lumbee Dialect. (Video) North Carolina Language and Life Project, 2000. (28 minute documentary available, with numerous videos and books about the Lumbees and other NC tribes. at http://www.uncp.edu/nativemuseum/shop/publications.htm.)

Lumbee by Grace: Landmarks in Lumbee Identity. (DVD) UNC Pembroke, 2002. Remastered 2007. (30 min., avail. http://www.uncp.edu/nativemuseum/shop/publications.htm)

Moore, Marijo, ed. Feeding the Ancient Fires: A Collection of Writings by North Carolina Amerian Indians. Asheville, NC: Renegade Planets, 1999. (Lumbee and other writers)

Oakley, Christopher Arris. Keeping the Circle: American Indian Identity in Eastern North Carolina, 1885-2004. Lincoln: U Nebraska P, 2005.

Monacan

Wood, Karenne. Markings on Earth: Poems. Tucson: U Arizona P, 2001.

---, ed. The Virginia Indian Heritage Trail. Charlottesville: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 2007. (Available from: http://uvabookstores.com/catalog_products.asp?catalog%5Fid=627)

Sample 5-6 Week Undergraduate Teaching Unit:

Eastern Cherokee and Choctaw Literature

• General historical introduction: 500 Nations (2004 version released for the opening of the NMAI)—a new perspective on American Indian history that focuses much more on Native achievements and point of view; especially useful for Southern lit. classes are the segments on the great mound city of Cahokia (near present day St. Louis) and on De Soto’s 1540-41 journey through the Southeast. (I begin every Native American Literature class with these episodes, which are new information to students about the high levels of urban and agricultural sophistication that existed in N. America and the South prior to colonization.)
• Student Group Presentation on American Indians in NC and the South
• Introduction to Duncan’s Living Stories of the Cherokee—excellent background on Cherokee history and culture
• Selected stories from Duncan, including traditional oral narratives (which can be compared to James Mooney’s collection of oral narratives recorded a century ago, available online at http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/cher/motc/); and personal/family stories (like those of Robert Bushyhead) that give further insights into traditions and the effects of missionization and boarding schools
• Hedge Coke’s poem “Dog Road Woman” (which contains a reference to a coyote story recorded by Mooney), essay “Seeds” (autobiographical stories), and Off-Season, City Pipe (poems largely about growing up blue-collar off-reservation, bookended by “ceremonial” poems)
• Howe’s documentary, Spiral of Fire, set on Qualla Boundary—wonderful introduction to Eastern Cherokee history, contemporary Reservation issues, and the concept of historical trauma, allowing a re-reading of Hedge Coke’s poetry; written and narrated by LeAnne Howe (Choctaw and Cherokee), it makes a great transition to:
• Howe’s Shell Shaker, a “mystery” novel about strong Choctaw women that weaves contemporary Choctaw lives and issues with a powerful story from the past
• Selected Choctaw tales from Tingle, connecting to some of the themes in Shell Shaker and circling back to Duncan and the importance of the oral narrative tradition

Theoretical contexts:

Howe, LeAnne. “Tribalography: The Power of Native Stories.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 14:1 (1999):117-25.

Womack, Craig. Introduction to Red on Red: Native American Literary Separatism. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1999.

American Indian Tribes in Selected Southern States (Tentative Listing)

Federally Recognized tribes in the South (out of 560+ recognized by the BIA):

Alabama: Poarch Band of Creek Indians

Florida: Seminole Tribe

Miccosukee Tribe of Indians

Louisiana: Coushatta Tribe

Jena Band of Choctaw Indians

Tunica-Biloxi Indian Tribe

Chitimacha Tribe

Mississippi: Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians

North Carolina: Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

South Carolina: Catawba Indian Nation

North Carolina

A 1996 Census counted 93,000 American Indians in North Carolina, belonging to a dozen tribes—the largest Indian population of any state East of the Mississippi River, and the 7^th largest in the U.S. (after Oklahoma, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, and Washington). North Carolina is home to the largest group of Indians east of the Mississippi, the Lumbees, numbering about 50,000.

Federally Recognized: Eastern Band of Cherokees (recognized 1889) (www.cherokee-nc.org)

State Recognized Tribes (with dates granted recognition):

Lumbees (1885) (http://www.lumbeetribe.com/index.html)

Haliwa-Saponi (1965) (http://www.haliwa-saponi.com/)

Waccamaw Souian (1971) (http://waccamawsiouan.net/)

Coharie (1971) (http://www.geocities.com/coharieindian/coharies.html)

Meherrin (1986) (http://www.meherrintribe.com/)

Indians of Persons County (1997)

Occaneechi-Saponi (2001) (http://www.occaneechi-saponi.org/)

Virginia

Recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia:

Chickahominy Tribe (http://www.chickahominytribe.org/)

Eastern Chickahominy Tribe (http://www.cied.org/)

Mattaponi Indian Tribe (http://www.baylink.org/Mattaponi/;

Monacan Indian Nation (http://www.monacannation.com/)

Nansemond Tribe (http://www.nansemond.org/joomla/)

Pamunkey Tribe (http://www.baylink.org/Pamunkey/)

Rappahannock Tribe (http://www.rappahannocktribe.org/)

Upper Mattaponi Tribe (http://www.baylink.org/Mattaponi/)

For further information, see Karenne Wood’s essays, “Virginia Indians: Our Story” and “The Tribes of Virginia,” in The Virginia Indian Heritage Trail, edited by Karenne Wood (Charlottesville: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 2007).

Alabama

Federally Recognized: Poarch Band of Creek Indians

State Recognized:

Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama
Cherokee Tribe of Northeast Alabama
Ma-Chis Lower Creek Indian Tribe
Star Clan of Muscogee Creeks
Cher-O-Creek Intra Tribal Indians
Mowa Band of Choctaw Indians
Piqua Shawnee Tribe
United Cherokee Ani-Yun-Wiya Nation

Georgia

State Recognized:

Cherokee Indians of Georgia, Inc.

Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokees, Inc.

Lower Muscogee Creek Tribe East of the Mississippi, Inc.

Kentucky State Recognized: Southern Cherokee Nation of Kentucky

Louisiana

Federally Recognized:

Coushatta Tribe

Jena Band of Choctaw Indians

Tunica-Biloxi Indian Tribe

Chitimacha Tribe

State Recognized:

Adai Caddo Tribe

Four Winds Tribe Louisiana Cherokee Confederacy

Choctaw-Apache of Ebarb

Clifton Choctaw

United Houma Nation

Isle de Jean Charles Band of the Biloxi Chitimacha Confederation of Muskogees

Bayou LaFourche Band of the BCCM

Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of the BCCM

Point au Chien Indian Tribe

South Carolina

Federally Recognized: Catawba Indian Nation

State Recognized:

Beaver Creek Band of Pee Dee Indians

Chaloklowa Chickasaw Indian People

Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois & United Tribes of South Carolina, Inc. (aka Cherokee

Indian Tribe of South Carolina

Pee Dee Nation of Upper South Carolina

Pee Dee Tribe of South Carolina

Piedmont American Indian Association of South Carolina Santee Indian Organization

Waccamaw Indian People of Conway, South Carolina

Florida, Mississippi, and Tennessee do not recognize tribes at state level