Other Words: American Indian Literature, Law, and Culture (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series)

396 Pages·2001·1.41 MB·English

by  Jace Weaver

O W
THER ORDS
American Indian Literature
and
Critical Studies Series
Gerald Vizenor, General Editor
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O W
THER ORDS
American Indian Literature, Law, and Culture
BYJACEWEAVER
UNIVERSITYOFOKLAHOMAPRESS: NORMAN
Also by Jace Weaver
Then to the Rock Let Me Fly: Luther Bohanon and Judicial Activism(Norman,
1993)
Defending Mother Earth: Native American Perspectives on Environmental Jus-
tice(Maryknoll, NY, 1996)
That the People Might Live: Native American Literatures and Native American
Community (New York, 1997)
Native American Religious Identity: Unforgotten Gods (Maryknoll, NY, 1998)
American Journey: The Native American Experience(Detroit, 1998)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weaver, Jace, 1957–
Other words :American Indian literature, law, and culture / by Jace Weaver.
p. cm. — (American Indian literature and critical studies series ; v. 39)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0–8061–3352–X (alk. paper)
1. Indians of North America—Social conditions. 2. Indians of North
America—Legal status, laws, etc. 3. Indians in literature. I. Title. II. Series.
E98.S67 W43 2001
973.0497—dc21
2001027468
Other Words: American Indian Literature, Law, and Cultureis Volume 39 in the Amer-
ican Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on
Library Resources, Inc. ∞
Copyright © 2001 by Jace Weaver. All rights reserved. Published by the University
of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. Manufactured
in the U.S.A.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Blue
The sun crowns the horizon mountains
Like a child being pushed from its mother’s womb.
Born out of the earth this day as any other,
Aceaseless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
The creatures of the night
Have packed away their voices.
And those of the day have yet to find their throats.
It is the time the French call “l’heure bleue,”
The blue hour.
But it is not an hour but a moment, an instant,
Suspended between night and dawn.
I stand stock-still in the California air.
Afraid to disturb the fragile communion,
Surely the same felt by our ancestors in the sheer silence
as they greeted the new day.
Or by Elijah as he recognized the still small voice of his god.
Abird calls out,
As indifferent to my presence
as he would be to my absence.
The blue hour is gone
until tomorrow.
JACEWEAVER
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C
ONTENTS
“Blue” v
Preface ix
Part One. LITERATURE 1
1. In Other’s Words: Literature and Community 3
2. Trickster among the Wordies: The Work of Gerald Vizenor 53
3. Venus on the Half-Shell? Why Not? 59
4. Remnants of the First Earth: AReview 66
5. An Übermensch among the Apache:
Or, Karl May’s Tour of the Grand Teutons 69
6. Clowns and Villains: American Natives and the
American Musical 91
7. Innocents Abroad: Or, Smilla Has a Sense of Snow,
but Our Kanawakes Are in Egypt 117
8. Hell and Highwater 130
9. Original Simplicities and Present Complexities:
Reinhold Niebuhr, Ethnocentrism, and the Myth of
American Exceptionalism 140
Part Two. LAW 155
10. Indian Presence with No Indians Present:
NAGPRAand Its Discontents 157
viii CONTENTS
11. Losing My Religion: Native American Traditions
and American Religious Freedom 175
12. Triangulated Power and the Environment:
Tribes, the Federal Government, and the States 189
13. Scaling Ríos Montt: Indigenous Peoples,
International Human Rights, and the PinochetCase 201
Part Three. CULTURE 227
14. It Came from Outer Space: Of Museums, Meteorites,
and Messengers of the Gods 229
15. Native Reformation in Indian Country? Forging a
Relevant Spiritual Identity among Indian Christians 237
16. ABiblical Paradigm for Native Liberation 242
17. Trickster: The Sacred Fool 246
18. Reaching beyond Language:Native American
Eschatology and Apocalyptic Messianism 258
19. From I-Hermeneutics to We-Hermeneutics:
Native Americans and the Post-Colonial 280
Notes 305
Bibliography 357
Index 375
P
REFACE
Almost ten years ago, I became what I like to term a “recovering lawyer.”
I left the daily practice of law to pursue a Ph.D. in religious studies.
Nevertheless, the urge to “pick up” the law has neverleft me and remains
something I struggle against one day at a time, sometimes successfully,
sometimes less so. Well-meaning friends contact me to help with briefs
on sacred sites and religious freedom, call me about the rights of prison-
ers to have access to traditional practices, even importune me to partici-
pate in a small criminal case on a western reservation. It has become clear
to me that being a lawyer is like being a cannibal: Eat one arm and peo-
ple will call you a cannibal for life. Ask Alferd Packer.
This is, to an extent, however, natural. The hand of congressional plenary
power still rests heavy on American Natives. Aside from his or her relation
to family, clan, or tribal nation, an Indian’s most significant relationship is
with the federal government. I still teach federal Indian and constitutional
law, and the law continues to be an important part of my scholarship. So,
as a professor of Native American Studies, my shackles to the law remain
firmly in place and always will.
Native American Studies is by its nature two things, comparative and
interdisciplinary. Though a given scholar’s work may focus on a particu-
lar tribe, the field itself must take account of probably six hundred extant
tribal traditions and eight major language families in the United States
alone. Acomparative approach is thus a simple reality. And so is inter-
disciplinarity. Asingle piece of scholarship may cut across not only law