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578 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
White men put flesh on dinosaur bones to reconstruct the entire animal, to show they are smarter than the animal they construct out of their own egos. They do the same thing with us by rewriting our history. They do not have to be right, they only have to do the act itself.If you've been following #NoDAPL at all, you'll know that a recent presidential decision has effectively halted construction of a oil pipeline too toxic for white suburban communities but, apparently, just right for indigenous reservations. This victory seems, perhaps, in the wake of 2016's unique nightmare before the holidays less than it could have been, but it still marks a triumph in the midst of the horror that is 500+ years of rape in terms both archaic and otherwise. Seizure of another's property. Land grab. Woman grab. Children grab. Cultural eradication. Kill the indigenous, save the man. Treaties put into place two centuries and more in place that, despite having been violated less than a week letter, still control the language with which the original inhabitants of what is currently known as the Americas use to refer themselves. Should they refuse this language, they come under the threat of being stripped of what little they have left. What, then is there left to be done?
-Scott Kayla Morrison ("Kela Humma" (Red Hawk)), Choctaw, 'An Apokni by Any Other Name Is Still a Kakoo'
I feel that writing is an act of survival. But there is more than my own survival that is at stake. These days I feel a kind of urgency to reconstruct memory, annihilate the slow amnesia of the dominant culture, and reclaim the past as a viable, if painful entity.Joy Harjo. Janet Campbell Hale. Paula Gunn Allen. Velma Wallis. Leslie Marmon Silko. Elizabeth Cook-Lynn. Linda Hogan. Beth Brant. Wilma Mankiller. Louise Erdrich. These are reinventers of the enemy's language that I and a sizable number of other enemies have come into contact with without having read this compilation. Muscogee. Couer D'Alene. Laguna. Sioux. Athabascan. Crow Creek Sioux. Chickasaw. Mohawk. Cherokee. Turtle Mountain Chippewa. These are the nations I and a sizable number of other enemies are still swallowing up. Scott Kayla Morrison aka Kela Humma, Choctaw. Susan Power, Yanktonnai Sioux. Janice Gould, Maidu. Jeannette Armstrong, Okanagan. These are reinventers of the enemy's language that I found 'striking' and, perhaps mistakenly, believe other enemies have not yet come into with. There are many others, and because I pushed too hard when it came to which women owned their names in artistry and which ones didn't, I can neither create nor ameliorate their author profiles on this particular website. That is probably for the best, though. I already conduct too much free labor for this corporatized library as is.
-Janice Gould, Maidu
I didn't feel rebellious. I felt honest.The half star I took off of this is for arbitrary reasons such as personal aesthetics when it comes to compilations such as these, as well as the fact that I couldn't follow my transient reading footprint with a more stable digital directory one. As such, I leave the shinier one up top unmarked, as there is a vast difference between positive ratings for the sake of socioecononmic prosperity and boosting works in order to actively resist annihilation. Nowadays, it is possible for works such as Weweni and Sanaaq to exist, so perhaps the Overton window can be pushed past the need to reinvent the enemy and into the right to exist on less lethally linguistic terms. However, that won't happen on its own, or in a vacuum, or without effort which should rightfully rest on the shoulders of those who rendered the language lethal in the first place, not those doing their best to survive it. #NoDAPL continues on despite assurances of victory, for that is only one branch of the beast sunk into the heart of myriad peoples, and such monstrosities always sleep with one of many eyes open.
In the other world of the preparatory school I attended, experience felt abstract, refracted through the distancing process of intellectual analysis.
-Susan Power, Yanktonnai Sioux
I watched rocks
hurled and smashed
into cars of old Mohawk men
women and children
on a bridge
in Montreal
and the million-dollar
rock slide
blockages
on ten BC roads
after stones rained
down rock cliffs
on police lifting
human blockades
protecting the slow disintegration
of bones into sand
resting under headstones
on Liliwat land
-Jeanette Armstrong, Okanagan, 'I Study Rocks'