LITR 4332 American Minority Literature UHCL

LITR 4332 American Minority Literature

Lecture notes

begin selections from Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine (expanded version 1993)

Introduction to Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich, b. 1954, of German & Chippewa / Anashinaabe descent

in wave of recent ethnic women writers who balance wide popularity with critical respectability

"friendlier" writer than Morrison--less profound, but pleasantly profound--how?

Love Medicine first novel, originally published 1984, but parts of it had appeared as stories in previous years

1993 expanded version (a few stories added)

career totals: dozen novels, several collections of poetry, non-fiction, children's literature

Genre of Love Medicine:

either a novel or

a collection of interconnected stories with recurring characters and overall theme & action

Time frame:

early 1900s? > Vietnam era?

overall, novel takes place over 60 years on Chippewa (Ojibwa) reservation in North Dakota

several generations of inter-related American Indian families

Opening story about June Morrisey set in 1981

Second story jumps back to around 1920

subsequent stories work their way forward in time

different narrators

conversational storytelling style

Important backgrounds:

Missionaries, convents, Indian schools (education as assimilation)

military service for men (important proving ground for minorities)

Extended families, complex relations and obligations (traditional culture)

reservation as ghetto; poor sometimes cooperate, sometimes victimize each other

Literary qualities:

Erdrich combines popular writing and critical seriousness

popular: Compelling family relations, familiar anxieties of desire, frustration, action

critical: Characters aren't simple good-bad guys but mixed--you'll find yourself liking them, then distancing, or vice versa

popular: Erdrich can be very funny! extravagant physical conditions & situations, incongruity, sexual adventures

critical: not sentimental: people suffer and continue as in real life

comical family scenes mixed with tragedy

4. Erdrich in wave of recent ethnic women writers who balance wide popularity with critical respectability. How? Compare / contrast to popular & critically praised African American and Mexican American women writers (e. g. Maya Angelou, Sandra Cisneros, Toni Morrison)

What's popular? (what an average reader who just happened to pick up the book might like?)

humor

lively, rebellious, outrageous characters

inter-family fights and squabbles

stories move quickly to resolution

What's critically impressive? That is, why is it the kind of book teachers and scholars might respect?

density, detail

repeated readings pay off--gets better with study

consistency of imagery, symbols, figures of speech--not just tossed off but consciously worked

sex as given

strong, non-formulaic characters (Sister Leopolda)

love and hate mixed together as in real life

characters are mixed, not just good guys and bad guys

World's Greatest Fisherman

1 oil boomtown ND

long-legged Chippewa woman

[loss and survival] seen so many come and go

watery glass

2 expensive down

colored eggs, cf. jewel, cf. Robin's egg [>Easter]

like going under water

3 wad of money, rubber band cf. bananas

the eggs were lucky

divorced. Gordie

Silverado pickup

mud engineer. Andy

that death . . . snaking, nest [metaphor] cf. 43

realizing . . . totally empty

4 drinking Angel Wings

fall apart at slightest touch

her son King

drift out of her clothes and skin

underneath pure and naked

she would get through this again [loss and survival]

doorknob 5 cf. egg

5 :-) Andy?

6 crack wide open

like being born

Chinook wind [dry down-slope foehn wind]

to Uncle Eli's

7 that Easter

walked over it like water

[2. Albertine Johnson]

7 Mama's letter

June was gone

Far from home . . . in a white woman's basement, made me feel buried too

"Patient Abuse"

8 June raised by Great-uncle Eli

June's no-good Morrissey father

June & Gordie cousins, like brother and sister

a good aunt

9 "Miss Indian America"

everything she tried fell through

[resistance]

she broke, little by little

rich, single cowboy-rigger oil trash

boom trash

Indian woman = easy night

10 mad at my mother, Zelda

m. Swede Johnson

11 my Mustang

dogs

12 new husband Bjornson

allotment [cf. American Indian Stories]

allotment: land sold to whites and lost forever

main house + church

13 they were talking about June

a short glance full of meaning

beautiful pies

"I'm back," I said.

14 [family] differenter they acted the more alike they showed themselves

marriageable = Catholic

15 marriage not the answer to it all

priests and nuns up at Sacred Heart

June's son, King, Lynette, & King Junior

that white girl + married a Swede

16 [visual humor]

dirty blond

18 Dates, numbers, figures stuck with Grandpa

land allotted . . . parcels in Montana

19 brothers (cf. Origins)

Nector in school, hidden Eli

white reading and writing; Eli knew woods [assimilation and resistance]

kept land from losing special Indian status . . . termination

secrets from the past

loss of memory = protection from the past

20 makes you wish it was like it used to be

21 tried to hang their little couson

tell the story I know was about June [spoken culture]

only a family story

playing cowboys

saw it in movies. Kids imitate [mimesis]

Zelda swept into story

23 Eli won't ride in it

car = girl [June]

24 plumbing only 2 years old; Sears dryer

I was light, clearly a breed

My girl's an Indian

25 dark violet bruised color

26 Oak Ridge Boys

she don't fit in

27 Gordi Kashpaw, compelling pleasantness

throes of drunken inspriation :-)

Nector & Eli

28 save the pies . . . special for tomorrow

29 secret friends

save them pies

[3]

29 ashtrays, beer, pack sof cigarettes

communal property

Lipsha Morrissey

30 wonder how much they knew

secret, shreds of talk: Lipsha = June's boy

Eli's a real old-timer

int he Marines

31 World's Gretest Fisherman

imitation of soap-opera bravado

32 ciga swa? < Michifs

They've got to learn their own heritage

talk to my relatives, have a little respect

33 my uncle

Ekewaynzee

34 full-blooded Norwegian

continued the story

35 Firebird

It's her car. You're June's boy King

She's so cold

36 the Cities

37 drenching beauty, Northern lights

Everything seemed to be one piece

sky = pattern of nerves, one gigantic memory

Or a dance hall

38 If I just kept listening I knew I'd get past all right.

41 King trying to drown Lynette

All the pies were smashed

42 once they smash, no way to put them right

[pies as symbol]

SAINT MARIE (1934)

43 MARIE LAZARRE

43 the dark fish must rise (cf. 3)

the black robe women . . . not any lighter than me

pray as good as they could. Because I don't have that much Indian blood.

a girl from this reservation as a saint they'd have to kneel to

I was ignorant. I was near age fourteen

44 up the hill to Sacred Heart Convent and brought me back down alive

maybe Jesus did not take my bait [fisherman metaphor]

seen a walleye

mail-order Catholic soul, a girl raised out in the bush, whose only thought is getting into town

I climbed. That was a long-ago day.

buildings of painted brick. Gleaming white. . . . the face of God

45 a poor convent

end of the world to some

Where the Dark One had put in thick bush, liquor, wild dogs, and Indians.

nuns that don't get along elsewhere

hem of her garment

Jesuit's hat carried smallpox

given up on Satan . . . Leopolda kept track of him . . . She knew as much about him as my grandma, who called him by other names and was not afraid

46 long oak pole with iron hook for catching Satan by surprise

the Dark One wanted me most of all

Evil was a common thing I trusted.

He told me things he never told anyone but Indians. I was privy to both worlds of his knowledge.

She had smelled him on me. She stood up. Tall, pale, a blackness leading into the deeperblackness of the slate wall behind her.

47 braincloud

Loss and darkness.

He rose up hard in my heart

I asked the Dark one to enter into me and boost my mind.

drag me out, like a dead fish on a gaff [iron hook, fishing spear]

48 Sislter Leopolda sponsored me

two choices: marry Indian, bear brats, die like a dog; give self to God

I looked good . . . and white

49 [ambivalence to Sister Leopolda]

sleeping behind stove, like a great furnace

50 your keys . . . giant key . . . larger . . . priest's cheese

51 monstrous iron stove

teach you lessons, playacting

52 only wild cold dark lust

53 snared in her black intelligence

words came

I could pray much better than any one of them, or all

54 no darkness, no Marie

the vision rose up

Stop dreaming

Marie. Star of the Sea

54-5 mild and sturdy French

55 vision again

to remember

56 He was always in you . . . Get thee behind me

It wasn't finished

Help me, Marie

something nearing completion

The oven gaped

skin . . . beaten gold

57 oven like gate of a personal hell

numbers

fish slips off the line

stabbed through hand

I was being worshipped

58 the marks

as in my dream

a saint's blessing

59 golden beam, perfect luck

she was beaten

stigmata

60 Christ has marked me

Rise up and Walk! . . . no limit to this dust!

WILD GEESE (1934)

Nector Kapshaw

61 I got sent to school . . . town . . . sells

Eli takes bottle to woods, I to town, fiddle dance, girls

walking up hill, 2 geese

62 Lulu Nanapush is the one

never got a bead on her

she never stops moving

a tart berry full of juice

Marie, pillowcase, SHC

family of horse-thieving drunks . . . stealing sacred linen

63 cf. Kashpaws; skinny white girl

planted solid as a tree

64 skinny white girl, dirty Lazarre

The Lazarre is laughing in my face

65 a woman, not a girl. Her breasts . . . [cf. vision]

Then I am caught

"I've had better"

a thousand holy eyes

66 her hand looks bad

67 I don't want her, but I want her, and I cannot let go

THE ISLAND

Lulu Nanapush

68 Following my mother, I ran away from government shcool.

68 cf poem: shame dress, scrubbing sidewalks

bells, orders, flat voices, rough English

I missed the old language in my mother's mouth

69 N'dawnis. My daughter

old uncle Nanapush who wrote the letters that brought me home

back to the reservation

Juneberry

Nanapush waiting at crossroads

+ wife Margaret Kashpaw

taken on the big name Rushes Bear

I held him nearer as I might a father, the pattern for all other men

70 the Kashpaw allotment an hour's walk

treasured newspapers I carefully bound and stacked

What's your love medicine?

71 pipe of kinikinnick [kinnikinnick] [smoking product of various leaves and barks < Unami Delaware]

no clocks

bureau school . . . love life on white time. I go on Indian time

lost my spirit to Father Damien 6 years ago, gambling cards. I still like to walk away on th eold road.

bury me high in a tree, see my enemies in government cars

mother . . . a Pillager kind of woman

forget Nector Kashpaw

72 the whole family's poison

she ate as though she hibernated all winter

bannock [Scots bread]

73 his hands were dlumsy and plush from his paperwork

island where Moses Pillager lived

talking only in the old language, arguing the medicine ways

74 Related.

that djessikid

Moses isn't his real name

When that first sickness came and thinned us out

mother Different Thumbs

fool the spirits

75 x-real name

the cure bent his mind

skins of cats

Too close a relation! . . . dangerous to mix things up!

76 greatest wisdom doesn't know itself

right and wrong = shades of meaning, not sides of a coin

the cats

nickels, 12 as gift

77 chair of stones

too handsome to be real, constructed by the Manitous

shirt on backwards

you don't know how to treat your relatives

78 cave that was his house

little mirror glass, checked both our images at once

swamp tea

a lie that later turned out to be true

looking for my mother, his cousin Fleur

touched medicine bag

cats as universal

79 get your shadow off me . . . He spoke in Indian

cats' eyes like golden coins

Ask me into house, give me food?

The cave . . . drums

80 He was caught

Kaween onjidah

windigo stare [wendigo = Algonquian legend of malevolent cannibalistic spirit]

81 made of darkness

speaking in the old language

82 the woman is complete

He told me his real name

83 He was his island

84 baby could drag me under and drown me

THE BEADS (1948)

Marie Kashpaw

[1]

85 didn't want June Morrissey < mother = sister Lucille

two drunk ones--woman not my mother

survived: eating pine sap in woods

86 the Morrissey--not church-married my sister

lost a boy, lost a girl

beads around neck, x-rosary

ignoret bush Crees

87 name of my father

those Lazarres

more like Eli. The woods were in June

plainly endured

the child of what the old people called Manitous, invisible ones who lived int he woods

Devil no business with June, no mark

88 kept wearing the beads

I became the voice

I did not know what went through her midn at all

89 married man with brains, x-bottle

they, they: dirty Lazarre

hanging June

90 she wanted us to hang her

Damn old bitch > damn old chicken :-)

92 [June's powers]

wild unholy songs. Cree songs

old hens: seven senses for scandal [cf. American Indian Stories]

93 They don't know how many goods I have collected in town

protect my plans

95 I want to live with Eli

96 lard can, beads in a black heap

small stones at bottom of lake, polished > grinding, disappear

[2]

96 Nector's mother = Rushes Bear (name: origin story)

97 greet her, as my mother

98 years ago left her old man, Nanapush < devil she called Fleur

children lived with Crees > [Lake] Superior

feather, braid of sweetgrass, bless the house

99 shape of my loneliness, same as hers

100 x-hospital; get Fleur Pillager

101 The Pillager was living back there with no lights, she was livign with spirits.

woods logged off

That side of lake belonged to her, twice lost, twice got back

Father Damien Modeste confessed his sins to her

Fleur knew the medicines

:-) all you're good for

102 Each labor its word, a helping word

an old word: Babaumawaebigowin . . . spoken ina boat + 103 driven by the waves

102 N'gushi

103 mixed a galette [broad thin cake of bread or pastry]

104 my own mother, blood

LULU'S BOYS (1957)

106 Lulu Lamartine (b. Nanapush)

Henry's widow, husband's brother Beverly "Hat" Lamartine

tattoos

107 commemorating two brothers' drunken travels

name, rank, serial number

some other woman's name

two lizards, coupling

swallo

funeral 1950, car wreck, drunk, train

108 trophy flag, US flag

swastika, black wheel

Lulu falls in grave

a flirt

109 each boy look so different?

109 Nanapush, Morrissey, Lamartine

red hair, blond, some brown

black hair: Henry Junior < Beverly

nine months, give or take a week

Twin Cities, great relocation opportunities

called themselves French or Black Irish

need to get ahead. [Bev] worked devilishly hard.

door to door, children's after-school home workbooks

110 use humble appearance and faulty grammar > working get-ahead customers

small town world of earnest dreamers

wallet-sized school photo of his own son

invention of tales he embroidered

invited to parties in wealthy suburb

111 Give them wings!

children no interest in taking world by storm through self-enlightenment

Elsa, natural blond, family in St. Cloud, perfect tan

112 certain rigid meanness

home where his son really lived

scenario

114 Fate, True Adventure magazines

portraits of poodles, kittens, Chief Joseph (1840-1904, Nez Perce)

the subject of Henry Junior

115 a woman of detachable parts

naked except for your hat . . . decided which one to marry

116 reaction I looked for

small cat's [face]

almost Asian-looking eyes [Bering landbridge]

117 Haskell Jr. College [Haskell Indian Nations University, Lawrence KS]

mission school system: Gerry testing limits

[Gerry] laughed at everything

118 big boy, born leader, light on feet but powerful, quick mind

a natural criminal and hero [trickster]

Tarzan book

pack, of one soul, belongingness, one organism

Gerry, dark and electric as his mother

119 couldn't drive a knife edge between the Lamartines

little cat's [gongue]

She padded

drastically revised his plans

[Lulu as trickster?]

120 He had fallen

wasn't man or woman

tasting how own miraculous continuance

121 the bird still flew

THE PLUNGE OF THE BRAVE (1957)

Nector Kashpaw

122 Kashpaws last hereditary leaders of tribe

go West! Hollywood wants you! a lot of westers

123 didn't know I was a Kashpaw b/c right off I had to die

Death was the extent of Indian acting

old rich women

her man, a buffalo soldier

Disrobe. What robe?

124 Plunge of the Brave . . . Bismarck capitol

"only interesting Indian is dead or dying by fallying backwards off a horse"

raging water, current

Moby Dick

125 Ishmael survived the great white monster like I got out of the rich lady's picture

fell in love for real

Lulu Nanapush . . . made me greedy

126 Then Marie . . . how instantly the course of your life can be changed

babies everywhere again

crawling over them to make more of them

getting old baling hay for white farmers

127 like the river pooled

Time cf. water

not so durable as stones

fathered babies, served as chairman for tribe

128 swim against movement of time

events loop around and tangle again

July: 17 tones of surplus butter

129 car air-cooled

130 "sorry about Henry"

132 "forgive me?"

How could I have planned?

134 managed two lives

135 surplus of babies

real, a woman like Marie

a mind like a wedge of iron

136 the boy looked like a Kashpaw

details of love and politics would flood me

Chippewa politics

Not love, not sex, just a wringer washer

Lulu aged me, brought back my youth

137 Cree salesman, Beverly

This urban Indian

138 dived down to the bottom of the lake

area development, the very land she lived on > factory

140 lock letters in briefcase

143 sense of something moving slowly forward

144 watch the letter burn

145 Marie standing in the bush . . . 14 [vision?'

"Daddy" [Zelda?]

FLESH AND BLOOD (1957)

Marie Kashpaw

146 Sister Leopolda was dying

scar ached on Good Friday

relented . . . saw her . . . without love

174 prayed to herself

hem of her garment [Canaanite woman?]

Devil still loved her . . . drove her toward grace

cf. St. Teresa

talent: relishment of pain

meals of lint (pun?)

her appetite for dust . . . to introduce herself to death

. . . inhabited by the blowing and the nameless

148 bring the girl along

living not on wafers of God's flesh but the fruit of a man

solid class, tribal chairman, children well-behaved and educated

Zelda still floundered, even with her advantages

149 pressed white blouse and plaid skirt, anklets, saddle shoes clean white

x-Ignatius Lazarre, sack of brew

did not let myself sweat

where I met your father [origins story]

started, and went red

150 take them some apples

x-lawn > parking lot

come up in the world

look of a great rabbit

151 over 20 years had passed

Dympna did not recognize me

152 don't know who you are / Marie

I feel sorry for you too, now that I see

153 purple

chairman of tribe . . . Washington

154 Marie Lazarre . . . Kashpaw

I made him

I got out of here alive [survival]

155 the meek will inherit the earth!

I don't want the earth!

dived . . . surfaced

156 I wanted that spoon

helpless in the scar of my palm

my plan

157 surprised by how it affected me . . . back years to the old Marie

balanced by hate

158 strength the strick progress of darkness [?]

nothing I could do after hating her all these years

160 the letter

sugar jar, spoons, butter plate, can of salt

oddness of a piece of paper with my name on it

161 He's a man

162 all colors of humans

163 true love with her

164 clean floor [cf. poem]

excuse to kneel

high horse > kneeling

165 never talk about this letter but instead let him wonder

166 like a fine lake between us . . . how deep

I pulled him in

A BRIDGE (1973)

167 Fargo bus, Albertine

fifteen, running away from home

purple

yard lights of farms; cf. sea beacons, constellations of stars

168 broad pale cheeks and noses

169 the man seemed just what she needed

could have been an Indian . . . a Chippewa

a soldier like her father

disappeared

169-70 Indian bars, western-wear stores, pawn-shops, and Christian Revival missions

170 urban renewal project

a cowgirl tall as a a building

171 twice the size of most Vietnamese

x-honorable peace

so many [women refugees]

171-2 Henry Lamartine Junior + shrapnel

172 I'm like my brother Gerry. No jail can hold me.

Old Man Kashpaw

173 a bridge of knives

President Nixon's face

Indian or Mexican, whatever [assignments]

"Advise restraint"

174 having keys again

175 Mea culpa . . . not worthy . . . under my roof

those men took trophies

176 saw her as the woman back there

You, me, same . . . Asian, folded eyes of some Chippewas

177 Pease

179 He thought of diving off a riverbank, a bridge

water, whirling patterns

crossed a deep river and disappeared

Asian Indians, American Indians

Original confusion by Columbus: Native Americans > "Indios" b/c he thought he'd discovered India

Still confusion over "Indians"--someone from India? Indian Americans or American Indians? Indian Americans say "Red Indians"

Deep-origin stories of American Indians: Asia like Africa for African Americans

Research complicates any single theory about Native American origins, but prevailing unitary theory . . .

Indians cross Bering Straits b/w Russia and Alaska 10-12 thousand years ago

Map

In 1970s, this background developed as a theme in modern American Indian literature

Background: 20th-century Native American presence in U. S. Armed Forces

World War 2 (1942-45) against Japanese Asians

Vietnam War against Vietnamese Asians

Love Medicine

116 Asian-looking eyes

176 Vietnam memory

Two major books of "American Indian Renaissance" of 1960s-70s describe irony of American Indians serving White America by fighting Asian Americans

N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn (1968; Pulitzer Prize 1969)

Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony (1977)

Loss and Survival

12 allotment, lost forever

73 lost or gained

124 doom

43 Marie Lazarre

35 Firebird

120 his own miraculous continuance

1d. “The Color Code”

24 light, clearly a breed . . . raised an Indian

48 looked good, looked white

111 perfect tan

109 American Dream?

"The Trickster"

Questions for discussion / lecture:

Definitions of "trickster?"

Other examples?

upsides-downsides of mythological criticism

Love Medicine: Gerry Nanapush as trickster? How? What pleasures and profundities?

Recurrent figure in world mythologies, folklore, and literature

very popular in literary criticism of mid-20c

+ remains "popular" among beginning students and less specialized audiences because it emphasizes familiar figures that reappear with some similarity across multiple cultures

danger: these appeals may lack specificity of good research, esp. "Historicism" in recent literary scholarship

pp. 68-9, 70 love medicine, 72 fed him jokes

117 Gerry as trickster

118 natural criminal and hero

How much do these issues impact the "assimilation-resistance" conflict in minority literature? Does Native American literature / culture offer alternatives to these extremes of cross-cultural interaction?

"acculturation"

"syncretism" 146

American Indians offer yet another option--a variant on assimilation that's sometimes called "acculturation." This is a form of change that's peculiar to traditional societies like Native America.

Broad distinction:

Assimilation: person or group gives up old culture to adapt to new culture; compare "conversion," where you give up old ways for new ones

Acculturation: old culture absorbs new items or ideas, incorporates them to pre-existing culture.

Example of American Indian acculturation: horses

Assimilation is more radical, revolutionary, more rapid and unsettling change.

Acculturation is more gradual--something relatively new can look like it's been there forever.

Love Medicine

116 Asian-looking eyes

176 Vietnam memory

opening chapter: eggs as fertility (cf rabbit) (syncretism already at work in Europe) (religion as abstract dialogue)

7 walking over snow like water

water imagery: baptism/cleansing or wandering? cf fish as Christ and fertility symbol

23 car and June

35 Firebird

37 northern lights . . . everything one piece

[cf 42 once they smash . . . can't be put right]

43 dark fish must rise

43 pray x Indian blood

45 where God had only half a hand in creation

46 smelled him on me [Satan or man?]

48 2 choices: cf Todorov: dog or angel

54 the vision rose up cf 145

67 cf wounded animals, killed saints

77 too handsome to be real, constructed by the Manitous

87 manitous, invisible ones who lived in the woods

101 Father Damien and the Pillager

108 swastika / wheel

117 Gerry as joker

118 natural criminal and hero

146 scar aches on Good Friday

4. When the text's Indian characters move into the mainstream or white culture, through what means or institutions do they do so? How is the white culture characterized? Continue to notice differing attitudes toward nature, science, and time. Notice how Eli and Nector explore different sides of the assimilation-resistance issue.

12 allotment

*18 Nector: dates, numbers, figures

*19 reading & writing x woods

21 oral, family story

29 house as communal property

32 fox name has significance

*68 bells, orders, flat voices, rough English x old language

*71 no clocks, white time x Indian time

73 old language, medicine ways, painted bones

81 old language x town, clothes

109 great relocation opportunities

110 > suburbs

112 a new and better metropolitan existence

171 cf

5. How do the novel's characters conform to or rebel against stereotypes of the Indian?

124 falling Indian--plunge of the brave

how are gender issues apparent even across racial or ethnic divisions? Pay attention not just to peer relations but to generational relationships and how they are transferred.

11 relationship a file we sharpened on

16 woman as land

29 Lipsha as "girl-eyes"

69 a father, the pattern of all men

84 needed a midwife, a mother

85 the old drunk woman I didn't claim as my mother any more

87 like me and not like me

92 [cf Bastard] girl imitates man

104 "I'm your son." "No more. I have only a daughter."

137 make her into my own private puppet

145 confusion of mother and daughter

169 cf Henry and Nector (Albertine's view)

2. Identify alternative family structures and other unique social arrangements of the American Indian community. What is the attitude toward intermarriage with outsiders or toward their offspring? What divisions or classes exist in this Indian community?

14 marriageable = Catholic

15 white girl, Swedish boy

29 house as communal property

63 Lazarres x Kashpaws

75 too close a relation . . . dangerous to mix things up

89 they would not whisper "dirty Lazarre"

111 Bev's perfect tan

118 pack of boys, one organism

148 solid class, children well behaved and educated + dress

162 all colors of humans, [Henry] could tell they were not his

6. I don't know how to ask this question perfectly respectfully or appropriately, but last year some undergrads appeared freaked by the sexual bravado of Love Medicine. It strikes me that House Made of Dawn is a fairly sexy book in places, and Silko's Ceremony also has a definite interest in the subject. Is this coincidence or is this something noteable about American Indians? We might contrast this with the neglect or disdain for sexuality that is present in earlier texts.

--comedy plus creation; cf Hindu mythology

116 it was reaction I looked for

120 tasting his own miraculous continuance

assimilation/resistance : revolutionary/traditional

7 Great-uncle Eli x no-good Morrisey to cities; plus 33 King well-liked in the Cities

9 Zelda marries Swede Johnson

16 dates, numbers, figures stuck with Grandpa since he strayed

17 a son on either side of the line. Nector came home from boarding school knowing white reading and writing, while Eli knew the woods

Eli still sharp, while Grandpa's mind had left us, gone wary and wild

cf 25 Grandpa paler than his brother

29 Eli explains skunk by point at different parts of his body

30 ciga swa old Cree

18 problem of memory (plus Washington)

23 I was light, clearly a breed (raised as an Indian)

24 [Lynette] don't fit in

34 Everything seemed to be one piece.

36 Lipsha's knowledge; I loved him for being both ways

37 vision memory

39 Lynette: we'll go back to the Cities, go home

Once they smash, there is no way to put them right.

family/education

7 "Patient Abuse" to nursing student and to Kashpaw

27 house like communal property for the Kashpaws

religion

2 eggs as universal fertility symbol

6 Easter, Jesus walks on water

13 Catholic

22 June reborn as car 26 June's car

32 Lynette locked in the Firebird

womanhood

10 mother-daughter relation (contrast Swede Johnson doomed to wander)

12 coming home

13 differenter they acted the more alike they showed themselves

14-15 Grandmaw Kashpaw as earth mother

Literacy as story-telling

20 "Then she got madder yet. . . ." I said.

white people

8 oil trash, boom trash

9-10 Swede Johnson, blond, bleak, and doomed to wander

11 the land my great-grandparents were allotted when the government decided to turn Indians into farmers; a joke; sold to the whites and lost forever

16 dates, numbers, figures stuck with Grandpa since he strayed

17 a son on either side of the line. Nector came home from boarding school knowing white reading and writing, while Eli knew the woods

Eli still sharp, while Grandpa's mind had left us, gone wary and wild

31 Lynette; "I don't know nothing about my family, but I know I'm full-blooded Norwegian."

Quiz 5: first half of Love Medicine–Briefly answer 5 of 7 questions

1. Identify King and/or Lynette.

2. How are the brothers Nector and Eli different in education, knowledge, and old age?

3. How are King and Lipsha related?

4. Who does Sister Leopolda fight with? (2 possible answers)

5. How does June almost die as a child?

6. What does Beverly Lamartine sell in the city?

7. What is Nector’s role in Western movies?