Wordarrows

by Vizenor, Gerald Robert

• ISBN13: 9780803296299
• ISBN10: 0803296290
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

With wry humor and imaginative acuity, noted writer Gerald Vizenor offers compelling glimpses of modern Native American life and the different ways that Native Americans and whites interact, fight, and resolve their conflicts. The elusive borderland between white and Native American cultures is overwrought by exchanges of money, services, language, and skills that make up what Vizenor calls the "new fur trade." When Native Americans resist dominance, they fight back incisively and creatively with humour in the strategic word wars of survivance over victimry.Vizenor illuminates the troubling encounters and distant reaches of this modernist fur trade through his creative narratives. Especially memorable is the reincarnation of General George Custer as the head of Native American programs and the mystifying play of words between charity agencies and Native Americans. Several of Vizenor's stories focus on a so-called urban reservation, Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis. In the last section Vizenor recalls his experiences and observations while reporting on the murder trial of a young Native American student, Thomas White Hawk, in South Dakota.Gerald Vizenor is a professor of American Studies and Native American literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Fugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence and Manifest Manners: Postindian Warriors of Survivance, both published by the University of Nebraska Press.Also available by Gerald VizenorFugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence1998 0-8032-9622-3 PB £12.95Manifest Manners: Postindian Warriors of Survivance1999 0-8032-9621-5 PB £11.50

Author Biography

Gerald Vizenor is a professor of American Studies and Native American literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Fugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence and Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance, both published by the University of Nebraska Press.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Native States of Literary Sovereignty	vii
Separatists and Urban Fur Traders
Separatists behind the Blinds	9	(9)
Rattling Hail Ceremonial	18	(7)
Factors in the Urban Fur Trade	25	(8)
Downtown on the Reservation
Roman Downwind	33	(5)
Marleen American Horse	38	(9)
Laurel Hole In The Day	47	(7)
Baptiste Saint Simon	54	(11)
Tribal Slipstreams and Centerfold Cultures
Custer on the Slipstream	65	(10)
Fruit Juice and Tribal Trickeries	75	(7)
Feeding the Reservation Mongrels	82	(7)
Mother Earth Man and Paradise Flies	89	(15)
The Edible Menu and Slow-Food Tricksters	104	(11)
Travels with Doctor Gerasimo	115	(10)
White Hawk and the Prairie Fun Dancers
No Rest for the Good Sheriff	125	(9)
Daisie and Beacher on the Prairie	134	(9)
Word War in the Partsroom	143	(6)
Prosecutors and Prairie Fun Dancers	149