Arnold Krupat
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801451386
- eISBN:
- 9780801465857
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801451386.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
This book examines Native American elegiac expression across time and space. Focusing on the contiguous United States and Alaska, it considers how the work of mourning for traditional Native ...
More
This book examines Native American elegiac expression across time and space. Focusing on the contiguous United States and Alaska, it considers how the work of mourning for traditional Native Americans is performed by citing as examples the Iroquois Condolence Council and the Tlingit koo.'eex' (roughly, “potlatch”). It argues that it is only in response to exile that “melancholic mourning” becomes necessary that the People might live, as evidenced by some of the nineteenth-century Ghost Dance songs. It shows that Native American writers from the nineteenth century to the present often express a deep sense of exilic loss in their work, whether it is land loss and ceremonial loss, language loss, culture loss, or loss of names. It also highlights some of the differences between traditional Native elegiac performance and Western elegy.Less
This book examines Native American elegiac expression across time and space. Focusing on the contiguous United States and Alaska, it considers how the work of mourning for traditional Native Americans is performed by citing as examples the Iroquois Condolence Council and the Tlingit koo.'eex' (roughly, “potlatch”). It argues that it is only in response to exile that “melancholic mourning” becomes necessary that the People might live, as evidenced by some of the nineteenth-century Ghost Dance songs. It shows that Native American writers from the nineteenth century to the present often express a deep sense of exilic loss in their work, whether it is land loss and ceremonial loss, language loss, culture loss, or loss of names. It also highlights some of the differences between traditional Native elegiac performance and Western elegy.
Arnold Krupat
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801451386
- eISBN:
- 9780801465857
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801451386.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
This chapter examines elegy in the “Native American Renaissance” and after, starting with the elegiac autobiographical text The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969) by N. Scott Momaday and “Prologue” from ...
More
This chapter examines elegy in the “Native American Renaissance” and after, starting with the elegiac autobiographical text The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969) by N. Scott Momaday and “Prologue” from Linda Hogan's novel Solar Storms (1995). It also considers Gerald Vizenor prose elegy for a red squirrel, along with elegiac work attributed to various Native American poets such as Sherman Alexie, Jim Barnes, Kimberly Blaeser, Jimmie Durham, Lee Francis, Lance Henson, Maurice Kenny, Adrian Louis, Simon Ortiz, Carter Revard, and Ralph Salisbury. Many of these elegiac poems engage in various forms of melancholic mourning by telling the stories, reciting the names, and remembering those who have died, so that the People might live.Less
This chapter examines elegy in the “Native American Renaissance” and after, starting with the elegiac autobiographical text The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969) by N. Scott Momaday and “Prologue” from Linda Hogan's novel Solar Storms (1995). It also considers Gerald Vizenor prose elegy for a red squirrel, along with elegiac work attributed to various Native American poets such as Sherman Alexie, Jim Barnes, Kimberly Blaeser, Jimmie Durham, Lee Francis, Lance Henson, Maurice Kenny, Adrian Louis, Simon Ortiz, Carter Revard, and Ralph Salisbury. Many of these elegiac poems engage in various forms of melancholic mourning by telling the stories, reciting the names, and remembering those who have died, so that the People might live.
