King, T. (2012). The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America. Toronto: Doubleday Canada.
A review by Adrienne Munro
Thomas King is a giant on the Canadian literary scene, and not just in stature (a reported 6’6”). Although born in California, King—whose ancestry is Greek, Swiss-German, and Cherokee—has made his home in Canada for more than three decades. His presence here has certainly not gone unnoticed. King wrote and performed in the celebrated “Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour” (1997-2000) on CBC Radio. Also, his short stories, novels, and children’s books have netted him widespread acclaim, including two Governor General’s Literary Award nominations, a Western Literature Association Distinguished Achievement Award, and the 2006 McNally Robinson Aboriginal Book of the Year Award. King delivered the CBC Massey Lectures in 2003 and received a National Aboriginal Achievement Award the same year, the Order of Canada in 2004, and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. Book-length studies of his work published in 2003 and 2012—the latter featuring 23 contributors—further attest to his cultural salience. After retiring from the University of Guelph, King was named professor emeritus of English at that institution in 2013.
The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America was met with a further shower of honours: finalist for both the 2013 Trillium Book Award and the 2013 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Non-Fiction; winner of the 2013 Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award for Non-Fiction; and nominee for the 2014 RBC Taylor Prize. While King clearly has the intellectual and academic savvy to have made this a lofty historical treatise, he chose instead to adopt a more accessible, readable style. The lack of footnoting should raise no alarm, however; King spent six years researching the book, and it shows. What makes his account so “curious,” perhaps, is that he writes in his own voice, includes plenty of personal anecdotes, and presents it with humour and pathos rather than mere objectivity. He explains that, “although The Inconvenient Indian is fraught with history, the underlying narrative is a series of conversations and arguments that I’ve been having with myself and others for most of my adult life.”
At its core, The Inconvenient Indian is a blistering indictment of centuries of cruelty, injustice, and indignity perpetrated by the forces of colonization against the Indigenous inhabitants of the lands now known as Canada and the United States. Such a premise could be expected to scare off a fair number of readers, but King isn’t out to alienate anyone. He may be angry (and not without cause), but he’s also charming, clever, and very, very entertaining. There’s a reason King’s literary efforts are lauded far and wide: he’s a brilliant writer, an engaging storyteller, and a master of irony. In response to the notion that Aboriginal organizations should “have more faith in the laws of the land and the judicial system” rather than resorting to what some people perceive as radical tactics, King has this to say:
…It’s a great theory. Simple and elegant. I can see the attraction. It’s the kind of theory that someone unfamiliar with Native history and the integrity of the justice system might consider proposing.
The idea that justice is blind and that everyone is equal before the law reminds me of a traditional story that I’ve heard over the years, in which Coyote tries to convince a band of ducks that he has their best interests at heart. Even if you don’t know the story, the premise alone should make you chuckle.
Numerous examples illustrate King’s point. His account of the 1990 “Oka Crisis”—a clash pitting defenders of a threatened Mohawk cemetery against police and military forces—explores the historical theft of Mohawk land and the ensuing centuries of “European arrogance and indifference” that precipitated the event. Indeed, King concludes that land is, and always has been, the critical divisive issue between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in North America. King also discusses the brutality of government-sanctioned residential schools like the notorious Carlisle School in Pennsylvania: “Had I gone to that institution with Ernest White Thunder, Fanny Charging Shield, Susia Nach Kea, Nannie Little Robe, or Albert Henderson, I would have been buried with them in the school graveyard.”
Despite documenting such painful realities, the book is heartening at times. King makes the point that not all Indigenous individuals and Nations in North America are in crisis: in fact, some are doing quite well. There are Nations with robust economies; strong and successful Aboriginal social, political, and cultural organizations; and Indigenous people living interesting and fulfilling lives. As he says, “We’re cops, teachers, judges, writers …We’re doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs. We’re everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. Just a reminder of our cultural persistence and adaptation.” On a personal level, King’s own good fortune is apparent from his periodic invocations of his partner Helen, a colleague, trusted advisor, and “treasure,” without whom he insists this book would not have been written.
Ultimately, The Inconvenient Indian is a hopeful book. King is looking to the future, calling for change, believing in the power of human decency. And when someone of King’s gravitas speaks out on such a vitally important topic, we would all do well to listen. To paraphrase the conclusion to King’s Massey Lectures, “Don’t say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard these stories. You’ve heard them now.”
(Since this book review was submitted to JIS, Thomas King has won both the $25,000 RBC Taylor Prize and the $40,000 BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction for “The Inconvenient Indian”. - Ed)
Rice, B. (2013). The Rotinonshonni: A Traditional Iroquoian History through the Eyes of Teharonhia:wako and Sawiskera. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
A review by Debby Ritsco
Brian Rice (Natoway) is an associate professor at the University of Winnipeg in the Department of Education and adjunct professor in the Arthur V. Mauro Center for Peace and Justice at the University of Manitoba. A Mohawk scholar, Rice graduated with a Diploma in Aboriginal Education from McGill University, Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Religious Studies from Concordia University, and a Doctorate in Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge from the California Institute of Integral Studies. He has taught in the Departments of Native Studies at the University of Sudbury, International Development Studies at Menno Simmons College, and Continuing Education at the University of Manitoba. His published works include books The Rotinonshonni: A Traditional Iroquoian History through the Eyes of Teharonhia:wako and Sawiskera (2013); Encounters between Newcomers and Aboriginal Peoples in the East (2006); and Seeing the World with Aboriginal Eyes (2005); as well as a journal article, “The Whitewashing of Native Studies Programs and Programming in Academic Institutions” (2003), in The American Indian Quarterly.
Although The Rotinonshonni: A Traditional Iroquoian History Through the Eyes of Teharonhia:wako and Sawiskera is an academic text, its comprehensibility and straightforward style of expression makes it accessible to laypeople. On days (and nights) when temperatures dip from -45°C to -50°C, this masterpiece is ideal for warming the heart and soul as Rice takes the reader on a journey into the history of his Rotinonshonni Longhouse People.
Written in narrative form from an Iroquoian perspective, Rice’s historic account has an aura of mystique, as he physically traces Peacemaker’s footsteps and reflects upon firsthand experiences related to traditional knowledge transmitted from Elders Cayuga Kaokwa:haka, royaner peace chief Jacob Thomas Hadajigerenftah and his wife Yvonne Kanhotonkwas. Using cinematic imagery, Rice brings his written work to life while maintaining the authenticity of traditional oral story-telling. Thus, Rice emulates a traditional Rotinonshonni Elder, maintaining traditional values of cultural survival for future Rotinonshonni generations. The Kayeneren:kowa, Great Way of Peace covenant in its purest form, has been passed between the Rotinonshonni people and Rice, as inspired by the Creator, Teharonhia:wako, for the benefit of kinsmen on Turtle Island and subsequent generations, so that they can move forward proactively and flourish as equals.
Before accepting this divine assignment, Rice had to pass a test of incredible endurance “in a personal month-long journey through Rotinonshonni territory, following the path of the Peacemaker” in Six Nations Territory (p. 3). Rice’s journey began from the Mohawk community of Tyendinagato in Quinté, Ontario, as he walked to the birthplace of the Peacemaker at Eagle Hill, stopping at each historical site along the way until he reached “Oriskany [where] Kenienké:haka (Mohawk) and Sonontowa:haka (Seneca) fought against Oneota:haka (Oneida) during the American Revolutionary War…the place where the covenant that bound all onkwe:honwe, real people, to the Great Law of Peace was broken” (p. 4). This site is historically important but is also where Rice promised to “return someday with other onkwe:honwe to help heal the wounds that were rooted in the land” (p. 4).
During his journey, Rice began each day like his ancestors: with prayer and the burning of Sacred Tobacco. He repeated this ritual again at Little Falls, the site of his ancestral Mohawk burial mounds, which gave him the fortitude to journey on to Cohoes Falls where Peacemaker, Ayenwatha/ Hiawatha, and Tsakonsasé codified “the Kayeneren:kowa, Great Law of Peace”, then Kahnawaké (home of his Mohawk father), and finally Oneota:haka or Oneida, New York. “I placed my tobacco down and was immediately refreshed by the thunder spirits’ cool rains,” he writes, suggesting the sacredness associated with Onontaka. It is “the place of the central fire of the confederacy where the Great Tree of Peace was planted” and where “the great war chief and shaman”, Atotarhoh, awaited the arrival of the message of peace (p. 7). Tully Lake shore was where wampum shells as covenant were found. Cayuga country and the Sonontowa:haka site, Ganondagan, signified the traditional longhouse built in memory of Tsakonsasé’s mother, Clan mother of peace, who led the Tuscorora (the sixth nation) to accept the Kayeneren:kowa, Great Law (1722), near Niagara Falls, at Lewiston, New York.
Through continuous participation in Royaner Jacob Thomas’s and Kenienké Elder Jacob Swamp Tekaronieneken’s recitals of the Kayeneren:kowa, Rice became their beloved disciple to carry Peacemaker’s message on behalf of “the onkwe:honwe, real human beings, of the Rotinonshonni People of the Longhouse” to Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people; to scholars and lay people; to adults and children, as a blueprint for living a righteous and flourishing life. The loss of Elders due to colonization made it necessary for translating oral tradition into the English written language.
Rice’s book becomes an exercise of redemption and reclamation of traditional knowledge—proof that the distortions, misinterpretations, misrepresentations, and omissions in Canadian history and educational curricula by the Canadian federal government and the Christian churches have failed to destroy Rotinonshonni spirituality, identity, and ways of knowing. It offers credible corrections of slanderous stereotypes that have evolved in mainstream society as a result of government-induced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on an innocent race of people. It provides insight into the struggle between Iroquoian perspective and pervasive Christian brutality. It gives all of us the opportunity to understand Rotinonshonni spirituality, culture and history and to appreciate the depths of traditions that are not our own. Rice asks a pertinent ethical question: “Who owns the rights to the stories that the writer has put down?” (p. 17). In light of the misuse of sacred medicine plants, dream catchers, and wampum for monetary profit and sacrilegious fads, without authorization and without adherence to proper ceremonial protocol, this becomes an important consideration. In contemporary society, for what is culturally much lesser offences than the misuse of sacred objects and sacred stories, Indigenous people are incarcerated in prisons. Hence, the intellectual rights of this Mohawk writer and the Rotinonshonni society from which his traditional knowledge derives should have the exclusive rights to receive protection of copyrights, to receive acknowledgement deserved, to grant authorization to be used, and to benefit from associated gratuities.
The main point of Rice’s work is to acknowledge “a covenant occurred between the Creator and the onkwe:honwe and, if the onkwe:honwe are to survive as Rotinonshonni, they must keep their part of the covenant” (p. 19). He recommends assisting “in the recovery of knowledge for the Rotinonshonni youth” and continuing similar journeys with Elders in order to establish a solid footing for walking in both worlds with confidence (p. 21). Furthermore, he encourages other onkwe:honwe in all four corners of the Earth “to keep up the covenant that they have been given by the Creator” (p. 20). Rice makes it clear: we all have choices.