Isaac Mackin
Why Books? Essay
Recovery of Writing and Beyond
Rhetorical Sovereignty, -to me- feels like the ability to fully share and have an audience hear how one’s life amongst a culture and experiences they are born into, and experience as so occur to them. In this sharing, audiences can participate in this exercise of recognition of Rhetorical Sovereignty. It is due to this one cannot take the essence or practice of Rhetorical Sovereignty as easily as judges sign a falsely enacted treaty. Rhetorical Sovereignty is something that is acknowledged, understood, and listened to by the audience, and the artist. This process is ongoing, and the artist and audience will change continually as time flows and messages are shared and received in full.
If at any point one person, group, or nation subjugates another’s ability to make its own decisions, or limits their expression and book making, Rhetorical Sovereignty fades into History, or worse: the unacknowledged past.
It is through the push for Rhetorical Sovereignty that Erdrich’s Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country should be considered an example of such a delicate and important process.
In Erdrich’s detailed examination and writing on the flow of Ojibwemowin we can see a working example of how settler born, English speaking authors can honor, elevate, and push for the Rhetorical Sovereignty and recognition of indigeneity, globally speaking.
As Erdrich shows us here, one does not have to be born in the Ojbwe tribe to be accepted into the Ojibwe network of relations. One of the many lessons Erdrich passed to her multitude of readers is the concepts of books. They are more fluid, hard, soft, and all around us than many, including myself once thought. For the Ojibwemowin or Asnishinaabemowin word for books is “Mazina’iganan.”1 Mazina’iganan also means rock paintings. Rock paintings, unlike other books, cannot necessarily sit upon shelves as the image of a binded stack of papers stuck in my mind does. Rock paintings also do not collect as much dust, I imagine. For all that pass to see, they are there, sharing, and existing in their message. What is more to this conceptualization is that the idea of a book goes far beyond rock paintings. Erdrich taught me, and continues to teach readers today that books in Ojibwemowin did not always represent the books, pages, or scrolls we may think of today when we consider archaic keepings of knowledge committed to the page. Like the rock paintings, they were not always made of pages. Whereas western thinking pushes us to consider books something we dust off after entering the library or Barnes and Noble, Erdrich draws upon the knowledge she has gathered to push us to consider books and islands as one in the same. Her “travels have become so focused on books and islands that the two have merged” 1. It is because of this book-Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country- that I now see books as more than just a cardboard spine with an author’s will inscribed into it. Why books? “To read while holding a baby” 1. Because our brains hurt” 1. I know this both from re-reading my own, Erdrich’s, and many others writings. Through Books and Islands and English 599, I see books wherever I go.
Because Erdrich answered this question of “why books?” 1 so well in her work, I will thank her in attempting to add onto her work and so many other’s books, activist works, and intentionally made communities set within a network of relations for the purpose of overall wellness in saying that reading and embodying books made for the purpose of global indigeneity, the recognition of rhetorical sovereignty, and pushing for the recognition of the sanctity of life past humanity’s will in which a person, people, or nation wishes to live. Authors that fight for Native rights prove and push for the fact that nouns can be verbs too, once they are put into action past the page.
Why books written for a better tomorrow? Why not facts? Why not profit for profit’s sake?
Actions that fall under this umbrella vary in simplicity as vastly as a subtle stirring in another’s mind, to inspiring a group of activists to occupy Alcatraz Island for nineteen months in order to make a parody of how various settlers and colonizers used the English language to dominate and dictate as said colonist’s interest lie. In this action, the “Indians of All Tribes”2 drew attention to the nature of Native people’s experience alongside treaties and the nature of their enforcement. Even willing to create “Bureau of Caucasian Affairs” 2, as stated in a successful effort to draw their demands back to the Dutch’s purchase of Manhattan Island through the newsletter “We Hold the Rock”2, the Indians of All Tribes connected their effort to the larger settler colonial projects, and did not only “deconstruct[,] but re-recognize authority of particular colonial discourses, such as treaties for their own gain” 2. This book they created in coming together, both in the literal sense of the published newsletter and their physical occupation honored and upheld the past and ongoing fight to make nouns verbs and text into collectively imagined realities. The making of books for Native studies is in motion and for a better tomorrow.
Erdrich points to how this is true not only in resistance as I harped on above, but in the language of Ojibwemowin itself in relaying to us that “a single verb can take on as many as 6,000 forms.”1 Although this is far from evidence that nouns become verbs on the page in a literal sense, the fact that English has 12 verb forms points to the idea that the English language may simply not be as expansive as Ojibwemowin. Beyond this implication is the effect text like Books and Islands push for in real time. Also writing for Native rights and the right to experience Rhetorical and political sovereignty is Deep Waters. Echoing Erdrich’s and many others works, Teuton talks about “critical spaces”, and how they were developed due to Native Americans “mastering the literacies of colonialism and modernity.” These “critical spaces”3 as described by Teuton are themselves books, in that their story stood, and in many cases, still stand for the fight for Native survival. In this mastery and story binding, the intention from the curators are recognized “exactly the same, but then some”2. This phrasing harkens back to treaties between colonial forces and indigenous nations treaties again. Even when a treaty on paper is seemingly well composed enough to become the law of the land, perfect legal writing is not always enough to protect native sovereignty. This was seen in truth and action when Chief Justice John Marshall contradicted himself in word, yet not in colonial, or American standards of justice in his stating that the words “treaty and nation”4 were well defined in the English language and have legal precedence, yet did not recognize the Cherokee nation as its own sovereign force to be recognized. The relation in his ruling, was “resembl[ing] that of a ward to his guardian.”4Lyons draws this back to essentialist notions of the “savages”4 still under the tutelage of the United States. The metaphor of “his guardian”4 and a ward adds to this as well. Even Chief Justice Marshall, who was known to be comparatively and historically liberal in comparison to his counterparts at the time is shown -by his rulings on Native Nation’s rights to sovereignty and self-determination- to have subscribed to the belief that Native people were not as human as those who colonized them. In believing this, it concurs that Lyons would speak on American exceptionalism, and the smugness and necessitation of indigenous death of both their lives and cultures that come alongside it. Even through the righteous anger Lyons and many others feel, he makes an immaculate case that centers the rejuvenation of cultures once attempted to be snuffed out of this world from the genocidal, white supremacist project that is the United States and other colonial projects in his text. In this, Lyons speaks on the importance of a cultural rejuvenation not only in attempt and intent, but impact and result. This is because those who are affected by these narratives and policies, would benefit much more from an understanding of how their actions affect reality compared to an estimation of how much someone empowered over Native people and their livelihood intended to do them well. Intention, as seen in Marshall’s ruling- can be well natured and still cause immense amounts of harm. Examining ther result of the impact a specific people and the situation that led to that result is the best way to go for the Indigenous people that are most affected by said policies, decisions, and dangerous essentialist archetypes pushed to this day in settler nations.
Luckily for us, Lyons and many others use their books and stories alike in the name of Rhetorical Sovereignty and a better tomorrow for native peoples globally. An expert on Native studies in both study and life experience, Lyons descends from both the Mississippi Ojibwe of Leech Lake and Mdewakanton Dakota of Lower Sioux. Through this and his works, Lyons very understandably lets his preference for centering Indian and Native voices shines through his text, stating that: “The best way to honor this creed would be to have Indian people themselves do the writing, but it might also be recognized that some representations are better than others, whoever the author.”4 Although I agree with his claim, I notice the wiggle room that lies within it. Lyons admitting than some pieces are better than others is more powerful to the cause of global indigeneity when we consider what John Tanner’ story as told by Erdrich, and the effect that it had on her. Even going as far to say that “it doesn’t’ take much for me to see myself in John Tanner’s world,”1 positioning Tanner’s story in her novel has heavy implications for just how someone who has not been born into a culture can be a part of it in a non-appropriative, or extractive way. For different indigenous ways of life and struggles of dealing with reclaiming and continuing the culture that was and is rightfully theirs to be celebrated, people like John Tanner and Erdrich may very well be necessary accomplices, even though they were not born into the same traditions or demographic Lyons was born into.
This issue rightfully and most difficulty delves into the matter of authenticity of a culture and the importance of its survival despite the ongoing legacies of colonialism today. Brooks speaks on just this in The Common Pot, and tracks one evolution of this conversation. In responding to how “an Indian who is a Christian and writes in English could still be an Indian,”5 Brooks states that questions like these, which do not honor the complexities of an ongoing and breathing culture “obscured the complex ways in which Native communities have adopted and adapted foreign ideas and instruments in particular places.”5 This argument ties into the push the Nativization of English as both Lyons and Erdrich support in different aspects: Erdrich supports this through showing her readers that anyone, if they listen well enough and with good enough intent, can become Ojibwe, or at least live parallel to their teachings imbedded into their culture. In Lyons’ bold rant, in which he likens the pursuit of social justice to “sanity in an age of unchecked American imperialism, rampant consumer capitalism… racism, sexism, homophobia”4 furthermore likens these struggles to “very good reasons to fight for indigenous rights.” These ideas coming together in the eyes of such an esteemed academic in the field of Native studies paints a picture of legitimacy that: books that written with good intention regarding Native rights are not the same as books written objectively. Even in Erdrich objectively speaking and asking us, her audience “why books?”1 should not be considered wholly objective, as she has demonstrated through her life’s work and dedication, as shown through her novel, bookstore, and commitment to the flow of Ojibwemowin as seen by those who have come before her that she has chosen to live a life that honors and upholds Rhetorical Sovereignty. Books. Why? To meld today into tomorrow in a bit more style and comfort. But to ask this in a book is a leading question. Erdrich and many of the authors she uplifts as they uplift her in conjunction cannot ask this objectively, except in style. Why books? The words pass our eyes. Still, I see more in that line alone. Why Books? In a book adjacent to the flow of Ojibwemowin as she so distills to us to is to really ask or impart to us: Books for tomorrow: why? In this, the question is the answer as well. Because together we are strong, and better educated. Because we exist, whether we know, accept or act on it-or not- we exist in a network of relations to the organisms, people, and nature we are surrounded by.
Erdrich’s many fans agree with this sentiment as well. As Christinan Knoller uses Laurence Buell’s quotes to jointly speak upon Books and Islands: “the book belongs to a tradition in American nature writing imbued with ecological awareness.”6 These text “practice restorationism by calling places into being, that is, not just by naming objects but dramatizing in the process how they matter”6. This dramatization could very well be seen as giving motion through personal and cultural importance, a moving sense. They too see her work as something that makes nouns dance. These many works dedicated to Native rights, and those that are additive and inherently connected to such pursuit allow readers to delve into factual and fictional narratives alike to imagine rhetorically leading, and humanizing possibilities, like “what happens when Native Narratives are not just included, but priviliged”5. For Erdrich, this means listening, learning, spreading knowledge, and curating spaces. For John Tanner, this means surviving and becoming a living testimony that anyone can adopt the flow of Ojibwemowin, regardless of one’s circumstances of birth. The project of making a better tomorrow with the consideration of embodied knowledge of native peoples does not require a perfect upbringing or understanding of any given indigenous culture, as much as it does require a reverence for said knowledge, and an understanding of just how close one person can get to it depending on their unique circumstances and demographic.
It should be stated explicitly that books written in reverence to the pursuit of global indigeneity and the recognition of different indigenous nations and group’s rhetorical sovereignty-even when enjoyable-, are explicitly political. This unifying politic which ties books in all forms composed for this pursuit, are based on the idea of identity politics. Identity politics, it must be said, has been followed by native people in their writing and pursuit of sovereignty far before the Combahee River Collective, a group of trailblazing black lesbian socialist; coined the term in their infamous Combahee River Collective Statement. Even so, this term is useful enough to be highlighted. Like Lyons’ sentiment that the best examples of rhetorical sovereignty come from native people, the Combahee River Collective echoes that “the most profound, and potentially the most radical politics come directly out of our identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.” The same applies to Indigenous rights in reverence to the varying indigenous experiences and lives that carry on today.
Interestingly, Erdrich seems to have accounted for this in most, if not all of her book. Whereas identity politics at first glance seems to simply account for different people according to what is best for them as decided by the situations they find themselves in, and how their identities are marginalized, Native studies goes a step farther than the Collective’s works do, and takes identity politics and the concept of embodied knowledge to all of nature, -both biotic and abiotic- as something to be considered, revered, listened to, and of course acted upon. This can be seen in the story of the warriors who “attacked and drove the [raiding party of] Bwaang out”1 of their land by flowing as the bog did. The bog, a “rich biomass composed of reeds, young willow, wiikeenh, [and] cattails”1 was known by both past and current Ojibwe members as something that moves with the currents and “drift all through the bays and channels.”1. This humanizing description followed by how the plants are utilized in daily Ojibwe life, Erdrich fosters a sense of equal and communal connectedness with the biomass. They are at home together. Just on the next page however, Erdrich speaks on how when raiding groups of Bwaang were preparing to attack and threated Ojibwe territory and its people, the Ojibwe warriors took after the bog’s essence, and its drifting nature to swim “it to the shore of the Bwaang camp”1 and subsequently drive the opposing forces out. It is no coincidence here that the Ojibwe people came out on top in this skirmish, or that they listened to the bog in order to gain the upper hand. This narrative, as so many in Native studies do; show us, the reader the power of embodied knowledge, whether or not the one embodying said knowledge can ever know exactly how it is to be the person, bog, or creature the knowledge comes from. In this, Native studies answers the question of: why books for the pursuit of global indigeneity?
Books, are for so many things. To be thanked, experienced and past along. Books for the purpose and pursuit of global indigeneity, however, are for the purpose of all who interact with its text -from author to reader- to be a good ally or accomplice. Whether that is to indigenous people, the earth, a bog, or simply to your neighbor does not matter so much as why.
Why books? To be read and to laugh before we cannot.
Why books on indigenous studies? On collective liberation? On Rhetorical Sovereignty?
Because tomorrow could be different from today. And we, from the grass we walk upon to those we hold at night, are stronger together. If knowledge is embodied, and you do not possess that knowledge from that person, animal, or body of water, you should set up good relations, and be a good ally. To the earth and all that lay upon it.
Bibliography
1. Louise Erdrich, and Louise Erdrich|AUTHOR. Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country: Traveling Through the Land of My Ancestors HarperCollins Publishers, 2014.
2. Allen, Chadwick. “Postcolonial Theory and the Discourse of Treaties.” American Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 1, 2000, pp. 59–89. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30041825. Accessed 29 Apr. 2023.
3. Teuton, Christopher B. Deep Waters: The Textual Continuum in American Indian Literature. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2010.
4. Lyons, Scott Richard. “Rhetorical Sovereignty: What Do American Indians Want from Writing?” College Composition and Communication, vol. 51, no. 3, 2000, pp. 447–68. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/358744. Accessed 29 Apr. 2023.
5. Brooks, Lisa Tanya. The Common Pot : The Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast. University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
6. Knoeller, Christian. “Landscape and Language in Erdrich’s ‘Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country.’” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, vol. 19, no. 4, 2012, pp. 645–60. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44087160. Accessed 29 Apr. 2023.
7. The Combahee River Collective Statement. United States, 2015. Web Archive. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0028151/>.
